Army of Darkness - Plot

Plot

After being pulled through a time portal, Ash Williams lands in 1300 AD, where he is almost immediately captured by Lord Arthur's men, who suspect him to be an agent for Duke Henry, with whom Arthur is at war. He is enslaved along with the captured Henry, his gun and chainsaw confiscated, and is taken to a castle. Ash is thrown in a pit where he fights off a Deadite and regains his weapons from Arthur's Wise Man. After demanding Henry and his men be set free (as he knew Henry was innocent, and his persecution was simply a witch hunt) and killing a deadite in full view of everyone, Ash is celebrated as a hero. He also grows attracted to Sheila, the sister of one of Arthur's fallen knights.

According to the Wise Man, the only way Ash can return to his time is to retrieve the Necronomicon Ex-Mortis. After bidding goodbye to Sheila, Ash starts his search for the Necronomicon. As he enters a haunted forest, an unseen force pursues Ash through the woods. Fleeing, he ducks into a windmill where he crashes into a mirror. The small reflections of Ash climb out from the shattered mirror and torment him. One of the reflections dives down Ash's throat and uses his body to become a life-sized clone of Ash and attack him, after which Ash kills and buries the clone.

When he arrives at the Necronomicon's location, he finds three books instead of one. Ash eventually finds the real one and attempts to say the magic phrase that will allow him to remove the book safely — "Klaatu verata nicto". However, forgetting the last word, he tries to trick the book by mumbling/coughing the missing word. He then grabs the book from the cradle, and rushes back to the castle, while the dead rise from graves all around. During Ash's panicked ride back, his evil copy rises from his grave and unites the Deadites into the Army of Darkness.

Despite causing the predicament faced by the Medieval soldiers, Ash initially demands to be returned to his own time. However, Sheila is captured by a Flying Deadite, and later transformed into a Deadite. Ash becomes determined to lead the humans against the army of the dead. Reluctantly, the people agree to join Ash. Using scientific knowledge from textbooks in the trunk of his 1973 Oldsmobile Delta 88, and enlisting the help of Duke Henry, Ash successfully leads the medieval soldiers to victory over the Deadites and Evil Ash, saving Sheila and bringing peace between Arthur and Henry in the process. After this, he is brought back to his own time using a potion made from the Necronomicon. Later, Ash is at the S-Mart store telling a male co-worker (Ted Raimi) all about his adventure back in time, and how he could have been king. A female customer becomes possessed by a demon and starts wreaking havoc on the store, and Ash slays the creature.