Back in high school, my ignorant ass was introduced to Army of Darkness, and at the time I had no idea that it was actually part three of the Evil Dead series. I also had no idea who Bruce Campbell was, but I quickly recognized his natural charisma and knack for physical comedy. While Evil Dead 2 is my favorite of the series, Army was my first taste of the wonderful world of Bruce Campbell and Sam Raimi, so it will always hold a special place in my mind for that.

I'm aware that there are probably only three people out there who haven't seen this movie by now, but it's such a horror classic that it needs to be featured here anyway, however unnecessary that may actually be. There are just FAR too many awesome moments to focus on them all, so I'm just going to go over a few of my own personal favorites that show Sam Raimi's predilection for cheesy and Bruce's true gift for physical comedy.

The movie picks up where Evil Dead 2 left off, with Ash having gone through the mysterious vortex only to discover that he's traveled back to medieval times, and no, I'm not talking about the restaurant. Ash quickly finds himself captured into a chain gang and taken to a castle, where he gets tossed into an open pit with an unknown evil lurking inside. While getting pounded in a hilarious fight with the creature, a sagely wise man tosses his chainsaw down into the pit. Ash sees it falling towards him, jumps up into the air, catches it on his arm and it lines up and clicks into place in one smooth motion. As soon as I saw this moment, I knew this movie was going to be a real gem.

Once armed with his chainsaw, he makes short work of the beast and comes back up top where he threatens the locals in a really condescending way and terrifies them all with his shotgun, which he calls his "boomstick".

After he's won their respect by killing the creature, he hangs around the castle for a bit, recuperating and learning what he can about his situation. During this time he fashions himself a new low-tech steampunk gauntlet hand replacement, which he can conveniently swap out with his chainsaw attachment.

He is told by the sagely wise man that in order to go home he must fetch the Necronomicon and bring it back to the castle. But on his way there he beset by that faceless evil that pursued him in the first movie, and he soon finds himself fighting a bunch of mini-Ashes that manifest from pieces of a broken mirror. They do all kinds of great things to him like stab him in the ass with a fork and make him fall onto a hot stove so that he has to scrape his face off.

Then he ends up splitting in two, so we're left with a Good Ash and an Evil Ash, and this is where he continues to show off his talent for physical comedy. Initially both Ashes share the same body, so you have one guy with two heads, and he ends up fighting with himself Three Stooges style, poking himself in the eyes and punching himself in the face.

After Evil Ash splits off completely, he taunts Good Ash by singing annoying little songs calling him "little goody two shoes" and dancing around while punching him in the face. Bruce Campbell makes some wonderfully insane faces during this whole sequence and it really is a joy to watch.

Eventually Good Ash wins by shooting Evil Ash in the face with his shotgun, and then he ties him down and chops his head off with the chainsaw. I just love this expression on Evil Ash's face as the chainsaw is coming down on him.

But of course, that doesn't stop Evil Ash at all, as the head still taunts him even as he buries it, and he comes back later as the main villain of the movie. In the meantime though, Ash makes his way to the Necronomicon and picks it up, but says the wrong mystical words as he does so, causing all the dead in the surrounding graveyard to rise.

There are plenty of hilarious moments of Three Stooges-style physical comedy here, but my absolute favorite one is when Ash simply looks toward the camera with a look of absolute horror on his face right before a half dozen or so skeletal hands punch him in the face all at once. It's such a perfect moment (this animated .gif without the sound doesn't do it justice) that it never fails to crack me up every time I watch it.

That's a pretty good (but small) sampling of some of the funnier moments in the film. I'll refrain from showing any more or giving away how the movie ends for those of you who haven't seen it. Speaking of which, if you ARE one of those unfortunate depraved souls, GET YOUR ASS TO A VIDEO STORE NOW AND RENT ALL THREE OF THE EVIL DEAD MOVIES. Better yet, just go run out and buy them, for that is something that is impossible to regret.

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"I'm Talky Tina. And I don't like you."

The Twilight Zone.

The episode was called "Child's Play" (no, not from the "Chuck" movies which came later). Telly Savalas was a rotten Step Father. Talky Tina was a doll. A scary, evil, Murderous doll.

"I'm Talky Tina and I'm going to kill you."

A simple, inanimate piece of plastic. And every time the camera focused on her unchanging sweet doll face, she got scarier.

"I'm Talky Tina. And you better be nice to me."

And here's some spooky Trivia. The voice of Talky Tina was June Foray, who not only voiced Rocky the Flying Squirrel, she was also the actual voice used for Chatty Kathy, the very real, very commercially available doll on which Talky Tina was based. THAT is some scary ass shit.

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