Sunday Matinee #78 Army of Darkness

Hail to the king, baby!

2 Samuel 5:1-5, 9-10 | EnterTheBible.org
Seventh Sunday After Pentecost | 07.07.2024
Context: David was king of Judah, the southern kingdom. Now that the final ruler from the house of Saul, the former king, is now dead, the leaders come together to make David the king of the northern kingdom of Israel and thus, create a new, united kingdom with one king.

3 So all the elders of Israel came to the king at Hebron; and King David made a covenant with them at Hebron before the LORD, and they anointed David king over Israel. 4 David was thirty years old when he began to reign, and he reigned forty years.

Army of Darkness | 1992
IMDb | Letterboxd | RRMC
Context: Yes, I know we’ve all gone through this exact scenario in our own lives, but bare with me: Ash fought the evil dead at a cabin in the woods (see Evil Dead II) but before he could fully stop them, he was sucked into a warp through time and space back to the Middle Ages. There, he defeats the evil dead alongside knights and villagers. At the end of the film, we see him gladly back in his time, working as a clerk at S-Mart. But sadly, the evil dead are still in their midst, and Ash defeats one of the evil dead who possesses a customer. Like I say, I guess we’ve all been there. Anyway, Ash stands tall, proud, and confident that no matter what the evil dead throw at him, he’ll be ready.

Ash (voiceover): Sure, I could've stayed in the past. Could've even been king. But in my own way, I am king. 
An S-Mart store clerk (Angela Featherstone) runs to embrace Ash in gratitude. He swings her into a dip and she looks into his eyes with passion.
Ash (to the clerk): Hail to the king, baby. 
The pair kiss.

Commentary:

There’s that old expression about a dog chasing cars: what would it do if it ever actually caught one?!

I think about that when I see people come into power. Some do well, some even excel, while others fall short, others way short, and the rest of us likely somewhere in-between. These days, we have feedback loops and evaluative forums to help leaders be better leaders. I can’t really imagine King Saul sending links to ten friends and advisors to fill out his EQ360 evaluation. Maybe even if we aren’t always the greatest leaders we could be, we have come a lot further, yes?

For what it’s worth, David resisted crowning himself king. He was anointed by Samuel in private to keep his distance from Saul. He waited until Saul was dead instead of taking the kingdom by force and risk others taking it by force from him. And he waited until the kingdom could be united. He was the dog that resisted chasing the car until it was a sure thing, because anything less could have brought more disaster. 

David is a complex figure in the Bible. We root for him as the young shepherd boy who defeats Goliath. We marvel at him playing music for King Saul. We hope for him as he later battles Saul and becomes king. But later, we are bummed by his selfish choices, his abuses of power, his ability to be the king but his propensity toward the same temptations any of us face as human beings. Kings corrupt?! Knock me over with a feather.

In the Evil Dead trilogy, we get a sharp right turn from two creepy cabin in the woods horror-comedies to a medieval supernatural thriller-comedy. Because of his mysterious past and amazing technology (I wonder how many people have held a shotgun since this movie came out in 1992 and shouted, “This… is my BOOMSTICK!”), the accidental time traveler Ash (Bruce Campbell) is held in high regard, almost like a king himself. Yet, he does not want people to see him that way, and he stomps away from any of that. He has a singular goal: get home to his own time. 

Something changes for Ash along the way, though, and he decides to stand, fight, and inspire the people to do the same. After he defeats the ancient evil that brought him from his time, he is able to return to the present and make a new life for himself. He goes on and on about this to a fellow employee who is obviously not impressed. Oh, you could’ve been king but now you work at a department store? Knock me over with a feather. They’re in aisle three, next to the “holy macaroni.”

The evil dead attack Ash, and he saves the day. Was he crowned king? No. Is he a king in his own way? Yeah. The ending is played for laughs, but  I’ll also give Ash this: he grew. That’s good for any leader.

These two moments in the story play like endings. For this passage in 2 Samuel, it’s been argued by some scholars that it has “the end” type language that indicates it could be the ending of an ancient writing that was later merged with other writings. The story goes on to reveal what happened in those 40 years of David’s rule.  As for Ash, Army of Darkness is the final Evil Dead movie in the trilogy, but later we got the Ash vs. Evil Dead TV series. It’s not enough to say, they were kings, and that’s that. We see what being king looked like. How did they do? How could they have done better? How can we learn and try to do better? 

Army of Darkness was the first R-rated movie that I showed my kids. In my opinion, it’s a very mild R, and the parts that are R are easily skippable or mutable if that’s a concern. They loved it, of course, enjoying the laughs along with “the shivers” of a scary movie, and that’s something Sam Raimi knows how to do (they also recently enjoyed Drag Me to Hell, which I’d argue is a grosser movie even with a PG-13 rating). In our house, the first king of scary movies was Ash.

Hail to the king, baby!