Hey! It's Return of the Evil Dead! I probably would have used a different font for that title. And also... I'm on vacation, and have come down with a little case of vacation brain. And I've also get a pretty nasty case of Election Brain. So forgive me if things are short, bad(der), or more random. As a great man once said, when referring to a story about underwears, "that's life."
Return of the Evil Dead is the sequel to the pretty damned good Tombs of the Blind Dead. Returning writer/director Amando de Ossorio abandons some of the things that made the first one work - the creepy graveyard atmosphere and temple ruins are gone, and Return does the standard sequel thing where it's shooting for more of an action-movie feel. Eerie atmosphere is more in his wheelhouse, at least on this budget - some of the action stuff here looks really cheap. But there's an undeniable power to the Blind Dead zombies, and the new setting (a populated town, rather than an abandoned temple) provides some good opportunities for a couple of decent setpieces. It's not as solid as Tombs, but Return is still a decent watch. Theres a Diminishing Return of the Evil Dead joke to be made here, but I'll be damned if I can find it.
My Synopsis: Five centuries ago, local villagers caught a bunch of templars engaging in some occult shenanigans and sentenced them to death. The evil templars said they'd be back, so the villagers burned their eyes out (presumably so they couldn't see to find their way back). On the 500 year anniversary of the execution, the rumors come true and the Blind Dead come back to terrorize the town. The living contingent we follow around includes the corrupt mayor of the town, his henchmen, daughter, and secretary, an American fireworks maven (?), a family with a young girl, and Murdo, the deformed caretaker of the templar's abbey. Murdo seems to want to be friends with the Blind Dead, but whatever.
Elaborate Genre: Moody Zombie Flick
Overall: Not as good as the original, but still pretty fun. De Ossorio has some cool tricks up his sleeve as the Blind Dead terrorize the town.
The first thing you notice about Return is that it tosses aside the myths established in the first film. There, the templars were hung for their crimes, and the crows pecked out their eyes. In this version, their eyes were burned out by the villagers. (Which is sort of redundant, since they later burned the bodies... but whatever.) Since this film came out just a year after the original, I'm not sure why they felt the need to change up the story. Unless it's just a retelling - after the events of the first film, you'd think that people would probably be well aware of the existence of the Blind Dead. Maybe we're just supposed to ignore the first one? Since it reuses a couple of the same actors in different roles (and even some of the same footage, I think), I guess we're just supposed to pretend the original never happened. I did like how it addressed my big (stupid) question from the original re: the horses and where these guys get them from.
The first half of the film is where you see the biggest differentiation from the original, as the Blind Dead descend onto a populated town square. Things here kind of devolve into a more action-oriented mob scene, and it just doesn't work all that well. Up to this point, the zombies have been presented as these slow lumbering types, so seeing them swashbuckle while riding their horses through a crowd just doesn't make much sense. And it would be easy to overlook if the action was good, but it's just not. There isn't any gore to speak of, and some of the shots feature some very obvious dummy action.
But once the herd gets thinned out and our group of eight or so survivors are locked in a church things get better. True, just about every zombie film eventually gets to "group of people trapped in a building," but the group dynamics here are varied enough that it doesn't feel stale. Plus, the big catch with the Blind Dead is well utilized here - they are a little less dangerous than your typical zombies, as you can get past them provided you are absolutely silent. This makes for some decent sneaking about scenes, and I'm honestly surprised that we don't see this device used more often in horror movies.
And again, the Blind Dead just look fucking cool. There isn't much of a difference between their looks here and the first film, but if it ain't broke, don't fix it. There are more of them here in Return, and de Ossorio gets some really nice long shots of them just standing around in the city streets and waiting. There's something about this quiet, still variation on the zombie that makes them feel more menacing that your average "braaaains" type of undead.
The characters are mostly okay here - one of them behaves *incredibly* stupidly, and I wish "attempted rape" wasn't something that needed to get in each of these films. I'll be watching the third one soon (The Ghost Galleon), so we'll see if that troubling trend continues. But generally speaking the characters are reasonable - we like and dislike who we're supposed to. Special props goes to the "evil" human, who does something hilariously nefarious.
Not a ton of gore to report on. This isn't so much of a gut-munching zombie flick - it's more of a creeping terror thing. What you get is mostly offscreen, but what you do see is pretty cool in an early 70s way.
I dug Return of the Evil Dead. While it's not really even close to being as good as Tombs, it's still a worthy follow up.
I would recommend this film.
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