As reported elsewhere, I saw The Evil Dead on video rental upon first release. I had seen some stills in the mag DVD World (remember it, with the glamour models on the cover?). The black and white still of Cheryl in the basement, drooling black blood really caught my imagination, along with the famous Stephen King quote; "A Black Rainbow of Terror" or something similar.
Looking at it now, the makeup FX were very low rent but they worked well enough at the time and I'll still take em over CGI nonsense.
MikeOutWest and I first saw EDII at a screening in Gants Hill of all places. All I remember is crying with laughter. It tickled us initially; Ash and the plates for example. It was the sort of humour that would inspire the League of Gentlemen. The only thing wrong, for me was the make-up effects. They looked too rubbery. The first appearance of a possessed Ed looked superb and in keeping with the first movie. Then, the puppet head they used for the hair eating looked horribly phoney. I preferred the latex and cornflakes make up from TED.
AOD went too far down the comedy route for my liking. It's entertaining but far removed from the original tone. You can see Raimi's progression towards big budget blockbusters like Spider-Man though. Ash had gone from a bit of scaredy-cat to an indifferent Mad Max like character. I preferred the K-Mart ending too.
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