Ash vs Evil Dead – The Complete First Season

Blu-Ray Reviews | Aug 26th, 2016

Ash vs Evil Dead
Image used with permission for review purposes.

Starring: Bruce Campbell, Lucy Lawless, Ray Santiago, Dana DeLorenzo, Jill Marie Jones
Developed By: Sam Raimi, Ivan Raimi, Tom Spezialy
Studio: Starz / Anchor Bay
Buy On Amazon.com

The long awaited follow-up to Army of Darkness and the Evil Dead movies is Ash vs Evil Dead. The series premiered on Starz last October and fans should be pretty happy with it. It’s got humor, gore, and it’s just a lot of fun to watch.

The series picks up 30 years later after the Evil Dead movies. Ash (Bruce Campbell) continues to avoid responsibility and works as a sales clerk. Until he royally screws things up, when he accidentally reads passages from The Book of the Dead again. He unleashes all those demons from that book and has to face all those Deadites one more time. By his side is his co-workers. Loyal sidekick and admirer, Pablo (Ray Santiago) and Kelly (Dana DeLorenzo) who reluctantly doesn’t want to fight alongside those guys. On Ash’s trail is State Trooper Amanda Fisher (Jill Marie Jones) who wants to prove Ash is behind the death of her partner.

Ash Vs Evil Dead contains 10 episodes that are half hour episodes (pilot is 45 mins). When originally watching, I felt the show deserved to be a little longer. Once things got going, you wanted to keep watching it and then it just ends. Maybe I’m so used to binging a lot of shows these days. Believe it or not, I’ve only ever saw Army of Darkness and none of the Evil Dead movies for a long time. Before this series aired, I finally watched the first two movies. I thought I might be too scared by them (I’m a wuss). While they are bit scary sometimes, the second one is a lot more slapstick. Army of Darkness is still my favorite but the series is a lot of fun as well.

The show has so many good one-liners from Bruce Campbell, but Ray Santiago and Dana DeLorenzo have plenty of good lines as well. If you get attached to characters on the show besides the main ones, you might be disappointed. They don’t really stick around too long. The series pointed out very well that wherever Ash went; destruction, mayhem and death followed him. As someone who doesn’t like gore all too much, the show does teeters on over the top/cartoonish gore and then some nasty gross things. There’s not too much of the gross stuff per episode that makes me want to fast forward or skip. There’s certainly enough to please horror fans though. I’m looking forward to seeing Season 2 and seeing how much Ash screws things up for himself and everyone around him. If I had any complaints, I’d probably keep smaller characters around longer than an episode. The ending of the season seemed to fizzle out to me. I would have liked to have seen something else done with what they did. I’m just glad they didn’t kill off Kelly and Pablo (yet).

On the Blu-Ray, there’s audio commentary on each episode, a 15 minute featurette where the showrunner Craig DiGregorio goes through each episode, and two quick featurettes. The best extra is the 15 minute one with the showrunner. You get a quick glimpse into each episode and see how things were done. They used a lot of practically effects, and when they had to, some CGI. I kind of wish they wouldn’t do the CGI blood splatters for things but I’m assuming this show’s budget isn’t a lot. Practical effects all the way! The other 2 featurettes were fluff pieces and didn’t offer a lot.

Fans of Evil Dead, Army of Darkness and Bruce Campbell in general will love this series. It’s the perfect show to watch around the Fall and Halloween time. Bring on Season 2!

Features

– Audio Commentaries on All Episodes
– Inside The World Of Ash
– How to Kill a Deadite
– Best Of Ash

Audio
English Dolby Digital 5.1

Video
Widescreen 1.85:1 Color (Anamorphic)

Bottom Line: The follow-up to Evil Dead movies is a fun one!
Running Time: 294 mins
Rating: TV-MA
Extras Rating:
Overall Rating:

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