aka Evil Dead 2: Dead by dawn
Plot synopsis
This film has a very similar opening to Evil Dead (1981), the first film of the trilogy. Ash Williams and his girlfriend go on a romantic break to the woods.
In an old cabin, Ash finds a tape. When he plays it, he hears a professor say that during an archaeological dig, he discovered Necronomicon Ex-Mortis (The Book of the Dead) and he goes on to read out passages from it. This releases an evil force, which Ash spends the rest of the film fighting.
Towards the end of the story, he and his car are sucked into a vortex and travel through time and space before falling from the sky in medieval times. He looks up to see that a group of knights are surrounding him. They decide to kill him, but a large Deadite bird attacks from above, causing them to run.
Ash blows its head off with his rifle, which shocks the knights. One removes his mask and says, “Hail he, who hath fallen from the sky to deliver us from the terror of the Deadites!”
Ash realises that he has become the prophetical saviour mentioned in the book of the dead that falls from the sky to command this army of knights.
My comments
The second of the Evil Dead trilogy. The first had no time travel, the second finished with time travel, which is where the third started. This film has another example of the predestination paradox, this time identified by a premonition in the book of the dead.
Summary of time travel
Ash travels back in time against his will. Once there, he learns this needed to happen for him to take his rightful place in history. This causal loop had to happen to keep the timeline self-consistent.
Category of time travel
Science fiction:
Model of time
Closed past, closed future with a fixed timeline and a causal loop.
