For the sake of this review lets say I added Starz to my satellite TV package and didn't download this episode by elicit means...Last night after the kids went to bed and my wife was still on her way home from the Sounders game, I sat down and watched the first episode of Ash vs Evil Dead. Talk about a show that delivers exactly what it promised. It's 45 minutes of silly, gory fun. A perfect mix of the gore and horror from the Evil Dead 2 and the humor and adventure of Army of Darkness. (Minor Spoilers to follow)
There's a scene in the first half of the episode where Ash, still working as a stockboy, is told by his overbearing boss to carefully put away a box of lightbulbs. In classic Ash fashion, he almost immediately spills them everywhere. With a lot of writers/actors/directors that's the end of the joke. Sam Raimi and Bruce Campbell extend the joke by having Ash step on more bulbs in an effort to discreetly dispose of the broken bulbs in the most half ass manner you could imagine. It extends the scene by all of 20 seconds but it takes what could easily be a throw away physical joke and turns it into a character moment. It's that kind of detail that has made all the Evil Dead movies so special and it's exactly what I wanted to see in this series.
This isn't to say the series is perfect or going to be perfect. In the first 20 minutes they were dangerously close to Stifler in American Pie 3 territory, where Ash is almost a parody of himself. They pull him back in the last third so no harm no foul. I'm looking forward to how the story unfolds over 10 episodes (plus the second season they've already been renewed for!). Writing for a TV show is much different than a movie but both of the Rami's have a lot of experience with TV so I don't see any reason not to be bullish on Ash vs Evil Dead.
10/10. Would
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