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"We just carved up our girlfriend with a chainsaw. Does that sound ... fine?"

—Ash, talking to himself (sort of)

Warning: This film contains sequences that may be too intense for audience members under the age of 17.

—Title card, before the start of the film

Twenty-odd years later, Evil Dead II still resonates for me, although for vastly different reasons than it did for my 12-year-old self discovering it on VHS in the late 1980s. With the creepy skeleton head and the tagline/false secondary title "Dead by Dawn" on the video box cover, it promised something more than most of its ilk. But what exactly? As the title card above suggests, a world of images that might be more than I could handle.

As I type this, I consider that a lot of the would-be blockbusters released in the last few years - the bright shiny baubles, as I have come to term them - would have thrilled me to no end at that pre-adolescent age. Now, I find myself confused by the trailers for the likes of Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen and G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra as I realize that I quite literally can not follow the action and the editing, never mind the plot. "My 12-year-old-self would have loved it" has now become my rueful mantra as I accept that I have begun morphing into a crotchety old man. Evil Dead II certainly isn't a film for kids and yet, I am grateful I did see it back at a young age because revisiting it as an adult allows me to understand the appeal it had back then and appreciate the artistry, the skill, and the joy of filmmaking that lines its cinematic bones.

If you'll allow me to tender a completely inappropriate sports metaphor for a moment, Evil Dead II throws out the play book, the rule book, the coach, the assistant coach and eventually the playing field and exists in a realm of cinema where very few features dare: one where the cast and crew are "getting away with something." It's not quite comedy and not really horror – the coining of the word splatstick to create a reference point is still the best descriptor. Evil Dead II goes beyond the bloody, the icky, the ridiculous and the campy to form a genre hybrid that in two decades since has almost no imitators (surprisingly) and very few equals (not so much). In an era where "torture porn" and excessively gruesome remakes of already disturbing horror films are still fashionable, Evil Dead II seems almost quaint (but not thankfully, restrained) by comparison.

It spends the barest of minimums in setting its story in motion, appears to be making up what little plot there is from scene to scene and is, at its core, more of a reimagining of the first film than a sequel. (Despite its maker's explanation to the contrary, I persist in this thinking and believe it contributes greatly to the film's kinetic energy). There is no earthly reason for it to succeed as well it does. What keeps this gory, slimy top from spinning off the table? It's the fortuitous combination of a director throwing every trick in the book up on the screen (and inventing new ones as needed) and an actor willing to look as absurd as necessary and endure physical smackdowns at every turn, yet still summon up the heroic posturing to come off like a badass. Sam Raimi and Bruce Campbell keep it creatively copacetic. If this film did not exist, they would have had to create it.

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