Watching a wax statue of James Mason getting defaced by a punk dressed as Where’s Waldo was enough to make me wish I was carrying a Wildey magnum to send this dirtbag straight to hell. But then I realized I had a kangaroo at my side and that was better than any gun. 

“Look, Edwige! Smarties,” I said, directing my steadfast companion to the bag of Canadian delicacies hanging from Waldo’s belt. Edwige’s jaws clamped down somewhere on the punk’s right buttock and he yowled in pain.

— To be continued.

Tonight’s movie is 1987’s Evil Dead II from director Sam Raimi. I don’t know if after four hundred and thirty-four film blogs if I’m worthy to discuss this.cinematic masterpiece. It serves as both a sequel and a remake to the original Evil Dead. If that doesn’t make sense to you, I’ll try to explain. Yes, the movie starts out with Ash Williams driving up to a cabin in the woods with his girlfriend, Linda. Yes, he plays the professor’s tape that summons the ancient demons that possess his girlfriend. And yes, Ash decapitates Linda with a shovel and buries her corpse.

The next scene we get is Ash getting possessed by the ancient demons which is exactly how the first Evil Dead ended. The morning sun drives the demon away. Ash wakes up, gets in his Oldsmobile, and tries to get away only to see the bridge is out. With dusk approaching he drives away, knowing the demons are in close pursuit. While in the cabin, he looks out and sees Linda rise from the dead and dance the ballet. Then Linda tries pulling him through the boarded up window, banging his head against it over and over again.

While Ash sits in a rocking chair trying to regain his senses, Linda’s head falls in lap and bites his hand. He brings her head out the work shed and saws it in half with a chainsaw as the demonically possessed Linda taunts him. Next, Ash’s hand gets possessed and starts punching him in the face and smashes dishes on his head. He manages to lop it off with a chainsaw, but that doesn’t stop his hand from flipping him the bird as he tries to blow it away with a shotgun.

Meanwhile, a researcher named Annie arrives to give her father the lost pages of the Book of the Dead. She is joined by her partner, Ed, and they drive up to the cabin only to discover that the bridge is out. A hillbilly named Jake and his  tobacco spitting girlfriend, Bobby Jo, offer to take them up to the cabin by other means. When they arrive, they think Ash is a maniac and lock him in the cellar. Annie plays her father’s recording where he states the only way to destroy the possessed is through bodily dismemberment. But the old professor didn’t have the heart to dismember his wife. He buried her in the earthen floor of the fruit cellar. And then she rises from the grave to maul Ash and steal his soul.

What makes the Evil Dead movies is the character of Ash Williams, a protagonist more screwed up than the monsters who attack him. He’s an idiot, but has an uncanny knack for knowing how to kill “deadites.” And with a sawed-off shotgun and a chainsaw hooked on to the stump that was his hand, any undead doesn’t stand a chance against him.

Jeff Shuster (episode 47, episode 102, episode 124, episode 131, episode 284, episode 441, episode 442, episode 443, episode 444, episode 450, episode 477, episode 491, episode 492, episode 493, episode 495, episode 496, episode 545, episode 546, episode 547, episode 548, episode 549, episode 575, episode 596, and episode 597) is an MFA graduate from the University of Central Florida.