Evil Dead II (also known in publicity materials as Evil Dead 2: Dead by Dawn) is a 1987 American comedy horror film directed by Sam Raimi, who co-wrote it with Scott Spiegel. It is the sequel to The Evil Dead (1981) and the second installment in the Evil Dead franchise. It stars Bruce Campbell as Ash Williams, who vacations with his girlfriend to a remote cabin in the woods. He discovers an audio tape of recitations from a book of ancient texts, and when the recording is played, it unleashes a number of demons which possess and torment him.
After the critical and commercial failure of Crimewave (1985), Raimi, producer Rob Tapert, and Campbell began work on a sequel to The Evil Dead at the insistence of their publicist Irvin Shapiro. Having endorsed the original film, author Stephen King brought the project to the attention of producer Dino De Laurentiis, with whom he had been making his directorial debut Maximum Overdrive (1986). De Laurentiis agreed to provide financial backing, and assigned the filmmakers a considerably larger budget than they had worked with on the original film. Although Raimi had devised a premise set in the Middle Ages and involving time travel, De Laurentiis requested that the film be similar to its predecessor.
Evil Dead II was shot in Wadesboro, North Carolina and Detroit, Michigan in 1986, and featured extensive stop-motion animation and prosthetic makeup effects created by a team of artists that included Mark Shostrom, Greg Nicotero, Robert Kurtzman and Tom Sullivan, the latter of whom returned from the original film. The finished film was released in the United States on March 13, 1987; due to its high level of violence, it was released through a pseudonymous distributor to curb an anticipated X rating from the Motion Picture Association of America. Much like The Evil Dead, it was widely acclaimed by critics, who praised its humor, Raimi's direction, and Campbell's performance; many have considered it superior to its predecessor and similarly as one of the greatest horror films ever made. Despite being given a somewhat limited release, it was a minor box office success, grossing just under $6 million.
As with the first film, Evil Dead II has accumulated a large, international cult following. In 1992, it was followed by the direct sequel Army of Darkness, which utilized Raimi's original premise; in 2013, it was followed by standalone sequel Evil Dead; and in 2015, it was followed by the television series Ash vs Evil Dead, a direct sequel to the first three films. A fifth film in the series, Evil Dead Rise, was released on April 21, 2023. A sixth film, Evil Dead Burn, was released on July 10, 2026. A prequel, Evil Dead Wrath, is set to be released on April 7, 2028.
Plot
Michigan State University students Ash Williams and his girlfriend, Linda, take a romantic getaway to a seemingly abandoned cabin in the woods. While in it, Ash plays a tape of archaeologist Raymond Knowby, the cabin's previous inhabitant, reciting passages from the "Book of the Dead", Necronomicon Ex-Mortis, which he uncovered during an archaeological dig. The recorded incantation unleashes an unseen evil force, known as the Kandarian Demon, that kills and possesses Linda, turning her into a "deadite". Ash decapitates Linda with a shovel and buries her in a shallow grave near the cabin. As dawn approaches, the evil force throws Ash through the woods. He briefly becomes possessed by the demon, but the sunlight expels it from him.
Ash attempts to flee the area but finds that the bridge to the cabin has been destroyed. The entity chases him back to the cabin, where Linda's revived head bites his hand. He runs to the toolshed and destroys the deadite Linda with a chainsaw, but his bitten right hand becomes possessed and tries to kill him. Ash severs it with the chainsaw and tries to shoot it with a shotgun, but the hand mocks him and escapes. Meanwhile, Knowby's daughter Annie and her research partner, Ed Getley, return from the dig with the missing pages of the Necronomicon. Blocked by the destroyed bridge, they enlist handyman Jake and his girlfriend Bobby Joe to lead them to the cabin on foot. There they find an embattled Ash, who accidentally grazes Bobby Joe while trying to shoot his possessed hand. Assuming that he murdered Annie's parents, the newcomers lock him in the cellar.
The four new arrivals listen to the rest of the tape recording, where Knowby explains that he killed his wife Henrietta after she was possessed by the Kandarian Demon, then buried her in the cellar. The deadite Henrietta bursts from her grave and possesses Ed, whom Ash, now freed from the cellar, dismembers with an axe. Bobby Joe flees through the woods when Ash's severed hand latches onto hers, but demonically possessed trees drag her to her death. Annie translates two of the Necronomicons pages, which portray a fabled hero with a blade for a hand and detail a ritual that will make the evil take physical form and then open a portal through which it may be banished. Before they can perform the ritual, Jake turns on them and throws the pages into the cellar, forcing them at gunpoint to locate Bobby Joe. In the woods, Ash becomes possessed once more and attacks Jake. Annie retreats to the cabin and accidentally stabs Jake with a Kandarian dagger, mistaking him for the possessed Ash, before Henrietta kills him. Deadite Ash tries to kill Annie, but returns to his normal self upon seeing Linda's necklace.
With Annie's help, Ash modifies the chainsaw, attaches it to the stump of his right arm, and cuts the shotgun's barrel. After finding the missing pages of the Necronomicon in the cellar, Ash kills Henrietta. Annie starts reciting the incantation, which makes the demon physically manifest and attack Ash. As she attempts to finish the incantation, Ash's severed hand stabs her in the back. Annie completes the ritual with her dying breath, opening up a whirling temporal vortex which sucks in not only the demon, but also Ash and his Oldsmobile Delta 88.
Ash and his Oldsmobile land in the Middle Ages. A group of knights confront him and initially mistake him for a deadite, but when a harpy-like Deadite appears and Ash blasts it with his shotgun, they hail him as their champion. Realizing that he is the hero prophesied in the book, Ash breaks down and screams in dismay.
Cast
Bruce Campbell as Ash Williams, who ventures out to a cabin in the woods with his girlfriend Linda and discovers a recording of the Necronomicon Ex-Mortis, the Sumerian Book of the Dead Sarah Berry as Annie Knowby, the daughter of Professor Knowby Dan Hicks as Jake, a gas station owner and Bobby Joe's boyfriend Kassie Wesley as Bobby Joe, Jake's girlfriend Denise Bixler as Linda, Ash's girlfriend Snowy Winters as Dancing demon Linda Richard Domeier as Professor Ed Getley, an archeology professor and the boyfriend of Annie Knowby John Peaks as Professor Knowby, Annie Knowby's father, who unearthed the Necronomicon Lou Hancock as Henrietta Knowby, Annie Knowby's mother Ted Raimi as Possessed Henrietta William Preston Robertson as the voice of the Evil Dead
Production Development The concept of a sequel to The Evil Dead was discussed during location shooting on the first film. Irvin Shapiro, the film's publicist, pushed writer/director Sam Raimi to devise a premise for such a film. Working with screenwriter Sheldon Lettich, Raimi settled on a story in which Ash was sucked through a time portal to the Middle Ages, where he would encounter more deadites. Shapiro was enticed by the concept, and took out advertisements in trade magazines to promote the project, then titled Evil Dead II: Evil Dead and the Army of Darkness, in May 1984. After Universal Pictures and 20th Century Fox passed on it, the sequel was shelved in favor of Raimi's next film, Crimewave (1985), a comedy/crime film co-written with Joel and Ethan Coen.
After Crimewave was released to critical and audience disinterest, Raimi and his partners at Renaissance Pictures, producer Rob Tapert and actor and co-producer Bruce Campbell, took Shapiro up on his sequel offer, knowing that another flop would further stall their already-lagging careers. Development of Evil Dead II initially began in collaboration with Embassy Pictures, which had co-financed and distributed Crimewave, but the filmmakers eventually felt that they were being stalled after five months' pre-production work, and began conducting interviews with prospective cast and crew members. Around this time, producer Dino De Laurentiis, the owner of production and distribution company De Laurentiis Entertainment Group (DEG), asked Raimi if he would be interested in directing an adaptation of the Stephen King novel Thinner. Raimi turned down the offer, but De Laurentiis remained in touch with the young filmmaker.
The Thinner adaptation was part of a deal between De Laurentiis and King to produce several adaptations of King's successful horror novels and short stories. At the time, King was directing the first such adaptation, Maximum Overdrive (1986), based on his short story "Trucks". He had dinner with a crew member who had been among those interviewed by Raimi and his colleagues about Evil Dead II, and told King that the film was having trouble attracting funding. Upon hearing this, King, who had written a glowing review of the first film that helped it become an audience favorite at Cannes, called De Laurentiis and asked him to fund the film. While he was initially skeptical, De Laurentiis met with Renaissance, who highlighted the first film's extremely high revenue in the Italian market. Within twenty minutes, De Laurentiis agreed to finance Evil Dead II for $3.6 million. Raimi and Tapert had desired $4 million for the production, but De Laurentiis requested a film that was similar to its predecessor instead of their original medieval-themed proposal, which was instead used for the second sequel, Army of Darkness (1992).
Writing Despite Raimi's crew having only recently received the funding necessary to produce the film, the script had been written for some time, having been composed largely during the production of Crimewave. Raimi contacted his old friend Scott Spiegel, who had collaborated with Campbell and others on the Super 8 mm films they had produced during their childhood in Michigan. Most of these films had been comedies, and Spiegel felt that Evil Dead II should be less straight horror than the first. Initially, the opening sequence included all five of the original film's characters; however, in an effort to save time and money, all but Ash and Linda were cut from the final draft. The film went through several other drafts, including a group of escaped convicts holding Ash captive in the cabin while searching for buried treasure.
Spiegel and Raimi wrote most of the film in their house in Silver Lake, Los Angeles, California, where they were living with the aforementioned Coen brothers, as well as actors Frances McDormand, Kathy Bates, and Holly Hunter (the primary inspiration for the Bobby Joe character). Due both to the distractions of their house guests and the films they were involved with, Crimewave and Josh Becker's Thou Shalt Not Kill... Except, the script took a long time to finish.