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Ash Williams (Bruce Campbell), the chainsaw-wielding, wisecracking antihero of the legendary “Evil Dead” films, is back for more gore-filled adventure in this complete 30-episode collection of the “Ash vs Evil Dead” TV series. Follow Ash’s journey as he returns home to Elk Grove, Michigan, meets his long-lost daughter, and unites with former enemy Ruby (Lucy Lawless) and fellow demon fighters Pablo (Ray Santiago) and Kelly (Dana DeLorenzo) for a final blood-splattering stand to save the world!
I know there are a lot of horror fans out there who hated the 2013 remake of Sam Raimi’s classic, “The Evil Dead.” Personally, I thought that director Fede Alvarez hit all the right notes and his movie was, at times, downright scary. A lot of the fans complained that there was no humor in his adaptation but that’s because Raimi’s 1981 classic was a straight-up horror film with little to no humor and a lot of people get that mixed up with its sequel, “Evil Dead 2,” which successfully infused both horror and dark humor, a feat that is not generally achieved much in Hollywood these days. I loved Raimi’s first two “Evil Dead” movies, they are classics but when he and star Bruce Campbell returned in 1992 with the third and final chapter in the series, titled “Army of Darkness,” I actually loathed the film. Campbell became more of a caricature of his former chainsaw-wielding hero and the scares were tossed out in favor of slapstick comedy which did not work, and most certainly did not serve the series well.
However, having said that, with “Ash vs Evil Dead,” Campbell returns to the role that made him famous, that of Ashley ‘Ash’ J. Williams, but instead of playing him serious and straightlaced, as he did in the original movie, he opts instead to play him just like he did in “Army of Darkness,” for laughs, but here it actually works. The reason it didn’t work in “Army of Darkness,” in my opinion, was because, at that time, the first two movies were only a few years old and still fresh in people’s minds so when the third chapter presented a more satirical representation, in both characters and overall narrative, rather than straight-up horror, like its predecessors, fans were disappointed and stayed away in droves, hence the film’s poor box office. By the end of the movie though, Ash was confident in his abilities to kick demon ass and that same arrogant swagger carries over into “Ash vs Evil Dead.”
It’s been over 30 years since the events of the first three movies and Ash is employed at a smalltown store called Value Stop. There, he spends his time with his younger co-worker and friend, Pablo (Ray Santiago). Pablo has his eyes set on another co-worker, Kelly (Dana DeLorenzo), but she views him more as a friend instead of a love interest. Having sawn off his possessed right hand in “Evil Dead 2,” using his trusted chainsaw, Ash frequents bars at night, picking up women, using his prosthetic hand to inject stories with acts of heroism that never transpired but he somehow manages to pull it off nonetheless, and brings them back to his RV. One night, while he is with a woman, her face takes on the embodiment of a deadite (a person possessed by a Kandarian Demon) and it threatens to kill him. Naturally, he freaks out as he hasn’t seen one of those demons in over thirty years but when his neighbors become possessed and try to kill him, he realizes that he must pack up and prepare to tackle to underworld once more.
He informs Pablo of his intent to leave town but Pablo states that he wants to come with him. Ash refuses, saying that anybody he becomes close with, always dies. When he and Pablo come into contact with a pack of possessed dolls, Pablo tells him he’s coming with him. When Kelly receives a phone call from her father, telling her that her mother, who died years earlier in a supposed car crash, has just returned home, she travels to the house, with Ash and Pablo in hot pursuit. Ash is very skeptical of her mother but Kelly is delighted that she is not dead. When Ash’s worst fears are realized, and Kelly’s mother turns out to be a deadite, killing her father in the process, and thereby turning him into a deadite, Ash intervenes and saws them up with his chainsaw. Wanting revenge, Kelly tells both Pablo and Ash that she’s going with them and to bring them up to speed (and for those viewers not familiar with the overall story), Ash recounts the events of the first film, where he and some friends traveled to an abandoned cabin in the woods for a weekend of fun. Inadvertently, they unearthed the Necronomicon Ex-Mortis, also known as the Book of the Dead. By reading incantations from the book, which is bound in human skin with its pages inked from human blood, they resurrected a demon from deep within the woods which proceeded to attack them, one by one, until only Ash was left.
When Pablo asks where the book is, Ash tells him it’s safe in his RV and that over the years, he tried everything to get rid of it but nothing worked so he decided to be its protector instead, making sure it didn’t fall into anyone else’s hands. Kelly asks why, after all this time, the demons are returning, and Ash remembers getting high in his RV with some random chick who liked poetry and since he didn’t know any poetry, he decided to try and impress her by reading a few passages from the book, thereby opening the gateway to hell, and inviting the demons into his world. When they discover that a woman named Ruby (Lucy Lawless), is tracking them down, when they finally meet up, she reveals to them that she is actually the sister of Annie Knowby, one of the lead characters from “Evil Dead 2,” but it doesn’t sit right with Ash. Eventually, they discover that she is an immortal being who claims to have written the Necronomicon Ex-Mortis, and wants to retrieve it so she can unleash hell on earth. When Ash, once again, intercedes, her plans fall apart but when the demons whom she had been loyal to for thousands of years, turn their backs on her and take away her immortality, she decides to team up with Ash, Pablo, and Kelly, to try and right the wrongs she has caused throughout the ages. When the group goes back in time, using a passage from the book, they wind up at the cabin in the woods where everything started thirty years ago, but surprisingly, Ruby, from the ’80s, is also there, and she has no intentions of joining them. Now, the group must battle an evil, power-hungry, and immortal Ruby, plus the demons that she just awoke from deep within the woods.
The show lasted for three seasons and only this year, STARZ announced that there would not be a season four. I had never seen any of the episodes as I don’t have STARZ but if you are a fan of the movies, I would highly recommend picking this up, it contains all three seasons as well as a bunch of behind-the-scenes featurettes, interviews, and outtakes. The series is supposed to take place in Michigan but was actually shot entirely in New Zealand. When Ash has to make his way back to the cabin by himself the first time, the producers did an amazing job in recreating the cabin from the first and second films, both the interiors and the exteriors. At one point, Ash even comes into contact with Henrietta Knowby (Alison Quigan), the mother of Annie from “Evil Dead 2” and if you don’t know who I’m talking about, watch the movies first! The show even brings back Ash’s sister Cheryl, the first character in the entire series to become possessed after a demonic encounter in “The Evil Dead” and actress Ellen Sandweiss returns to pay her once more. Watching her in full deadite make-up again was a joy to behold. There’s a great myriad of guest stars too including Lee Majors, Ted Raimi, Samara Weaving, plus many more and the overall quality of the show, is absolutely perfect.
Sam Raimi directed the pilot episode and watching his camera take on the perspective of an unseen entity, as it swooshes through the woods, narrowly missing trees and bushes as it moves at breakneck speed, brings back memories from his original masterpiece. With the smallest of budgets, Raimi created a device that became known as the “shaky-cam,” the polar opposite to a camera revolution that was sweeping the movie industry at that time which was known as the “Steadicam,” a stabilizing system which allowed the camera operator to walk, or run with the actors, and achieve smoothness throughout, with no bumps or shakes along the way. Raimi’s “shaky-cam” went in the other direction, where a camera was bolted to a 2×4 piece of wood and that piece of wood was held by two operators, one at each end. They could run through the woods and the visual representation was that of something moving in an otherworldly manner, and that was the desired effect Raimi set out to achieve. In the pilot episode, he revisits this frame of reference and the first time you witness it, it almost feels like you’re back in 1981 again, watching “The Evil Dead” for the very first time. There has been talk about another network, such as Netflix or Hulu, picking up “Ash vs Evil Dead” and while Bruce Campbell thanked the fans for pushing for this, he stated that he is now retired from playing Ash and is ready to move onto new projects. If you are not ready to move on just yet, then I highly recommend buying the complete collection, I promise you, you will not be disappointed.
Available on Blu-ray™ (plus Digital) and DVD October 16th from Lionsgate
