Slant Magazine

I've warmed up to this sequel a little bit over the last 5 or so years, but I just can't get over how unscary this film is. When I first rented it, I was more than disappointed. I hated it (I worshipped the original). Especially the new LoDuca music score and the unsatisfying redesign of the demons' makeup. KNB seemed to think (and Nicotero's interview on the Evil Dead: Ultimate Edition DVD set affirms this) the original film would have been superior if the demons merely looked better. To me, it's not how they looked but how they were used. In Dead by Dawn, they float through the air and yank clumps of hair off of people while popping eyeballs into their mouths. I actually expect that kind of thing when I sit down for a Troma original. Not from the guy who did The Evil Dead. Terrible new characters, too. Other than making Campbell more vocal and having him do impressions, Kassie Wesley's and Dan Hicks' characters were annoying and using Campbell's introductions to his would-be love interests as an excuse to smack him around should be vindication for his overacting in both films but I was underwhelmed. I guess I was just tired of all Craven's late 80's sadist flicks, where the torture of the main male characters reached levels so ridiculous that it felt like the director was torturing the audience instead (The Serpent and the Rainbow, Shocker). Hard not to take that personally- it's more effective when we can somehow put ourselves into the position of the "hero," so that's what I always did.

I'm glad movies like this helped get Raimi a Hollywood career, proving to executives that he's not just a grindhouse freak. For all his hard work, he deserved it. But Jackson's Bad Taste is just so much more fun than this film and achieved almost exactly the same thing. Not scary either, but it's the perfect step between Dead by Dawn and Army of Darkness, both of which I don't care for- in general. And...I can't be the only one who noticed this: the similarities between this film and Steve Miner's House are amazing. Both films feature an obese monster witch who won't die and re-appears in several scenes to cause trouble. Both have a zombie severed hand that results in hilarity and freakiness. Both have scenes where the "hero" must plunge into a dark, cavernous black hole (House more frighteningly, more literally) to retrieve something important to them. Both of them have multiple striking blonde women who the movies flirt with using as a mate for the main man. Both have animal-objects mounted on the wall that come to life and move around, yet never detach from the wall. Both have quirky supporting characters. Both have shotguns used in prominent scenes. Both have ghostly visions of dead women who communicate with the men and then vanish into thin air. Both have hands that rip up from under the ground, living people who go missing, women who are shot with the gun, and a theme of time gone haywire. All coincidences? I'm not so sure. And I liked House better.