10 Unexpected And Surprising Horror Movie Sequels

At the end of Sam Raimi’s Evil Dead II (1987), protagonist Ash (Bruce Campbell) tumbles through an interdimensional portal where he hits the ground with a thump and is surrounded by men on horse-back in what appears to be medieval Europe. Not the ending viewers may have expected following the events of the Evil Dead films up to this point. And if this was surprising then what followed later in Army of Darkness (1992), took the change in tone to a whole new level.

Ash begins the third movie as a slave and is thrown into a dungeon pit and forced to fight a demon for the entertainment of his captors. He wins which then sees him then treated like a lord, but his primary concern is getting back home to the present day. Army Of Darkness is a full-on medieval fantasy/horror/comedy, unique for the time and the best in The Evil Dead series, showcasing Sam Raimi as a highly forward thinking and creative film-maker.

Ash must complete a quest to find the Necronomicon (The Book of the Dead), which he is told has magic passages that once read can send him home. But the land is over run with demons trying to thwart his mission at every turn. The movie is a ludicrous take on popular fantasy films from the eighties such as Conan the Barbarian (1982), and provides an amusing back story on the origins of the Book of the Dead, and the ‘Deadite’ demons who possess it.