📜 My History with Evil Dead

Like many TV-raised youth of my generation, I first experienced this series in the wrong order. Army of Darkness was an AMC staple that I was initially reluctant to get into, but once I actually sat my ass down and watched it, it became my favorite movie. I was enthralled by its slapstick stupidity on the facade of a “horror movie”, but I was big on D&D at the time, so the fantasy element was the real sell here. Sword and sorcery with skeletons and demons, and did I mention how stupid this movie was? Growing up on Three Stooges and Ren & Stimpy humor, it was right up my alley. Bruce Campbell quickly became a legend in my household, but here I was nearly 10 years after Army of Darkness had come out and “concluded” the Evil Dead saga. A saga I never even knew about beforehand, save for the iconic poster I would see advertised in comics from the early 90s. I never put two-and-two together that The Medieval Dead was the comedy sidekick follow-up to some of the most chilling and atmospheric horror films ever made.

I'd gone to various stores searching for a copy on DVD. Blockbuster, BestBuy, CircuitCity... I eventually had to order on Amazon, but it was worth it: 2-disc Anchor Bay edition with the director's cut. A director's cut?! Holy shit! I got 15 more minutes of my favorite movie that were even more hilarious than before! I loved this movie so much, I even managed to get my parents to buy me the CD soundtrack for my birthday, because I loved the Joseph LoDuca score and fantasized about it as I waited for the school bus in the morning, daydreaming about how I wanted to make a movie that as as equally magical, horrific and stupid as this movie was.

After my obsession was established, I asked my parents for Evil Dead 1 & 2 for Christmas. Like any good parents would do, they got me these extremely gory and bloody horror films on Jesus Christ's birthday, because my step-brothers probably vouched for them, being fans of the Chin himself and pushing me towards the trilogy. It was on Christmas day that I immediately popped the first film into the DVD player and let her rip.

At the time, I didn't quite know what to think of the first movie. Bruce Campbell was a little bitch, and he wasn't funny at all. Don't let the ironic hipsters fool you into thinking it's a comedy, because it isn't. The first film is a grainy old-school cabin in the woods horror film, and I didn't understand it at the time. Yet, somehow... I knew the bridge between part 1 and part 3 would be more of what I was expecting from the series as soon as Bruce drives up on screen.

My first thought was how this guy could be so fucking dumb to go back to the cabin after all his friends were murdered there, and with another girl named Linda, no less. I quickly learned that part 1 was retconned and we were starting over, and this time, Bruce was allowed to ham it up.

Every move this guy made was funny. Sam Raimi knew he could take full advantage of Bruce's loyalty to him and he made it a point to put him through the wringer. You could tell that both Ash and Bruce were losing their minds, and that's what really sells it. The goofiness of Army of Darkness was shining through while the eeriness of an actual horror movie that was the first film was lingering. It was the perfect balance of horror/comedy and would become the gold standard for the cross-genre pollination. A masterclass twisting of genre expectations, going from horror, to horror/comedy, to comedy/fantasy/adventure. Never had I seen a film series morph so effortlessly into something completely different than what it started as, and it never even felt demeaning. It felt earned and worthwhile, and I'll always love it for that.

Much to my dismay, I knew that the time of Evil Dead was over. Army of Darkness seemed like the perfect conclusion for the perfect trilogy, and there were only ever rumors of an Evil Dead IV, but those very rumors were already aging rapidly. We were all given false hope when Bruce decided to do a pseudo Evil Dead movie called “My Name is Bruce”, but that was a movie you only laughed at in an effort to trick yourself into thinking it was an adequate Evi Dead fix, but it wasn't. They had stamped the Evil Dead brand on a few poorly reviewed video games in the mean time, but eventually, they would do the inevitable: they announced a “remake” was in the works.

At this time, the dreaded remake was a death sentence to a franchise. The hope we as fans had for a follow-up had never wavered, but it was being laid to rest by the notion of a Hollywood misunderstanding of the source material. I had watched the movie and I wasn't impressed. Sure, it was cruel and gross, but it was also flashy and influenced by the wrong J-horror ghost cliches that did little to satisfy my deadite itch. If anything, it only made me long for the real thing even more, especially considering that post-credits tease that was there to remind us that the real thing would always be better than a pale imitation.

Two years later, after years of waiting, we were finally gifted the greatest thing any Evil Dead fan could possibly hope for: a TV show that's all about Ashley Joanna Williams. Ash vs. Evil Dead is very likely the greatest TV series I've ever witnessed. The tone was perfect, the plot was fun as hell, the side characters were loveable idiots, and Bruce was just Bruce, for three beautiful seasons. Starz can eat a fat dick for canceling their only good show, because Ash vs. Evil Dead was nothing short of a masterpiece, no matter how you carve it up.

In the years that followed, we'd be teased with an animated follow-up that never came to fruition, and then an eventual “sequel” that decided to emulate the misaligned remake over the legitimate entries. Evil Dead Rise left a bad taste in mouth, and it wasn't the taste of an eyeball. As it stands now, we have two more movies to look forward to, and I'm not looking forward to either of them. All I can say is that I'm extremely grateful to have the original trilogy and TV show to go back to, because there will always be that one word to sum up just how awesome those movies were and always will be: Groovy.