[Kane_Hodder]

A lot of people will tell you that they are good, some will say they are brilliant, awesome, great etc. etc. No negative adjective can be added to describe these 3 films. You dont meet anyone who tells you "I hate Evil Dead or its sequels". But everyone forgets to mention one thing, maybe they know it but it doesnt come to mind rightaway. Evil Dead is a LANDMARK film. Any film which came before it didnt concentrate on 100% horror, there were characters, story telling, etc. before the horror was rolled out.
But Evil Dead starts off with that bizarre Raimi style camera roll which depicts an ancient demon stirring and waking up in that old abandoned pool in the forest, and the truck swiping right in front of the car at the beginning is the first jump of a series of jumps. Then the wooden swinging chair thumping into the house, and abruptly stopping when someone approaches the door, thats a classic jump. Evil Dead 2 concentrated more on the humour part and succeeded quite well. To me it will be Aliens which followed Alien, not exactly the same analogy but you know what I mean. Army of Darkness was equally great as part II, but the basis of the story was medieval evil. Bruce Campbell made part III great, plus Raimi's unique film-making made it even more better. I remember Army of Darkness having a different ending, when Ash takes one extra drop than the precribed drops and wakes up in the future. It was an interesting introduction to Evil Dead 4 possibly, but maybe Raimi had enough and shot a different ending to part III and thats what we see today.
All 3 films are great in their own way, and Evil Dead will always be Alien, with part II being Aliens. It depends on which way you like your horror dished to you. Extreme and brutal, part I. Humor and gorific like Dead Alive, part II. Humor dashed with the Laurentiis medievil horror touch, part III.
I rate them part I, II & III, in the order they released. I think that as good as parts II and III are, they simply CAN NOT better the original, and what contribution it has given to the horror genre of cinema.