Ep 299 - Army of Darkness Review

Can you hear me?

I can. How are you?

I am lightly hungover. So, everything's going great over here.

Nice.

Yeah.

Nice.

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. It'd be your own family.

It does. It does. They, um... You just... You can't ever trust them, you know? They'll be like, oh... oh we're such we're such good friends let's talk about the old times you talk about the old times and then they give you the uh they give you the alcohol that makes you feel bad the next day why do they always have that like what.

They always yeah i mean like why i just wouldn't buy the alcohol that makes you feel bad the next day but here.

We are why hasn't china fixed that yet what are they doing like President Xi, please. President Xi, this is the top concern in the world.

Release the alcohol that doesn't make you feel bad.

The cigarettes that don't give you cancer. The oil that doesn't destroy the planet. Oh, so in news of. This is real quick. It won't take that long. Yeah, Luke News you can use about how weird I am. You sound nonplussed. I'm ready.

I'm ready.

I'm ready. Let's go. So, you know, I've watched a bunch of, like, Crusader Kings stuff, like a bunch of videos. I've seen a bunch of playthroughs and stuff. And I've tried to pick it up like, I don't know, like 10 times and I just never have. And it's, but, and I think it's because like of the, um, it feels too much like doing a spreadsheet to me. And yes, I know I play the Civ games, but like, come on, that's like, uh, you know, it's like vanilla shit compared to, compared to, uh, um, uh, whatever, what the fuck ever it's called.

Uh, the game studio, uh, um, uh, I should know this paradox. There you go.

Paradox. There it is. Yeah. I kept wanting to say Praxis. I was like, it's not Praxis, you idiot. Um, and, uh, however, the other day I saw that, um, they like added a new religion thing and now you can like, uh, you can like try to make, uh, Tengri-ism, uh, Tengri-ism, the, uh, like official, like religion of like some Christian European States.

And I'm like, well, you know, I've never, um, I've never, I don't know that I've ever actually wanted to play this game until right now. Uh, because that, I find that thing so fascinating. I've been reading, um, up on it recently. So like the, like everything else, like all this stuff, I've watched videos. Like I have like a buddy who like, um, gave it to me as like a gift, um, uh, on steam, like, uh, and I tried to play with them and I was just like, I'm so sorry, man. I'm like, I have no, like, you know, um, and, uh, um, but like this and I'm just like, oh yeah, because I have the, because I have the, um, hyper fixation with Tingerism right now.

So it's just like, yeah, okay, cool. I'll do this. Like I, like I spent like a, I spent a couple hours the other day watching a video breaking down how to actually start the game and everything like that. Because there's just so much there. And I'm just like, yeah, this reminds me of work that I had to do when I worked in finance. I'd rather die. Anyway, I'm weird.

Listen, I think that you're allowed to have your own. Opinions on video games and that sort of thing i mean like my thing is i'm often saying that i ought um to like i really ought to um play video games more but i think just because it's something that i didn't grow up with i i have a hard time kind of like doing it because you know Listen, I had A, hippie-ass parents, and B, we were broke as shit, so we just couldn't afford video games, right? Like, it was just something that didn't happen. And so, and it's, like, one of these things where I would, like, play at my friends' houses and stuff, but I think if you don't have that kind of, like, how should I put this? Like, you don't have a thing where it's, like, oh, that's

a thing that I will do to relax.

Mm-hmm.

But I like playing Crusader Kings, especially with my friend Sinan, who streams it. And that's really fun for me, but I'm always just worried that I'm doing it wrong. Like, I'll watch people play video games really happily, but I have a hard time doing it myself. You know what I mean? Anyway, that's all. I think video games are cool, but I don't know how to play them, I guess.

No, you're like my wife.

She....

Affectionately, of course. I'm like, I'll take it. Yeah, well, I mean, yeah. I've been with her for 19 years. She's put up with my shit for this long. But when we first got together, I'm really not the kind of person who's like, you are going to like what I like. I'm not like that. I didn't... She asked me After we had been married for like four years to finally watch all of the Star Wars movies that existed at the time. And since we've been married for a long time, this was before the sequel. It doesn't matter. Anyway, my point is that I'm not like, you have to do this. But I wanted to play some games with her.

But she was like, I've never played anything. I picked up controller like twice. Just like you. She didn't grow up with much money at all. Um, and, um, so, so she just didn't play the game. She didn't play the games. And so like for her, like holding the controller is probably what it was like for me or someone when I was like six, but she was just like, she like, she holds it like, and I don't mean this rudely. She holds it like, you know, the, the monkeys, uh, tapping their bones on the monolith at the beginning of 2001, a space odyssey. Like, They're like, they got it, but they're like, wait, wait, wait. And I don't mean that in a rude way. It's like, unless you have like an extreme, like extremely good hand-eye coordination or you just

like naturally pick up like technological things like that, like sticking a controller in someone's hand who's, you know, who's our age, who hasn't, who didn't do it when they were a kid is like, you have, it takes a It takes a minute to like... It does.

It does. And now when I see things like... I love to watch Dark Souls, but I'm scared of trying to play it. Because everything moves so fast. And I'm like....

Maybe I should stream it and you can watch and comment. Because I don't... I'm not... I don't care about... I don't care about fucking up in front of people. Like it, to me, it's just like, what, it doesn't bother me. Um, but like, uh, yeah, it's just like that, that part of it doesn't, doesn't bother me at all. But yeah, like, uh, I tried to show her like, um, like little big planet i don't even know if you've ever if anybody if anybody remembers the playstation four i think four game little big planet um where you play as a little sock puppet thing that like bounces around and you decorate like your little area and then you go on like a little platforming adventure which is where you you know

mario is a platforming game um yeah and uh and you know, and we did that and we decorated the thing and she was really into it. And then we got to the first platforming part and she was just like, boop. She's just like, I'm good. And I'm like, what? She's like, I just, I don't know. It's not, I don't get it.

And I was like, okay. Like I, you know, I wasn't, I wasn't mean. I really try not to be like mean or condescending about any of that. But I was like, okay, and she's like, what, I just never held it, and I was like, oh, okay, I mean, that, you know, it makes sense, like, I, because I thought she was just, like, fucking, because, like, it really was, like, she did, like, three of them, died, like, twice, and was like, I'm done, and I'm like, I, I died, like, 50 times the first time I played Mario, you know, and, like, something like that, you know, and I thought she was fucking me, she's like, no, I don't get it, and I was like, oh, so my experiences aren't universal, what, you know, and Right. Of course, you know, of course,

since I'm a guy, I didn't realize that until my mid 20s. But, you know, here, you know, I guess you live and learn. No. Yeah, we should do that. That'd be cool. With all the ample free time that we both have. Oh, yeah, obviously. Anyway, yeah, you've got you got stuff to do.

I got to go on a bike ride. I'm going to I'm going to bike down to Point Defiance. It's going to be fun.

Nice. Real Tacoma or Seattle.

Yeah. So it's like basically it's a big-ass park that's across town. So my brother and I are going to bike over there.

Oh, nice. Yeah, cool.

Yeah, it's gorgeous. So it'll be fun. Maybe I'll see some seals. Who knows?

Nice.

Oftentimes you see some seals down there.

I love it. That's cool. You used to see.

I went down there on Boxing Day a couple years ago and I saw Humpback Whale.

That's amazing. That's so cool. Unironically, I know people can't tell with me sometimes. Unironically, that's really cool.

Northwest is a magical place.

It is. It is amazing. It is beautiful. You people who do not live here or haven't been lucky enough to travel as much around America, it is Fucking gorgeous. All over, it's gorgeous. But the Pacific Northwest is special. Anyway, I could talk about my love.

It's a lot like Army of Darkness.

It is, it is. I'll talk about my love of the North American continent later.

Oh, yeah. Anyway.

Hello, and welcome back to We're Not So Different, a podcast about how... I just, I really get, I really get obsessed with like niche things. And anyway, and that's a lot like Army of Darkness.

Isn't that what most podcasts are about?

Yeah.

Oh, absolutely. Yeah.

Yeah.

You know, this is like, like, you know, why are you doing like, somebody asked me this. I'm like, you didn't study this. Like, why are you doing it? I was like, I don't know. I think this stuff's neat. Like, what do you, what do you, like, it's the Marge Simpson answer. I don't know. It's fun.

Yeah.

Anyway. Hey folks, we are back and we are doing the Army of Darkness review. It is Sam, this time we are talking about Sam Raimi's 1992, what is now cult classic, Army of Darkness, starring Bruce Campbell and the best darn... The best darn movie magic you're going to find. Just a lot of fun. It is.

It is.

The thing about this movie is that it is a medieval movie. It is.

It is the most accurate.

Yeah. it is it is uh it is a medieval movie the movie is 99 set in the middle ages in 1300 in england to be specific um and uh it is concerned um with the middle ages not at all it does not care it does not care about the middle ages it is not um it's not a, uh, it's not worried about any of this stuff. If it gets stuff right about the middle ages, uh, that is a happy, uh, that is a happy accident. It is just, this is Sam Raimi's slapstick playground to, to fuck around with Bruce Campbell's face and, uh, just have Bruce Campbell like, the most chewing scenery that anyone has ever been. He's just throwing out one-liners. This movie, it's 1992. This is early 90s America at its finest. The Pax Americana is

going to live forever. The Soviets are gone. We won. Get fucked. This is like end of history, pre- America World Police. This is when It was, like, widely okay to love America. And this movie, you know, Bruce Campbell gets into a fight with a deadite, which is essentially a zombie or a skeleton from the grave or something.

A ghoul?

Yeah, a ghoul of some kind. There are definitely some draugr here. But... But... He gets his gun back and he says, good guy, bad guy. I'm the guy with the gun. He blows the guy who blows the thing's head off. It is a movie about. Bruce Campbell being cool like that. Yeah, it is.

And that's, you know, it's a it's a movie about having a really good chin. You know, it is that it is. Yeah. Hell yeah. Like that thing is that thing is. Chiseled, right?

Chiseled from diamond, yeah. He's just like... His chin is so... Yeah. They don't... I mean, they do make them like that, but... National treasure. It's rare. Yeah, he's... Yeah, he's Bruce Campbell. He's one of the only Scream Kings, as opposed to a Scream Queen. Yeah, that's true. Big horror actor, schlock camp actor... He did a very memorable turn in the show Burn Notice, which was a good show. It wasn't terrible.

He was like... Fuck, it doesn't matter. He was like a father figure to a guy. It was good. Regardless, all that being said about how this movie doesn't give a shit about the Middle Ages, here's the thing. Sometimes you don't have to give a shit about the Middle Ages because but if you care enough about the craft of what you're doing, you make it look good anyway.

And that's what this does. And I mean, I think today we'll probably talk a bit about like how this, like a lot of this movie making craft is gone. And I don't think that is, that means all directors nowadays have like lost these arts completely. Sam Raimi is still making movies to this day. He just made, you know, he's, He does a lot of stuff, you know, but it's that the movie making process, the way the industry is done and everything, it has changed so much that like it squeezes out the ability to do like a movie like this where, I mean, this is a sequel to Evil Dead 2, which was a slightly more comedic retelling of Evil Dead and It's just like, okay, this is not a movie that gets made anymore.

No.

At all. Not even close. No one's getting money for this. They're going to laugh. Sam Raimi did a Spider-Man movie that made like $ 900 million or something just after the end of COVID, before the movies were back. And they're still not going to let him make this shit now.

No.

And he's talked about that. It's just like. It sucks. It sucks for people who lived through it and got to enjoy the stuff when it was coming out, and it sucks for people now. Are the kids annoying? Yeah, so were we. And they're right about a lot of stuff. This shit does fucking suck. That's absolutely true. Yeah, that was my attempt to riff an intro here, because we flubbed the recording last time, and so.

Okay, so that is so kind of you to say, because Luke said we flubbed the recording. I did. I did.

No, no, no. See, we're a team. We're a team. No, first of all, it doesn't matter. I've done it before, too. Second of all, telling the same jokes again to the same person... is um.

It's a difficult situation to put oneself.

It's annoying and it all and and people can tell when you do it then you know they're like hey you know something off like are you got like it's something wrong it's like no like we just like we just fucked up yeah it happens anyway anyway uh folks yeah we're going to talk about uh army of darkness so this movie oh yeah Eleanor, like, I'm not even going to do the pretenses of this stuff. We're not going to get there. Like, it gets some, it looks good.

And I mean, there's anachronistic stuff in it, but who gives a fuck? Like the coolest, one of the coolest things in this movie is anachronistic because it's a guy, it's a raised skeleton playing a bone flute as like marching music for a medieval army. And I mean, fucking, who cares? It's amazing.

Listen, I guess that I think that it is important when we have movies like this because. the thing of it is, is like, but the minute there is a deadite, the minute you have like a ghouls, it's signaling that we're just having a good time and you don't have to be a fucking nerd. You know, the trouble, the trouble is always when you're kind of positing that A world in which this is an accurate movie. I'm going to be more angry at Braveheart or The Uprising than I am at Army of Darkness because, bro, we're looking for the Necronomicon, right?

We're looking for the Book of the Dead. Ooh, spooky.

And so as a result of that, it gives one free reign. right to just enjoy oneself instead of like being an inseparable nerd but you know look is it funny when you posit that southern california or god even nevada maybe i don't know like whatever desert this is filmed in is medieval england.

Yes yeah that's funny and you can tell if you have ever been to so even if you've only been there for a few days like you just like you know You had to go for work to, you know, something or whatever. Like, even if you're only there for a couple of days, like it has a distinct look and it does vaguely look, it does look like other places in the world, but it doesn't look like anywhere in Northern Europe at all.

Yeah.

Especially not rainy old foggy old England, you know? Yep.

Um, but I also like, uh, the, the little things in it that like give you these through lines of, uh, classic horror because, um, you know, the Necronomicon, it was invented by H.P. Lovecraft, um, in one of his more racist stories, um, which is.

Oh, oh, so now there's a pro... I'm just, I'm not even.

Yeah, I know, right.

Go ahead, yeah.

So, it first appeared, uh, in the 1924 short story The Hound, um, and it's like it said that it was like written by a quote mad arab so there you go.

H hp hewlett packard lovecraft what the.

Fuck hewlett hewlett hewlett packard lovecraft um really could write a horror story but a lot of the time the horror was that you're in a room with an irish guy you know yeah like that's that's the trouble with our man here but he really did uh knock it out of the park with the concept of the necronomicon and we've been working with it ever since i think we could all agree yeah we like that so yeah yeah yeah yeah.

The problem the problem with hp lovecraft is like the stuff that he did do like yeah he he was he was a racist he was um he he was a he was a racist even for his era uh which is saying something and um he did like a lot of the horrors he described where he were like, Oh no, I looked up, gazed upon it and went insane.

It's like, just tell me a little bit about it, man. Just tell me a little bit. The problem is that the stuff he did right was really good. It's really evocative.

Yeah. Unfortunately. Yeah. Yeah. Unfortunately he was good at it.

Uh, yeah. Um, Yeah, and yeah, anyway, enough about all that. Enough about problematic writers. Problematic fave. Let's talk about a movie that, is it sexist?

Yes.

Is it, were the Middle Ages sexist?

Yes.

Are the modern ages sexist? God, yes. Does that excuse this? No, but it's from 1992. Come on. What do you want?

There's the old Onion article, which is a feminist takes a break for a night to enjoy popular culture, and that's just what we're doing here, right?

Yeah, exactly. It's fun. Folks, this movie, we start in media res. We are right in the action.

Ash.

Bruce Campbell's character is chained. He has a wood block around his, his neck and shoulders and his arms are chained up. You know, like a, like Jesus Christ pose style. And he is being led to his execution because he fell out of the sky along with the chainsaw hand that he has because he lost his hand in the last movie, which we see in a flashback. Um, He took his girlfriend out to a secluded cabin in the woods and a couple other people. And they found the Book of the Dead. And, of course, they opened it and talked about it. And, you know, blah, blah, blah.

And things tried to come out and attack them. Blah, blah, blah. They killed some stuff.

Yeah. I think we'd be remiss if we didn't point out that he took his girlfriend out to a cabin in the woods again.

Yep. they went back. Yeah. Yeah. That's the conceit of evil dead too, is they're like, yeah, we went back. It's a fun thing to do. Right. You go back to the scene of the crime. Like, it's very like, Hey, you know.

It's, you know, I, and I don't think, um, so I, I think, um, that you don't really need to see Evil Dead 1. I think you can get by without it. I think we could all do without the tree rape scene, for example.

We could definitely release a cut that doesn't have that in it. There's some good... It's Sam Raimi, folks. There's really good stop-motion creepy stuff, and it's actually a horror movie, unlike this, which is basically a fantasy comedy but who cares uh you watch it during you watch it near halloween it's a spooky movie but yeah anyway something.

Yeah i'd like it is i think that actually if you want one that is kind of scary evil dead one is kind of scary by evil dead 2 sam raimi has realized that there is a camp direction that one can take this in. So Evil Dead 2 has camped it up, and then by Army of Darkness, it's just all out. The faucets are on. And we're doing camp all over the place. And that's great news for me, a person who loves camp, right?

Yes, exactly.

I love that shit, so it's fine with me. Yep.

Yeah, so Ash is being taken along with a defeated army. So a king of this realm of England is named Arthur, and he has won. He has defeated his rival and claimed, I guess, the throne or the castle of this. They're definitely not worried about that. Anyway, the defeated soldiers are being led to their deaths. Um, and, uh, we, we meet Arthur and he's like, uh, you know, he's got a, he's got an impressive bowl cut. There are definitely some impressive bowl cuts and mullets in here. They were, they were, they were taking the advice of the Bayou Tapestry and they were like, mullets everywhere and bowl cuts everywhere.

It's interesting because it's like the mullet, you know, that is a medieval haircut, the mullet that is available. And we do know that bowl cuts are also a big late medieval thing. You will definitely see that in the late medieval period, yes.

Yeah, it's fun. So yeah, they're being led to their death and they're being led to the pit where they keep one of the deadites.

Hell yeah.

And I. I mean, they get from the explanation from the flashback to the pit in like two and a half minutes. This movie is sparing nothing. We've already met Sheila, who was the wife of a soldier who was killed by Henry, Arthur's rival, by Henry's army. Um, and she believes Ash is a soldier with them. And so he, you know, gets spit on and hit and everybody, you know, like people poke him in the eyes and there's like a waka waka waka, like a three stooges, uh, style, uh, sound effects with it. Um, and they get, he, he comes up and, uh, he talks to Henry, uh, Arthur's rival, and he's like, you gotta let me go, and he's like, it's not up to me, man, I'm not the one with the sword, bro, and he gets pushed in there, but,

or he's about to get pushed in there, and then he's momentarily spared by the appearance of a guy who, you know, I'm not going to say it's Gandalf, but I'm going to call him Gandalf because he's wearing brown robes or gray robes. You know, he's a British guy with white hair and he's kind of stooped over and he talks like he's in the King James Bible. Anyway, yeah, he's...

What do.

You want from us?

His title in the credits is Arthur's Wise Man, which I think is... Is great. So yeah, Gandalf is like, wait, sire, isn't that the prophesied one who would find the Necromacon? and bring peace to all of us and Arthur's like I don't believe in that bullshit he was with whatever you know he was with Henry and so they push him in and Gandalf's like oh I don't like this and we see this lady and she's like a zombie and Um, except she's moving kind of quick and then she jumps at him and like, and, and the scene, the scene shifts to like, you could tell it's a completely different thing. Um, and her body is like flipping in the air, like, uh, it's, it's like, it's like in this herky jerky, it's, it's stop motion clearly, but like, it's, it's,

it's done like herky jerky and it looks like, she's like flying through the air and like shifting positions. It's like, it's, it's great. And it's a great introduction to be like, these aren't like slouchy, slow zombies. These are like, these guys, like, these are like, like the ring girl, like doing like backwards handstands in the middle of the air type things. Yeah.

And I mean, I think that this is an important point here because I think this is one of the first fast zombie type things. You know, now we're now we're kind of used to it. Right. What with the 28 days later, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. But I think that it is like actually a turning point in terms of what we think about, like dead dead creatures in movies and what they can do. You know?

Yeah. It's also interesting because they use the stop motion, but. these armies move a lot faster. Like the stop motion that this is based on that, that, that Ramey and almost every stop motion person since is, has been based on was the work of a guy named Ray Harryhausen who, uh, worked in Hollywood in the forties and fifties and sixties, I think. Um, and, uh, this is a predominantly based on Jason and the Argonauts, which is from 1953. And it's the story of Jason and the Golden Fleece. but the most famous part of it, you know, there's like the giant, uh, it looks like the giant of Braavos if you're, cause you're probably more familiar with game of Thrones, but, uh, it reaches down and picks up their ship and they're

fighting a bunch of skeletons on like this, a Grecian coastline. Um, and so the skeletons in this are like that, except they move way faster. And, uh, this zombie lady, uh, like throws her hand at Ash. Um, and eventually Gandalf's like, okay, this guy, this guy has enough of the stuff that I think he's, he's maybe the real deal and like throws in, um, he like throws in his weapons and, uh, Ash picks him up and dispatches of, uh, of this woman and then, and then climbs, climbs out. And he's like, Oh, I'm gonna, Oh, it's, you know, I'm, I'm going to take revenge on you assholes, you know? And he, he frees Henry and the rest of Henry's men and they flee, uh, and they, they flee, uh, away because, you know, he's everybody,

everybody's in all of him now. And, you know, the, he's, he's the big man on campus. Now he's, he, he went into prison on the first day and beat up the scariest, fastest woman he could find. And, uh, and since she was a zombie, it was okay. Um, That's right.

That's right. I like this part of it, though, because what we're seeing is like I like the jerky cycle when Ash is just being like a real piece of shit at this point. It's very, very funny. Yeah.

Yeah. I mean, there are countless times where this movie does like a soap opera style lens zoom right into like Bruce Campbell's face, like so close that you can almost see his pores. And he is just doing this incredible facial acting. I was reading something and I thought about it, but it reminded me so much of the way that Peter Gabriel's face looks in the video for the song Sledgehammer, like where his head is spinning around.

And then I read something. It was like, yeah, we based this on Army of Darkness and like two other things. I was like, oh, cool. Or something like that. Or I... I read that. I don't think it, I, it, it seemed, it seemed legit. If it's not, I apologize. You know, if I'm, if I'm spreading disinformation, then I apologize. Um, yeah. Uh, anyway, um, I don't apologize.

I think it's funny to spread disinformation about Peter Gabriel videos. It's actually my hobby. So I'll never apologize for lying about Peter Gabriel.

Let people enjoy spreading misinformation about Peter Gabriel's music video for Sledgehammer. I'm doing the claps if you can't hear them from the pop filter. Folks, yeah, Ash is now the big guy. Women are peeling grapes for him. Arthur has been marginalized to some degree, even though everybody still goes to him. Sheila, the woman who had spurned Ash, is now turned. She sees him in a different light now, of course. Obviously, yeah. She's like, oh, I'm so sorry, good good sir night, you know, like, uh, because it's like, this is like a, uh, can't be Arthurian, uh, Shakespearean romance movie. Um, and, uh, you know, it, it goes along that, uh, that course of action. There is a, there is a brief moment where like, uh, Ash kind

of is like sobered up a little bit because a demon flies in and like takes her away. And he has to like, uh, He has to shoot the demon out of the air and save Sheila. And, spoiler, she's going to get taken. She's going to get kidnapped, like, in this exact same way. Like, 25 minutes in the movie.

Yeah, like, listen, it's Chekhov's flying deadite.

Yeah, exactly.

That's what, there's a term for it.

Yeah.

That classic way, that classic way that we all have, you know.

Yeah. so ash is like okay well now i'm the big man on campus at this castle you guys have a way to send me home right and they're like um oh for sure it's the 1300s uh you got that magic book that sent you here right and he's like no that was left on the other end of the portal and and uh gandalf's like that's cool man so you gotta go quest to get the other one i'm not gonna do it and this is when the demon flies in and he's like okay fine i'll do it um and uh And Sheila's like, oh, brave Sir Knight, you know, and, you know, heaving bosoms. And they hug, but don't kiss yet. Because, you know, this is a simpler time, folks. A simpler time. Yeah, it is.

It is. Yeah.

Anyway, time for more violence. Yes. The 1997 movie Starship Troopers will not be about this odd dichotomy in American culture at all. Anyway, Ash goes off on the quest. He and Sheila look longingly and he goes off on the quest. He gets a real horse. And we get to, I think, what we both agree is, like, the... There's a big battle at the end, which is a lot of fun, but this set piece in the graveyard is just so good.

I love the set of the graveyard very much. I really like seeing the army of the dead come out, you know, the titular army of darkness.

Yes.

Uh, coming out. I like all of the use of spangly moss.

Oh yes.

I love a spangle, a good spangly moss, you know, uh, really good stuff. Um, uh, and I really like, uh, the line, uh, baby, you got real ugly. Yeah. Yeah. Um, which always cracks me up for some reason.

I don't know.

It's so stupid. It's so stupid. You know, it's, it's a great, you got real ugly.

You got real ugly. Um, Uh, so on the, on the, I got, I got too excited about the graveyard. I forgot that, that we have to meet Ash's clone. So on the way to, um, the graveyard, uh, part of Ash's, uh, journey, his hero's journey here is that he goes through a Don Quixote style, uh, tilting at windmill incident, uh, And then fights several tiny versions, like five tiny ashes. And they get the upper hand and they tie him to the ground. And they do a lot of, like, two of them try to poke him in the eye. And he, like, puts his hand up and then two more come in from the side and poke, you know, and, and, and.

Wow, you know, it's very good slapstick.

It's a very good slapstick. It's fun. Uh, Bruce Campbell's doing a great job. And then as he's moving along, he splits a second head and then like a clone comes off of him and they, uh, they, uh, they fight and, ash uh finally gets the upper hand and and and kills his clone and he chops it up um and bear and tie and binds everything together with uh like twine of some kind yeah a normal way to do things um and and buries it there and uh that might have been the end of the clone of ash uh were it not for the mistakes in the graveyard so um the first thing that, uh, that, that, that we see Ash is going through and there are all these, these graves and there's a night, there's like a nice either. I think it's a back projection. I

don't think it's a map painting. Um, cause that would have been too expensive at this point to do for a movie like this. But, um, uh, Regardless, it looks good. And there are these rows of graves. You know, there are so many skeletons here that can be turned into zombies for a big army. And we see the main part of it. And there are these steps up to a little plinth where there are three copies of the Necromacon sitting on top. And Ash is like, oh, God, they didn't say anything about there being three of them.

So he goes... He goes for the first one, the one that's closest to him, and he opens it up. And when he does, a big black hole opens into it, and he starts getting sucked in. And at first it sucks in his right arm, and he's able to pull it out. But when he does, his hand is three feet long, and it's dangling. He's like, oh, that's not good.

And then his face gets partially pulled in. And his face is like two and a half feet long, you know, down to like below his sternum. And it's just, he, you know, it's God, it's really, it's really good.

It's really, really good. It's so funny. I like the practical effects of it. I tell you what, they don't make them like this anymore. It's like, we're not allowed to have this much fun anymore.

So no, it's, um, uh, he gets, he, he gets sucked in, but then he spit out a moment later and he's like, Oh God, I gotta be more careful, you know? And he, He goes for another one and he tries to open it and the front of the book bites his hand. Like it bites him like a dog. That's my favorite one.

I like the biting book. Yeah.

That's my favorite one. He pulls it. He does, you know, the aye, aye, aye, aye, aye and like throws the book away. He's like, okay, fine. I got the last one. But then he remembers that Gandalf had told him. He said, look. Before you do anything, before you pick up the book, you've got to say these words. And it's a phrase that came from the 1951 movie, The Day the Earth Slid Still. It's klatu barata nekto. Barata nekto. I got it.

Yeah.

And Ash goes... you know, he, he gets up there and, and they're, and they're going to try, uh, one of the riskiest bits of all a white guy doing a joke about the N word. Um, and, uh, I, I do, I do think they pull it off. It's, you know, uh, if you, if you, if you could tolerate the one in blazing saddles, uh, you'll be fine here. Um, it's, uh, basically the white guy comes close to saying it, but does it because, you know, they're not going to. And so he goes, He remembers the first two words, Klaatu, Barada, and he goes, wait, wait, wait, what's the third one?

It's a word that begins with N, an N word. And he looks at the camera. He's like, oh, no. He looks around. He's like, oh, no. Klaatu, Barada. And then he coughs, you know, and he's like, you heard me. I definitely said that word.

Right.

And he and he picks up the book and he he gets on his horse and he rides away. And unbeknownst to Ash, the body of clone Ash that he had thrown in the ground, it starts slinking back. Ash gets back and everybody's hailing him as a hero until Gandalf shows up and he's like, you said the words, right? And he said, yeah, I said them. I definitely said that word. And Gandalf's like, you didn't say it, did you? Well, we're all doomed, youth. you stupid fuck thanks and he's like oh i don't care i'm gonna go back to my own time and she was like i thought you i don't believe in nothing no more i thought you were cool i was gonna uh let you go down on me or whatever and he's.

Like fuck and he's like oh no no we've uh we made the we made the hot chick sad that's the cardinal rule you can't do that you can't.

Do that Yeah, and then we cut back to the cemetery, and yep, they got an army, a skeleton army. Oh, yeah, brother. You got tons of them. We got halberds. We got swords. We got siege weapons. We got, you know, there's a lot. The orcs. And the Uruk-hai in the Lord of the Rings trilogy, the 2001 Peter Jackson Lord of the Rings trilogy, and the battle droids in the Star Wars prequels owe a whole lot to these guys. There's a lot of like, you know, the guys are kind of goofing off. They're like, oh, no, what am I going to do, boss? And the boss is like, why, you know, why I ought to. And it's just, yeah. Get those packets in line. You know.

And you absolutely know that, like, 1990s Peter Jackson was watching this movie.

Oh, yeah.

100%.

Right.

In the Meet the Feebles era. Like, that was definitely what was going down. You know. Yeah. For sure. For sure. You know.

Yeah. It's... This is a lot of... There's a lot of stuff in here, like, to... I mean, well, this is a really good example of it in addition to the way that the orcs move in and their whole battle array. There's a lot of the Helm's Deep specifically in this castle, in this siege sequence. And so Ash is, you know, at first he's like, I'm just going to go back to my own time. And they're like, we're all going to die. And then Sheila gets taken. He's like, oh, fuck.

I remember I'm horny. Uh, shit.

Wait a minute. Damn.

I mean, I've got to help the kingdom and, and do my responsibility. Yes. That's what I meant.

Um, that's a hundred percent.

Yeah. And, um, so they do what you would do in this scenario, which is they open up the back of ashes, uh, car. And, uh, because he was in community college at the time, um, In Evil Dead and Evil Dead 2, because he's in community college at the time, he has community college textbooks. And when you know, there's a chemistry textbook. Basically, the stuff you would need if you were going to, let's say, speed up European knowledge of gunpowder by at least... four or five.

Hundred years but what i like here is that it's just like there is salt peter around the castle.

No he no no no he uh no wait no you're right they did have the salt peter he he just got the overall recipe from uh yeah like yeah they they just had salt peter from china they just brought it um anyway, yeah, he makes, uh, he, he, he mixes gunpowder, and, and as we talked about on that episode the, the other day, um, gunpowder, uh, the recipe for gunpowder did exist in England, uh, by 1300, because it was written down, I think, like, 1287 or something, and it got to the Middle East in, like, 1260s, we talked about, but, um, um, but, But Gunpowder underwent several, like, huge jumps in power and potency over the next, like, 500 years. And so, like, he's essentially giving them, like, you know, 19, I don't know, like 1960s recipe for

Gunpowder in 1300. And, you know, it's going to lead to expected results of gunpowder. Of cool explosions.

It's good shit. I like the cool explosions. It's good shit.

Yeah.

And I think this is also when we're going to start to get more and more of the really good ash lines that we will see in important places like in Duke Nukem. Yeah.

He's going to say groovy.

He's going to say, I've come here to kick ass and chew bubblegum. and i'm all out of bubble gum i think people forget that that's from army of darkness.

Yep he's gonna he yeah he uh somebody's gonna knock uh the head off a skeleton it's gonna like kind of amble away like it's looking for it and and he's gonna say oh lost your head you know like um.

Yeah oh yeah yeah He's going to say, shop smart, shop as smart. It's all going to happen. It's all going to happen.

Yeah, it's a lot of fun. So the women, or some women from the area, I guess, are taken back to the cemetery where they are turned into demon brides. And Evil Ash is... is reunited with evil Sheila. Um, and, uh, yeah, it's, it's, it's bad news, bad news bears, uh, for them. Um, also, uh, in the meantime, they turned, uh, Ash's car into like a, uh, battering Ram slash. I don't know. Remember that, uh, the show, like where the robots would fight in a cage, in a steel cage. Uh, it looks like one of those, like, uh, like, uh, This is not Destruction Derby. It looks like a Destruction Derby thing with a big drill on the end of it.

And yeah, they're going to... They'll break that out at some point. But the army rolls up and they prepare the siege. And you get the hold scene where they're waiting on the walls to fire. And they've got fire arrows that they're going to shoot. And the fuse is burning down, so you get some nice tension there. And the skeleton army has, like, wheeled in, like, all of these, like, seed shields. And, you know, they're out there ready to go.

And then, of course, as they get close enough, the army... Arthur's army unleashes hell. And, like, you know, this gunpowder is just, like... You're just seeing, like, skeletons blow apart into, like, a hundred pieces.

I love that. It's like, the thing of it is with this scene is, like, you just know they're having so much fun.

Yes.

Like, it just looks fun, right? It's like, it looks fun. It looks silly. There's bones everywhere.

Yeah. And somebody would be like, oh, are you playing with your action figures? And Sam Raimi was like, yes. Yes, I am. Look, I just blew a skeleton into 400 pieces. That's more bones than are in the human body. Who gives a shit? it's great I love it I love it sorry I just no you're good I feel.

So strongly about Army of Darkness.

It's so much fun this is like he it's just and there's like little stuff in it that like the army the castle has a tiny little like reliquary like where you can like pray to stuff I guess there's like a Virgin Mary statue in there and like a, like a holy, like a, an ornate cross of some kind. And, uh, the Necromicon is like chained in there with it. And I just think that like, I don't care. Like, I don't know how they came up with that. I've, I've, I've never seen anything about it, but like, that is very like medieval logic to me. Like we have to put this in the holiest place we can, the Virgin Mary, she will protect, you know, like she will protect us, you know, like, yeah, it's, um, it's fun. Like again,

if you, if you just put some thought into stuff and you like care about the craft, it, you know, sometimes not all the time, but you know, sometimes you can, uh, you could blow up a lot of skeletons.

Um, hell yeah, brother.

Unfortunately, unfortunately for Arthur, um, sadly the, uh, the skeletons, they were too many. And, um, And they're pushed back to the door and they break through the door like it's Helm's Deep. And of course, when this happens, then there's the fighting in the courtyard. And this is when Ash pulls out his old, his kitted out Osmobile destruction derby vehicle and like essentially uses it as like a, like how charioteers would cut down like gladiators and in the old days, like he's riding through and he's just like a, they've got like a sword attached to the side of it. Just lops some guy in half. Um, yeah, it's, uh, it's, it's what you would expect, uh, from that, which is like carnage. Uh, but, um, it's like, it's like, it's

like they made a Zamboni two times as fast. And, set it off against mostly, like, skeleton, like, just skeletons with no armor, just like, ping, boom, boom, boom, bang, yeah, um, unfortunately, Ash's horniness does him in again, he, uh, evil Sheila comes in, but she's glamored to look like good Sheila, um, Christian Sheila, and, uh, and, um, Ash is is he he like spins out because he's like oh no I'm gonna hit her and he and and the thing flies over and it does this explosion that you know like you would need like five cars for an explosion that big but it who gives a shit um yeah and you just you just you get this like huge plume of flame and then evil Sheila walks out of it and that's when he says the like oh you're real

ugly but you know you got real ugly baby um line to her and.

She's like so good so good.

And they, like, fight. And they have this, like, kind of, you know, dramatic little fight sequence. And, you know, there's, like, fighting in the background. And, like, I really like... I mean, it's, of course, not bright. Like, there's... You don't see, like, a ton of, like, bright colors on anyone. But, like, the...

at this point, like when it's dark, you, and it's just like kind of lit by the flame that they're supposed to have there. You have, I like the way, I like the look of the armor that they had in that moment. Like the, the, the like plate armor that, that they were wearing. It looked, yeah, it looked good.

There was a lot of heraldry on it too. They were like, oh yeah, Oh, yeah, you put that dragon on everything, baby.

You could tell that they were having a lot of fun with that, right? Like, you can really tell that costuming was going nuts for it, right? And I think that that is super important as a general rule of thumb because I like it when there is big armor. I mean, does this big armor look more like early modern tournament armor? Yeah. Am I mad about it?

No.

No. Because I like to see early modern tournament armor. That's what I enjoy. So it's fine. You know?

Yeah. Yeah.

Also, I like the idea of all the heraldry on there, like in case when you're fighting the dead or vice versa, people can't see what you've got to really identify which side you're on, you know, because I don't know. Is this skeleton one of us? I'm not sure.

If it looks like the scary thing they put out at Halloween, kill it. if it does not look like a flesh and blood human, kill it. If it has a fucked up, if it has a really fucked up face and like zombie scars everywhere, kill it. Other than that, you're good, man. And they're like, no, we got to have the heraldry. It's like, all right, man. Okay. That's cool.

I know people love doing their little Warcraft armies. That's cool, man. Or Warhammer, excuse me. And Warcraft, I guess before it was just a video game, but, um, I guarantee you someone out there still does that. You guys, Enjoy yourself, man or woman or whatever, both. It's cool. Unfortunately, the skeleton army is too many. Ash gets the upper hand and he skewers Evil Sheila with a spear, but then Evil Ash shows up and and you know, it's, it's the big showdown. Um, the Arthur's army has been like, uh, they've been pushed back and they're like protecting, they're like four of them protecting the, uh, reliquary with their lives.

And you get like a cool scene where like Arthur takes a couple of arrows and he's like, no, protect it. We must, you know, it's like very heroic and stuff. It's very hammy. It's great. Um, And Bruce Campbell is fighting himself in this crazy-ass makeup, and they're just going back and forth. They're at one point throwing– they're spinning their arm to do a haymaker kind of– it's all slapstick, baby.

It is.

Ash gets knocked down and he... uh he you know rolls out of the way before the sword comes down and hits him eventually gets a torch and like burns evil ash to death what they think is to death but um you know but then uh but then uh Of course, Evil Ash is back as, like, the skeleton lord. One light, you know, this is his final form. I'm back.

I hate it when my evil clone leads a skeleton army against me.

I hate it when he embodies all of the dead from all of the wars that have been fought from history. Oh, God, why? Why didn't I read the Odyssey before? They absolutely read the Odyssey.

Anyway.

Yeah, it's... ash and and evil ash they keep going but uh but the problem is that um he evil ash just he he has the he he won't he won't quit he he's dead so he just he doesn't get tired uh he just keeps going luckily however they have figured out a solution for this which is uh they just he stands on a catapult preparing to deliver the final blow against Ash and as he does Ash like I think he throws his new metal hand he throws his metal hand or something and he hits the mechanism and Evil Ash gets trebucheted way you know way over somewhere and dies you know the way they killed Rex Banner in that episode of The Simpsons Where they do prohibition.

Oh, God, yeah. I've forgotten about Rex Banner. Anyway.

And they trebuchet the cat. Anyway, that's not funny. Don't ever do that to kitties. But it's really funny to watch. Meow. Anyway. Anyway, unfortunately, the skeleton army is still there.

But....

They made a call to Henry in secret, and Henry's the guy, if you've forgotten, because, I mean, obviously, he was the guy, the rival claimant to Arthur at the beginning who was defeated and Ash spared. So his army rolls up. They take out the rest of the skeletons that are there. That's the end of the dead army.

But for a second, it looks like they're going to fall back into the age old, fighting and death that they're gonna do they they they pick their armor and swords back up they pull up their comrades and they square off for just a second we're about to do a sharks and jets snap fight here it's west side story all over again and they throw it all down and then they hug in the middle and you.

Yay woo woo it's great we yay um no it's actually fun um i love it i really love it Yeah, everybody's going nuts.

Ash reclaims the book. He says the words properly. And, yeah, it's, you know, this movie wraps up really fast. I don't know. It's like, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam. Yeah.

Yeah, and listen... shouldn't movies all do that though i think that this is the thing is actually people could learn a lot from army of darkness filmmakers now bring me back a tight 90 it's like we all know where this is going i don't need you know you beating around the bush i don't need character development this is what i want from a film you know is it not enough to see uh you know a large chin beautiful and luminous on a large on a big screen yes yes.

It is yeah i need i need uh i i need i i as long as you can do pacing, right? Yes. If you can't do pacing, right. Please, for the love of God, just make it longer, like making it short when you can't do pacing, right. And like, you're like, no, it's gotta be like one 50. And you're like, no, just do two, just do two, just do two Oh two.

And we can like, and include the, like the extra two scenes that you needed. Oh, it's fine. Anyway. Uh, no, there's not a scene wasted, not a second here. Um, uh at the end of the battle um or after the next day after the battle uh arthur is proclaimed uh king but uh henry's going to be like his co-co-ruler or something because they decide to uh to form a new kingdom and you know in mutual friendship and all that you know it's a very the triumph of man kind of thing you know the triumph of the human spirit kind of deal um and uh It jumps forward a little bit and Ash and Sheila kiss and he's like, I'm sorry, baby, you're really hot and everything.

But I really want air conditioning.

I know.

Right.

Look, I love indoor plumbing.

Yep. You're great. You're so great.

I absolutely love a toilet, me.

This is the only time in history this will ever be true, but it's not me. It's here. It's not you. It's me. Um, yeah, I gotta, I gotta go back now. He, he, he of course goes back. And then, um, the ending, there were, there are two endings of this movie. Uh, the original ending, uh, which was canned by the studio was that, uh, Ash was supposed to take like some drops of a, of a sleeping serum and, because of a fall, an accidental falling rock, he gets distracted and takes too many and wakes up in like post-apocalyptic London.

He's like, Oh no, I missed my alarm. And the studio was like, Sam, you got a great thing here. Um, just stick with the same humor you've been doing. He's like, Oh, okay. So anyway, Ash goes back to his job because in the future it's been, yeah, it's been like a weekend or whatever. Yeah. And, uh, he's explaining this whole story to one of his coworkers and the guy's like, Oh yeah.

And he's rolling his eyes. He's like, so when you did this, did you say the words?

Right.

And he's like, I said the words, right. Um, and, uh, and as he does this, like some, like, uh, a woman who looks like an old lady who's shopping turns around and like throws off all of her stuff. And, uh, it's a, it's a dead eye woman, just like the one he fought at the beginning. And, she's like jumping through the air and like spinning around and it's like supposed to be like a really old woman. And she's like, you know, moving like super fast. And she like jumps on a, on a customer and like, you know, it was like banging their head or something. And Ash of course just runs to the, uh, runs to the, um, The gun department, which all American department stores and super stores had back in the day, and some still do.

He pulls out a pump action shotgun, the coolest, most American shotgun that there is. And he loads it with like three shells and then proceeds to shoot... conservatively 35 shots into this woman like it's just like and i mean it's it's clearly like uh like beanbags hitting like a a puppet but like the like sound that she makes like oh like you get like and ash is like ash is like grunting and you know doing like the like the the the mean hard faces and everything on the zoom in's And he rides a shopping cart, the top of a shopping cart down and like blasts this woman away. And it's implied that the deadites are, they followed Ash into the future. And then there's like a superhero pose at the end where like a few

customers and a few people who work at the S Mart are standing there and Ash has his gun. And this new girl that he's found, she's like, it's my first day. And he's like, that's great, baby. And then they kiss. And she's like holding on to him and he's got his gun. And that's how you go out. And yeah, he gets one more Duke Nukem line in there.

I guess we should say Army of Darkness line in there. Hail to the king, baby.

Hail to the king, baby.

To the king. Hail to the king, baby. Hell yeah. This movie is fun. This movie is... Yeah. I literally do not have a bad thing to say about this movie. It's just fun. I mean, there's... I guess there are problematic parts. I don't know. That's... Look. That's just the American experience, baby.

Listen... the only problematic part I have is, uh, that it's over. Yeah, exactly.

Oh, I really got to get a soundboard.

Um, we love 10 out of five. Great movie. Would Bruce Campbell again?

Yeah. Enjoy it. If you're watching it, this spooky season, whatever you're, uh, whatever you're watching this holiday, um, uh this halloween enjoy it uh enjoy spooky season we hope you had fun with this um we we enthusiastically love this movie that uh doesn't care about the middle ages at all but is nevertheless uh deeply interested in making them look good and sometimes that's enough um and uh we appreciate that because we we like it when you pander to us specifically uh pandering to other people boo pandering to.

Us correct correct yes you better you better do it yeah.

Yeah as you love to say when we do it it's cute um Anyway, folks, yeah, that is about going to do it for us today. Eleanor, any final thoughts on the Army of Darkness?

Shop smart, shop smart.

There you go, baby. There you go. That's it. It ends on a commercial, just like America would want.

That's right. That's right.

Yeah, it does. Eleanor, what do you got going on?

Not a whole fucking lot, man. Like I'm in Tacoma. I'm not trying to like do very much this month. Um, because, uh, remember when I exhausted myself last month?

Yeah.

So we're, we're trying to get some sleep over here. So, um, I think, uh, there have been like, if you want to figure out what I'm doing, best thing to do at the minute is, uh, check out my Instagram, uh, which is Dr. Eleanor Yonaga. And, uh, there are links and stuff there, but, You know, I'm very busy being CBEB and lightly toasted. So, you know, that's what's going on over here.

There you go. Yeah, you can find me. Luke is amazing on, I don't know, whatever social media app I happen to be using at the time. You can find my old show, People's History of the Old Republic. If you want to hear me yap about Star Wars. But other than that, thank you very much for listening. And we will see you next time. Keep it sloppy, babies.

Ep 299 - Army of Darkness Review

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