Bookmonkey vs The Hoard: Post Fourteen - Ash vs Evil Dead

Happy Halloween Everyone!

So a month later and I finally get to blog about Ash vs Evil Dead, or at least the first season.

The series picks up thirty years after the original trilogy (The Evil Dead (1981), Evil Dead II (1987), and Army of Darkness (1992), with Ash (Bruce Campbell), still working as a stock boy and using made up stories of how he lost his hand to pick up women.  Unfortunately for Ash, the Necronomicon (the book of the dead) is not yet done with him, and the series begins with him realizing evil is once again released on Earth.

As the series (produced by Campbell, original director Sam Raimi, and original producer Robert Tapert) is ten episodes long, it introduces two companions for Ash, Pablo and Kelly, two other employees at Valu-Mart who get swept up in his fight against the deadites (corpses that have been reanimated by the evil released from the book).

As with Evil Dead II, the series is a horror-comedy, putting the characters against all sorts of horrible "out of the frying pan into the fire" scenarios and allowing Ash to come across as just a terrible human being, who has (deep within) the potential to be a great hero.

Separate from the plot, each episode feature hard rock from the 1970s and 1990s (and largely from the Detroit music scene of the time), which is a great throwback to the music of Ash's younger days.

The series is a must for fans of the franchise, but also works as a great leaping on point, assuming you don't mind horror mixed with comedy.

I loved it, and will be waiting for the second season as soon as it's available.

So in the end, I spent the month going through a lot of things I had been meaning to get around to (in some cases for years) and although I didn't keep everything, I'm happier for have experienced it all, and may give this concept another try from the various Science Fiction or Fantasy titles I've got scattered around my house in the future.

Thanks for reading everyone!

To See or Not to See: The Evil Dead

Okay, I am a pretty big fan of The Evil Dead franchise; like most I began with the 1987 film Evil Dead 2, then went back to watch the 1981 original and watched the 1992 follow-up Army of Darkness in theatres.

Years later I used my love of the series to see how cool my wife was (answer – very cool), introduce my friends to something they hadn’t seen before (and the cool friends I showed it to still talk to me), and eventually even got to show the series to my youngest daughter as she began her own exploration of the horror genre (and for newcomers to my blog, relax, first I showed her scary kids movies, then scary movies from the ‘30s, ‘40s, ‘50s, and ‘60s – not the ‘70s though, because that decade in horror was messed up – I’m still not old enough to see a bunch of those movies).

So here I am, a huge fan of the franchise, when what do you know, a new version of The Evil Dead is about to be released in theatres.

So now I’m conflicted.  The original 1981 film is one of the freakiest horror films I’ve ever seen.  Seriously.  Both original sequels move away from straight horror into a bizarre horror/comedy hybrid (which I love as well), but that first film was just got under my skin and wouldn’t let go.

The new film has the blessing of the original producers, and the reviews so far have been pretty positive, but I’m still nervous that by revisiting my own childhood experiences with horror (until I saw The Evil Dead, my experience involved TV movies and the big franchisees of Freddy, Jason, and Michael Myers – all of which (except for the original Halloween andElm Street films) did nothing to prepare me for how scary a movie like The Evil Dead could be.

Honestly, I’ll probably go see it (I talk about horror a lot, so my friends may start asking me what I thought of it, so I figure I should have some thoughts), but I’m gonna be pretty careful with my expectations.  Speaking as a guy who did a month-long study into re-imaginings of horror classics I know how well, and how poorly, these films can translate.