Ranking Every Sam Raimi Movie Part 3 - re:View

TL;DR

Evil Dead 2 is Sam Raimi's best film because its sheer creativity and refusal to be boring for even a moment makes it timeless.

Key Points

• 1.#5 (Jay) / #5 (Mike): A Simple Plan — A morality tale where Billy Bob Thornton and Bill Paxton find drug money in a crashed plane; the "nice guy" becomes responsible for multiple deaths, and the wife is the most ruthless of all.
• 2.#4 (Jay): Drag Me to Hell — Placed at number four by Jay without extended discussion, as the bulk of the segment focused on Mike's pick.
• 3.#4 (Mike): Army of Darkness — Peaks in the first act with the legendary hag fight (improvised due to budget running out) and iconic "boomstick" line, but the middle sags into a low-budget Evil Dead 2 retread without the gore.
• 4.Army of Darkness extras: The theatrical ending beats the downbeat ending; all skeleton voices are done by Sam Raimi himself; Ash vs. Evil Dead is praised as the franchise's perfected form combining horror, comedy, and the Army of Darkness version of Ash.
• 5.#3 (both): Darkman — Liam Neeson's pulpy "Universal monster as superhero" film; Larry Drake (who played Dr. Connors' villain Durant) is noted as someone who could have been a comic-accurate but shirtless-and-uncomfortable Doc Ock.
• 6.#2 (Jay): Spider-Man 2 — Jay's number two but only Mike's number six; little new discussion as it was previously covered.
• 7.#2 (Mike): The Quick and the Dead — Mike had never seen it before, watched it three times during production, and calls it Sam Raimi's most underseen film; Sharon Stone, Gene Hackman, pre-Titanic DiCaprio, and pre-Gladiator Russell Crowe all star in a quick-draw tournament western with Dollars Trilogy DNA.
• 8.#1 (both): Evil Dead 2 — Unanimously number one; praised for endless creativity (stop-motion, miniatures, matte paintings, possessed-hand slapstick, POV camera through a car windshield), Bruce Campbell's physical performance, and the audacity of disguising a slapstick comedy as a horror sequel after Crimewave nearly ended Raimi's career.
• 9.Closing notes: The hosts joke about adding a pinned comment if Raimi makes another movie rather than reshooting the video; Mike notes Raimi still produces the Evil Dead franchise and champions young filmmakers; the episode reportedly took eight hours to film.