All Hail The Mighty Bruce

Two months ago I touched upon my love for all things Bruce Campbell when I shared my feelings on the first episode of Ash vs Evil Dead. As I sit here now writing this particular blog entry I am literally minutes removed from watching the last epsode of Season One and all I can say is WHERE IS SEASON TWO???

As previously mentioned the Evil Dead trilogy is my all time favourite collection of horror comedies and will always hold a special place in my heart if for nothing more than bringing the Mighty Bruce into my life.

I don't think I need to rehash my feelings on the 2013 remake of the original Evil Dead, hell if you're interested then just look back and read my post from November 5th, but I will be honest and say that Ash vs Evil Dead would have had to have been all kinds of atrocious for me to not have loved it more than the abomination that was Fede Alvarezs movie. Thankfully Ash vs Evil Dead has been everything I could have ever hoped it would be and then a little bit more and I for one am not ashamed to admit I marked out for almost every single second of Season One.

The basic plot brings us back into the life of Ashley J Williams who we find living in a trailer park and working in a hardware store (though not S Mart) where he is a aging buffoon who has inadvertantly released the forces of evil by reciting passage from the Necronomicon in an attempt to impress a woman.

Reconnecting with his chainsaw and trusty boomstick Ash teams up with a work colleague named Pablo and a young woman named Kelly, together they fight a neverending barrage of deadites whislt trying to figure out how to put the genie back in the bottle. Hot on Ash's trail is police detective Amanda Fisher who is convinced by Ruby Knowby that Ash is responsible for a series of murders. Knowby is the other daughter of the couple who unleash the evil in Evil Dead in a nice nod back to the orignal movies and is played by Lucy Lawless.

Eventually it all leads back to the cabin where it al began and it turns out that Ruby is actually the Dark One who wrote the Necronomicon and is looking to unleash evil upon the world. Ash of course tries to stop her but is convinced to let her have her way as she tells him she wants to keep evil under her sole control. Pablo and Kelly know that this is a bad idea but hey Ash is nothing if not consistantly idiotic so it is not surprising that he agrees to let the Dark One unleash hell all in return for a quiet life in Jacksonville. Of course we know that Ash will have to return to kick Deadite ass in Season Two and that for me makes the ending of Season One perfectly acceptable altough I understand that some may feel that it makes Ash look just a little too stupid.

Ash vs Evil Dead was an absolute blast from start to finish perfectly mixing the comedy from Evil Dead II and Army of Darkness with a healthy dose of modern horror. This is never more prevelant than in the final episode when the gore is ramped up to a whole other level from what we had delivered to us in the rest of Season One. The show was a hell of a ride, bringing us Deadites, possessed dolls, demon children and the kind of in your face, over the top, ridiculous deaths that you just wouldn't find in other shows such as The Walking Dead. It is also brilliantly acted throughout with not a single bad performance.

What really stands out for me in Season One however is that Sam Raimi only directed the first episode with others coming in to direct the remaining episodes yet it is done so seemlessly that you would never be able to tell. Alot of the credit for this can of course be given to Mr Campbell who is for my money one of the most under-rated actors alive today. Even my wife whilst watching this show turned to me and said, "You know what? Bruce Campbelll is actually a pretty good actor". I of course would go further but then I am a Campbell mark.

It's going to be a long wait for Season Two but in the meantime I will be eagerly awaiting the Season One boxset which hopefully will come with some nice shiny Campbell commentaries to help me pass away the evenings until I can return to the show and follow the further adventures of Ash and Co.

In closing I'm going to give this show the score that it most definately deserves and yes I will admit that the rating is coming from a place of love for the Mighty Bruce but it's my blog and so I'm giving it a perfect 10 out of 10.