5. Army of Darkness (1992)
The Happy Ending... Having been transported back in time to Medieval England, Ash Williams fights the zombie haul who are threatening to overtake the world and drinks a potion so he can return to his own time. There, he goes back to working his old job at the S-Mart, when suddenly a terrifying deadite woman attacks him. Grabbing a shotgun, he manages to take her out and prove to everybody just how badass he's become in over the last few months. He pulls a hot co-worker into a kiss, and quips: "Hail to the King, baby."
What We Really Needed... Depending on what part of the world you're in, that ending might not have even been attached to the version you were watching at all: in the US, though, that's the ending that you got, because studio executives were worried that a downer ending wouldn't fare well with audiences - from what I can work out, that ending was still pretty well-received, though. I agree, it's not a bad ending (it's great, in fact), though I still don't think it's right for the
Evil Dead and feels unnecessarily happy. The originally ending that was shot (you can check it out on YouTube if you've got time), which had Ash sleeping too long because he drunk the wrong amount of potion (seriously), had him plunged into a future where the world has been destroyed and nothing but desolate wasteland remains - now that's an
Evil Dead ending. Because I've never felt like Ash was a character who should (or would) catch a break: I like the idea that he's constantly thrown from one horrifying situation to the next.