- Alternative Character Interpretation: Did Deadite Henrietta make a mistake by misidentifying her birthday when tying to trick Annie into letting her out, or is Annie just trying to rationalize the situation to keep calm during the initial chaos? Annie’s neutral tone adds to the mystery.Annie: That thing in the cellar is not my mother!
- Awesome Music: "The Book of Evil"
by Joseph LoDuca, which plays when Ash unknowingly awakens the deadites. Its slow, near majestic sound slowly boils up to the nightmarish horror that is about to begin. - Big-Lipped Alligator Moment: Ash sees everything in the cabin living room laughing their heads off. He joins in the objects' laughter as he goes insane. After being interrupted by a knock at the door, the laughing scene wasn't brought up for the rest of the movie.
- Complete Monster: See here (includes the comic).
- Cult Classic: An indie movie that is fondly remembered by fans of the genre and helped build the loyal fanbase for the series to continue its ascent.
- Ensemble Dark Horse: Annie tends to be the best regarded of the characters introduced in this movie.
- Even Better Sequel: Honestly, you don't even need to watch the first movie; 2 reenacts the original's plot in just the first 5 minutes. Not only that, but what makes 2 more memorable is the shift from standard horror to slapstick-gore, the one-liners, the creative visuals, and, of course, Ash acquiring his chainsaw arm.
- He's Just Hiding: Given how Bobby Joe never returns as a deadite, some fans question if she died.
- Hilarious in Hindsight:
- Ash mocks the hero who fell from the sky for not being able to defeat the Deadites for good. Come the ending of the film and Army of Darkness, he turns out to be the hero who fell from the sky (a fact that does not seem to escape him in the ending).
- The "Dead by dawn!" chant becomes this once Ash became a playable character in Dead by Daylight.
- Hype Backlash: A less severe example as the movie still maintains a strong cult following to this day with many horror lists ranking it very high. That said, some modern viewers felt the movie was so top heavy in terms of comedy and horror that their interest fell off during the latter half as they felt it dragged on for much longer than it needed to, especially considering its status as the funniest horror comedy out there.
- Memetic Mutation:
- "Groovy," often said whenever chainsaws are seen.
- "I'll swallow your soul!" is one of the most often-referenced lines in the movie.
- Narm Charm: Intentional; in fact, it was done so well that the rest of the franchise onwards ran off narm charm.
- Signature Line: "Groovy."
- Signature Scene:
- The cabin (and every object in it, including a taxidermied deer head) laughing at Ash.
- Ash's hand getting possessed, and him cutting it off with the chainsaw.
- Ash attaching the chainsaw to his arm, using it to saw off the end of his shotgun, and cementing his transformation from male Final Girl to badass Action Hero with a single line...:Ash: Groovy
- Special Effect Failure: Rarely does a film ever use this trope to its advantage, but director Sam Raimi did it, and it worked, because itnote , along with the cartoonish sound effects and over-the-top performances, increases the slapstick undertones of the movie and makes it an effective horror-comedy.
- Squick: That white stuff oozing out of Henrietta's side in one shot? It's actually all of Ted Raimi's sweat that had been building up inside the prosthetics until it began leaking out (white because it mixed with the powder he had on underneath to make the heavy latex outfit easier to put on and take off).
- Tear Jerker:
- The few moments Ash gets to reflect on what happened to Linda and grieve over her death. Worse still, the Evil chooses to exhume her corpse to torment him while he's in the middle of clutching her pendant and weeping to himself.
- Annie clinging to life, down to her very last breaths, so she can finish the incantation to banish the Evil.Ash: ...You did it, kid.
- They Changed It, Now It Sucks!: Starting with the Anchor Bay DVD, home video releases digitally remove the wire holding Henrietta’s eyeball as it flies into Bobby Joe’s mouth. Fans were not happy considering the charm of the movie is knowing how cheesy (and awesome) the effects are. Made even more baffling since every other shot with wires was kept perfectly intact, so why was this particular wire changed?
- Values Dissonance: According to Bruce Campbell in the DVD commentary, a puzzling cut was made for British showings - the part where while he's kicked in the head while unconscious. He found it odd that that was cut, as opposed to heaps of demonic blood and gore.Bruce Campbell: Because in England, you can't kick a man when he's down.
