Necronomicon Ex-Mortis

The Necronomicon Ex-Mortis (Naturon Demonto) is a fictional Sumerian grimoire 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 various spin-off media. It likely takes its name from the Necronomicon of H.P. Lovecraft's stories.

Origins
Not much is known about the creation of the book. It was written by mysterious beings known as "The Dark Ones" (possibly the Great Old Ones) who traveled to Hell and studied Demons; The passages in the book are designed to resurrect these Demons and give them "Licence to possess the living". The pages of the book were inked with human blood, gathered from Hell's "Sea of Blood" and bound together in human flesh. In the comics, many copies of the book exist, but all seem to be a group mind, in that all are inhabited by the same entity. An introduction by Professor Raymond Knowby in Evil Dead II tells that the book disappeared around 1300 A.D., sometime after it was used to concoct a potion to return the series' protagonist, Ash Williams, to his own time following the events of Army of Darkness.

Necronomicon Ex-Mortis, referred to previously as "Naturon Demonto", roughly translates to "Book of the Dead". The book served as a passageway to the evil worlds beyond. It was written long ago when the seas ran red with blood. It was this blood that was used to ink the book, In the year 1300 AD the book mysteriously disappeared.

Professor Raymond Knowby unearthed the book in the ruins of the castle of Kandar and started to translate it. The horrors he awoke were evil beyond imagining and totally uncontrollable.

The Evil Dead
Prior to the events of The Evil Dead, Professor Raymond Knowby took a book called Naturon Demonto to his cabin in the woods for study, and recorded his findings and translations of some parts of it onto a tape recorder. When the recorder is later found by Ash Williams, and the translations are played, Five Djinn (Dagan, Tahal, Humjivah, Namtar and Yuhumatahat) are summoned from their Hell and proceed to possess and inhabit trees, the ground, and inanimate objects before moving on to Ash's friends, setting the scene for this and the subsequent films. At the end of the film, the book is thrown into a fire; and the Demons are banished back to Tartarus.

Evil Dead II
The Necronomicon Ex-Mortis makes a brief appearance in the recap at the beginning of Evil Dead II, and it is revealed that several pages of the book were lost, and later recollected. These pages contain rituals and conjurations which could be used to open portals to Nine Hells; where various Gods and Demons thrive. The Necronomicon can also be used to return the Spirits, Demons and Ghouls back to their respective Hell. Ash makes the mistake of playing a recording of a Conjuring passage and summons forth several Demons which proceed to lay waste to the cabin (And Ash's life). The final passages are read near the end of the film, whereby a portal in time is opened and the "Kandarian" Demons (along with Ash) are launched back into the Middle Ages.

Army of Darkness
In Army of Darkness (the only film in the series in which the Necronomicon was not designed by Tom Sullivan), the book sported a less deformed look, as the film is set closer to the book's creation. The book is found resting in an ancient graveyard when Ash arrives to send himself back to his own time. When Ash removes the book from the cradle without speaking a sequence of magic words correctly, the evil force assembles an army of Deadites (Corpses possessed by Kandarian Demons), under the control of Evil Ash. At the end of the film, the Necronomicon is returned to the wisemen for safekeeping. They give Ash a potion containing ingredients from the book, which returns him to his own time.

Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday
In Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday, the Necronomicon Ex-Mortis has a small cameo. As Steven Freeman (John D. LeMay) is looking through the Voorhees house he finds the book, looks through it briefly, and places it back down. This appearance is the main focus of the comic book mini-series Freddy vs. Jason vs. Ash.

Army of Darkness: Ashes 2 Ashes
Set 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, on exactly the same day he and his girlfriend first traveled to Knowby's cabin and found the book. With help from the wise man, who had traveled through time, Ash manages to send his present self back in time to recover the book from the cabin and travels to Egypt, the place of the book's creation and the only place it can be destroyed. After the wise man is killed and Evil Ash reappears, Ash, with help from the armies of Henry the Red and Arthur (who had traveled to the future with the aid of the Necronomicon of their time) manages to destroy the book 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.

Army of Darkness: Shop till You Drop Dead
The Necronomicon manages to make its way from Egypt to the supermarket where Ash works, by possessing Mr. Smart, Ash's boss, who had been on vacation in Egypt. The book sends Ash to the distant future, where it lives on in the form of a computer program. Ash finally manages to destroy it after a battle in cyberspace, and returns to his own time.

Army of Darkness vs. Re-Animator
After the events Army of Darkness: Shop Till You Drop Dead, Ash is blamed for the destruction of the S-Mart and everyone in it and is placed in Arkham Asylum, which is run by a psychotic doppelgänger of Herbert West. Both Ash and West's double are being used as pawns by Professor Whately, the son of Old One Yog-Sothoth, who plans to use Ash and the Necronomicon to shatter the barriers between the Old Ones' realm and Earth, a feat which can only be accomplished by having all life wiped from the planet, which Whateley plans on having the Deadites and West's reanimated creations do. Ultimately, Whateley fails to open the gateway to the Old Ones' realm, the Necronomicon's spell being disrupted, causing all of Arkham Asylum to collapse.

Marvel Zombies vs. The Army of Darkness
Ash eventually travels to a zombie-filled alternate reality of the superheroic Marvel Universe. Ash believes the zombies are deadites and eventually finds this reality's Necronomicon. When the book reveals that the zombies aren't supernatural, he suggests the zombies will eat it since it is bound in skin. The book raises a deadite army against the former heroes, and when Ash leaves the Marvel Zombie universe, he abandons the book. Zombie Hulk decides to use the book as toilet paper.

Freddy vs. Jason vs. Ash
In the six issue crossover, Ash finds the Necronomicon in the basement of the Voorhees home after a series of murders by "a special someone". After a battle with Jason Voorhees, Jason retrieves the book and uses it to revive Freddy Krueger to get him out of his head. When Ash finds the book once again, he engages in a short fight with Freddy, who has read the Necronomicon, giving him reality warping abilities. When Ash escapes with the book, and rejoins with his new partner Caroline, it is revealed that Pamela Voorhees had revived her son with incantations from the Necronomicon.

A final battle begins on the icy waters of Camp Crystal Lake. Using a spell from the book, they send Freddy into the dimension of the Deadites. With Jason assumed dead after Ash's Oldsmobile fell on him, Ash and Caroline drive into the distance to a possible happy ending. But in the deadities world, Jason's eyes open, and the Necronomicon opens its pages to reveal a picture of Ash and several other people staring at Freddy Krueger.