Army Of Darkness

DVD Details: Anamorphic Widescreen/Fullscreen Audio Tracks: English, Commentary Track Subtitles: English Talent Bios/Filmographies "The Men Behind The Army" Featurette 4 Deleted Scenes Storyboards R, 81 minutes/Unrated, 96 minutes

If you've never seen Army of Darkness, it's kind of hard to describe exactly what the point of the movie is. The 3rd in the Evil Dead series, this one is much more fun than either of the earlier two. Basically our hero, Ash (Bruce Campbell), has been transported back in time, and the only way to get back is to use the Necronomicon Ex Mortis, an evil book, to say the least. Well, he finds the book, says some words, and yadda yadda yadda, he gets back. As some of you already know, the yadda yadda yadda actually involves some (a lot) of fighting with skeletons, but in the end everything works out ok. Well, that's only if you watch the theatrical version. The Director's cut is understandably darker, and ends on a much sadder (but more appropriate) note.

The anamorphic widescreen transfer of the movie is very good, although the first shot seems to be very grainy. I was somewhat frightened when I first saw this, but almost instantly it gets better. There's also a full-frame option to the movie (this is actually a choice you must make before you watch the movie), and you can switch on the fly. I prefer the widescreen, but I've learned never to look a full-frame version in the mouth. The director's cut is strictly anamorphic, and is only in 2.0 Dolby Surround, whereas the Theatrical disc is in 5.1 Dolby Surround.

There's a very nice commentary track on the Director's cut, and Bruce Campbell is actually the most interesting of everyone. It seems like he remembers making the movie a lot better than the people behind the camera. I'm glad the commentary track was on the Director's Cut, since this means it's a bit longer, and they can talk about the scenes that were deleted/changed. If you've seen this movie more than a few times, the commentary track is nice to get a fresh view of the movie.

As for extras, the theatrical disc contains the original ending, as well as the Featurette "The Men Behind the Army." You may be asking yourself, "Hey, Luke, why'd they include the original ending when the Director's cut has it?" Well buddy, I'll tell you. When they decided to re-release the Army of Darkness DVD, they decided to have two versions. One would include a newly restored copy of the movie, with a couple extras, and the other version would include that disc, plus ANOTHER one with the Director's Cut and a few more extras. They wanted to let anyone who bought a newer DVD to be able to see the original ending, so they had to put it on the Theatrical Release Disc as an extra.

The extras are all good, and seeing some deleted scenes and storyboards is always a plus. The Featurette gives a pretty good behind the scenes look at the special effects. I wish there was some way to just watch the parts of the movie with all the famous lines from the movie, ("Come Get Some", "Give me some sugar, baby", etc.) but that would probably be asking too much. Only 30,000 copies of the two-disc set were made, which is small considering over 4 million stand-alone players were around when this set was released. If you're a big fan of this movie, I really recommend it, especially if you never bought the original Army of Darkness DVD that was released a couple years ago.