Ash: "Alright, you primitive screwheads, listen up: THIS... is my BOOM STICK!"

Horror-comedy-adventure-fantasy movie, released in 1993. Directed by Sam Raimi and written by Sam and Ivan Raimi. Starred Bruce Campbell as Ash, Evil Ash, and Mini-Ash, Embeth Davidtz as Sheila, Marcus Gilbert as King Arthur, Ian Abercrombie as the wise man, Richard Grove as Henry the Red, Bridget Fonda as Linda, and Ted Raimi as various villagers and S-Mart clerks.

Arthur: "Are all men from the future loud-mouthed braggarts?"
Ash: "Nope. Just me baby... Just me."

Unless you really enjoy your time living in a cave, you probably know that this movie was the sequel to "Evil Dead 2", in which Ash ends up stuck in the past, fighting off more Deadites and trying to find a way back home. It certainly isn't as scary as "Evil Dead" or "Evil Dead 2", but it's a whole lot more slapstick. It features tons and tons of great lines, throwaway jokes, and jaw-dropping action sequences. It's not fine cinema, but it's a daaaamn good popcorn movie. If you haven't seen it yet... You poor stupid schmuck. Get off your ass and rent it, a'ight?

Ash: "Lady, I'm afraid I'm gonna have to ask you to leave the store."
Possessed woman: "Who the hell are you?"
Ash: "Name's Ash." (cocks shotgun) "Housewares."

Cool Trivia: They almost called it "Medieval Dead".

Ash: "Hail to the King, baby."

Spoilers

The movie has an alternate ending included on at least one version of the DVD. The film currently ends with Ash successfully returning to his correct time and laying waste to a Deadite loose in S-Mart. While the scene certainly is funny, action-packed, and kickass (also see Badass), the alternate ending alludes to a fourth film in the series.

In the alternate ending, the wiseman, played by Ian Abercrombie (of Seinfield "fame"), gives Ash a potion, the drinking of which will allow one to sleep without aging. One-hundred years per drop of the potion. So, Ash holes up in a cave, uses his car as a bed, and drinks the potion. Many seasons pass (of course), and Ash awakens and begins to remove rocks from the cave's entrance. He walks outside, and sees not the smoggy blue-gray skies of today, but a yellow sky, and a city in disrepair lies before him, torn apart by some kind of bomb. Ash drank one too many drops, and is now 100 years in the future. The world is now post-apocaltyptic, and, as we know from Ash's earlier flub ups, is still filled with the Deadites.

While the original ending of the film is lackluster (production wise), and the replacement is more exciting to watch, no one can make me not wish for a post-apocalyptic Evil Dead movie. No one.

Now, however, the project seems unlikely ...


Update: May 14, 2002

With the release of the Spiderman movie, Sam Raimi is now a big name among the masses (or, at least, the studios); perhaps Evil Dead 4 is somewhere on the horizon.

Contrary to what grizzly says, the Boomstick fires 4 times per reloading, until the final scene at S-Mart, where Ash fires it at least a couple dozen times nonstop.

Update: I realized that in the final scene, Ash is not firing his Boomstick, but rather a different rifle that he got from the display case. Regardless, he still fired the gun plenty of times without reloading.

Mentioned in other nodes, but should be here: Many of Ash's quotes from Army of Darkness found a new voice from the gaming generation. Around 99% of Duke Nukem's vocabulary can be heard in this movie, from "Groovy" to "Come get some." The term "Boomstick" has also found its place in gaming vocabulary, most often for the default shotgun weapon, but occasionally for rocket launchers as well.


Sasha Gabba Hey! says: In the BBC website, the science section has a rather nifty PC Theremin, which also comes with a few samples. One of them is the 'groovy' sound clip.

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