In 1979, a bunch of kids got together in a cabin in Tennessee and made a film with a standard B-Movie plot. It was directed by Sam Raimi, who's now famous for the Spider-Man films, and stars Bruce Campbell in all three (and is the series most people associate him with). The Evil Dead managed to make enough money to warrant two sequels and get into the public consciousness. The result of the two sequels was a strange blend where Narm Charm meets Rule Of Cool.The story is about a bunch of kids who got together in a cabin in Tennessee and play a tape recorded recitation from a demonic book of the dead that leads to each of them getting possessed and attacking the others. In Evil Dead 2 the plot was seemingly rewritten a little, with only Bruce Campbell's character Ash Williams and his girlfriend Linda going to the cabin with the ending leading straight to the beginning of Army of DarknessThough it was later revealed in an interview with the director the plot was not retconned, but in fact some copyright nonsense left Raimi unable to use scenes from the first movie so he had to shoot a new recap. It is still a direct sequel if you ignore the recap.In Army of Darkness, the most quoted and watched of the trilogy, Ash is sucked back to Medieval Europe, goes on a quest to retrieve the medieval-era Book of the Dead, and, once he screws up, trains and helps the not-quite peaceful villagers to fight a massive skeleton army.Ash got so popular that he's got four videogames on him, more comic book adaptions you could wave a chainsaw at including an Evil Dead/Marvel Zombiescrossover comic and another with Xena, and a Role-Playing Game under the Unisystem umbrella. There's also a Broadway musical.A remake of the first movie has recently been announced. Sam Raimi, Robert Tapert, and Bruce Campbell are currently the producers while Diablo Cody is revising the script. Fede Alvarez, director of the short Panic Attack!, will be directing the film.
Fake Shemp: During filming of The Evil Dead, any castmember that wasn't Bruce Campbell eventually left due to various circumstances. To finish the movie, stand-ins were utilized wherever possible (sometimes quite noticeably, sometimes not) and these people were credited as this. Sam Raimi himself coined the term, inspired by the Three Stooges. The term became a fixture of later Raimi-related productions.
And in the extended media beyond the films, he'll frequently swap out his gauntlet with the saw (for example, in A Fistful of Boomstick, he can switch the chainsaw out with a flamethrower and a Gatling gun).
Ax Crazy: How Ash copes with the events of the first two movies. By the third, he's turned it into Crazy Awesome.
Badass Normal: Ash goes up against demons from hell, medieval knights, the undead and his own mutated friends with no training, preparation or backup, and still manages to kick ass and take names.
Banned inChinaBritain: It was one of the "Video Nasties" that got Mary Whitehouse's knickers in a twist. It was more to do with the title than the content; titles with stuff like "Evil" and "Dead" were banned in a knee-jerk reaction (although the tree rape scene didn't do it any favors).
Barrier-Busting Blow - Several times across the films, but hilariously subverted in Army of Darkness, where Ash keeps screaming goofily until he notices the monster's stopped trying to get in.
BBC Quarry: It wasn't shot in England (though the story does take place there), but Ash's arrival in the Middle Ages at the end of Evil Dead 2 was filmed at a very similar-looking North Carolina rock quarry.
Played straight with Ash himself who only ever gets superficial injuries to his face that just male him seem more handsome. by the third film his costume is a walking shirtless scene. There is a scene in the first film where he gets covered from head to toe in blood a second later his face is completely clean and the only thing the blood did was make his shirt cling to his chest in a fanservicey way
Beyond the Impossible: The series begins with a college student fighting demons in an isolated cabin in the woods, and gets cooler from there.
Big "NO!": Ash, repeatedly, but especially at the alternate end of the third film.
Bilingual Bonus: Trilingual? Necronomicon ex Mortis. The first bit means "Book of the Dead" in Greek, and the second is "from/by the Dead" in Latin.
Blatant Lies: Jake's song in the musical. He claims to have won an Oscar for directing Platoon, written Jackie Chan's autobiography, and coined the phrase "fo shizzle, my nizzle!"
Body Horror: Begins fairly early in the first movie and goes downhill from there. Highlights include a snake-like neck and a breakneck ballet in the second film.
Good Ash: (fires shotgun up Evil Ash's nose) Good, Bad, I'm the guy with the gun.
Bottomless Magazines: At one point, Ash fires his double barreled shotgun at least three times in quick succession, far faster than someone with only one hand can reload. There's also the lever action rifle in Army of Darkness which he fires about 30 times without reloading. And then there's the bottomless gas tank for the chainsaw.
California Doubling: Army of Darkness takes place in medieval England, but it's pretty obviously filmed in Bronson Canyon and Vasquez Rocks. Bruce Campbell has a lot of fun ribbing Sam Raimi about it in their DVD commentary. Notably averted in the first two movies, which really were filmed in the Appalachian forest (much to the chagrin of the Michigan-based cast and crew, especially during the first movie).
The Cameo: Hinted at by the tape in the original Evil Dead: "Saman sa'rob dar ees haikar dande roza", this being derived from "Sam [Raimi] and Rob [Tapert] are hitchhikers on the road." Sure enough, if you paid attention five minutes into the film, Scott drove the Olds past a pair of idiotic-looking hitchhikers in fishing gear, both of whom turn to wave as the car sped by.
Canon Discontinuity: Evil Dead and Evil Dead 2 have a few differences, plotwise. The number of people headed to the cabin are different (five in the original, two in the sequel). However, this is a result of Sam Raimi not having the rights to show clips from the first movie. So he decided to recap the first film in abbreviated form instead, then continuing from the very end of the first where Ash gets run into by the Evil-cam.
Sam Raimi explains in the Evil Dead 2 commentary that you can attach the Evil Dead 2 scene with Ash being attacked at daybreak to the first movie's ending, then remove Ash's arrival in medieval times from Evil Dead 2, and then attach Ash's arrival from Army of Darkness onto it instead, and you'll have the single-continuity storyline he envisioned. He also said he feels sorry for anyone who'd sit through the resulting 6-hour movie (though many fans might disagree).
Cold-Blooded Torture: Ash's tying down of Bad Ash so he can properly chop him up with the chainsaw. There is, however, no gloating.
Really, it was more about preventing Bad Ash from hindering him down the road (and a reference to the first movie), but it's quite likely that Ash enjoyed having a Deadite at his mercy (or lack thereof).
Deadpan Snarker: Played straight in "Army of Darkness." Ash finds plenty of opportunities to snark about medieval culture and action-adventure tropes.
Ash gets some moments in the first two movies, too.
Linda: Hey Ash, I guessed the card right!
Ash (distracted): Yeah, truly amazing.
Dem Bones: Most of the eponymous Army raised by Evil Ash/the Necronomicon in Army of Darkness.
Decoy Protagonist: Early in the first movie, Scott seems to be the hero while Ash is next to useless. This quickly changes.
Demonic Possession: Pretty much the whole plot of the first two movies. Sheila in the third.
Description Porn: From Army of Darkness, Ash introducing his boomstick.
Dirty Coward: Scott in the first movie. Played with in the sequels with Ash, where he seemingly acts like a coward, but he either really isn't or just mans up.
Earworm: Almost every song in the musical. "Cabin in the Woods," "All the Men in My Life Keep Getting Killed By Candarian Demons," and "What the Fuck Was That?" come to mind...
Downer Ending: The original ending of Army of Darkness. The exact opposite of the theatrical version.
Not that the first two movies had very happy endings themselves, Evil Dead II less so than the first.
Dung Ages: Army of Darkness, and results in Ash being a jerk to everyone in the beginning.
Fate Worse than Death: Assuming you trust the source, the second movie alludes to possession and death being the least of victims' problems in this series:
"Even now we have your darling Linda's soul. She suffers in torment."
Final Girl: Um...Guy, although with something of a Gender Blender Name. This "twist" was actually commented on by film studies, and it's now a bit cooler for guys to have this name.
For the Evulz: Pretty much the Deadites' only motivation for doing anything.
Fridge Logic: Brought up in the commentary for Army of Darkness. invoked
Sam Raimi: How come your hand's still stuck in there even though it's chopped off?
Bruce Campbell: It's 'cause the director told me to.
Gender Blender Name: Who'd have thought that one of the most significant Bad Ass characters of the Eighties would be named Ashley?
Genius Ditz: Ash may be a total cartoon character (when he's not being a badass), but he's still able to effortlessly create a fully-articulated prosthetic hand for himself, synthesize gunpowder and explosive materials using only found natural resources and the Chemistry textbooks in the trunk of his car, and then turn said car into a whirling, bladed death machine. As he puts it:
Ash: With SCIENCE!
Genre Savvy: Ash knows that just because a Deadite is down, doesn't mean it's dead. However, he learns this through hard experience, not pre-thought wisdom.
Ash: "It's a trick. Get an axe."
Genre Shift: The first movie is a more-or-less straightforward horror film. Evil Dead 2 is a strange hybrid of gory, serious horror, and slapstick comedy. Army of Darkness drops almost all the horror and works instead as an action-comedy. This is surprisingly not an example of Executive Meddling, as creator Sam Raimi helmed all three films, and the progression from horror to comedy was his own idea.
The shift is also very effective in showing Ash's descent into madness.
Gorn: The second and third film cranked up the gore, with the second having a near-flooding of the cabin floor with orange blood from a decapitation, and the third having a geyser of blood.
Gory Discretion Shot: In the second movie, just as Ash is about to use the chainsaw on Deadite Linda's head, this trope is invoked - showing blood splattering on the walls and shadows rather than the actual act. The DVD commentary points out the irony of this.
"Why are you not showing that part? You've shown everything else."
Incredibly Lame Pun: Deadite Cheryl speaks in nearly nothing but these in the musical.
Cheryl: I値l get you, Ash! I知 like a literal Hulk Hogan... I値l get you, brother!
Ash: Shut up!
Cheryl: We池e like that Columbia House 'Ten CD痴 for a Penny' club. Sooner or later, you値l join us!
Ash: Shut up!
Cheryl: I知 like Dom DeLuise at an all-you-can-eat fish house. I値l swallow your 'sole'!
Ash: God, shut up!
Cheryl: It値l be like you were killed by some guy whose first name happens to be Dawn, so you値l be dead... by Dawn!
Ash: That is it!
After having to cut off his own possessed hand, Ash sticks it to the floor with a knife, covers it with a bucket, and proceeds to stack on books just in case of the event may try escape. The book on top? A Farewell To Arms.
Intercontinuity Crossover: In the spin-off comics Ash has become something of a crossover whore, having encountered Darkman, the Universal Monsters, Xena, Doctor Herbert West, Freddy Krueger, Jason Voorhees, the Marvel Zombies and... Barack Obama.
Arthur: Are all men from the future loud-mouthed braggarts?
Ash: Nope. Just me baby... Just me.
Ironic Echo: In the first film, Ash flirtatiously peeks at Linda while pretending to be asleep, shutting his eyes when she looks back at him. After she's possessed and apparently killed, her "corpse" does the same thing to him.
It Got Worse: Pretty much the entire point of the series. Every time it look like it might either be getting better, or he might hit rock bottom, or he has any kind of fortune or misfortune whatsoever, something happens to Ash. Case in point - after surviving most of the night, killing his zombie ex-girlfriend and presumably taking care of his own zombie hand by cutting it off, another group of people show up, think he murdered their family, and throw him in the cellar. Headfirst. Then, they listen to the Apocalyptic Log and find out the old man who lived there was actually attacked by his possessed ex-wife. And he buried her in the cellar...
Kensington Gore: Lots of it. The Musical is one of the few Broadway shows to include a "splatter zone" and fans have taken to wearing white t-shirts to shows to take home as bloody souvenirs.
Lampshade Hanging: The musical does quite a bit of it. It even points out the inconsistency with Ash being brought back from the curse from seeing Linda's necklace... even though Linda is a Deadite now.
Large Ham: Rumor has it that Bruce Campbell was hospitalized for two weeks after filming "Army of Darkness" on account of the damage done to his digestive tract after eating all of that scenery.
Deadite Cheryl in the first film is also a major one.
Late to the Party - Although Ash and his friends don't realize it at first
Locked into Strangeness - It's very easy to miss, but after his penultimate confrontation with the big freakin' demon at the end of Evil Dead 2, Ash gains a white/grey stripe of hair on the side of his head from fright. However, this seems to disappear in Army of Darkness.
The white stripe actually appears in his hair as a stop motion special effect when he first sees the Eldritch Horror. Easy to miss, but very cool.
Losing Your Head: Linda in "2" and Evil Ash in "Army of Darkness".
The Lost Woods: The setting of the first two movies once the Necronomicon's been read aloud, they also take up some of the plot during Army of Darkness, as Ash rides to find the Necronomicon.
Within the Woods, a "practice" film Raimi and Co. made pre-Evil Dead.
Madden Into Misanthropy: Ash evolves from a fairly sensitive guy into snarling comedic misanthropy over the course of the movies, though he's had one hell of a bad weekend to justify it. It probably didn't help that his allies in both the second and third movie introduced themselves by trying to kill him.
Ash: Now I swear... the next one of you primates... even touches me...
The Magic Versus Technology War; To some point, thanks to Ash's quick application of steam and gunpowder knowledge the medieval Englishmen got a chance against a vast undead army.
Metafictional Title: Evil Dead was originally named Book of the Dead after the book of the same name, which appears in the movie. The name was changed because the executives didn't want people to think it was a movie about a book.
Night of the Living Mooks: The titular army in Army of Darkness. Partially subverted in that they run away screaming when shelled with explosive arrows and bags of gunpowder.
Nipple and Dimed: There's a short, blink-and-you-miss-it moment in "Army of Darkness" where a couple of topless slave girls are herded past the camera. It may have been intended as Fanservice, but the fact that they're being led off to be raped by demonic undead monsters achieves the opposite effect, underscored by the fact that it happens while Sheila is being forcibly kissed by Deadite!Ash.
Real-Life Relative: Ted Raimi, natch, who appears in every movie in different roles. Ivan Raimi is also credited as Fake Shemp in the first and third movies (the latter of which he co-wrote).
Bruce Campbell's father also appears in Army of Darkness as one of the soldiers that gets killed in battle.
Rule Of Cool: Ash kills demons with a shotgun in his left hand, and a chainsaw as his right hand, all while spouting one-liners and puns that are so bad they're good.
Rule of Funny: Partially the driving purpose behind the two sequels.
Shout Out: Included in the cellar is a ripped poster from The Hills Have Eyes. Wes Craven returned the favor by showing Evil Dead on TV in A Nightmare on Elm Street. Then Raimi did it again by sticking a Freddy glove in Evil Dead 2.
The Smart Guy: Annie Knowby in Evil Dead 2.The creators joke in their DVD commentary that, had she been in Ash's situation from the beginning, she would have solved the whole thing in about 30 minutes.
Soundtrack Dissonance: Twice in Evil Dead. Jazz music from a possessed record player when Ash is in the cellar where blood starts leaking from everything. Cheerful, big-band music also begins playing over the end credits, and then begins to... slow.
Tired of Running: By the last fifteen minutes of each movie in the trilogy, Ash has been driven mad by the things the Evil has forced him to see and do, to the point where he is no longer scared so much as just pissed off. It is at this point he raises hell with his chainsaw and/or shotgun.
Tome of Eldritch Lore: The "Morturom Demonto," though it becomes the "Necronomicron ex Mortis" in the sequels (after Sam Raimi learned about H.P. Lovecraft and renamed the book as a Shout Out). Usually shortened by characters to either "the Necronomicon" or "the Book of the Dead".
Too Dumb to Live: Cheryl, to some degree. The musical hangs a huge lampshade on this:
Cheryl: Now, Mother always said when you hear a strange, frightening and potentially life-threatening ghostly chant coming from the dark woods, there's only one thing that you should do: not go wake the others and go investigate it alone!
Took a Level in Badass: Ash. He starts off as a nebbish, somewhat timid college student. A few days (and two sequels) later, he's redefined the word badass.
Bruce Campbell himself actually took a level in badass during the filming of Evil Dead 2, so he could be a better fit to the shotgun wielding, chainsaw handed king of badasses that Ash would eventually become.
Took a Level in Jerkass: In the first movie, Ash is a Nice Guy thrown into the middle of a nightmare and struggles to survive. Throughout the next two movies, his experiences lead to him becoming increasingly more snarky and obnoxious, to the point where he apathetically "helps" the local castle and refuses to help them when the deadites take the Necronomicon. Tropes Are Not Bad, however, as that is the version of Ash that fans remember and love.
Training the Peaceful Villagers: Sort of. They weren't exactly peaceful to begin with, but showing them how to make gunpowder certainly was useful. Oddly enough there's another scene where he teaches them how to use their ownBlade on a Stick weapons.
Unlikely Hero: Ash in Army of Darkness. Lampshaded in Evil Dead II.
Video Nasties: Probably the best known film bearing this trope.
Viewers Are Morons: The original title for the first movie was The Book of the Dead. Their agent, however, suggested they change it on the grounds that movie-goers would think they'd have to read or be uninterested in a movie with "book" in the title. Tropes Are Not Bad, though, as Raimi and co. grew to love the new title.
The Walls Are Closing In: Army of Darkness sees Ash thrown into a pit containing a few demons that he has to fight, as well as this particular Death Trap just to make things more exciting. He escapes by hanging onto the chain powering the closing walls as it moves up.
What Could Have Been: Annie from Evil Dead 2 was written as a role for Holly Hunter. Dino De Laurentis vetoed the choice as he didn't think she was beautiful enough.
What Happened To Mommy: Ash has a hard time convincing himself to kill his friends and girlfriend after they're possessed. Annie briefly faces this situation literally with her possessed mother.
What the Hell, Hero?: Ash messes up reciting The Words and doesn't care that he has doomed everyone.
Who's Laughing Now?: After taking constant abuse from his Evil Hand, Ash invokes this trope (even the title word-for-word!) with the help of a nearby chainsaw.
Ye Olde Butcherede Englishe: the English in 1300 are perfectly capable of understanding Ash's very slangy modern English, and themselves speak modern English peppered with "thee"s and "shalt"s.
A remake of the first movie
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