Sam Raimi’s Evil Dead films are a huge part of my horror lifeblood. Without them, I wouldn’t even be writing this article. And even though some of the originals have lost their muster (sorry, I don’t love Army of Darkness anymore), they’re truly special films that warm my cockles.
While I really enjoy Fede Alvarez’s 2013 remake, it was a bummer to see the progression of the franchise die, and it return to its straight horror roots (Raimi’s The Evil Dead was not funny). Not only that, but it was like having a new A Nightmare On Elm Street movie made without Freddy Krueger. How the hell do you make Evil Dead without Ash? Well, they did it.
Thankfully, Raimi and Robert Tapert had something up their sleeves – a television series, “Ash vs Evil Dead”, now in its second season (with a third already announced!) on Starz. The series, which is in-canon with the original trilogy, brought Bruce Campbell back to the franchise, along with the same slapstick evolution. The first episode, directed by Raimi, was basically the Evil Dead 4 we’ve been dreaming of. Only, moving further through the season, I didn’t love it. It was okay, I guess, but something was missing. It felt as if Raimi approved the scripts and went off and did something else. I have no idea how involved he was in the production, but the first season of “Ash vs Evil Dead” felt more like fan fiction than a legit followup to Army of Darkness.
I think history has proven that the first season of shows are typically weaker than its successors. Usually the showrunners and writers take a season to find a groove and begin to gel, allowing a series to thrive for a few years (before high contract negotiations eventually derail it). The second episode of the second season of “Ash vs Evil Dead” aired the other night and it was a huge step in the right direction; I would go as far as to say it’s the first time the show felt authentic.
While I’ll refrain from talking about the whole episode, there’s one sequence in particular that had me gushing. In the episode, Ash heads to the morgue to retrieve the Necronomicon from a dead body. There, in classic Ash fashion, shit hits the fan. The above photo makes absolutely no sense out of context – but when you see what’s actually happening, you’re going to lose your mind. As Ash screams in the opening of this exclusive look, “Oh God! Oh God! I’m in the butt!” Yup, Ash gets his head stuck up a corpse’s ass and runs around screaming while the slapstick nature of the show makes things go even worse for him.
But the gem in this scene isn’t just the absolutely revolting, yet hilarious sequence, it’s the one-liner. It’s the “Ash moment” that’s been missing, that’s been forced into many other scenes. Here, he finally breaks free, grabs his double-barrel shotgun and proclaims, “This town is only big enough for one asshole, and that asshole…is me.”
It was a hugely entertaining episode that made me clammer for more, and gave me hope that this season truly is going to get groovy. If the following clip doesn’t win you over, I don’t think we can be friends…
The best part about engaging with collaborative genre fiction on the internet is that anyone can get in on the action, with worldwide accessibility often resulting in absurd story beats that wouldn’t be possible if any single person was responsible for the entire narrative. And while Kane Parsons’ Backrooms film is definitely the young filmmaker’s own unique take on the infamous creepypasta, it’s fun to see other creators join the Backrooms sandbox now that the big screen adaptation is getting ready for a record-shattering opening weekend.
As if cleverly timed releases like Puppet Combo’s The Backrooms game weren’t enough (not to mention that Scary Movie poster poking fun at Parsons’ flick), McDonald’s official social media accounts have now released an analog horror video of their own celebrating the liminal terrors of the McRooms – complete with a familiar purple surprise at the end of the footage.
While it’s funny enough to see the world’s most recognizable Fast Food giant engage with internet-borne Found Footage thrills seemingly out of the blue, the video is actually referencing a long-running gag among the Backrooms fandom where creators jokingly talk about there being a fully functional McDonald’s restaurant hidden somewhere in level 0 of the infamous liminal labyrinth.
Now, would it be too much to hope for a moist-carpet-flavored McShake to tie in with the film?
Backrooms is now playing only in theaters from A24.
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