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Well, it’s fall again, time for the Fargo Theatre to start screening their midnight Friday and Saturday cult film classics.  Now, I’m not much iof a cult film buff, and midnight is getting a bit late for me(I’m not as young as I once was or wish I still were), fo I don’t make many of these.  But when I do, it’s always a hoot because the audience is usually so into the film and not taking it at all seriously.

This last Friday some friends of mine and I took in Army of Darkness, a cult favorite of  most of our entourage.

Army of Darkness is the third in the “Evil Dead” trilogy, began in 1982 with “Evil Dead” by Sam Raimi.  There followed “Evil Dead 2,” and then in 1992, the climax, “Army of Darkness.”

The first two movies in this trilogy are klow or no budget standard Grade B horror films.  Then, somehow Dino De Laurentis aquitred and produced the finale.  This movie had a budget, and it showed.  Instead of grainy film, the film quality was first rate.  There were many actors and extras and the script and acting was at least professional.

The movie begins with a review of what happened in the first two; at least enough so that the viewer wouldn’t be missi9ng any information needed to understand the -er- plot of the current offering.

The movie concerns a big box store worker played by Bruce Campbell.  Somehow, he gets transported back to 13th century England, already a rip off of  the sci fi time travel flick “Timeline.”  He and his ‘73 Oldsmobile land right in the middle of one of the usual English Viking conflicts.  What happens to this conflict I’ll leave in case you want to see the movie, and the reest of the story involves Campbell trying to retrieve a magic book that will, among other things, allow him to get home.  So there is much adventure, fighting with real characters and animated ones, in which just about every adventure, horror or war story beginning with The Odyssey, and ending with The Lord iof The Rings, is ripped off (hmm, Oh yes, The Lord of the rings was written before 1992).

The two hours and one minute passed very quickly, since virtually every scene was stolen from somewhere else.  Maybe not side splitting stuff, but I was amused constantly during the movie.

This movie is strictly for B-grade horror fans, but remember, this is supposed to be  cult classic. If movies like this are tolerated by you, as this one was by me, viewing them with a cult audience can be a lot of fun, as it was for me in this case.

Entertainment value:   B
Relevance: None at all
Necessity toi suspend disbelief: total.