Evil Dead 2 is a classic that pioneered modern horror comedies, but it also secretly started the requel trend in the 80s. The original The Evil Dead was a low-budget effort that put Sam Raimi and Bruce Campbell on the map. The movie was rough around the edges and featured graphic content that landed it on the infamous "video nasty" list in the U.K. which made it a notorious midnight movie that had to be sought out to be seen.
With Evil Dead 2, Sam Raimi and his crew had a bigger budget to work with, and they aimed for a slightly broader audience. The sillier low-budget elements of the original movie were capitalized on and Evil Dead 2 became a full-blown intentional horror comedy. Evil Dead 2 is thanks to the cult following of the original movie, and in the making of the sequel, Raimi decided for it to be a soft reboot of the original The Evil Dead.
Long before the popularity of requels like Halloween (2018) or Scream (2022), Evil Dead 2 started the trend by using the basic elements of the original movie to create a new story. The beginning of Evil Dead 2 reimagines the story of The Evil Dead and retcons certain elements to fit better into the new story. Instead of a group of friends being affected the first time around, it is just Ash (Campbell) and his girlfriend Linda (Denise Bixler) who encounter the malevolent spirits and set the plot of the sequel into motion, much like the way Halloween (2018) ignores the series after Halloween (1978) and starts fresh with a new timeline.
Evil Dead 2 Was A Requel Out Of Necessity
Raimi wanted to make Evil Dead 2 a more direct sequel, including footage from the first film to tie the two together, but the rights to the first The Evil Dead were lost and they had to rework the original story to start the sequel. Also, unlike the requel films of today, Evil Dead 2 is less concerned about recapturing what made the original special or bringing back legacy characters outside of Ash. It's a requel because Raimi wanted to make a fresh, tonally different story while still honoring the fact that the original movie existed. Because Raimi wanted to make Evil Dead 2 more comedic, the film does not feature the nihilistic tone of the original or some of the more controversial graphically violent scenes, instead going more over-the-top with its horror.
Evil Dead 2 was a secret requel of the original The Evil Dead because Raimi wanted to rework the story to appeal to a wider audience. While it does feature some of the elements that made modern requels work, it was made this way because it needed to be, not to cash in on a familiar name. Raimi wanted to get his work seen by as many people as possible, and to do so he had to reboot his controversial "video nasty" original while still making it feel like an appropriate continuation of the series.
