You See This? This Is My Boomstick

With the leaves falling, and Halloween inching closer and closer, people will be breaking out their scary movies to watch with friends and family. Being that I’m not the biggest fan of gore or slasher flick, I rather go with a more comedic fair like Ghostbusters or this month’s induction into the Scooter Hall of Fame, Army of Darkness.

Many of you may recognize the name Sam Raimi as the directory of the Spider-Man films. But long before he was at the helm of major studio movies, made a dirt cheap horror flick, The Evil Dead with his friends. That led to the bigger budget, but not by much sequel Evil Dead II which then landed him major studio backing for Darkman. He then parlayed his clout as director of Darkman to make a big budget sequel to the Evil Dead franchise renamed Army of Darkness as Evil Dead III may have discouraged people from seeing it since they hadn’t seen the first two.

The movie was the first in the Evil Dead series I ever saw and you definitely don’t need to see the previous two before watching Army of Darkness thanks to a nice recap at the beginning of the movie. Even without the recap, the movie could really just stand alone, they even change some plot points from Evil Dead II to Army of Darkness.

Bruce Campbell (The Adventures of Brisco Country Jr.) plays the ubiquitous Ash, complete with shotgun in one hand and the other replaced by a chainsaw, is transported back into medieval times in the middle of a war of the English and the Deadites, an army of the undead. The English mistake him as a savior who will help them vanquish the Deadites. The only problem with this is that Ash is lazy and self-absorbed. But thanks to a lovely lady and the promise from the town wizard that he will help him get back to present day, Ash agrees, but in true Ash fashion, things don’t really go as planned.

The movie is chalk full of great liners, delivered just right by Campbell and his perfect dry wit, here are some of my favorites:

- Ok you Primitive Screwheads, listen up! You see this? This... is my boomstick!

- Well hello Mister Fancypants. Well, I've got news for you pal, you ain't leadin' but two things: Jack and (expletive deleted)... and Jack just left town.

- Gimme some sugar, baby.

- Alright. Who wants some?

- Say hello to the twenty-first century!

- Honey, you got reeeal ugly!

- Hail to the king, baby.

And long before every television show and movie had semi-ironic slackers work at parodies of big chain-stores, Ash worked at S-Mart. “That's right. Shop smart. Shop S-Mart.” Also working at S-Mart, Bridget Fonda.

There were some rumors after the Freddy vs. Jason (New Line Platinum Series) movie there would be a Freddie vs. Jason vs. Ash movie but that film seems to be shot down by Raimi, although Campbell is on the record as being up for it. But the big rumor now is that Freddy vs. Jason vs. Ash will eventually see the light of day as a six part comic book. For those of us that can’t get enough of Ash, look out for My Name Is Bruce, a film in which Campbell plays himself who is mistaken for his character Ash and kidnapped to help vanquish a monster in their hometown which may be coming to DVD soon.