I became an instant fan of director Sam Raimi when I first saw his iconic feature-film debut Evil Dead on a double-bill with George A. Romero’s Dawn of the Dead at a local drive-in theater. At the time I knew little about Raimi or the film, but I had read some promising things about both in Fangoria magazine and was certainly intrigued by author Stephen King’s stunning endorsement on the Evil Dead poster: “The most ferociously original horror film of the year!” That was enough for me, and the film didn’t disappoint and subsequently became legendary in terms of kick-starting Raimi’s career and spawning two bigger and better sequels in its wake. A decade after the release of Evil Dead in 1981, Raimi hadn’t yet entertained thoughts of helming the Spider-Man superhero franchise and still had his feet firmly planted in fantasy and horror. With the success of Evil Dead 2: Dead by Dawn and Darkman to his credit, Raimi embarked on the third and most ambitious installment in his Evil Dead trilogy to date: Army of Darkness, a period film set in England during the 1300s with ample amounts of make-up, puppetry and stop-motion effects in homage to the Ray Harryhausen films that Raimi so loved. While not as graphic or scary as Evil Dead nor as campy and cheesy as Evil Dead 2: Dead by Dawn, Army of Darkness managed to strike an equal balance between the horror and comedy to become one of the best installments in the series and one of Raimi’s most accomplished films.

Although it clearly retains elements of horror with the titular army of the walking dead and a couple of possessed demons straight out of the Evil Dead playbook, Army of Darkness is also the product of a frustrated Raimi yearning to expand beyond the confines of the genre and wanting to escape from forever being typecast as a “horror director.” The film’s period setting — which initially earned it the catchy and preferred title Medieval Dead — would greatly influence Raimi’s future excursions into TV with such cult shows as Hercules: The Legendary Journeys and Xena: Warrior Princess. Ironically enough, it was Raimi’s work on Army of Darkness that also led to actress/producer Sharon Stone hiring him to direct The Quick and the Dead, a western that helped him get future non-horror assignments. That being said, Army of Darkness is the quintessential Sam Raimi movie: filled with sight gags inspired by his affection for The Three Stooges; slick and kinetic camera work with quick zooms and whip-flash dolly shots; and, at the center of it all, his snarky and wise-cracking antihero in the form of alter-ego Bruce Campbell, who delivers anachronistic one-liners to his befuddled medieval cast mates with all the charm of a sleazy used car salesman. It’s true that Raimi’s involvement is essential to make an Evil Dead film, but the presence and performance of Bruce Campbell as reluctant hero Ash Williams is the other half of the winning formula.

After spending the bulk of the first two films essentially trapped inside a remote cabin where he was brutally beaten, battered and broken down by the demonic forces within the woods, Ash (Bruce Campbell) escapes at the end of Evil Dead 2: Dead by Dawn by chanting some choice words from the Necronomicon, or “Book of the Dead.” Although he does manage to escape the demons in the woods, Ash and his trusty ’73 Oldsmobile Delta 88 are transported through time back to medieval England, where they crash land at the end of part two. Picking right up where the previous film left off, Army of Darkness finds the beat-up Oldsmobile and the even more broken-down Ash amidst a confused-looking bunch of Lord Arthur’s (Marcus Gilbert) men. They mistakenly think Ash to be one of Duke Henry the Red’s (Richard Grove) agents and swiftly take him and Henry as prisoners. The enslaved Ash narrowly escapes death inside a deep pit by fighting off one of the possessed “deadites” with some help from his trusty chainsaw and double-barrel shotgun … which he introduces to the gawking “primitive screwheads” as his “boomstick.” Having witnessed an amazing display of futuristic tool and weapon power, the medieval group thinks Ash to be the chosen one they have long been waiting for to deliver them from the evil “deadites.” As such, Lord Arthur’s wise man (Ian Abercrombie) convinces Ash that if he retrieves the coveted Necronomicon for them, he can not only be sent back to his own time and place, but they can rid themselves of the deadites forever.

Ash agrees to go get the dreaded “Book of the Dead,” but manages to screw things up royally by forgetting the all-important three-word incantation he must recite (a classic line borrowed from the original The Day the Earth Stood Still) before removing the book from its hallowed burial-ground resting place. To make matters worse, Ash finds not one but three copies of the book and is further confused as to which one he needs to bring back. After fumbling the words and tampering with all three books, all hell breaks loose — quite literally — when the “army of darkness” rises up from their graves and begins making their way back toward the village. Ash’s evil twin — who he accidently spawned earlier after fighting off one of the evil spirits while on his way to the graveyard — is also resurrected and immediately takes command of the skeletal army. Their mission is simple: get back the Necronomicon and kill everyone standing in their way. As an added incentive for Ash, his evil twin has captured Sheila (Embeth Davidtz), one of the village women with whom Ash has struck up a romance, in order to taunt him. Although the village wise man has kept his word and offered to perform the ceremony to send Ash back to the future now that he has the Necronomicon, Ash is shamed into sticking around to help them fend off the advancing army of darkness.

The final third of Army of Darkness turns into a full-blown homage to Ray Harryhausen’s classic stop-motion films such as Jason and the Argonauts, with the vast army of animated and puppeted skeletons making their herky-jerky way toward the walls of Lord Arthur’s fortified kingdom. Ash wisely assists them in battle by not only suggesting they seek help from their sworn enemies — the nearby Duke Henry the Red and his soldiers — but also by using his own knowledge of chemistry and technology to build explosive weapons and turn his Oldsmobile 88 into a deadite-bashing battering ram. Both the “good” Ash and “evil” Ash steal the show here, delivering some of the film’s corniest but best lines such as “Gimme some sugar, baby,” “Good, bad, I’m the guy with the gun,” and Ash’s trademark “Groovy.” Raimi also can’t resist injecting a couple of great slapstick bits inspired by the Three Stooges — one hilarious sequence involving Ash and a bunch of bony, skeletal arms sticking up out of the ground when the deadites first arise. Everyone else pretty much plays the straight man to Campbell’s shtick, reacting (and often not reacting) to him with stone-faced reserve. Just a year before her breakout role in Schindler’s List, Embeth Davidtz does admirable work as Ash’s love interest, Sheila; while the prim and proper Ian Abercrombie — probably best known for playing Elaine’s boss Mr. Pitt on Seinfeld — plays the Merlin-like wise man who assists Ash on his quest back home. But in the end, the movie could just be Ash against the deadites — sort of like how the first two films in the series played out — and it would still be just as entertaining and fun.