Ash vs. Evil Dead

It's a fairly derivative series that often doesn't know how to get away from the far more successful and enjoyable Evil Dead films. Fortunately, Bruce Campbell showed up to play the role that made him famous and he carries this program so that this show's negative aspects don't seem quite so bad. It still probably should have ended after the first season.

good series

Now that the series has fully closed, I think it's fair to compare it to the movies and for the most part, it holds up. Campbell never lost a step with the Ash character, and is given a deeper arch then the movies do. However, it's nice to have little throwbacks to the movies, and it's still cheesy and campy, but it's not always there. Still a lot of fun, and something that I'll appreciate was made. Sadly, we'll never get to see Bruce wield the chainsaw again.

Ok, how in the hell did I not know about this? For anyone interested in it, the answer is yes, it's exactly what you need in your life. If you want a detailed analysis on this, go see my psychiatrist.

Excessive violence and gore are awesome. And the only thing this gets right. The show sits on poor callbacks to the past with one cheek, and on nonsensical, forgetable additions with the other. Xena is the worst choice here, no matter what colors they dye her hair. Campbell's unique charisma is wasted on the decision to make ash a full on slapstick deadbeat, and every other character is just dropped when it ends on cloverfield and mad max. Not that they were interesting, though.

This serie is uniqe, unparalled, unorthodox, unmannerly, underrated, one of a kind!!

Absolutely adored the old Evil Dead films but this is ultimately a letdown. While Campbell is great as usual, literally every other character was either obnoxious or really lame. Unlike the films, the show never does anything overly outlandish and all of the creativity from the films is absent. A lot of the deadite encounters are generic horror fare with heinously dumb and predictable writing. Honestly, if this show was a solo gig of Bruce Campbell being Bruce Campbell it'd be a lot better.

Some great effects and some bad effects. Some bad acting, particularly from the female lead who is an all around odd choice, but Bruce Campbell is at his best. The good outways the bad by a large margin. The show is hilarious, gory, and manages to have some genuinely creepy visuals. The show is a solid follow up to the original films. The decision to make this a half hour show instead of an hour was a good one. Unfolds like extended film script rather than a traditional television plot.

Season 1-2: Though it took me a while after release, I finally watched season 2, and let me say this show is still great. Though a bit of a step down from the first season, Season 2 does a fantastic job of exploring Ash's past, as well as bringing us back in with a Raimi-esque story that is balls to the wall awesome. Unfortunately some of the new characters are just sadly not as good, but really it's a small difference. You're watching for Ash.

The Evil Dead movies owed both their horror and their humor to an element of surprise. While the series does attempt a superficial reproduction of the movies' style, it introduces stale TV-friendly characters, takes Ash himself in unconvincing directions, and phones-in predictable deadite encounters with the monotony of average zombie fare. I'm too much of a fanboy to stop watching just yet, but I might get tired of it soon enough