7. Army of Darkness (1992)
This was a bit of a toss-up on where to place this in Raimi's overall resume. It's a cult classic, the end of the Evil Dead trilogy, and sees Bruce Campbell in his best leading man situation, delivering lines like "Give me some sugar". It has plenty of campy moments and revels in it which distracts from the overall story. At times, it stays true to the previous films and at other times goes completely sideways. It takes the humor of the 2nd Evil Dead and pulls it into the light of day and makes it much less scary, but it looks like Raimi enjoyed making it and it shows what could (dangerously) happen if he was allowed complete artistic license. This is a film primarily for hardcore Sam Raimi buffs, a cult favorite with plenty of inside jokes that have made it into pop culture (this is my BOOMSTICK, shop smart, shop S-mart, you must say the words, etc.). It even became a video game and chainsaw hand Ash is an iconic action figure. It has some of the usual camera movements now expected from the previous Evil Dead flicks, and some curious new ones. It delves into The Three Stooges territory as well, with a bit of Gulliver's Travels thrown in, too. In theory, this is supposed to be the same weekend as the original Evil Dead, but there is no explanation to why Ash has aged twenty years. Who cares, we suppose? It's an adventurous film that you will either love it or hate it, so I guess right in the middle seems a good place as any. While the studios allowed him great leeway in the filming of Army, they did insist on a change to the ending, and while sometimes studio heads get it wrong, I have to think this was a way better ending, as by this time most true Raimi/Campbell fans were able to just accept that a display case lever action shotgun would be loaded and
holds this many rounds .