TV REVIEW: ‘Ash vs. Evil Dead’ a worthy companion to ‘Evil Dead’ films

ANALYSIS/OPINION

He’s back, and he’s still groovy.

Video games notwithstanding, it’s been 23 years since lowly retail clerk Ash Williams (Bruce Campbell) snarkily battled the undead in the “Evil Dead” films, but thanks to the currently en vogue phenomenon of reviving old properties on cable and online, the jive-talking, chainsaw-handed Casanova is back to tangle with more vile creatures from beyond on the Starz series “Ash vs. Evil Dead,” appropriately premiering on Halloween.

The tone is set right from the get-go in the premiere episode, “El Jefe,” helmed by director of all three “Dead” films and “Spider-Man” veteran, Sam Raimi. The series opens on Ash grunting and growling in extreme close-up with middle-aged abandon — possibly in sexual abandon, possibly working out — only to reveal the now-chunky reluctant hero attempting to squeeze his portlier frame into a corset as he dresses for a night out. Where his right hand, sawn off upon being possessed in “Evil Dead 2,” used to be he now plugs in a bronze limb. On his way out to the world he grabs two Magnum condoms for adventures unknown (but you’ll see).

That Ash lives in a messy trailer and has seemingly never been promoted at his dead-end job as a sales clerk at the cheerily on-target store named ValueMart only adds to the joke that the formerly vaunted, their heroic deeds concluded, often retreat into anonymous lives of middle-class mediocrity. Ash’s boss Mr. Roper (Damien Garvey) torments him mercilessly and hilariously, ordering Ash into a throwaway gag task of transporting an insecure box of lightbulbs from A to B — with predictably slapstick results worthy of Buster Keaton.

But this being the “Evil Dead” universe, Ash can’t avoid supernatural trouble for long. First come the visions of ordinary humans turning into the Deadites of yore, then Armageddon clouds gathering ominously above the Michigan countryside (with New Zealand “shemping” in for Mr. Campbell and Mr. Raimi’s home state), followed soon thereafter by the series’ hallmark — the POV of the Evil Dead “force” running at characters full-tilt. Ash can’t withstand the call to pick up the chainsaw, thanks to the vile, gruesome armies from beyond out to make his life a, well, un-living hell.

A secondary plot involves cop Amanda Fisher (Jill Marie Jones) coming face to face with the Deadites at yet another secluded residence. How Amanda’s and Ash’s destinies might intertwine can as of yet only be guessed, but a hint may come in the subtle in-joke casting of Lucy Lawless in a key diner scene. Miss Lawless famously starred in “Xena,” a series in which Mr. Campbell frequently appeared on as Autolycus, King of Thieves (as well on its brother show, “Hercules” with Kevin Sorbo).

Of the plot I will share little else beyond that “Ash vs. Evil Dead” proceeds as if “Army of Darkness,” the third film in the franchise, never happened. This, I discovered in a recent conference call with Mr. Campbell, was less an artistic choice than a legal one, as the rights to each of the three “Evil Dead” films are owned by a different company. But just as “Evil Dead 2: Dead by Dawn” was neither remake nor precise sequel to “Evil Dead,” so too is “Ash vs. Evil Dead” not an exact continuation but rather the character of Ash inhabiting a different time line within the same universe.

And it’s that universe that Mr. Raimi and fellow show creators — Mr. Campbell, Rob Tapert, Ivan Raimi and showrunner Craig DiGregorio — revel in during the first episode of “Ash.” Yes, the special effects are far snazzier and the filmmaking technique far more refined than when Messrs. Raimi and Campbell shot for peanuts at that notorious abandoned Tennessee cabin, but it’s 2015, not 1981, and Mr. Raimi and Mr. Campbell are now in their late 50s, no longer the angry, splatter-obsessed youths they once were, but, if not Hollywood royalty, at least its residents jokers.

They’ve each enjoyed showbiz careers for 35 years apiece, with varying degrees of success. Mr. Campbell has won a reputation as the king of low-budget cheese — an industry unto himself — while Mr. Raimi’s output has vacillated from odes to the cheapie grindhouse horror/sci-fi schlock of his youth (“Darkman,” “Drag Me to Hell”) to big-budget superflicks (all three “Spider-Man” films with Tobey Maguire, “Oz the Great and Powerful”) and even the occasional, genuinely legitimate artistic home run along the way (“A Simple Plan”).

(He’s also had incredible, unforgivable misses like “For Love of the Game,” which single-handedly killed the micro Kevin Costner baseball genre and remains one of the more painful films I have ever beheld.)

If there’s anything “missing” from the first episode of “Ash vs. Evil Dead,” it’s the on-the-cheap, creatively utilitarian moviemaking techniques Mr. Raimi employed as his lack of funding necessitated. Computer-generated ghouls and CGI blood soak where buckets of fake gore once rained down on poor Mr. Campbell — ever the butt of Mr. Raimi’s cruelty.

However, this I can forgive, as “Ash” brings back to the franchise the all-important humor that made the “Evil Dead” films not just creative exercises in horror filmmaking but genuinely enjoyable, laughter-inducing movie-watching. Their point was not to scare but rather to entertain. As Mr. Raimi was long a fan of “The Three Stooges,” the “Dead” flicks trafficked in slapstick gags taken to the nth, most gruesome degree: We laughed amid the carnage because it could simply not be received seriously, nor with anything other than a giggle.

“Ash vs. Evil Dead,” thankfully, has not forgotten this dictum. It is never played for earnestness and is not necessarily a postmodern in-joke referencing its forebears, but rather exists for the sheer joy of its own schlockiness. It is aware without being self-aware, and that makes it worthy of joining the cannon.

Ash is back. Long live the king!