Army of Darkness

Bruce Campbell also appeared in Sam Raimi’s Darkman. He was credited as “Final Shemp.”

I was always mildly annoyed by the shotgun that magically appears just when Ash needs it. He didn’t have it when he was captured and tossed into the pit, so how does he get ahold of it when Lord Arthur (the leader) draws a sword on him? If the old man had dropped the chainsaw and the shotgun, this might make sense.

Embeth is a serious hottie, though (she may be bad, but she feels good). The flying monster that kidnaps her is on display at Universal Studios, Florida. At least, it was there in 1997 when I visited.

You can see the tree shift when Evil Ash goes flying into it after taking a shotgun blast under the nose (“Good, bad, I’m the guy with the gun.”)

There’s a throwaway bit when Evil Ash is assembling his undead army and slams his sword across the back of the head of one of the skeletons, who loses his jawbone but still turns and says “Thank you, sir.” Cracks me up every time.

“Groovy” and “Come get some” are among a number of lines swiped from this series and used for the computer game Duke Nukem 3D.

And, of course, Klaatu Barata Nik(cough cough) speaks for itself.

And he played the photographer in The Quick and the Dead.

Are there two endings to AoD? <Spoilers>

I’ve seen it twice, once long ago and once recently. This last time I saw it ended with Campbell killing zombies in a hardware store. But somehow I remember him taking an extra drop of the potion and ending up in the future. Am I crazy?

Sam, you aren’t crazy. The DVD version I rented a while back has an alternate ending where he does end up in the future.

I love renting all three movies in the series every few years and watching them all at once. They are so bad they are good.

Here’s what I figure happened:

[guesswork]

After Ash clocks Arthur, then does his “You want some?” on the little squirrel knight who kept whipping him in the chain-gang, he frees Duke Henry and his vassels. Whilst our eyes are on Henry and Co. saddling up, making like a tree and leaving, Ash probably ambled over to the Merlin Wannabe, said something to the effect of “Gimme that metal stick there, Spinach-Chin.” While we watched Arthur call for his sword and go into his thou-shalt-pay-for-suckerpunching-me warmup routine, Ash loaded up his boomstick.

[/guesswork]

Lucky he had extra shells that didn’t get too wet while he was down in the pit, huh?

“Yo, she bitch…Let’s go.”
“You ain’t leading but two things - Jack and shit. And Jack just left town.”

I use these lines on a (nearly) daily basis.

Army of Darkness is one of my favourite movies of all time.

Ash is “everyman’s hero” who rises above and beyond to defeat the army of the dead lead by - ironically enough - himself. He’s not incredibly bright or wise, doesn’t drive some fancy car, and probably wouldn’t be caught deader’n disco in a designer suit. He works at a freakin’ discount store, for Pete’s sake! How can you not like that?

As for the “Captain Supermarket” ending vs. the “Slept Too Long” ending, Campbell actually prefers the latter. It wasn’t the one they chose for the theatrical release, but he felt that was “just the kind of thing a ‘numbskull’ like Ash would do.”

If you’re looking to get your Bruce Campbell fix, he’s played a big part in four TV series (Brisco County, Jr.,Jack of All Trades, Hercules, and Xena: Warrior Princess). He was also in an episode of The X-files in which he played a hapless man who keeps impregnating women such that they give birth to horned babies.

As far as movies go… well, Bruce himself said, “the movies that are the easiest to make are the hardest to watch.” Apparently, McHale’s Navy, Assault on Dome 4, and Menno’s Mind were pretty easy to make. He was also in a made-for-TV ripoff of Twister called Tornado.

He also has small roles in Congo, The Hudsucker Proxy, and even Fargo - see if you can spot that one!.

Yeah, the whole Evil Dead trilogy is great! Like racinchikki, my favorite is ED2, but AoD is pretty hilarious also.

My brother and his then-SO got the movie on VHS a several years ago. They thought it was supposed to be serious, and said they didn’t like it. After I explained to them that it was supposed to be campy/silly, they watched it again and liked it.

AoD rocks my ass-world!

I remember once when my current GF and I watched it, it was the first time for her. Even after explaining it was suppossed to be campy and stuff she still didn’t like it. Later that day/night I tried the, “Gimme some sugar, baby” line. THAT didn’t go over too well! I got NO sugar that night.

Don’t overlook Campbell’s appearance in Escape From L.A..

psiekier; how can you say Ash “doesn’t drive some fancy car”? I was seriously considering adding one of those rotating street-sweepers to my Camry!

I once gave a copy of “Army of Darkness: the Board Game” to a friend of mine. As far as I know, he’s never actually played it.

“It’s an N-word. It’s definitely an N-word!”

“Buckle up, Bonehead. You’re going for a ride!”

You know, kids today just don’t study the classics. When I saw this in the theater with three friends, we four were the only ones in the entire auditorium to laugh when the wizard tells Ash the magic words.

I must overlook it. It’s embarrassing that the only movie featuring my two favourite actors (Kurt Russell and Bruce Campbell) was one of the worst movies I’ve ever seen. It was almost as bad as Krull.

What made it even worse was that it was an in-flight movie. You can’t just walk out on something like that!

I don’t think an Oldsmobile with a giant propeller on the front counts as a “fancy” car, no matter how many skeletons you destroy with it.

1973 Delta 88 Oldsmobile Special. I’ll be watching for that hootride in Spider-Man. Hail to the king, baby.

shudder Tree-rape. shudder