Review of Army of Darkness: The Director`s Cut (Official Bootleg Edition)

Introduction

Evil Dead 3, or Army of Darkness, or Bruce Campbell vs Army of Darkness or Evil Dead 3: The Medieval Dead depending on what you want to call it has a cult status.

The third of the Evil Dead movies has seen various releases on DVD so far, the most desirable of which is the two disc limited edition from Anchor Bay which is one of the most sought after items on Ebay and regularly attracts bids of £80 or more. That two-disc version featured both the theatrical version of the movie - 81 minutes with the "S-Mart" ending, and the original 96 minute version with the original "London" ending (which had been deemed too depressing by Universal). Up until now, if you weren`t prepared to pay big bucks for a two-disc edition, you were stuck with the edited version of the movie.

Universal/Anchor Bay have now rectified this with the release of "Army of Darkness: The Director`s Cut (Official Bootleg Version)" which features the 96 minute edition of the film and the "London" ending.

Video

The video comes in 1.66:1 anamorphic widescreen, and is of variable quality throughout the movie. The "standard" shots of the movie actually look quite good, with a stable, detailed image that is reasonably grain free. Most of the effects shots however reveal the low budget of the movie, and an over reliance on bad rear projection - which is often duller than the live action and consequently looks dreadful. The big battle sequence at the castle is a great example of this - the scenes with the skeletons (more about them later) looks dark and grainy, especially the long shot of the ongoing battle, but when the camera returns to the same area and the skeletons are gone, the picture quality is far superior.

The Army of Darkness is comprised of utterly unconvincing skeletons which frankly are hilariously bad (and just how does a skeleton with no lungs play the bagpipes?).

However, having criticised the effects - the whole appeal of this movie is the low-budget ridiculousness of it all - something Raimi and Campbell openly admit in the commentary track.

Audio

The soundtrack presented in Dolby Digital 2.0 - not remixed into 5.1 as was originally hoped (and announced) for this version. The sound is adequate rather than exciting - but the plethora of sound effects are well reproduced and crucially Ash`s legendary one-liners sound absolutely great. Duke Nukem learnt all of his material from Bruce Campbell :)

Features

The extras on the disc include four deleted scenes, with commentary; director`s storyboards and an audio commentary track.

It`s time for a major grumble I`m afraid - the remade "S-Mart" ending is not included on this disc - so I didn`t get to hear the legendary "Hail to the King baby!" line which was very disappointing.

The deleted scenes are presented in pretty ropey video quality but the commentary from Raimi and Campbell gives plenty of information about their exclusion from the film.

The storyboards are great - when you turn them on they are overlaid in the bottom right-hand corner of the screen as you watch, so you can see how the shots were conceived.

I`ve heard a lot about the audio commentary on Army of Darkness and it certainly lived up to it`s reputation - it is absolutely superb - so engrossing in fact that it came as a surprise to find that I had listened to it all when the movie ended! Bruce Campbell, Sam Raimi and Ivan Raimi (who joins half-way through) give detailed information about how the movie was made - but it is the unscripted humourous way that the two (then three) chat through the movie that makes it an outstanding extra.

Conclusion

Army of Darkness is one of those movies that is so bad in terms of story, script and visuals that it should be a total failure, but these ingredients actually make the film superbly entertaining and I must admit that I enjoyed it a great deal more on DVD that I did that last time I saw it - which was at the cinema when it was originally released!

Because I haven`t seen the film for so long, it wasn`t until I listened to the commentary that I found out which bits had been added in this director`s cut - and even though the movie has grown by 15 minutes, it is always fast paced. Campbell`s one-liners are brilliant and had me howling - he`s got just the right attitude in this movie and is constantly entertaining. The effects are extremely ropey, but the low-budget presentation is the appeal and in reality the movie is more entertaining than many slick mainstream movies.

The lack of the "S-Mart" ending is annoying as it deprived me of a classic quote, but the audio commentary is outstanding. The storyboards and deleted scenes are also good extras.

Overall, this new edition can be had for a very reasonable price (£14.99 in my case), which is preferable to shelling out for the very rare two-disc edition.