Tanz der Teufel 2 - Jetzt wird noch mehr getanzt

Always a tricky fish to try and fry, the second instalment of a growing franchise, recognising that the same as before just won't do, a need to break away from what's started and to brew, there's still plenty of gore and a great deal of splatter, without CGI, lots of matter gets scattered, some inconsistency, with the early story, but it soon moves along, although there's not really a song (why would there be), must have been lots of fun, making monsters to gun, making potions from notions, appendages that can run, it's quite dated today, though it had been ground breaking, but I enjoyed going back, got more hooked on the making - and It didn't make me laugh, and never did, and there's a good reason for that!!!

This is one of the few horror movies I truly enjoyed, because the film offers a great combination of horror and comedy. It adds up to a very entertaining 85 minutes.

There's a lot to like in this kinda-goofy movie: nice visuals; good humor to counteract the scariness and gore of a horror story; a small amount of ridiculous theology compare to what usually is offered in this genre, and some totally outrageous scenes. They include a woman's head loose and then biting a man's hand with the rest of her body running around with a chainsaw; a hand with a mind of it's own, monster-type grandma and grandpa in the cellar, chase scenes through a forest with trees coming to life and attacking people, on and on....wild, wild stuff.

My main complaint is not enough lulls. There is too much action, and it's so intense it's almost too much to watch in one continuous sitting even with its fairly short length. One needs a break once in a while!

There is no credibility in here, but that's okay since I think most of this is played for laughs more than horror. Bruce Campell suffers physical damage that would have killed a person many times but within seconds, he's back to normal. Campell, by the way, must have set the all-time record for making rubber-faced wild faces in a movie, more than Jim Carrey. However, this movie certainly isn't one to be scrutinized for realism. You have to look at it, with all the gory scenes and shocking violence as not much more than just tongue-in-cheek satire on horror movies. It's great fun.

My Rating : 8/10

Sam Raimi's 'Evil Dead II' is the definition of horror-comedy done well. Part II in the Evil Dead trilogy and carries the story forward brilliantly. Masterful camera work and stop-motion. Hilarious, entertaining stuff.

If you like this movie, also check out the lesser-known and highly underrated Peter Jackson's 'Dead Alive'.

...but has thoroughly enjoyed the second one since it came out in 1987. From reading other comments apparently history has been rewritten in relation to the first, but I can't speak to that. Let me just say that if you haven't seen the first one the second one fills in enough details that you know what is going on.

The film starts with Ash and girlfriend Linda taking a romantic weekend trip to a cabin. It's a cabin that Ash knows about, but says he does not know the owners, thus he really doesn't know their whereabouts. He says they'll just claim to have gotten lost in the woods if they show up. The cabin is actually where Professor Knowby brought the recently discovered Book of the Dead. We know this because Ash finds the tape recorder and plays Knowby's entries. On the tape Knowby speaks aloud the words that are supposed to resurrect the evil dead - those evil spirits that inhabit the forest and world around us. Once brought to life they can apparently manipulate objects and possess people at will, in search of a way back into this world via possession and a way to harvest souls for hell. Those spoken words do their work, and the evil dead are brought back to this world. Well it is nighttime, and since that is when the evil dead are active they immediately begin to make Ash's life a living hell.

Meanwhile, Knowby's daughter Annie is on her way to the cabin with more pages from the Book of the Dead where she thinks her parents are doing research. She has with her a research assistant, and two locals who show her a way around the destroyed bridge that leads over the canyon to the cabin - a bridge destroyed by the evil dead to trap Ash where he is.

There is confusion at first as Ash fires a shotgun through a closed door when he hears the four trying to enter the cabin - considering what he's been through up to that point that's no wonder. Likewise, at first Annie looks at the blood and destruction of the cabin and thinks Ash killed her parents. However, it is soon obvious what the real enemy is here, one you cannot see or hear, one that can possess anything, anyone, or even just part of a person. It can make the dead appear as they did in life, it can make the living appear as demons. One particularly creative thing done here is that you see things occasionally from the evil spirits' viewpoint as they rush through the woods, making an awful roaring noise, headed towards the cabin.

The action and the chaos just never lets up from the time the forces of evil first attack the cabin. It's hard to describe, and I know it sounds strange, but there is enough tongue in cheek humor merged with some really riveting horror, that you don't feel completely drained from the intensity of it all. For example, when you have both a possessed lamp and a possessed stuffed deer head laughing at you, things get both so horrible and funny that you feel you are watching a satire of a horror film. Only the very end confused me a bit, and maybe that is because I haven't seen the first film. I'd recommend it as horror well done in a different and creative style.

This is the type of film we really wish we made ourselves before some else thought of it. It's intelligent but not entirely complex ... entirely enjoyable yet a serious piece of film making ... everything adds up to cult status. It's the type of film your uninformed friends (or mine at least, I'm surely surrounded by fools) dismiss as trash without giving it a chance.

Raimi showed us the thrills, chills and blackly tinged laughs he could bring about in the first in the series on a virtually non-existent budget. Here with just that little bit more he retreads old ground but everything still works ... probably more effectively too! Seeing some of props used and slightly off production values (the 'muppet' headless girlfriend in the shed, the demon head stuck to camera attacking Ash towards the end, Ted Raimi's ripped old lady from hell suit and the quickest of glimpses of set floor boards during one stage of shooting) shows how Raimi was still constrained by budget issues.

Seriously though, who cares ... this film has 6 different colours of blood, some seriously funny slap-stick scenes (didn't think I'd say that anytime soon) and a chemistry between lead Campbell and director Raimi that let the jokes flow freely.

Campbell proves himself a master of face contortion, self-harm as well as flipping himself over! So many classic scenes in such a short space of time ... my favourite being when Jake is dragged into the cellar and a torment of pink blood comes pumping out. The camera work is as dynamic and as fast paced as in the first outing, the shot of ash standing by the remains of the bridge at the start of film standing out for its grandness among otherwise less cinematic shots.

The film leads on nicely to the 3rd installment in the series with one-handed Ash getting sucked into another dimension to face the undead in jolly olde England (or something like that). It really is no wonder that the in-store geeks/pop-culture snobs of High Fidelty described Evil Dead II as the greatest movie of all time.

'Groovey' indeed.