I was introduced to the Evil Dead franchise when there were still only three films and zero series episodes. I was also introduced to it in backwards order. It’s all started for me with Army of Darkness.

I can remember seeing TV commercials for Army of Darkness in the weeks leading up to its theatrical release and immediately having my 12-year-old upper Midwest white boy sensibilities fired up. It all just looked so silly and cool. I remember thinking it seemed to have a similar vibe to the Bill & Ted movies. I was twelve and working with a 30-second TV spot, cut me some slack.

I remember seeing in the Jamestown Sun that Army of Darkness was going to be playing at the Bison Twin theater at the Buffalo Mall. Side note – Lyman Keim, the fella who owned and operated the theater since the mid ’80s just recently passed away. I wouldn’t be the movie fan I am if not for him operating a very affordable first run movie theater in small town America. Rest easy, Lyman. Anyway, the movie played the theater for one week and was gone before I could see it, and became one of dozens of movies I had on the “hope they come to the local video rental spots” list.

As luck would have it, though, this was also the second half of my 7th grade year in junior high, and just a few months prior I had met Aaron Baker in Mr. Tews’s history class, where I may or may not have watched said teacher try to choke said friend with a television cable; but that’s a story for another time. Tews also had one of those kitschy replica shrunken heads hanging in the front of the room, which in retrospect feels kinda racist. He was a weird dude; but, I digress. As I’ve mentioned elsewhere, Aaron was responsible for giving me access to a lot of movies, horror and well beyond, and one of them just happened to be Army of Darkness, which I suppose I first saw sometime in 1994.

And let me tell you, it was everything I knew it was going to be and more. I loved every frame. I hadn’t seen a lot of really aggressive horror at this point yet, and the goofy humorous stuff going on here was right up my alley. It was immediately a favorite. And then Aaron said, “oh, if you like that, you should see the first two.”

The fucking WHAT?! THERE’S MORE OF THIS?!

I’m not sure if this part of my memory is accurate, but I think at that time, Aaron only had Evil Dead 2 on VHS as well, maybe because there hadn’t been a home video Evil Dead release yet? Like I said, I’m not sure. I do know that I, of course, loved every frame of Evil Dead 2 as well; and I would go on to see both movies several more times before I saw the original. At least that’s how I remember it.

And, by the way, please stop saying that Evil Dead 2 is “more of a horror comedy remake of Evil Dead than a sequel.” That’s not at all accurate. The prologue, which I am pretty sure runs less than ten minutes, is a sort of Reader’s Digest Condensed Books version of the first film, and then everything from there is new plot sequel. It’s a “pick up exactly where we left off” sequel, just like Halloween II. I’m tired of the bullshit.

I wouldn’t see the original Evil Dead until the Anchor Bay collectors edition VHS release in, I think, 1999. I was well aware that it was supposed to be the “actually trying to be a straight horror movie” version of all this crazy I already knew. But man, I was not prepared. The movie definitely has some elements of comedy, but that’s not the overall tone at all; and a lot of that is also incidental, looking back with 1990s eyes on a super low budget special effects movie from 1981. And it got to me. I was legitimately unnerved, and impressed.

So I was a trifecta fan of the franchise, which was more than could be said for just about any horror franchise I knew at the time, which included basically every major franchise in modern horror as of the turn of the century. The crowning moment of it all for me was in October 2002, when Mike Loger and I watched a theatrical marathon presentation of all three films in the same night, which I am pretty certain was the first (and for me, still only) time either of us had seen any of the three films in a theater. God bless small colleges in big cities.

Many years passed and it looked like that trilogy might be the complete tales of Ashley Williams and the Deadites. And then the dark times came, when instead of just making further entries in their franchises, studios decided to try “rebooting” them. They had this feeling that horror fans were ready for more involved dramatic storytelling, more characterization, more motivation for evil, and so on. And, in a way, the rise of “elevated horror” (I till hate that term but it’s clearly here to stay) proves they were right; we just didn’t need anyone fucking with our lifelong favorites. And eventually they came for Evil Dead.

I’m trying really hard as I age to be less overtly negative in hostile fashion, so I’ll just say that I saw the 2013 Fede Alvarez “reboot” the weekend it opened and walked out of the theater very disappointed. From my perspective, that movie missed everything that was great about the franchise. It tried to go back to the original idea of serious horror, and it definitely had its moments; but none of it worked for me, for a lot of reasons. I spent several weeks in 2013 talking mad shit about it to anyone who would listen because that’s who I was at the time, and then promptly forgot it. It was, as I like to say now, just not for me.

Which brings us to the reason I was inspired to sit down and write this little stream of conscience nostalgia trip. Late last year, I started hearing about Evil Dead Rise. Oh, great. They’re going to lower the overall percentage of good Evil Dead movies again, I thought. Rad. But whatever. They can’t ever take my OGs from me. But then I start hearing a lot of scuttlebutt that it was really good. I mean, I heard the same a decade prior, but hope springs eternal, you know? And the buzz just kept buzzin’ until I’ll be damned if I wasn’t super excited to see it. Cautious, but excited.

Thankfully, the film did not disappoint. Not even a little. It was a home run from top to bottom. Once again, the attempt was to return to a more aggressive, serious horror tone, while still showcasing moments of comic relief; and it just… understands what Evil Dead should be. I don’t know how better to say it. There’s definitely more story here than in the original, but it’s very archetypal and broadly thematic stuff. Nobody’s trying to “elevate” anything, but they do successfully give you a little more meat to sink your teeth into. The splatter is stellar. The films is filled with references and homages, but never to a shark-jump. It is a perfect merger of “do something completely new” with “don’t alienate the core fan base”, which has historically been, well, almost impossible for any franchise.

I haven’t seen Ash vs. Evil Dead, but I’ve heard a lot of great things. Seems to be the spiritual successor to the ED2/AoD side of the coin, and I still love all that stuff. Evil Dead Rise makes me want to carve out time to make it happen, just out of respect for the franchise. It even made me go back and give Fede’s film a second chance. It’s still not for me.

Shop smart. Shop S-Mart.