Entertainment Weekly recently had the opportunity to sit down and interview Bruce Campbell and Sam Raimi about the upcoming Starz series, ‘Ash vs Evil Dead.’ Both interviews are great and drop intriguing tidbits of information about the upcoming series. Several of the most important takeaways, in my opinion, are below and no particular order:
1. Ash hasn’t really grown up. Both Campbell and Raimi talk about how Ash is mostly the same character who hasn’t had any real personal growth of character. As Raimi puts it, “He’s now old, cocky, and stupid.” So basically the only thing that’s changed is his age. Raimi certainly knows what the fans want, because I know I wouldn’t want Ash any other way.
2. Ash caused the current Deadite outbreak. Raimi explicitly states that the series is kicked off by “a foolish mistake” Ash makes, and this is what causes some of the conflict between himself and the characters played by Lucy Lawless and Amanda Fisher, who will try to stop him (at least initially) not knowing that he’s trying to fix his mistakes.
3. We might see more supernatural elements than just the Deadites. We’re told that Pablo (played by Ray Santiago) is the son of a Central American brujo (a witch doctor of sorts) and was in training to be one himself before he left to illegally immigrate to the U.S. This, of course, raises questions of what exactly he already knows about the supernatural and if he’ll be able to harness his brujo powers to use against the Deadites. We also learn that Ruby (played by Lucy Lawless) has knowledge about the Necronomicon, Deadites, and the supernatural in general. Ruby is described by both Campbell and Raimi as “mysterious” and Raimi adds that she and Ash begin as adversaries. Eventually Ruby will learn that Ash is not the enemy, but she’ll still have secrets that Raimi can’t tell us about since they would be major spoilers. (Let the speculation begin.)
4. There will be something to please all the fans. When asked about the general tone of the show and which movie it would most be like, Campbell answered “It’s everything!” Raimi, for his part, said they were “trying for the horror of the first Evil Dead” film, while still combining elements of the second film. This would sound like questionable news if they were making a movie, but with the longer format of a series, they’ll certainly have more flexibility and time to fit in elements of the different movies, so Evil Dead fans everywhere should have something to look forward, no matter which film is their favorite.
The full interviews are quite interesting and have even more info in them as well, so I would suggest you go read them for yourselves. You can read Bruce’s interview here and Sam’s here.
‘Ash vs Evil Dead’ will be released this fall on Starz.