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Re: Ash vs. Evil Dead
Never was a huge ED fan, but this looks pretty good. Good dose of humour and creative kills.
Different strokes for different folks, I guess.
I love the 1981 film. Super-effective, moody, hard-hitting shoestring horror that leaves all this latter-day found footage crap in the dust.
Was major-league bummed when Evil Dead 2 turned out to be a (horror) comedy. I should prolly give it another whirl some day.
Have seen two different cuts of Army of Darkness, the longer one is more interesting, yet it still feels like an opportunity lost to me.
This series is, in all likelihood, superior to the remake. Bruce Campbell's chin elevates everything it appears in.
- Me_Wise_Magic
- Rep: 70
Re: Ash vs. Evil Dead
Season one finished this past Saturday night. Caught up with it yesterday. I really enjoyed it overall. What a finale. The show does need to get into some hour long episodes to keep things fresh or get to know new characters. It doesn't drag; but the pace could be tweaked abit. Anybody else catch it?
Re: Ash vs. Evil Dead
Haven't finished the season yet, but all I can say Apex is that if you LOVE the 1981 original.... you're probably gonna hate the series. Despite the fact that the series makes it clear it's a direct-sequel to the first film, Campbell/Raimi again take the horror/comedy route ala Evil Dead II/AOD, with Campbell cracking more one-lines than late-era Freddy.
With that said though, Campbell makes sure that the show never takes Ash too seriously. Many times they make a point to point out how old he is, and how ridiculous all of this is, but when the Deadites come around Ash gets serious. The series imo provides a nice balance between the original and the sequels imo.
I agree with Me Wise that Season 2 should shift to an hour-long format (which it should've been to begin with). Episodes end too quickly and rarely have time to flesh out plot, characters, and situations imo. It could use tweaking as said above.
I personally always felt the 1981 original, although ambitious, was a film that needed work and was largely overrated by horror aficionados. I think the 1987 sequel/remake is superior in every single way. AOD was a lost opportunity imo, I agree, but I think Evil Dead II is the definitive representation of the series, and more than likely the real source material for the TV series.
It's still great to have Ash back.
- Me_Wise_Magic
- Rep: 70
Re: Ash vs. Evil Dead
Haven't finished the season yet, but all I can say Apex is that if you LOVE the 1981 original.... you're probably gonna hate the series. Despite the fact that the series makes it clear it's a direct-sequel to the first film, Campbell/Raimi again take the horror/comedy route ala Evil Dead II/AOD, with Campbell cracking more one-lines than late-era Freddy.
With that said though, Campbell makes sure that the show never takes Ash too seriously. Many times they make a point to point out how old he is, and how ridiculous all of this is, but when the Deadites come around Ash gets serious. The series imo provides a nice balance between the original and the sequels imo.
I agree with Me Wise that Season 2 should shift to an hour-long format (which it should've been to begin with). Episodes end too quickly and rarely have time to flesh out plot, characters, and situations imo. It could use tweaking as said above.
I personally always felt the 1981 original, although ambitious, was a film that needed work and was largely overrated by horror aficionados. I think the 1987 sequel/remake is superior in every single way. AOD was a lost opportunity imo, I agree, but I think Evil Dead II is the definitive representation of the series, and more than likely the real source material for the TV series.
It's still great to have Ash back.
Groovy post. Agree on those points especially about the remake; but I still love Army of Darkness with where it wanted to go. It's a fun romp and it's good for audiences that aren't into the whole gore thing which I can understand. It fits with how Raimi works as a director and eventually how his sensibilities went into the Spider-man movies years later. It helps that the actual show-runner knows what he's doing with the characters and has so much respect for the original movies. They do make slight winks to what would happen in Army of Darkness in the show; but I'm not going to say what until we have some more folks finishing the series. Like I mentioned earlier, they don't have the rights to the movie; so it's cool that they are working with what they got with the first two Evil Dead movies. If they aren't making a sequel to the remake, it's entirely possibly they can get Jane Levy "Mia" from the reboot to come back as the same character or different role to get that team up or join the Ghostbeaters. Also Lucy Lawless has aged quite gracefully too. 
Re: Ash vs. Evil Dead
Umm, not to disappoint, but when I said "Remake", I was strictly referring to Evil Dead II: Dead By Dawn, not the actual remake/reboot (I haven't seen it, didn't interest me in the teasers). I only said 'remake', because if you re-watch Evil Dead II, it's basically a scene-for-scene remake of the 1981 original, except for the chainsaw & boomstick and jokes. Evil Dead II in alot of ways is similar to The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2. Raimi with Evil Dead II, no different than Tobe Hooper with TCM2, basically said "hey let's take my dark, sick original, and do it as a black comedy" and the sequels to both of those films resulted. TCM2 followed an all-new story that follows up with the events 10 years later, but ED2 basically just remade the first, but tweaked.
And don't get me wrong, I like Army of Darkness. I thought it was a neat departure. I just don't feel AOD is better than Evil Dead II. It could've been the definitive film if somethings had been done differently, but regardless AOD is a cult masterpiece in its awesomeness. I am old enough to still remember kids catching that flick at the local video store and quoting the movie on the PE playground... cool times.
- Me_Wise_Magic
- Rep: 70
Re: Ash vs. Evil Dead
Umm, not to disappoint, but when I said "Remake", I was strictly referring to Evil Dead II: Dead By Dawn, not the actual remake/reboot (I haven't seen it, didn't interest me in the teasers). I only said 'remake', because if you re-watch Evil Dead II, it's basically a scene-for-scene remake of the 1981 original, except for the chainsaw & boomstick and jokes. Evil Dead II in alot of ways is similar to The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2. Raimi with Evil Dead II, no different than Tobe Hooper with TCM2, basically said "hey let's take my dark, sick original, and do it as a black comedy" and the sequels to both of those films resulted. TCM2 followed an all-new story that follows up with the events 10 years later, but ED2 basically just remade the first, but tweaked.
And don't get me wrong, I like Army of Darkness. I thought it was a neat departure. I just don't feel AOD is better than Evil Dead II. It could've been the definitive film if somethings had been done differently, but regardless AOD is a cult masterpiece in its awesomeness. I am old enough to still remember kids catching that flick at the local video store and quoting the movie on the PE playground... cool times.
I highly recommend watching the 2013 remake. It's quite good. But yeah you are right about Evil Dead 2 being a remake of sorts as well as a continuation of the story. The reason why it's a remake/recon because Raimi wasn't completely happy with the first Evil Dead and with the improvement in camera techniques and special effects, he wanted to take advantage of that. Sort of a George Lucas scenario. Also the fact that at the time a different film company owned the rights to the first Evil Dead and it wasn't until after Dead by Dawn's release that the Raimi brothers and Campbell got the rights back. The whole Army of Darkness rights situation has yet to be resolved even though Universal and another studio re-released the movie on Blu-Ray with special features pretty recently. I see where you are coming from. That's cool man! I got a Army of Darkness shirt with the Boomstick quote at this convention a few years back. I have the original Evil Dead on DVD, Evil Dead 2 on Blu-Ray, 2013 remake on Blu-ray, and hoping to pick up the AOD one in the near future. Totally picking up the first season on Blu-Ray when it gets released or wait for a pack of Seasons 1&2 whenever that finishes. 
Re: Ash vs. Evil Dead
I personally always felt the 1981 original, although ambitious, was a film that needed work and was largely overrated by horror aficionados.
Many of us saw the 1981 film after the 'video nasty' regulations happened in Europe.
Horror films were scarce on commercial VHS, and their 'R' rating was actually PG-13 of today.
Imagine Evil Dead, the film that started the governmental hysteria in London, getting banned.
Video merchants actually hid boxes full of tapes in a church and sold them below-the-counter.
The film was also bootlegged and 3rd generation copies, battered and worn, were a high commodity.
When you got a tape like that - in your hand - you just knew that this was the real deal of the day.
The effect was something like this:
Re: Ash vs. Evil Dead
Wow! That's a great story Apex. I certainly am old enough to remember being apart of the legendary 80s video store (although more of my time was in the 90s), and I certainly remember bonding with alot of crap movies (Vestron Video anyone?), because they were kinda taboo, the mom & pop stores had B-movies on the cheap, and that is exactly how I discovered the Evil Dead Trilogy.
So yeah, with crazy ass shit like a Tree Rape scene, I can totally get why the youth elsewhere got their hands on Evil Dead, and thought they had the holy (or unholy) grail in their hands.
Wow...
