Sam Raimi
L'armata delle tenebre

Evening:).. Before being sentenced to death and thrown into the pit, let me clarify that I am not judging this film on its own but as the third chapter of the Evil Dead saga. Having seen the second one when I was very little since it aired on the show ZIO TIBIA PICTURE on Italia 1, I fantasized a lot about a third episode which indeed came years later. Army of Darkness came out during a time when horror cinema was a bit at a standstill and lacking blood, possibly due to added TV reruns that distributors craved. If the first episode (which I saw after this one) gave me instant diarrhea from fear, and the second made me soil my underwear with a well-deserved brand, this third episode doesn't even bring me close to a fart. I say the reduced blood and the comedic twist is the only redeeming feature of the film. The rest is silence, a missed opportunity; if the first two were B-movies by necessity that artistically turned into little gems, here it's the reverse. This could have been a cohesive film but instead, falls into a B-movie that resembles warm beer and cold pizza... there are oversights, gaffes, and profuse DIS-continuity unworthy of the first two chapters. Ash with short hair and then immediately with long hair in the same scene, Ash being thrown into the well unarmed and coming out safe and sound with a shotgun that seems to never need reloading. A beginning of the movie (UNFORGIVABLE) that breaks from the beautiful ending of the second chapter... all of this, why? Sam Raimi was already obsessed with superheroes... Xena, Hercules, Dark Man, later on Spyder-man, so now ASH. Unlike the first two films, where everything was based on the book and the spirits managing the fate of the characters, here everything is focused on Bruce Campbell's character... MORE-AWESOME and more obnoxious than ever with the fairer sex. Other issues? The endless cut scenes confirming how the film was managed by the production... Raimi filmed a different ending, nothing special in the end, but there was also a prologue of considerable substance that honestly and comprehensively explained how the events unfolded... The infamous choice to cut a splendid scene where Ash comes out (sorry for the pun) of the mill with the shotgun to check what's happening (a scene that would clarify how he retrieves the horse) and for interminable minutes it recreates the atmosphere that characterized the first 2 films... even the mill scene itself could have been a nod, with the demon inspecting the woods and house in the previous parts, here a similar situation could have been recreated, but apart from the battle with the mini Ashes, even this was cut and nothing else happens... the evil Ash that doubles doesn't seem to be the evil Ash of the second episode... The script is a black hole as it saddens me how a community of decent, duty-bound people, oppressed by the anxiety and fears of the book, spends its time sentencing to death valorous men guilty of serving HENRY THE RED, Lord of the crap and shit... even this scene realized to throw Ash into the pit and develop his awesomeness could have been inserted into a different context... in short, this film disappointed me by seeing the little attention to continuity... while the ideas were definitely there... everything seems devised and written after a mussel indigestion... even the fact that at the end of the film the sister of the insignificant Lord Arthur returns to normal from DEADITE form is not convincing to me... Those who saw the film and then asked for the first two chapters were disappointed with the previous ones... obviously... guys, the film is entertaining, but compared to the other two for the potential it had, it seems—speaking like Fantozzi—a CRAZY CRAP... Yesssss...