Raimi delivers. At this point, I'm not sure whether he's a genius or certifiable (perhaps a bit of both), but Evil Dead 2 is the horror equivalent of the hardest drugs there are: it bypasses logic and heads straight for your pleasure centers.

| Mar 29, 2023

For those who respond by screaming back at the movie while swallowing its junk food aesthetic, this may be the best time they've had in quite a while.

| Original Score: 7/10 | Mar 29, 2023

Keep your eye on Raimi: it's not easy to pitch a comedy at a level this flamboyant and then keep topping the gags.

| Mar 29, 2023

Taken at face value, it's a so-so horror thriller oozing gore. But add a star if you can approach this sequel to The Evil Dead as a decidedly campy follow-up to the original.

| Original Score: 1/4 | Mar 29, 2023

Raimi combines animation, models and process photography with dazzling camera angles and sharp cutting to create a marvelous collection of tricks. I hope someone gives him a chance to make a better movie some day.

| Mar 29, 2023

Bruce Campbell, more gifted an actor than his infrequent screen assignments indicate, here turns visceral shock to slapstick ballet -- achieving revulsion through delicacy of motion.

| Original Score: 8/10 | Mar 29, 2023

In [the first] Evil Dead, Raimi's fast-forward style and Looney Tunes sensibility were the amusing juvenilia of a snappy new talent... To make one film like that may be regarded as an indulgence; to make two looks like a serious lack of real ideas.

| Mar 29, 2023

Evil Dead 2 is neither scary nor funny. It is about as enjoyable as a kick in the lower abdomen.

| Mar 29, 2023

Raimi is a good, energetic filmmaker having an eye-ball within the confines of a somewhat restricting genre, and making rather a lot of loot in the bargain.

| Mar 29, 2023

Evil Dead 2 is too ludicrous to be subversive.

| Mar 28, 2023

No matter how much money Bruce Campbell received to play Ash, one can't help feeling that he was underpaid. One wonders if any leading man, or even a stuntman, has ever had such a workout.

| Mar 28, 2023

A movie like this is clearly fun for aficionados; neither the violence nor the people are real, and if you don't care about the victims, slaughter can be a spectator sport.

| Original Score: 2/4 | Mar 28, 2023

Evil Dead 2 isn't everyone's bucket of blood, but it does happen to be the most intentionally funny slasher movie ever. It's the kind of surrealist slapstick Salvador Dalí might have created if he'd directed The Three Stooges.

| Original Score: 2/4 | Mar 28, 2023

Worse (slightly) than looking at a film like Sam Raimi's Evil Dead 2 must be appearing in it.

| Mar 28, 2023

The Evil Dead 2 is much the same as its predecessor, with the same attraction of treating the schlock-horror school of cinema with the disrespect due to it.

| Mar 28, 2023

Just when things start getting too grisly, Raimi rushes in with a hilarious, sendup joke to remind us that all this blood and guts is meant in spooky Grand Guignol fun.

| Oct 1, 2013

Evil Dead 2 is, pardon the expression, consistently lively -- a ghoulish splatter comedy that uses wildly excessive gore to provoke the kind of shock that lies between a laugh and a scream.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Oct 1, 2013

Evil Dead 2's rampant inventiveness and manic energy have ensured that it will endure as a cult classic.

| Oct 1, 2013

First and foremost, [Raimi's] gonzo aesthetics are interested in high-wire kicks, of which there are plenty throughout.

| Original Score: B+ | Mar 29, 2010

The gaudily gory, virtuoso, hyper-kinetic horror sequel/remake uses every trick in the cinematic book, and confirms that Bruce Campbell and Raimi are gods.

| Original Score: 5/5 | Sep 21, 2007