Starz Greenlights ‘Ash vs Evil Dead’ Season 2 Ahead of Series Premiere

(Other than the original Evil Dead and/or Evil Dead remake, but …). Their enthusiasm helps sell the reboot.

A scene from the TV show Ash vs Evil Dead. First things first, let’s just be glad Ash vs. Evil Dead is premiering for its first season on October 31 at 9 PM. The one liners from Bruce Campbell alone were worth the price of admission, and it wasn’t until years later that I realized there were actually two movies prior to Army of Darkness that chronicled Ash’s story: Evil Dead 1 and 2.

After catching glimpses of the revived spirits, Ash decides to flee. Ash is directly joined by two co-workers from the “Valu-Mart”, Pablo (Ray Santiago) and Kelly (Dana DeLorenzo).

In both “Evil Dead” movies, Ash inadvertently unleashes the Deadites while vacationing in a cabin in the woods and discovers that the only way to destroy them is by dismemberment. During the five hours I spend on the blood-splattered set of Ash vs Evil Dead, my white sneakers get stuck to the floor in a blood-drenched saloon, I trip over a bucket containing a child’s head floating in a puddle of brown goo, and at one point, I’m handed a string of sticky intestines to hold. In the last few decades, that sort of thing has produced diminishing returns as either horror or comedy.

But Campbell, who has made a specialty of playing self-mocking heroes, is consistently amusing. “And I’d go to these conventions and all people would say to me is, “Yeah, but when are you going to make another ‘Evil Dead” film?'” This episode opens with close-ups of leather straps being tightened.

When the camera pulls back, we see that Ash is fastening a corset around his middle-aged belly.

Season two will reunite creative team Sam Raimi and Craig DiGregorio, as well as lead cast members Bruce Campbell and Lucy Lawless. There’s also a subplot involving a dogged police detective (Jill Marie Jones) investigating the supernatural deaths that follow Ash wherever he goes, and a mysterious woman played by Xena’s Lucy Lawless, whose connection to the Necronomicon has yet to be fully explained.

“… [The audience] can really get to know him and hate him and love him”, he said, referring to Ash, “and they’ll get exasperated by his outrageous and sometimes foolish decisions, his big ego, and his blowhard nature”.