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!

Catching up with Spartacus

Working on my never-ending quest to catch up with what was popular a few years ago, my wife and I have recently begun to watch teh Starz series Spartacus.

For years now I've been a pretty big fan of the classics, whether the stories of mythology, the actual history, or many of the fascinating novels, films, televison and games that have used Ancient Greece and Rome as a resource.

Spartacus was a bit of a hard sell for me - when I initally looked at the advertisements for the series it all looked pretty fake - both the sets looked a little too computer generated, and the actors looked far more muscularly toned than any ancient gladiator would ever have been (they preferred bulk over tone).  But as the guy who owns more than a few series set in the ancient world, eventually I was going to give it a try.

Honestly?  I'm really liking it!  Even though I'm familiar wih the story of the historical Spartacus, and therefoer aware of most of the broad strokes of the story, I was very quickly drawn into the drama and action of the series, and as we are now almost halfway through season 2 (which is technically season 3), I'm pretty sure I'm going to be championing this show for a while - it's relatable, filled with good characters and a lot of sex and violence (so definitely not for the kids), and is completely, almost addictively watchable.

If you've never given it a shot, it is worth a look - although to be fair, once you start you may find it hard to stop.