Fear not, you primitive screwheads, Ash vs Evil Dead brings back everything you love about Evil Dead in convenient fun-size packages each week on Starz. Be sure to set your DVRs for the premiere, fittingly airing tonight on Halloween. If you’re unfamiliar with the magic that is the Evil Dead, it has been appropriately summarized as “splatstick”—meaning, imagine the Marx Brothers or the Three Stooges with shotguns, chainsaws and broken beer bottles fighting demons from hell, then roll all of that into one man, Ashley ‘Ash’ J. Williams (Bruce Campbell) with his boomstick shotgun and a chainsaw for a hand—which he lost after evil got into his hand and it went bad. . . so he lopped it off at the wrist.
Can the show really hold up to its cinematic heritage? Actually, I would argue that not only does it hold up but it enhances the legendary storyline. It’s all the same creators returning to play in the gory sandbox, Sam Raimi and his crew including Bruce Campbell. The main cast for the show, assembled around Campbell, is great—Ray Santiago, Dana DeLorenzo, Jill Marie Jones and Lucy Lawless—with character perspectives enhancing the lunacy or contrasting it to make it feel all the more real. Guest stars are pleasantly surprising, including Mimi Rogers in the second episode who, believe it or not, does her own stunts—and after witnessing her scenes, you’ll be impressed with what she pulled off. At first I thought, the shots had to be a stunt double but I was wrong.
I must admit—as a testament to the strength of the storytelling and gleefully insane entertainment—that there was a mixup with my screeners and I ended up watching the second episode before the first but I didn’t lose a shred of enjoyment. The characters are so strong that you’re immediately sucked into the story and clinging to the roller coaster of thrills, chills and laughter.
As is Raimi’s style, the camera itself is a character–whipping through scenes and sets with a breakneck speed of pans, crash zooms and ultra extreme dutching that shoves you directly into the middle of the action. The giddily exuberant use of the fake blood budget sprays out of those climactic scenes and will leave your screen soaking in delightful crimson.
Firsthand word from inside the writers’ room was that there were three challenges to overcome to get the show where it is today. The first and probably biggest and most unfortunate, is that Raimi doesn’t have control over all of the rights to the third Evil Dead film, Army of Darkness. Writers had to be careful and clever to make sure the show fit with the storyline without violating the rights that they couldn’t get—which they’ve pulled off very well, making everything feel properly cohesive. The second was that, since the show is filmed in New Zealand, sometimes common American visual references weren’t always available. One example was that the signature car with the steering wheel on the common American left side couldn’t be found locally and had to be shipped over. Their final challenge, that Starz was beginning to have doubts about what they’d gotten into, was quickly abated early in production when they saw the rough cut for the first episode. The executives quickly changed their tune and were on board with any crazy idea the writers could come up with from that point on. Now, the whole room challenges each other to come up with the wackiest setup they can and make sure that it gets on camera. Those scribes must be doing well because Starz has already picked up the show for a second season! After the first two episodes, I can hardly wait to see what’s coming next!
So pull on an old sheet with eyeholes cut out, yank on that mask or slap on that makeup to get out there and have some Halloween fun with your friends trick-or-treating tonight then beat a path home for some excellently cringey chuckles and pillow talk with the very groovy Ash vs Evil Dead! Catch you on the flip flop.
https://youtu.be/0h5NNl48w1M