This drawing was done as a commission for a client who has bought a lot of my original art. And now for a few words on the movie it pays tribute to...

I like "Army of Darkness" a lot... but I don't love it... "AOD" is easily my least favorite of the "Evil Dead" movies. Here's why: I was 10 years old in 1982, when the first "Evil Dead" came out. That original film was too obscure for me to catch it in the theater at that young age, but I had the Fangoria magazine with pictures from it and I had read Stephen King's review where he famously referred to "Evil Dead" as "A black rainbow of horror" and "The most ferociously terrifying film of the year"... So by the time I finally caught it on video tape, a couple of years later, in say 1984 or '85, I was all fired up, and boy did that movie deliver the goods. The original "Evil Dead" was one of the best horror films of the 80's. There was just an outta-control, sloppy, messy, chaos to it that was scary just because of how crazy it was... with all that gushing blood, and axe-dismemberments, and screaming, wailing demon-people. It was a classic, and it became one of my favorite movies ever.

Based on that experience, nobody was more excited than me when "Evil Dead 2: Dead By Dawn" came out a few years later. But when I saw it the first time, I had really mixed feelings about it. Sure it delivered some more crazy horror violence, but it was so damn silly, which kinda turned me off at the time. They even had green blood instead of red blood, to tone down the impact of the gore! The movie has grown on me (a LOT) in the years since, but I remember when "Evil Dead 2" was brand new, I was really kinda disappointed that it wasn't half as ferocious as the first one.

Then some years later "Evil Dead 3" came out, but it wasn't even called "Evil Dead 3" it was just called "Army of Darkness". I went in not sure what to expect, and got a movie that had totally moved away from the savagery of the first film and had totally embraced the goofy comedy of the second. So I had mixed feelings again, but eventually, as with "Evil Dead 2", I did learn to enjoy "Army of Darkness", in its own way.

A strange thing has happened in the years since. Somehow, "Army of Darkness" has become a really popular (in my opinion, disproportionately popular) cult film... while at the same time, the first 2 movies seem to have become increasingly ignored. This seems especially true among non-horror fans. I've heard a lot of mainstream comic book/ super-hero fans praise "Army of Darkness" but never mention "Evil Dead"...to the extent that it makes me wonder if some of these people are even aware that "Army of Darkness" is not an original film unto itself, but only the 3rd (and weakest) film in a series of movies called "Evil Dead". It's just strange...

Anyway, sorry, I don't mean to be a snob about it. At the end of the day, yeah, I like "Army of Darkness". It has a lot of cool stuff in it, and it is definitely entertaining. But I admit, I also have a little bit of a chip on my shoulder toward it, for achieving an almost obnoxious level of popularity, thanks mostly to non-horror fans who shun its far superior predecessors.