Starts late tonight (alright technically it’s Halloween after midnight) at 12:17am Eastern. There will be plenty of replays if you forgot to set the DVR or can’t stay up til then, and also OnDemand etc.
I assume the weird time for the premiere is due to them marathoning the three movies immediately before, starting at 8pm eastern.
Groovy.
So, did anyone else watch? I subscribed to Starz just so I could.
Gotta say, I loved it. It is so like Ash to let the Kandarians back into our realm by trying to impress a date while stoned out of his mind. The shift between comedic scenes and horror scenes is so well-executed, to the point that it feels like whiplash when one jumps to the other. It feels like they’re going more in terms of Evil Dead 2 rather than the more over-the-top style of AoD. Bruce Campbell is, as always, a god, and is as skilled with his body language as he ever was. The CGI dolls were downright primitive, but I have to suspect that they were intentionally so in order to imitate the stop-motion demons from the movies.
I’ve read that they’ve already greenlighted a second season. I look forward to seeing what’s coming up.
As far as I can tell, it’s premiering tonight on Starz at either 9pm or 10pm ET. Not sure what the OP is referring to, or how the second poster already saw it.
It was on last nite @ 12:15am EST - I have it DVR’d - now time to go watch it.
Saw it, enjoyed it, when Lucy Lawless shows up I’ll be hooked forever.
I DVR’d it last night, and watched it this afternoon. And if you are inclined toward the goofy splatcom fun delivered by Evil Dead II: Dead By Dawn and Army Of Darkness, you will not be disappointed. Bruce looks very good for his age, and is still very much on his game. And for some reason, Ash is still in possession of the Necronomicon Ex Mortis, and keeps it stashed in a locker with his girlie books…
My girlfriend works for Starz, and informs me that due to licensing rights, they aren’t using anything from* Army of Darkness*; thus, regrettably, Ash does not work at S-Mart, but at a suspiciously similar retail establishment. Neither she nor I am precisely sure why, but if someone wanted to charge me to use S-Mart when Bruce Campbell and Sam Raimi already greenlighted the series, I suppose I would tell them to go to hell, too.
I was happy to see it greenlighted for a second season. It will provide a lighter, yet horrifying, weekend counterpart to Walking Dead… a show I enjoy, but it’s not real long on laughs, you know?
I thought it was good. Not great, but good.
Shame they can’t reference Army of Darkness.
Still, I thought it was really fun. I hope future weeks are well done as well.
I liked it quite a bit, but the idea that Ash knowingly unleashed the Deadites just to get into some woman’s pants was a little off-putting. Though I did notice that later in the episode the Deadites seemed to say it would have happened with or without him.
Just saw it, loved it. This may have shot up the list to become my new favorite show.
Sorry babe, no time to finish.
Really?
Well, I guess if we’re quick…
Made sense to me. According to Bruce Campbell and Sam Raimi, Ash is indeed the Chosen One, and is phenomenally good at engaging and killing Deadites.
In all other areas of life, he is an over-cocky blowhard who depends on his good looks and snappy patter to get by, despite being nowhere near as smooth or clever as he thinks he is. Ash is, in fact, kind of an idiot and a loser. But he’s the Chosen One, durnit, and with boomstick and chainsaw, he can accomplish ANYTHING as long as it involves killing Deadites.
This is why he’ll do a fine job of defending your castle, but don’t expect him to remember or correctly pronounce a three-word incantation before collecting the Necronomicon. And it made perfect sense to me that in the noble cause of getting laid, he would get himself and his lady high as a treeful of monkeys and then read something aloud from the Necronomicon as a joke. It’s been thirty years, after all. As much of a dip as Ash is, you don’t think he’d get sloppy?
Particularly if the plot required it.
I thought it was hilarious that he read-out the book while high. Exactly. The moron.
This is what bothered me about it, I think. The Ash of Army of Darkness is an idiot but he isn’t an asshole. It’s the asshole bit that is causing me problems. Though I do think that’ll get fixed throughout the series as Ash goes back to his Deadite killing ways and (if I’m right) it’s revealed that the Deadites somehow made Ash read from the book (or it ties into the Evil Dead remake*).
Do what? Admittedly, the folk of the 12th century start by beating the crap out of him and tossing him into a zombie pit, but Ash is a supreme jerk to them all through the movie.
Be less of an asshole. You can already see it after he kills the neighbor lady Deadite.
He’s snarky, but he’s not even close to the asshole behavior he exhibits in the first few minutes of Ash vs Evil Dead.
*“thus, regrettably, Ash does not work at S-Mart, but at a suspiciously similar retail establishment?”
*
I just assumed it was because he was the kind of guy who keeps moving on from store to similar store and had worked at all sorts of places between S-Mart and Value(whatever it was).
The rights thing makes sense, though, as all three movies are owned by different entities, and that’s why ED2 opens with an abridged recreation of ED rather than just showing footage from it, stuff like that.
I did like that when Ash was recounting his past here, he mentioned he was at the cabin with his friend**s **and not just his girlfriend. I never cared for that particular retcon in ED2/AOD that it was only him and Linda. I mean, his sister was killed, how can you retcon that away?
On the other hand, he apparently didn’t burn the book like he did in ED, so it’s mix & match continuity. Normally that would bug me, but not with this series, which has never kept that very well (see above retcon).
I didn’t like him picking up the skank in the bar, but the whole way it let him in on the demons coming almost made up for it.
Some of the effects didn’t look so great, but whatever.
I liked it, it racked up the tension nicely in the house with the two FBI agents. Ash has a certain charisma about him, and I enjoyed his driving ‘style’. His two sidekicks are pleasant, and hopefully the female FBI agent will turn up again, she’s got moxie.
Cheap looking effects are part of the appeal for me, to be honest.
Finally, I can prove to my family that I’m not the only person who loved Ash and the Evil Dead!
My son loved the show, my wife still doesn’t get it, but she liked Jill Marie Jones in Girlfriends so she’ll watch just for her.
I love that Ash has basically been a stoner for 30 years but still kept the boom-stick and chainsaw close to hand.
I also think that the cheesy fx are part of the appeal.
I honestly would have loved the show even more if they’d gone CGI-free and done all practical effects, but I suspect that there are very few people left in the business these days who would be able to execute them very well. As it is, they did a good job getting a stop-motion-esque feel out of the killer doll, and the makeup on the Deadites is pretty good.
I agree, enjoyable, and Bruce is still great, but not worth buying Starz just for this. I also agree it was a shame no AoD references.
They did manage to include the “It got into my hand. It went bad. I lopped it off at the wrist” bit from the opening monologue.
Pretty much every single installment of Evil Dead has been its own independent canon, so I guess one can assume for the purposes of this series that the backstory here is the “good parts version” of the first two movies, compressed into one night, and without the time travel at the end.