10 Movie Sequels That Completely Changed Tone
5. Evil Dead 2: Dead By Dawn
Evil Dead 2's chief virtue is its total disregard for its own existence. Sam Raimi's follow-up to his 1981 horror masterpiece The Evil Dead ignores the events of the first film and decides to just do its own thing. Raimi had actually lost the rights to the first film at this point, so he had to recreate a lot of the scenes for the recap at the start of the second. This has led to many believing Dead by Dawn isn't even a sequel, but a remake of the original with a bigger budget.
It might as well be a remake though, when you consider its injection of humour and complete ignorance of the fact that Ash actually dies at the end The Evil Dead (or is at least attacked by an evil spirit).
The setting is identical, but Raimi has stated that he always intended for the first film to be a black comedy and that he felt like he missed the mark. Well, consider the mark well and truly hit with Evil Dead 2. The dark humour is pitch perfect, with one-liners, quips, absurdist body horror and splatter galore.
This is the movie that launched The Evil Dead into a fully fledged franchise with video games, comics, a remake and even a TV series. Groovy.