72
Metascore
18 reviews · Provided by Metacritic.com
- 100Film ThreatFilm ThreatThanks to Sam Raimi’s inventive style and Bruce Campbell’s hysterical performance, the horror-comedy genre has grown into a legitimate genre, but Evil Dead 2 will forever be the king.
- 90Los Angeles TimesKevin ThomasLos Angeles TimesKevin ThomasEvil Dead 2: Dead by Dawn never lets up, continually introducing new characters and adding new thrills and chills right up to the last frame… A terrific trip, although admittedly not one that everybody would enjoy taking. [13 Mar 1987, Calendar, p.6-14]
- 89Austin ChronicleMarjorie BaumgartenAustin ChronicleMarjorie BaumgartenIn many ways even more hellish and stylish than its predecessor... A horror cult classic.
- 75Chicago Sun-TimesRoger EbertChicago Sun-TimesRoger EbertThe grubby, low-budget intensity of the film gives it a lovable quality that high-tech movies wouldn't have.
- 75Chicago TribuneDave KehrChicago TribuneDave KehrEvil Dead 2 is, pardon the expression, consistently lively--a ghoulish splatter comedy that uses wildly excessive gore to provoke the kind of shock that lies between a laugh and a scream. [10 Apr 1987, Friday, p.M]
- 70TV Guide MagazineTV Guide MagazineA deliriously cinematic experience for those with a taste for Grand Guignol, this is a relentlessly energetic nightmare world where quite literally anything can happen--and does.
- 60VarietyVarietyMore an absurdist comedy than a horror film, Evil Dead II is a flashy good-natured display of special effects and scare tactics so extreme they can only be taken for laughs.
- 50USA TodayMike ClarkUSA TodayMike ClarkBest scenes: Campbell pondering whether to squash her dismembered head in a vice, and a later quandary when he must shotgun his own dismembered hand. Moral: Pimples aren't the worst thing that can happen to your body. [11 Sept 1987, Life, p.3D]
- 50Washington PostRichard HarringtonWashington PostRichard HarringtonThe acting is straight out of '50s B movies. The exposition is clumsy, the sound track corny, the denouement silly. Then again, who said bad taste was easy? [13 Apr 1987, Style, p.b4]
- 30Chicago ReaderChicago ReaderThe effects are just as delirious this time around, but the nightmare poetry has vanished, along with the sense of archetypal purpose and narrative inevitability that held the jack-in-the-box original together.