Review: Ash vs Evil Dead 1.01 – ‘El Jefe’

Ever since the 1992 film Army of Darkness became a cult classic, one question has dogged both Sam Raimi and Bruce Campbell; when were they doing another another Evil Dead film?

Despite a remake of the original Evil Dead by a new creative team in 2013, Raimi and Campbell have insisted that they would do a further sequel “at some point”. That finally materialised in 2014, when the TV series ‘Ash vs Evil Dead’ was announced as being in production, with Campbell reprising the role of Ash Williams.

Now it’s finally here, and we can see if the switch from films to television will serve the Evil Dead franchise well.

Set 30 years after Ash and his friends found the Necronomicon Ex Mortis in a remote cabin in the woods and used it to unwittingly awaken an Ancient Evil. Now well into his 50s, Ash is running from his responsibilities by still working as a stock boy for a department store whilst telling lies about how he lost his hand to pick up women in bars.

It’s during one such encounter where Ash catches a flash of a Deadite in his “date”. Rushing home, he is relieved to find the Necronomicon still secure, but the bag of weed he finds between the pages reminds him of a previous encounter with another woman; getting high with her and deciding to impress her by reading excerpts from the Necronomicon…

Age has not helped Ash wise up it seems, as he has awakened the Evil Dead once more…

As Ash realises how much he has screwed up, Michigan State Trooper Amanda Fisher and her partner Carson investigate a disturbance at a suburban house nearby. Inside, among the dead they find the woman who had been with Ash when he read from the book. She becomes a monstrous Deadite, attacking the state troopers with Amanda barely surviving the encounter.

The next day, Ash sees more Deadite related weirdness and prepares to run, if only to try and fix the problem with some help translating the Necronomicon. He tries to pick up his pay cheque early from work, encountering co-workers Pablo and Kelly along the way. After being attacked by a possessed doll in the stock room, Ash regales Pablo with the tale from 30 years prior, and why he has to run. Pablo tries to convince Ash to stay, believing him to be the Chosen One to fight this Evil. Meanwhile, Kelly receives a call from her father, who believes Kelly’s recently deceased mother has risen from the grave. Kelly wants Pablo’s help, though he insists that Ash is the only one who can help them, leading to Ash being forced to take up his chainsaw to fight the Evil Dead once again…

I’m an unabashed fan of the Evil Dead series, so I’ll be the first to admit remaining objective whilst watching this pilot was difficult, as this is what the fans have wanted for 23 years. If you’re a fan like me, you’re already all in. For everyone else, if you’re a fan of splatter horror with a heavy dose of comedy, there’s more than enough to keep you entertained, even in the crowded horror market TV has managed to generate over the past few years.

Bruce Campbell returns to the role of Ash like he never left it, but still giving us something new by playing the older Ash like a shell shocked veteran. The fact that he can balance playing heroic and charming whilst also reminding us that Ash Williams is a massive arsehole is worthy of praise. I’m not sure if he enjoyed coming back to the slapstick bits like Back in the Day or just did it because that’s what the fans wanted, but he sells the Hell out of it, particularly in the fight with the possessed doll.

Ray Santiago and Dana DeLorenzo work great as the new additions to the cast of Evil Dead characters, acting as the surrogates for the new audience to the weirdness that is going on around them. We don’t know much about them yet aside from Pablo’s spiritual belief in evil and Kelly’s pragmatism, but they leave us wanting more after surviving their first encounter with the Evil Dead.

Jill Marie Jones’ Amanda Fisher can’t help but remind me of Nicole Beharie’s Abbie Mills from ‘Sleepy Hollow’, but that’s not a bad comparison. Fisher gets the most amount of scares in this episode; her encounter with the Deadites is classic Evil Dead, from the way the monsters move to guns not needing to be reloaded well after they should’ve run out of bullets. This scene looks cliched, but then you remember that Evil Dead was what made these cliches in the first place. It is after being seemingly discredited that we get our first scene with Lucy Lawless, whose as yet unnamed character encourages Amanda to dig deeper and face the reality of what she encountered.

The pilot was directed by Sam Raimi, and it seems that the scope of television as a medium has not cramped his signature style. The pilot is amazingly well shot, even simply tricks achieved with nothing but lighting seem beyond what we should be seeing on a show like this. He uses some of the old tricks, like the EvilCam, with some new ones thrown in showing his greater experience as a filmmaker. Sadly, Raimi won’t be directing any further episodes this season, but it seems he’s picked who will direct the subsequent episodes, so we’ll see what these newcomers bring to the table.

There’s an an excellent mix of practical and special effects in this; the Deadite prosthetics look as you imagine they should, if somewhat “cleaner” for the modern age. The CGI initially looks cheesy, but then you remember this is the Evil Dead; the gore is meant to look cheesy and over the top. I’m looking forward to what other horrors the production team can put together.

Ivan Raimi and Rob Tapert are also back behind the scenes as writer and producer respectively, but what surprised and pleased me most was Joseph LoDuca returning to score another installment of Evil Dead. Stripped of context, his work here on the show’s score is great, but for old time fans, it should make them feel right at home in the setting again.

What is noticeably absent are any references to Army of Darkness, despite this functioning as a direct sequel to that. It seems that the production team could only get the exclusive rights for Evil Dead 2 and not the third installment. How much weirdness that may cause later on will remain to be seen, but hopefully that issue can be resolved. Still, the flashbacks to Evil Dead II as Ash tells his story to Pablo are well done and in an original way.

I can find little to complain about in this first episode. it may be considered low brow fun but it is presented in a surprisingly sophisticated package. I highly recommend checking this out, and I’m looking forward to the next episode.