Ash vs Evil Dead
Greetings, ‘Ash vs Evil Dead’ is a horror comedy television series that ran from 2015 to 2018 for three seasons before it was cancelled due to low viewership. It had numerous directors involved including Sam Raimi who is known for directing the original ‘Evil Dead’ trilogy that this programme continues on from, the critically acclaimed ‘Spider-Man’ trilogy from the 2000s and stylistic Western ‘The Quick and the Dead’. Bruce Campbell reprises his iconic role of Ash Williams while new cast members to the franchise include Ray Santiago, Dana DeLorenzo and Lucy Lawless. Jill Marie Jones and Samara Weaving, who is known for the 2017 slasher movie ‘The Babysitter’, also appear in the first season. The conductor is Joseph LoDuca who composed the soundtrack for the original ‘Evil Dead’ films as well as the 2001 period French horror movie ‘Brotherhood of the Wolf’ and would be later contributing to the ‘Chucky’ TV Series.
The plot picks up 30 years after ‘Army of Darkness’ in which a much older Ash hasn’t progressed in life at all. He’s still working as a stock boy in a department store and being his wild partying, womanizing self as he lives alone in a trailer. His life is uneventful as the Deadites, the demonic evil that Ash had previously defeated, had been dormant for decades but that soon changes when he goes to a local dive bar. After he picks up a loose woman and has his way with her in the restroom, he is disturbed to notice that for the briefest moment her face had become deformed during the act and she warns that they are coming for him. The deformity is one he is all too familiar with as it indicates the person has been possessed by a malicious Deadite. At that moment he recalls that he recently read from the hidden away Necronomicon while high as he was using it to impress a prostitute named Lucy during a ‘poetry read’ and unwittingly unleashed the ancient evil.
Elsewhere Michigan state police detective Amanda Fisher and her partner, John Carson, are responding to reports of a disturbance. A neighbour had claimed they had heard a woman screaming from inside her home. Once inside the dark house, the cops find a corpse and eventually encounter a weeping woman at the other end of the room. The crying woman is Lucy. Amanda asks Lucy to turn around and put her hands up but Lucy merely snaps her head around, revealing she has the face of a Deadite. Lucy attacks Amanda and stabs her in the hand with a pair of scissors before she impales Carson on wall mounted antlers. A stunned Amanda pulls a pistol from out of her ankle holster and kills Lucy by shooting her in the head. As Amanda attempts to recover from the shock, she becomes increasingly confused as Carson’s body is no longer in the room. Her undead partner emerges from the shadows and attacks her until the adrenaline filled Amanda shoots him dead as well.
I enjoyed seeing Ash again after such a long time and liked how the show delved much deeper into his background, including visiting his old home town, as the films never did explore that to any great degree. I also appreciated how the show added quite a lot of new details to the lore of the Necronomicon and how it paid homage to the movies by returning to the sinister cabin in the woods where Ash’s troubles began. The series also isn’t afraid to kill off major characters which is good for suspense although the main trio of Ash and his two friends, Pablo and Kelly, remain largely unscathed throughout the seasons. The three series feel fairly cohesive when watched consecutively and I don’t think the show ever ran out of steam but it could feel a bit repetitive at times. If you are a fan of the ‘Evil Dead’ trilogy or even the remakes, of which I am yet to see, then you’d probably enjoy this latest instalment in Raimi’s cult horror hit.
Plot=7/10
Characters=7/10
Special Effects=7/10
Overall=7/10
Quote of the Day
When you bring me out, can you introduce me as Joker?
Arthur Fleck / The Joker
