Whatever pretense I may once have put up about not showing my sons R-rated movies for our Film After 11 podcast went out the window a while ago. For an episode we recorded on Halloween, I fully gave up and let Thomas watch Army of Darkness, the third movie in Sam Raimi’s gorefest Evil Dead horror series. [Full disclosure: We’d already watched the first two together off-podcast a few months ago.]
I maintain that this is not bad parenting. Many 12-year-old boys develop an interest in watching bloody horror movies at precisely this age, and I did so myself. For that matter, Army of Darkness leans much more heavily toward comedy than horror, and isn’t nearly as gory as The Evil Dead or Evil Dead 2. If anything, Thomas wanted more blood and guts.
| Title: | Army of Darkness |
| Year of Release: | 1992 |
| Director: | Sam Raimi |
| Watched On: | 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray |
| Also Available On: | Blu-ray AMC+ Various VOD rental and purchase platforms |
The 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray
The Evil Dead movies have been released, and re-released, and re-re-released on home video so many times that it long ago became a running joke to ask how soon the next one would show up. For Army of Darkness, the most recent round arrived in 2022 as a 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray Collector’s Edition from Shout! Factory (under the Scream Factory sub-label). The package contains four different versions of the movie: the Theatrical Cut, the Director’s Cut, an International Cut, and a censored TV Cut. Of those, only the Theatrical Cut is presented in 4K. That seems to be most fans’ favorite version of the movie anyway.
The 4K transfer is sharp enough to expose details like matte lines, fuzzy optical composites, and dirt on the camera lens even more clearly than they’d been visible on the Blu-ray, which was already more than the filmmakers likely ever wanted. The 1.85:1 image might also be a smidge too bright, sometimes causing blood to look a fake shade of red. Still, I think this is an appreciable upgrade sure to please fans.
The soundtrack is offered in DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 or 2.0 options, both carried over from the prior Blu-ray. I chose the 5.1 track and, because I was watching with my son, didn’t have any opportunity to compare against the 2.0 version. The 5.1 makes pretty good use of surround activity and has a fair amount of loud bass, but sounds a little thin and that bass never digs into the lower registers.
The other three discs in the package appear to be duplicates of Shout! Factory’s previous Collector’s Edition Blu-ray package from 2015. First is a regular Blu-ray copy of the Theatrical Cut, followed by the Director’s Cut on its own disc, while the International Cut and TV Cut are grouped together on the last.
The 4K Disc itself has no bonus features, but the others contain a bevy of documentaries, featurettes, interviews, deleted scenes, marketing materials, and more. The Director’s Cut has an audio commentary by director Sam Raimi, star Bruce Campbell, and co-writer Ivan Raimi. I believe most of these have been around the block a few times.
Related
Note: Screenshots on this page were taken from the Blu-ray edition of the film and are used for illustration purposes only.
