ARMY OF DARKNESS -Blu-ray Review

Sam Raimi's cult horror comedy starts off with a brief recap of events from Evil Dead II, after which our chainsaw-and-shotgun-wielding hero Ash (Bruce Campbell) finds himself trapped in the past and surrounded by medieval knights. They first suspect him to be a foe and sentences him to being consumed by Deadites (a.k.a zombies who know kung-fu) along with a few other suspects. However, armed with his chainsaw, shotg...err... Boomstick, one-liners and (lack of) wits, he becomes the darling of the masses and is bestowed the title of "The Chosen One" who has been brought there to deal with the Deadites. He is tasked with retrieving the "Necronomicon" (Book of the dead) from a Deadite-infested cemetry, in order to have the zombies done for good and to have Ash travel forward in time and back to his normal life... and that's just the first third of the story, folks! 

AOD, from the get-go, is loaded with laughs. Or in Ash's words, AOD is a horror comedy... and horror has already left the town. In any other movie, the aforementioned Deadite-infested cemetry sequence would be fodder for countless scares... but this one is not any other movie, and Raimi and Co. makes the whole scenario a non-stop barrage of Looney Toons-esque gags involving Ash, lots of bones 

and miniature doppelgangers of Ash himself, finally leading to the birth, death and undeath of the film's villain, Evil Ash. And the goofy action-packed finale is testament to the fact that the entire cast and crew - especially the stunt and FX guys - were having the time of their lives with this film. Last but not the least, there's Bruce Campbell who owns the show as Ash 

as well as his evil twin, Evil Ash. Hail to the king, indeed, baby!

Scream Factory has released a truly awesome collector's edition for AOD with three BD-50's, each brimming with content. Disc 1 contains the Theatrical cut with related extras, Disc 2 contains the Director's Cut (which I watched) with related extras and Disc 3 contains the 4k-sourced International cut as well as a TV cut, along with the rest of the extras. The DC looks very good, even though print-related damage can be spotted at places. The DTS-HD MA 5.1 track is a fairly active one, although spatially limited by its Dolby Stereo source.

The extras include a commentary (DC only), a feature-length making-of doc, alternate beginning and ending (for the TC disc only; the DC has these reinstated), another doc on the old-school VFX and quite a few more, which I can't recollect. The cover art is reversible, with one side having the theatrical poster art and the other having the new artwork commissioned by SF (which is used for marketing and release).