Here’s What Everyone Gets Wrong About ‘Evil Dead II’
When I was a teen, I had a group of friends over to watch horror movies. When I popped in Evil Dead II, my favorite of the trilogy, a friend said, “I love this movie. It’s such a good remake of the original.” I was confused. This was before the actual 2013 remake, so it couldn’t have been that. I tried to argue with him that it was a sequel and not a remake, but he wasn’t having it. We even sat and watched the movie. I kept waiting for him to realize he was wrong. He stuck to his guns. I have news for you, folks: Evil Dead II isn’t a remake, it’s a sequel.
It turns out my high school friend wasn’t the only one insisting that Evil Dead II is a remake. This is a debate that’s been going on seemingly since the movie first came out in 1987. Debaters have taken to the Internet in recent years to wax on about the movie’s plot status.
Just watched Evil Dead, now watching Evil Dead 2. Why did they remake it? Just curious if anyone knows why they sort of made the same film again?
u/bloo_a
And this person isn’t alone. Another doesn’t want to believe it’s a sequel either:
NO… it’s a remake, you are part of the conspiracy
puts on tin foil hat
u/Flameminator
If you go back and watch the movie, which you can do on HBO Max, you’ll see what’s happening. The first ten minutes are a recap of the first film, kind of like they did with episodes of TV shows and their “previously on…” recaps. Everything after that recap is new to the story.
This redditor has it right:
The first ten minutes of Evil Dead II is a re-cap of the events that happened in the first picture. So – Evil Dead II begins when Ash is being dragged through the forest by the evil force. If you edit out the first ten minutes, you have a direct continuation of the original film.
u/NoBudgetFilmmaker
It’s not just the presence of the recap that’s confused some people–it’s also that they didn’t use clips from the original. See, Sam Raimi didn’t actually have rights to the footage from Evil Dead, so they reshot scenes to be used in the recap at the beginning of Evil Dead II.
If you don’t believe me and are still sitting firmly on the side of Remake, maybe you’ll believe Ash himself, Bruce Campbell. He cleared things up once and for all in this interview:
There you have it, folks. It’s been cleared up once and for all. Evil Dead II is a sequel–and a damn good one at that.