Ash vs. Evil Dead (2015-2018) Series Review

Ash vs. Evil Dead (2015-2018) Series Review

Happy Halloween! 

Marking the end of this sequel-a-thon is not a movie review, but rather a series review. The Evil Dead remake was pretty good, but it wasn’t the return to the franchise everyone had been waiting for since Army of Darkness. After the remake came out, stirrings about a continuation began. Would it be Evil Dead 4? Army of Darkness 2? An eventual crossover between the characters of Ash and Mia? In 2015, Ash vs. Evil Dead premiered on Starz network, which seemed fitting, given this horror series began as a less mainstream film, and ended up on a less mainstream network. 

Ash vs. Evil Dead features the return of Ash Williams, with Bruce Campbell reprising his role, as well as introducing a few new characters to battle the deadites alongside him. Sam Raimi (who directed and co-wrote all three movies, plus produced the remake) produced the series, co-wrote the first episode, and directed it. All episodes run half-an-hour, but the pilot is 45 minutes, making it more like a mini-movie. 

I was a little skeptical of Ash vs. Evil Dead at first, even with the original creators returning. It was nice to just have them as movies, but a series? My main concerns were 1) it wouldn’t retain the same level of gore and insanity as the films, being on TV, 2) it would lack new ideas, or eventually run out of ideas, or repeat old gags, and 3) it would shift the focus from Ash to some new inferior character who would eventually take the spotlight. 

My concerns were set aside rather quickly. Ash vs. Evil Dead is, in short summary, the ultimate continuation of a great film series as a great TV series. As a sequel primarily to Evil Dead II, it’s damn near perfect. The humour is laugh-out-loud funny, the gore is extreme and well-executed, but most-importantly, the characters are entertaining as hell, including new additions Dana DeLorenzo as Kelly, Ray Santiago as Pablo, and Lucy Lawless as Ruby. I’ll break it down by each season, and try not to spoil too much. 

Season 1: The setup is pretty much perfect. We meet Ash Williams again, 30 years after his last battle with the deadites, and he’s…the same. Just older. I expected no less. He works at Value Stop (not S Mart, which I guess is because they didn’t have the rights to show any footage from Army of Darkness in the first season, for some reason), with Latino co-worker and pal Pablo, who is in love with their other co-worker, Kelly. Ash accidently reads from the book of the dead again, but it doesn’t come off as repetitive or senseless. He gets stoned, and reads from it to impress one of his lady friends, as one does, which is what unleashes evil once again. Pablo and Kelly end up tagging along with him to fight evil, but their motives are sound, and they are instantly welcome additions to the narrative. 

The Evil Dead films had a very specific look and style, and the show does a pretty amazing job of retaining both, but also making it feel more current and distinctly its own thing. We have the cool camera tricks and practical effects back, but thankfully, it still has that lower-budget grit to it, which I was worried would be discarded. There is some poor cgi, though it’s pretty minimal in this first season. One of the highlights is the eyeless blue demon that shows up in episode three, but the standard deadites we’ve come to love are also back, and they’re given just enough screen-time and creative things to do to even top anything done in Army of Darkness. 

As far as negatives go, there are almost none for me with this first season. The pacing is really good through the first half, but toward the final two episodes, it gets a little uneven. There’s also an encounter with some teenagers that I kind of wish had been the teens from the Evil Dead remake (no references are made to that film at any point), but I guess that might have gotten too complicated. The dialogue, expansion of the lore, the twists, the action, and the horror are all exceedingly well done. 

 

Season 2: OK, so the first season set the bar pretty high. What could they do to better themselves now? How about, 1) up the gore, 2) up the surprise factor, 3) make the characters even more interesting and entertaining, and 4) go even wilder with the storylines? 

Yeah, they did all of those things.

Season 2 is actually even better than the first season. The evil character of Ruby was part of the main mystery of before, but now with her true nature and purpose exposed, what else could they do with her? Well, they make her into a sort-of-protagonist, and she becomes even more interesting. Everyone goes through a lot, but incredibly, the stakes still feel high and the tension is still there, because it still feels like they are always in constant danger, and anyone could die, even though it’s a TV show, and the show must go on. 

All I’ll say about the upping of the craziness and gore is, Episode 2: The Morgue. Once you see it, you’ll know what I mean. It’s the scene; probably the craziest since the tree rape in the original. 

This season is chocked even more full of references to past films, but none of them feel forced or lame. There are even references to other horror classics from the same era as The Evil Dead (two words: possessed car), but it never overshadows the originality. I’m amazed by how inventive the storylines were still able to be, but I think it’s mainly thanks to the new characters. The only thing about Season 2 that bugs me is, it’s so perfect, and ends on a non-cliff hanger, which makes it feel like it could be the perfect conclusion to the story…but because this is a series, it had to continue.  

Season 3: with expectations severely high, it seemed nearly impossible to top what’s come before, and all-in-all, season three isn’t as good as seasons one or two, but it’s still a fun watch all the way through. 

Even though they did so much in season one and two, it still felt like there were more storylines to be explored for season three, and the setup is there. In season two, we met Ash’s dad, which proved to be more entertaining and meaningful than I originally expected, and this time, we get to meet the daughter he didn’t know he had. But, unfortunately, it’s not that well-executed. She’s not a very interesting character, and Ash’s interactions with her pale in comparison to the interactions he’s had with Pablo, Kelly, and even lesser characters in the past. 

Seasons 1 and 2 managed to feel perfectly within the world of the Evil Dead films, while still showing progression, but season 3 doesn’t quite feel like Evil Dead at times. For instance, there’s a part where an iPhone becomes possessed, and it’s just kind of strange to see such an old-school style of horror meshed with such a modern thing like the iPhone. 

One of the main issues I found was for much of the season, the core characters are split up. Most of the best parts of the show are a result of the chemistry of the main cast. The season 3 storylines vary in how interesting they are, but it isn’t until the end of the season that the characters come together and things escalate from pretty good to great again. Ruby doesn’t have as much to do this time, and is somewhat of a disappointment, but then again, there wasn’t much that could be done to top her role from before. 

The gore is still satisfyingly over-the-top as always, but not as inventive as season 2. It still has one truly outrageous moment that tries to top the outrageous moment from season 2, but again, isn’t quite there, and I think it’s to do with execution. The first 2 seasons just felt better executed overall than season 3. This time, the roving camera through the woods didn’t look quite right, there’s a lot more obvious bad cgi, and the camera work isn’t as innovative (save for a few clever shots). 

I wish I could say Ash vs. Evil Dead went out with a bang, but other than the very end of the very last episode (which I won’t spoil), the third and final season wasn’t everything I hoped it would be. The series turned out to be strangely similar to the film trilogy, with the first season being unexpectedly awesome, the second season being even better, and third season being good, but not as good as the previous two. Still, I’m glad the show ended at three seasons, instead of continuing and getting progressively worse. Evil Dead remains one of the supreme horror franchises, largely because it hasn’t been totally driven into the ground. 

So that’s Ash vs. Evil Dead: a fantastic show, and a bigger and better continuation of the movies than I ever thought would be made. I hope they let Evil Dead rest for a while longer before bringing it back, maybe with another feature-length film to officially give Ash Williams his send-off? As of writing this, Bruce Campbell says he’s done playing Ash, but we’ll see what the future brings. 

And that will conclude this year’s Creepy Cinema marathon! I hope everyone enjoyed it; I finally talked about many franchises I’ve been wanting to cover since starting this tradition, but there are still many more horror movies to talk about. Expect Clayton’s Creepy Cinema to return once again in October 2019! Have a safe and happy Halloween!