Back in 1992, Sam Raimi took his Evil Dead franchise in a new direction with Army of Darkness, a full-on slapstick horror film that sent Ash (Bruce Campbell) back in time to battle a medieval undead army. While the theatrical version of the film ended with Ash battling a deadite inside S-Mart, the original finale was much darker. After Ash takes too many drops of a special potion, he pulls a Rip Van Winkle and awakens 100 years in a post-apocalyptic future. No matter which ending you prefer, Raimi and Campbell teased a fourth Evil Dead, which became fan obsession. For nearly 20 years we begged and pleaded for an Evil Dead 4…
In 2003, things took an interesting turn with the success of Freddy vs. Jason, which nearly resulted in a sequel that would pit Ash against Freddy and Jason. Only, Raimi’s Ghost House Pictures had huge success with their remake of The Grudge, which then caused them to turn their focus on rebooting The Evil Dead with a fresh filmmaker. While we were blessed with the Fede Alvarez-directed Evil Dead back in 2013, it wasn’t timely and was extremely underappreciated – it still wasn’t our long-promised Evil Dead 4, even if Ash made an appearance in the closing of the credits.
Just two years later, on October 31, 2015, Starz premiered “Ash vs. Evil Dead”, which boasted the full-on return of Bruce Campbell as Ash. While it wasn’t Evil Dead 4, it was exactly what the doctor ordered… and then some. A full season of Ash kicking deadite ass? Yes, please. We were then blessed with two more seasons, which just concluded this past Sunday night. Shit, we got a remake and literally 10+ hours of a television series, not to mention Raimi also sneaking the wonderful Drag Me to Hell into the mix back in 2009.
To recap, our bellies are full, right? Nope.
Coming from a place of love and eternal gratefulness of what we’ve already been given, I can’t help but feel like the series finale to “Ash vs. Evil Dead” is anything short of a cruel joke. You see, the final episode concluded with a sequence in which, after a long sleep, Ash wakes up in a post-apocalyptic future. Does that sound familiar? When Army of Darkness concluded, we were left with hope and spent many excruciating years begging for a followup. With “Ash vs. Evil Dead”, we were left with a cliffhanger and Campbell announcing the retirement of his character. There’s a ton of irony here in that we got everything we could have ever wanted and yet somehow came full circle back to Ash in a post-apocalyptic Detroit and are left begging for more. The only difference is now we’re left with no hope, which is just cruel.
I’m left wondering how this happened? Was this the plan all along? Were Raimi, Tapert and Campbell giggling as they brought us full circle back to our fandom purgatory? If so, it’s such cosmic brutality that I can’t help but laugh. On the other hand, it sort of feels like Starz put the filmmakers in a weird position of not knowing for sure if there would be a fourth season of “Ash vs. Evil Dead”. The announcement came just ahead of the ninth episode airing, which means, assuming this decision was actually made that week, everything was already delivered for airing. Then again, if Raimi and co. had plans laid out for another season, why would Campbell so quickly turn in his chainsaw and boomstick?
It’s highly unlikely that the Evil Dead will say dormant, but it does feel like a kick in the nuts to know that we’ll never actually see Ash’s arc carried to a full conclusion.
Then again, perhaps that’s always been the franchise’s cruel destiny.
