Bruce Campbell Talks More Ash vs. Evil Dead
Steve Barton
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A few days ago we brought you some tasty portions of Entertainment Weekly’s recent interview with Bruce Campbell regarding the upcoming Evil Dead-based TV show, “Ash vs. Evil Dead.” Today EW released the full interview, which is brimming with new details.
“Ash would probably have more dialogue in one season than in three movies,” says Campbell. “He’ll have to become a more fleshed-out character as well. And we never burned ‘Evil Dead’ as a franchise out—it’s not like we did 13 of these movies. So we felt like, what the heck, let’s give it a try.”
As for comparison’s to AMC’s “The Walking Dead…”
“‘Walking Dead’ is ‘Walking Dead,’ but we were kind of first. And I would say it’s about as big of a counterpart to ‘Walking Dead’ as you could program, because ‘Walking Dead’ is unrelentingly grim and hugely popular. We’re going to give people a little of the old fashioned slapstick – horror and comedy. The fans have been really good to us over the years. This is an opportunity to do something with full street cred. [Fan reaction to last year’s ‘Evil Dead’ remake] was all, “Yeah yeah, that was nice, fellas, but we still want the real deal.” This is it. Sam’s back. I’m back. [Executive producer Rob Tapert’s] back. Love it or hate it, this will be the real deal.”
On the return of Ash and his demeanor…
“He continues being a trash-talking know-it-all who doesn’t really know anything. He’s the ultimate anti-hero. He’s a guy with no appreciable skills. He’s not a former Navy SEAL, he’s not a former CIA or FBI. He’s no special anything. He’s just a guy from S-Mart, you know? And think that’s part of what people relate too. All these super hero movies—I rather relate to a garage mechanic who gets into a sticky situation. That’s what I look forward to playing—a guy with horrible flaws. In Army of Darkness he can’t memorize three words and he’s responsible for the deaths of a 100 people—this is your lead character!”
But he won’t be alone this time. He will have some cohorts. How many though?
“It’s a threesome, which is a good number. Since it’s not cast yet, it would be silly to fully describe them. But they’re supposed to be two very good counterparts. One is a male-bonding situation; the other is father-figure deal, since Ash could have a daughter the same age as this character. Hopefully we’ll pull Ash out of his loner-veteran mode and get him back into being a human being again.”
As to whether or not “Ash vs. Evil Dead” will be more like the scary original or the more comedic Army of Darkness…
“Something we’re doing is taking the horror parts very seriously. We’re not making fun of the horror aspects. And it’s going to cause Ash—this crabby middle-aged man who doesn’t want to get dragged back into this—a lot of problems. He’s not the Ash he used to be… There’s jokey horror and horror-horror. When there’s a presence in the room, it has to be dealt with because it’s an extremely dangerous and volatile situation. Humor may come out of it, but there’s nothing funny about a demon ripping somebody’s head off. And the beauty of Starz is there’s no content issues. Let’s face it: Fans want the carnage and the mayhem. So we intend to give them quite the explosion of viscera. Most of it directed at me, unfortunately.”
Speaking of Army of Darkness, will “Ash vs. Evil Dead” feature time travel?
“I have no idea. It’s early yet, we’ll see where the journey takes us. I think people are going to have a lot of fun. We’re going to keep this show constantly evolving and hopefully surprising.”
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In the half-hour horror-comedy “Ash vs. Evil Dead,” Ash takes a road trip to banish his demons alongside two young helpers and his trusty boomstick. Look for it sometime in 2015.
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