Necronomicon Ex-Mortis
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The Necronomicon Ex-Mortis (Naturon Demonto) is a fictional Sumerian book in the Evil Dead series. It made its first appearance in The Evil Dead, and continued its film career in Evil Dead II and Army of Darkness, as well as many spin-off media such as the comics.
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[edit] Origins
Not much is known about the creation of the book. It was written by a mysterious group known as "The Dark Ones", who constructed the cover of the book from the flesh of the tortured and the damned. The pages of the book were inked with human blood, gathered from the seas. Prior to the events of The Evil Dead Professor Raymond Knowby took the book to the cabin for study, and recorded his findings on a tape recorder.
[edit] Films
[edit] The Evil Dead
The Necronomicon and Raymond Knowby's tape recorder was later found by Ash Williams and Scotty, who play the tape recorder containing the words that the professor had read aloud. After its release, the evil force took control of the trees which violently raped Cheryl Williams, causing her to become possessed, and stabbed Linda in the heel.
Soon after they locked Cheryl in the cellar, Shelly had become possessed, and dismembered by Scotty. When they were finished burying Shelly, Scotty decided to leave Ash and Linda behind to find a way out of the woods. Soon the spirit took control of Linda, just as Scotty returned, beaten by the possessed trees.
Ash was forced to kill and bury Linda. When Ash returned Scotty was dead and the cellar door was broken off. Ash locked all the doors, but Cheryl still broke through and knocked Ash to the floor, along with the Necronomicon. When Ash realized that the book had landed next to the fire place, he reached for it but was pinned to the the floor by Scotty and was being beaten with a fire poker by Cheryl. He finally retrieved the book using the necklace he had given to Linda, and tossed it into the fire place. At that point the book seemed to come alive and began to wail in pain as the bodies of Ash's friends began to rapidly decompose. When the book was finally destroyed and the sun began to rise, Ash stepped outside of the cabin, only to be overtaken by the evil spirit.
[edit] Dead by Dawn
The necronomicon makes a brief appearance in the recap at the beginning of Evil Dead II. It is revealed that several pages of the necronomicon were lost, and recollected by Annie and Ed.
After being overtaken by the spirit, Ash had returned to the cabin and was attacked by the head of his former girlfriend, Linda, dismembering her with a chainsaw. The evil then took control of Ash's hand. Eventually Ash had no choice but to cut his own hand off. After a short ordeal with his severed hand, Annie, Ed, Jake, and Bobby Joe arrived at the cabin and mistook Ash for killing Professor Knowby and Henrietta. After a brush with the professor's former wife, Ash explained the situation to the group.
Ed was the first of the group to become possessed by the spirit, but he was quickly hacked to bits by Ash. Afterwards the group was warned of the evil spirit by The ghost of Professor Knowby who said that the only way to stop the evil was contained in the lost pages that Annie had brought with her. After listening to Knowby's ghost, the severed hand grabbed the hand of Bobby Joe, and in panic she ran into the woods, where she was killed by the trees.
Jake soon turned on Ash and Annie, forcing them to go outside and help him look for Bobby Joe. When they refused, Jake threw the pages into the cellar. The force then took over Ash, who threw Jake into a tree and chased Annie into the house. After knocking Annie unconscious, Ash saw the necklace he gave to Linda and transformed back into his former self. When Annie regained consciousness, she aided Ash in the construction of his chainsaw arm.
After retrieving the pages from the cellar, and defeating Henrietta. Annie read a passage from the pages causing the evil to manifest itself in a physical form. The trees began to violently attack the cabin as Annie began reading a second passage that would open a vortex to take the evil back to its dimension. Before the passage could be finished, the now physical evil broke through the doorway and attempted to eat Ash. After being stabbed by Ash's evil hand Annie used her last breath to speak the final words of the passage sucking the evil into the vortex. But because the vortex would not close soon enough Ash was pulled in too, sending him back to the year 1300 A.D.
[edit] Army of Darkness
In Army of Darkness (The only film in the series that the Necronomicon was not designed by Tom Sullivan), the Necronomicon sported a less deformed look (Possibly because the film took place closer to the book's creation).
In the film, the book is resting in an ancient grave yard when Ash arrives to send himself back to his own time. When Ash removes the book from the cradle without speaking the the magic words correctly, the evil force was able to assemble the army of darkness under the control of Evil Ash. When Ash returned the Necronomicon to the wisemen, he was focused on getting back home, but decided to stay and fight after Sheila's kidnapping.
When Evil Ash and the army was defeated, the wisemen gave Ash a potion whose ingredients were taken from the Necronomicon. When Ash returned to his own time, the evil force returned for another strike on Ash. It possessed a store clerk, whom Ash easily defeated, and shared a kiss with a nearby employee.
A possible predestination paradox exists within the latter two films. It could be possible that Professor Knowby only found the Necromonicon at Arthur's castle because of Ash recovering the book and bringing it to the castle in Army of Darkness.
[edit] Comics
In Army of Darkness: Ashes 2 Ashes, which takes place directly after the events of Army of Darkness, it is revealed that when Ash returned from the past back to the present, he arrived too early, specifically on the very day he and his friends travelled to the cabin in the woods. With help from the wiseman, who had travelled through time, Ash manages to send his present self back in time before claiming the Necronomicon in the cabin and travelling to Egypt, the place of the book's creation and the only place it can be destroyed. After the wiseman is killed and Evil Ash appears, Ash, with help from the armies of Henry the Red and Arthur (who had travelled to the future with the aid of the Necronomicon of their time) manages to destroy the Necronomicon by encircling it, along with Evil Ash and his minions, in a ring of fire. Unfortunately, Ash forgets to send the Necronomicon of the past back to its own time, leaving it in the Egyptian desert.
In Army of Darkness: Shop Till You Drop Dead, the Necronomicon manages to make its way from Egypt to the S-Mart Ash works in in Detroit by possessing Mr. Smart, Ash's boss, who was vacationing in Egypt. Possessing the S-Mart and several costumers, as well as Ash's coworkers, the Necronomicon sends Ash to the distant future. In the future, the Necronomicon lives on in the form of a computer program which Ash, after battling Evil Ash and his minions in cyberspace, destroys before sending himself back in time. In the present, Ash manages to kill Mr. Smart, unintentionally destroying the S-Mart and killing everyone but himself and his girlfriend Sheila in the process.
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