Ok, so if you are reading this, I hope that you have seen the movie. Because I'm only going to briefly summarize it now.

 

A lot of people didn't realize Army of Darkness was the 3rd installment of the evil dead franchise upon its release. However, if any fan of the films saw the trailer, they knew exactly what it was.

 

Army of Darkness picks up right where evil dead 2 leaves off. Ash is stranded in what appears to be the middle ages, and is taken into custody.

 

The deadites are here in this time as well, and only Ash can save them all. Of course, only after he royally fucks things up.

 

Now let's talk about the director's cut of this film.

 

Director's Cut version, was the 5th DVD version of this film, and at this point can only be considered another attempt at bilking the legions of fans out of their hard earned money.

 

This is one of three copies I own, and I am more than willing to buy many many more, especially if the next one comes with Bruce Campbells spleen encased in Waterford chrystal.

 

Army of Darkness: The Director's Cut sucks. There, I said it. Send me your hate mail, but I think deep down you feel the same way and just don't want to admit it. Now I'm not saying that the FILM sucks, mind you, I am reviewing it's the presentation here.

 

You see, my problem is that this version is basically a hybrid of the two disc special edition from a couple of years earlier.

 

That one gave us both the original, the directors cut, the deleted scenes that make up the directors cut, and a bunch of great stuff we expect to see.

 

Instead, we have been given this version of the film, with those deleted scenes inserted into the main body of the original, and the results are beyond hideous.

 

The deleted scenes have not been cleaned, doctored, or color matched, they are just stuffed in there, so that when a "new" scene pops up it looks like one of the bootlegs of halloween 6 the producers cut, fuzzy, dark, ugly, and incomplete.

 

It's an unforgiveable thing to do to the fans, because we basically created an empire out of the Evil Dead trilogy through home video alone, and there is more than enough money to go back and clean these scenes up enough to make them less obtrusive. Go watch it again, and you'll see what I mean.

 

In addition to the fact that these scenes are ugly, they also show why they were deleted in the first place!

 

The segments involving Ash's (Campbell) Three Stooges antics at the graveyard are stretched out to intolerable lengths, especially since I felt that they went on maybe a little too long in the theatrical cut, at half the length. Raimi and Campbell are obviously huge fans of the Stooges, and that's great, but an homage is one thing, a full on 20 minute segment is overkill.

 

While I prefer the Director's Cut ending over the S-Mart conclusion in the Theatrical Cut, once again, this is presented as a grainy, incomplete tack on, and just infuriated me.
 

When I see DIRECTOR'S CUT, I expect a full blown, hands on release, not the equivalent to a pirate copy procured from a horror convention.
 

We do get scads of extras, but nothing more than previous special editions, so if you already have the two disc LE, or the single disc LE, you're pretty much covered.

 

That's all I really have to say on this film.
 

I love the army of darkness, but this release was a little bit of a slap in the face to us as fans.

 

Of course, me being the type of person I am, had to buy the next few editions to come out as well, including the bootleg edition, and the boomstick edition. Collecting is a curse in an of itself.

 

Till Next Time Kiddies...

 

-RJ