He discovers an audio tape of recitations from a book of ancient texts, and when the recording is played, it unleashes a number of demons which possess and torment him.
After the critical and commercial failure of Crimewave (1985), Raimi, producer Robert Tapert, and Campbell began work on a sequel to The Evil Dead at the insistence of their publicist Irvin Shapiro.
Having endorsed the original film, author Stephen King brought the project to the attention of producer Dino De Laurentiis, with whom he had been making his directorial debut Maximum Overdrive (1986).
De Laurentiis agreed to provide financial backing, and assigned the filmmakers a considerably larger budget than they had worked with on the original film.
Although Raimi had devised a premise set in the Middle Ages and involving time travel, De Laurentiis requested that the film be similar to its predecessor.
Evil Dead II was shot in Wadesboro, North Carolina and Detroit, Michigan in 1986, and featured extensive stop-motion animation and prosthetic makeup effects created by a team of artists that included Mark Shostrom, Greg Nicotero, Robert Kurtzman and Tom Sullivan, the latter of whom returned from the original film.
Much like The Evil Dead, it was widely acclaimed by critics, who praised its humor, Raimi's direction, and Campbell's performance; many have considered it superior to its predecessor and similarly as one of the greatest horror films ever made.
While in it, Ash plays a tape of archaeologist Raymond Knowby, the cabin's previous inhabitant, reciting passages from the "Book of the Dead", Necronomicon Ex-Mortis, which he uncovered during an archaeological dig.
Meanwhile, Knowby's daughter Annie, and her research partner, Ed Getley, return from the dig with the missing pages of the Necronomicon, only to stumble upon the destroyed bridge.
The four new arrivals listen to the rest of Knowby's recording, detailing his wife Henrietta's possession by the Kandarian Demon, and that he killed her before burying her in the cellar.
Bobby Joe attempts to escape through the woods when Ash's severed hand latches onto hers, but demonically possessed trees attack and drag her to her death.
Annie translates two of the Necronomicon's pages, which portray a fabled hero with a blade for a hand and detail a ritual that will make the evil into corporeal flesh and then open a rift in time and space into which it could be banished.
Working with screenwriter Sheldon Lettich, Raimi settled on a story in which Ash was sucked through a time portal to the Middle Ages, where he would encounter more deadites.
[12] After Crimewave was released to critical and audience disinterest, Raimi and his partners at Renaissance Pictures, producer Robert Tapert and actor/co-producer Bruce Campbell, took Shapiro up on his sequel offer, knowing that another flop would further stall their already-lagging careers.
He had dinner with a crew member who had been among those interviewed by Raimi and his colleagues about Evil Dead II, and told King that the film was having trouble attracting funding.
Raimi and Tapert had desired $4 million for the production, but De Laurentiis requested a film that was similar to its predecessor instead of their original medieval-themed proposal, which was instead used for the second sequel, Army of Darkness (1992).
[13]: 106 Despite Raimi's crew having only recently received the funding necessary to produce the film, the script had been written for some time, having been composed largely during the production of Crimewave.
Initially, the opening sequence included all five of the original film's characters; however, in an effort to save time and money, all but Ash and Linda were cut from the final draft.
The film went through several other drafts, including a group of escaped convicts holding Ash captive in the cabin while searching for buried treasure.
[13]: 109–110 Spiegel and Raimi wrote most of the film in their house in Silver Lake, Los Angeles, California, where they were living with the aforementioned Coen brothers, as well as actors Frances McDormand, Kathy Bates, and Holly Hunter (the primary inspiration for the Bobby Joe character).
De Laurentiis had wanted them to film in his elaborate Wilmington studio, but the production team felt uneasy being so close to the producer, so they moved to Wadesboro, approximately three hours away.
[13]: 113 Mark Shostrom served as the film's makeup effects supervisor, and delegated work to Robert Kurtzman, Greg Nicotero, and Howard Berger of KNB EFX Group.
[citation needed] At the film's wrap party, the crew held a talent contest where Raimi and Campbell sang the Byrds' "Eight Miles High", with Nicotero on guitar.
Because DEG was a member of the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA), Raimi was contractually obliged to shoot the film with the intention of it earning an R rating.
Upon reviewing the completed film, DEG's executives felt that Evil Dead II would almost certainly receive an X rating, which would limit its commercial prospects.
[12] Lawrence Gleason, the company's president of marketing and distribution, felt that if it were to be cut for an R, the film "would have been about 62 minutes long" and that both Raimi's vision and the audience's enjoyment would have been sabotaged as a result.
The website's consensus reads: "Less a continuation than an outright reimagining, Sam Raimi transforms his horror tale into a comedy of terrors -- and arguably even improves on the original formula.
[31] Empire magazine praised the film, saying "the gaudily gory, virtuoso, hyper-kinetic horror sequel uses every trick in the cinematic book" and confirms that "Bruce Campbell and Raimi are gods".
[35] Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times gave the film three stars out of four, describing it as "a fairly sophisticated satire, that makes you want to get up and shuffle."
"[37] Conversely, Pat Graham of Chicago Reader disliked the mix of horror and comedy, writing in his review that "the pop-up humor and smirkiness suggest Raimi's aspiring to the fashionable company of the brothers Coen, though on the basis of this strained effort I'd say he's overshot the mark.