Whether it's your first watch or your hundredth, the first two films of the Evil Dead franchise can be a little strange when viewed in a sequence. The first seven minutes of the sequel seem near identical to the original concept. This has had many fans confused over the years and opened a slew of debates since its release in 1987. Is Evil Dead 2 truly a sequel? Or is the film a remake? The answer is both, really.
As The Evil Dead star Bruce Campbell put it, it’s a “re-quel.” There are a few reasons, due to the peculiar similarities as to why Sam Raimi made the film the quirky way he did.
What Is the First 'The Evil Dead' About?
The original 1981 film The Evil Dead was an enormous success in its own right and truly a triumph of independent filmmaking. The film follows a group of college students vacationing in a rundown cabin in the middle of nowhere where they discover the “Necronomicon Ex-Mortis” (AKA the book of the dead). Unsurprisingly, as college kids in horror films do, they inadvertently unleash a flood of evil zombies — or Deadites — and are forced to fight for their lives. To summarize, it’s a splatterfest of blood and gore, a gross-out horror shot in a guerilla filming style unlike anyone had ever seen before. Raimi was known to invent crazy new camera techniques to achieve his vision. In essence, it shouldn’t have worked. It was experimental, it was wacky. And yet, on its premiere night, a thousand patrons were lined up around the block to see this film. It received an enthusiastic reception from audiences and eventually made its way to the Cannes Film Festival in 1982.
Luckily for Raimi, Stephen King was attending the screening at Cannes and in an interview with USA Today named it one of his top five favorite horror films. This rave review caused The Evil Dead’s popularity to skyrocket, attracting the interests of critics and audiences who would have otherwise dismissed it as a low-budget thriller.
While The Evil Dead did well at the box office and received a favorable critical response, the film did not manage to establish Raimi as a prolific director. Six years later, with Raimi’s career on the rocks and his latest film, Crimewave, a box office bomb, he produced the sequel that would effectively launch his career into stardom.
Why Make 'Evil Dead 2'?
Initially, Evil Dead 2 was created out of sheer desperation, as Raimi knew another flop like Crimewave would officially kill his already lagging career. The original idea for the sequel was what ultimately became the third installment of the franchise, Army of Darkness, where the main character, Ash Williams, is sent through a time portal to the Middle Ages and encounters more Deadites. However, Raimi had a difficult time garnering interest from production companies for funding and distribution with this premise. It wasn’t until Stephen King heard of his struggle and once again saved The Evil Dead from extinction. He contacted industry giant Dino de Laurentiis and convinced him to fund the film. De Laurentiis agreed with one stipulation — to keep the film similar to its predecessor.
With that, Evil Dead 2 was born, with ten times the budget of the first film and a larger, more experienced crew. Normally, such an anticipated sequel would be a recipe for disaster, and yet Raimi managed to transform it into something just as incredible as its precursor. The project brilliantly built upon the pre-existing lore, sinister cabin-in-the-woods trope, and surreal camerawork that was lauded from the original.
However, there was one setback. Raimi didn’t technically own any of the rights to his original film. He was unable to use any of the previous footage from The Evil Dead. Therefore, Raimi opted to reshoot his own recap of the first film. Initially, the script included all five of the original characters: Ash, Linda, Scott, Cheryl, and Shelly. However, due to time and money constraints, Raimi cut the others from the final draft and settled for just Ash and Linda. Unfortunately, the actress who played Linda, Betsy Baker, was pregnant at the time of filming, forcing Raimi to recast the role.
All of these decisions put together made for a somewhat confusing opening sequence. It seemed as if Ash has returned to the cabin with a new girlfriend in the sequel, either forgetting the previous horrors he endured or somehow being forced into coming back. He doesn’t recall any of the happenings of the previous film either, and none of his previous friends are mentioned, but similar events transpire. They play a tape of incantations that resurrect a demonic entity, Linda is possessed and turned into a Deadite. When Linda is turned, Ash is once again forced to decapitate her and bury her alive.
How Should I Watch the Two Movies?
Upon watching, it’s easy to come to the conclusion that maybe Ash was genuinely stupid enough to return. Or simply that Raimi had decided to create a remake rather than a true sequel. The two films didn’t seem to fit together at all. However, in an interview, Campbell explained the details of how the two films actually connect. The best way to view the movies, Campbell states, is to finish The Evil Dead to where Ash is about to be attacked by a demonic entity, then go to Evil Dead 2, cut out the seven minutes of recap, and begin at the sequence where Ash is being thrown through the air and lands in a puddle of mud. When viewed as such, the sequel begins to make a lot more sense.
The rest of Evil Dead 2 still follows a similar outline to the original, in which a group of people staying at this cabin in the woods are tormented by Deadites, as per de Laurentiis’ request. Nevertheless, the sequel is still vastly different from the original. It expands upon the lore, going deeper into the history of the Deadites through archeologist Raymond Knowby’s research. Evil Dead 2 also explores deeper into Ash’s character. In the first film, he was a considerate person who was forced to do horrible things to survive, but by the second film, something inside him snapped, and he doesn’t think twice before blowing the possessed to smithereens. Ash transformed from the timid everyman into a boomstick-wielding, chainsaw-handed badass.
So, while it very much does seem as if Raimi created The Evil Dead twice, the two films actually blend together far better than you think. We’re even provided with a sneak peek of what Raimi originally intended for the sequel, with Ash being sucked into a portal to the Middle Ages at the end. That’s not to say the sequel (and the rest of the timeline) doesn’t have its fair share of inconsistencies. But the reason the Evil Dead franchise has endured for so long is due to its completely outrageous, campy, eccentric, hilarious nature. The absolute chaos and confusion of Evil Dead 2, be it a sequel, remake, or “re-quel”, simply works.