Evil Dead II

Evil Dead II (also known in publicity materials as Evil Dead 2: Dead by Dawn) is a 1987 American comedy horror film directed by Sam Raimi, who co-wrote it with Scott Spiegel. It is the sequel to The Evil Dead (1981) and the second installment in the Evil Dead franchise. It stars Bruce Campbell as Ash Williams, who vacations with his girlfriend to a remote cabin in the woods. He discovers an audio tape of recitations from a book of ancient texts, and when the recording is played, it unleashes a number of demons which possess and torment him.

After the critical and commercial failure of Crimewave (1985), Raimi, producer Robert Tapert, and Campbell began work on a sequel to The Evil Dead at the insistence of their publicist Irvin Shapiro. Having endorsed the original film, author Stephen King brought the project to the attention of producer Dino De Laurentiis, with whom he had been making his directorial debut Maximum Overdrive (1986). De Laurentiis agreed to provide financial backing, and assigned the filmmakers a considerably larger budget than they had worked with on the original film. Although Raimi had devised a premise set in the Middle Ages and involving time travel, De Laurentiis requested that the film be similar to its predecessor.

Evil Dead II was shot in Wadesboro, North Carolina and Detroit, Michigan in 1986, and featured extensive stop-motion animation and prosthetic makeup effects created by a team of artists that included Mark Shostrom, Greg Nicotero, Robert Kurtzman and Tom Sullivan, the latter of whom returned from the original film. The finished film was released in the United States on March 13, 1987; due to its high level of violence, it was released through a pseudonymous distributor to curb an anticipated X rating from the Motion Picture Association of America. Much like The Evil Dead, it was widely acclaimed by critics, who praised its humor, Raimi's direction, and Campbell's performance; many have considered it superior to its predecessor and similarly as one of the greatest horror films ever made. Despite being given a somewhat limited release, it was a minor box office success, grossing just under $6 million.

As with the first film, Evil Dead II has accumulated a large, international cult following. In 1992, it was followed by the direct sequel Army of Darkness, which utilized Raimi's original premise; in 2013, it was followed by the soft reboot and continuation Evil Dead; and in 2015, it was followed by the television series Ash vs Evil Dead. A fifth film in the series, Evil Dead Rise, was released on April 21, 2023.

Michigan State University students Ash Williams and his girlfriend, Linda, take a romantic getaway to a seemingly abandoned cabin in the woods. While in it, Ash plays a tape of archaeologist Raymond Knowby, the cabin's previous inhabitant, reciting passages from the "Book of the Dead", Necronomicon Ex-Mortis, which he uncovered during an archaeological dig. The recorded incantation unleashes an unseen evil force, known as the Kandarian Demon, that kills and possesses Linda, turning her into a "deadite". Ash decapitates Linda with a shovel and buries her in a shallow grave near the cabin. As dawn approaches, the evil force throws Ash through the woods. He briefly becomes possessed by the demon, but the sunlight expels it from him.

Ash attempts to flee the area but finds that the bridge to the cabin has been destroyed. The entity chases him back to the cabin, where Linda's revived head bites his hand. He runs to the toolshed and destroys the deadite Linda with a chainsaw, but his bitten right hand becomes possessed and tries to kill him. Ash severs it with the chainsaw and tries to shoot it with a shotgun, but the hand mocks him and escapes. Meanwhile, Knowby's daughter Annie and her research partner, Ed Getley, return from the dig with the missing pages of the Necronomicon. Blocked by the destroyed bridge, they enlist handyman Jake and his girlfriend Bobby Joe to lead them to the cabin on foot. There they find an embattled Ash, who accidentally grazes Bobby Joe while trying to shoot his possessed hand. Assuming that he murdered Annie's parents, the newcomers lock him in the cellar.

The four new arrivals listen to the rest of the tape recording, where Knowby explains that he killed his wife Henrietta after she was possessed by the Kandarian Demon, then buried her in the cellar. The deadite Henrietta bursts from her grave and possesses Ed, whom Ash, now freed from the cellar, dismembers with an axe. Bobby Joe flees through the woods when Ash's severed hand latches onto hers, but demonically possessed trees drag her to her death. Annie translates two of the Necronomicon's pages, which portray a fabled hero with a blade for a hand and detail a ritual that will make the evil take physical form and then open a portal through which it may be banished. Before they can perform the ritual, Jake turns on them and throws the pages into the cellar, forcing them at gunpoint to locate Bobby Joe. In the woods, Ash becomes possessed once more and attacks Jake. Annie retreats to the cabin and accidentally stabs Jake with a Kandarian dagger, mistaking him for the possessed Ash, before Henrietta kills him. Deadite Ash tries to kill Annie, but returns to his normal self upon seeing Linda's necklace.

With Annie's help, Ash modifies the chainsaw, attaches it to the stump of his right arm, and cuts the shotgun's barrel. After finding the missing pages of the Necronomicon in the cellar, Ash kills Henrietta. Annie starts reciting the incantation, which makes the demon physically manifest and attack Ash. As she attempts to finish the incantation, Ash's severed hand stabs her in the back. Annie completes the ritual with her dying breath, opening up a whirling temporal vortex which sucks in not only the demon, but also Ash and his Oldsmobile Delta 88.