Film Friday: Army of Darkness (1992)

Army of Darkness fascinates me. This film shouldn’t work. It can’t decide if it’s serious or a comedy, which means it’s neither funny nor scary nor action-packed, and its hero is intensely unlikeable. Yet, this film works. Indeed, it’s become a cult classic because it works so well. Why does it work? Bruce Campbell.

** spoiler alert **

Army of Darkness is the third in Sam Raimi’s Evil Dead trilogy, though it’s nothing at all like the first two. This is the story of Ash Williams (Bruce Campbell) a clerk at S-Mart, a low-end chain store, who gets pulled through a time portal to the 14th Century. Once there, he’s immediately captured by Lord Arthur, who believes Ash is a spy for a rival. Arthur throws Ash into a pit to fight a Deadite, an undead creature. Ash (sort of) kills the Deadite with his rifle and is soon celebrated as a hero.

As the hero, Ash is sent on a quest to obtain a magic book, the Necronomicon Ex-Mortis. This book will rid the kingdom of evil and will allow Arthur’s wise men to send Ash back to the future, but he must use magic words before picking up the book. On his journey, Ash encounters a haunted forest and fights various copies of himself. When he finally finds the book, he fails to say the magic words (“Klaatu barada nikto”) properly so that he can take the book away safely. As a result an army of the undead arises and comes after him, and things go wrong(er) from there.

Army of Darkness shouldn’t work. Indeed, nothing about this film suggests it would be enjoyable. The plot, what there is of it, is pathetically simple, and indeed it ends up more a collection of gags than a plot. The characters are shallow and uninteresting -- you won’t even remember their names. The film itself can’t decide if it’s horror, action or comedy, and it meanders into all three areas without ever really being good at any of those genres. And the real kicker is Ash. He’s a truly unlikeable blowhard. He’s arrogant, stupid and a real jerk. He doesn’t care about anyone except himself, he constantly gets into trouble because he’s unwilling to admit he’s overmatched and he won’t accept help, he’s unreliable, and he never once learns from his mistakes. . . in fact, that’s a running gag. In real life, you would absolutely hate this man. And even on film, it should be impossible to like him.

Yet, this film really works, and the reason it works is because Ash is such a compelling character. He’s compelling because he’s a train wreck waiting to happen. Ash does everything wrong every time. But not only does he do everything wrong, he knows he’s doing it wrong! This is where Campbell’s acting comes into play.

Under normal circumstance, a character who is arrogant and refuses to admit he’s wrong will annoy an audience. To make such a character palatable to the audience, most actors make the character into a bit of a farce, by making the character oblivious -- as Peter Sellers did with Inspector Clouseau or Mike Meyers did with Dr. Evil. Campbell makes a different choice. He tells the audience directly that Ash knows he’s making a mistake, but he lacks the strength of personality to change his ways.

Consider, for example, the scene where Ash is supposed to say the magic words “Klaatu barada nikto.” He knows he’s forgotten the final word, as evidenced by his nervous look before he says the words. But he’s too lazy to go back and ask. So instead, he proudly says the first two words and then tries to cover the third word with a cough, as if he could fool the universe itself. Then he looks around nervously to see if anything bad has happened. When he sees nothing bad, he becomes intensely proud of himself and acts like he got away with it, but he finishes with a quick, nervous glance to tell the audience he knows he’s kidding himself. Then he grabs the book and sets events into motion.

Now consider what he’s done here. First, he alerts us there is a problem. This gets the audience to hold their breath in anticipation of how this crisis will be solved. Then he tries to fake the words, which gets the audience laughing at his stupidity. Then he very arrogantly acts like he got away with it. That’s the set up moment because now you know there will be a train wreck coming. Indeed, every time Ash acts arrogantly, you know he’s about to take a beating. But then he flashes you that brief look to tell you he knows he’s about to take a beating. . . but he does it anyway. This last moment is what makes him likeable. The fact he forgot the word is annoying. His solution is laughable. His arrogance should be off-putting. But the fact he admits that he knows he’s in trouble and then goes ahead and acts anyway is genius. It puts us entirely on his side because it exposes “the real character” underneath, who is willing to plow ahead despite being fully well aware that he’s out of his league and who knows that his own flaws make his problems worse.

In this regard, Ash is very similar to Jack Burton (Kurt Russell) from Big Trouble In Little China. Burton is another character who is big on self-aggrandizement and short on worthwhile skills. But as with Ash, you enjoy watching blowhard Burton because Russell gives you little suggestions throughout that “the real Burton” knows he’s out of his league, yet he continues nevertheless.

In a strange sort of way, this makes these characters endearing. Both Burton and Ash have tragic flaws, just like every other tragic hero written. But whereas other tragic heroes are unaware of their flaws and are undone by them, and thus are tragic, Burton and Ash are both well aware of their flaws yet they are unwilling to fix them. Yet, despite being fully aware of this, both Burton and Ash are ultimately truly heroic because they charge forward even when they know they are about to take a beating. And this puts the audience in an odd spot of simultaneously cheering for the characters, because they are ultimately brave and noble, but also wanting to see them take a beating because they’re jerks who deserve it. This makes them compelling. But it’s the great acting skills of Russell and Campbell which sell this dichotomy to the audience. A little to either side, either the more serious side or the more comedic side, and these characters wouldn’t have worked at all.

I guess the takeaway from this film is that you can wrap your hero in some rather unappealing personality traits so long as they project the right values through their actions and so long as you have an actor people are inclined to like no matter how much they misbehave.

Thoughts?