My first thought was how easily this definition made it to figure out when in my life I became a hipster--a label I'd never considered for myself until then. I'd seen the first two Evil Dead films in middle school, and thought they were okay. There were better bad movies out there--some of which I loved, most of which I dismissed--and there were certainly better good movies. And it's interesting how that's the period in my life when I fell in love with the Coen Brothers, but didn't think as highly of Sam Raimi--who were helped by the Coens on at least one Evil Dead.

But then I saw Army of Darkness, the third Evil Dead movie in high school and everything suddenly clicked. I laughed at places I should have cringed, and rewound the tape over and over to watch Bruce Campbell as Sam Ash throwing away a damsel (at the end, back at the S-Mart) or well-crafted line ("Shop smart. Shop S-Mart!"). And when Embeth Davidtz showed up in Schindler's List, and when I finally got to see the original ending on the AoD DVD ("No! I slept too long!"), it was like little gems had been hidden for me, a big payoff for years of devoted fandom. Though I still like the S-Mart ending better.

Today the Bruce Campbell cameos are my favorite moments in Raimi's two Spider-man films, and Army of Darkness has a prominent place on my mostly-DVD shelf (And not in the "Guilty Pleasure" section reserved for James Cameron films or the two Star Wars made-for-TV Ewok movies; AoD gets displayed with the comedies).

I never did go back and watch the first two films in the Evil Dead trilogy, but Jen's got a conference coming up and I think it's high time I picked them up at VisArt.

Now that I'm old enough to appreciate them.

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