Editorials
[‘Evil Dead’ Month] Meet The Deadites!
One of The Evil Dead series’ greatest assets is its host of Deadites, possessed humans who want nothing more than to possess more humans through vague, ever changing means. Some are humanoid, some are monstrous, some are trees, and some are goats. But all of them are awesome. And while they don’t make much sense and lack consistency even within individual films, we love them all the same. Especially the goat. Here is our rundown of Deadites from the entire Evil Dead series, excluding all videogames, comic books, and fan fiction. But including Drag Me to Hell because c’mon.
Head inside to Meet The Deadites!!!
Cheryl:
Cheryl turns into a Deadite after being raped by a tree. Once she becomes a deadite she stabs Linda in the ankle and it looks extremely painful. After this, Scotty locks Cheryl into the basement. Later she escapes and beats Ash with a fireplace poker until he throws the Book of the Dead into a fireplace, after which her body rapidly decomposes.
Shelly:
Shelly gets possessed when a demonic force breaks through her window and abducts her. After scratching Scotty’s face and basically riding him into the living room, Shelly falls face first into a fireplace. Aghast, Scotty pulls her from the fire only to be attacked again. Eventually Scotty begins cutting Shelly’s hand off with a knife, a job she finishes with her teeth. Even down to one hand, Shelly keeps causing problems until Scotty cuts her into a billion pieces with an axe while Ash just watches like a gigantic coward.
Linda:
Ash loses Linda through the pencil wound in her ankle. More than anything, the Linda Deadite is memorable for laughing in a door frame and generally scaring the shit out of me. Ash stabs her to death and buries her, but she rises from the grave and only ceases to be a problem once he beheads her with a shovel.
Scotty:
Scotty suffers many tortures, so it’s unclear which wound shoves him full of Evil Dead action. Once he is possessed, however, Ash thumbs his eyeballs out and dispatches him along with Cheryl by throwing the Book of the Dead into the fireplace.
Linda II:
Linda II turns into a Deadite when a demonic force breaks through her window and abducts her. After comically punishing Ash for a while, he cuts her head off with a shovel and buries her body. Somehow her head comes back, however, and bites Ash on the hand before he cuts it up (along with her equally animated headless body) with a chainsaw.
Ash’s Hand:
Possessed thanks to Linda’s bite, Ash’s hand attacks Ash with comical violence and rude gestures until Ash cuts it off with a chainsaw. It should be noted, however, that Ash’s Deadite hand never actually dies.
Ash:
Deadite Ash looks like Bruce Campbell but with clouded eyes and an even bigger chin. Ash is able to repel him on two occasions: Once thanks to the power of sunlight, and once thanks to the power of love.
Deer Head:
It’s a mounted deer head. It can’t do much but laugh at Ash. Because it’s a mounted deer head.
Henrietta:
Henrietta is one badass Deadite. Throughout Evil Dead 2, she changes forms many times, going from nice old lady to turtle-headed demon, to full on Ted Raimi depending on the situation at hand. Ash kills her by cutting off her arm and head, then blowing off her face with a shotgun blast.
Ed:
Ed gets possessed after Henrietta smashes his head into a lightbulb. His head can spin all the way around and he likes to eat hair. The Ed Deadite meets his end when Ash cuts him into a million pieces with an axe. After that, he went on to host his own QVC show.
Tree Deadite:
We knew the trees were possessed as well, but this is the only one bad enough to get its own face. Ash cuts its eye up with a chainsaw before it is sent to another dimension.
Flying Deadite:
Ash makes its head explode with a shotgun blast.
The Army of Darkness:
I’m not sure if these skeletons even count as Deadites since they don’t really have Deadite features. It’s here just in case.
Cellar Witch:
The Cellar Witch appears to be trapped in a cellar with tons of spikes into which Arthur throws his enemies as a form of corporal punishment. She beats Ash up a great deal, but he ultimately kills her with his chainsaw.
Cellar Monster:
This Deadite also lives in the Cellar, emerging out of a wall as Ash is about to escape. Ash cuts its hand off and leaves it to be crushed by enclosing spiky walls. Somehow, the Cellar Monster Deadite manages to escape the Cellar, but Ash shoots him back down with his newly obtained shotgun.
Cauldron Witch:
The Cauldron Witch shows up just long enough to tell everyone that they’re doomed and kill a couple people. Ash shoots her with his shotgun.
Little Ashes:
These guys comically torment Ash. He kills a couple of them in return, but eventually they tie him down so one can dive down his throat.
Evil Ash:
Evil Ash splits off from regular Ash after regular Ash swallows an evil mini-Ash. At first, the two Ashes are identical. But then Good Ash shoots Bad Ash in the face with a shotgun and buries him. Later, when Bad Ash screws up his safe words while retrieving The Book of the Dead, Evil Ash comes back and leads the Army of Darkness against all medieval humanity. Eventually, Ash blows him up with a sack of gunpowder.
Deadite Book of the Dead #1:
This one flies. And bites.
Deadite Book of the Dead #2:
This one is a black hole.
Flying Deadite II:
This ugly guy carries Sheila off to her wedding with Evil Ash. Regular Ash tries to catch it, but he’s way too big an idiot.
Evil Sheila:
Abducted by the flying Deadite, Sheila gets possessed after kissing Evil Ash, making her real ugly. Ash de-possess her by throwing her off a castle.
S-Mart Deadite:
Even though Ash saved the day and everything should be peachy, this Deadite appears at his S-Mart store. Ash shoots her to death.
The Goat:
Best Deadite ever.
Seance guy:
Throws up a kitten. Cool, but not as cool as the goat.
Comics
‘Spider-Noir’ Comic Changes Explained: How the TV Series Reinvents Marvel’s Darkest Spider-Man
A little while back, I wrote an article chronicling the Hellraiser franchise’s affinity for Film Noir and touched on how that genre has, historically, always been connected to horror.
This connection can be observed in everything from the cannibalistic serial killers of Frank Miller’s Sin City to the disturbing criminal plots fueling neo-noir thrillers like Stuart Gordon’s underrated King of the Ants. That’s why it came as no surprise when I finally sat down to watch all eight episodes of Prime Video’s recently released Spider-Noir series and was confronted with plenty of classic horror tropes.
What did come as a surprise, however, was how showrunners Oren Uziel and Steve Lightfoot approached these horror elements when compared to the 2009 comic book that the show is based on. From the heavily altered rogue’s gallery to an equally terrifying yet completely different origin story for Nicolas Cage’s take on the webslinger, there are plenty of changes here that I feel might be of interest to genre fans.
With that in mind, I’d like to invite readers to take a closer look at all the adjustments that Spider-Noir made to the story in order to bring this incarnation of Spider-Man to life in all of its monochromatic glory (unless you watched the True-Hue color version of the show, in which case you’ll be treated to a surprisingly comic-booky palette that you don’t usually see on television).
The Dark Origins of Marvel’s Spider-Man Noir
Our first order of business should be to examine the origins of the Noir comics themselves. Originally published as part of the Marvel Noir alternate universe that reimagined several characters as hard-boiled crime-fighters, Spider-Man Noir became the most successful book in the entire run. This highly politicized story about Peter Parker coming to terms with the capitalist evils of the Great Depression seemed to have struck a nerve with audiences looking for a darker take on the wall-crawler, which is likely why we’d soon see several sequel stories as well as a video game adaptation of the character in 2010’s underrated Spider-Man: Shattered Dimensions.
Of course, it wasn’t just Spider-Man’s darker disposition that made this version of the character a hit, as 1930s New York City was depicted as being much more hostile than what we generally see in the standard Marvel Universe. From Peter’s powers coming from an Eldritch Spider God that spawns man-eating arachnids to Vulture being an ex-Freak-Show Gimp with a taste for human flesh, you can definitely understand why this Web-Head isn’t pulling his punches.
Unfortunately, this alternate universe was a little too popular for its own good, with each subsequent sequel/adaptation further diluting the political anger and classic horror influences that fueled the original comic-book run in order to appeal to a wider audience. Spider-Man Noir was nearly unrecognizable once we got to the Spider-Verse crossover that turned the character into a household name, though this would at least lead to an interesting adaptation in 2018.
The Classic Horror Influences Hidden Throughout Spider-Noir
Jack Huston as Sandman in ‘Spider-Noir’
When Phil Lord and Chris Miller finally translated Spider-Man Noir to the big screen, with Nicolas Cage bringing the character to life in an unexpected case of pitch-perfect casting, he was still mostly relegated to comic relief as his nazi-punching antics and over-the-top edginess were played for laughs. However, while this version of the character had little to do with the comics that spawned him, Spider-Noir’s newfound popularity eventually resulted in the announcement of a darker live-action spin-off – a spin-off that I was cautiously optimistic about.
While the showrunners ultimately decided to go in a completely different direction than the 2009 comic, the new team of writers appeared to understand Noir as a genre in ways that even the folks at Marvel Noir couldn’t quite grasp. That’s likely why 2026’s Spider-Noir boasts plenty of horror elements, just not in ways we’ve seen them before.
The series is obviously borrowing tropes and aesthetics from period-accurate monster movies, with Universal’s 1930s output being a particularly big influence. From the re-imagining of Sandman and Tombstone as tragic figures to The Spider even being operated on by a mad scientist with hilariously antiquated techniques, this bizarre collection of super-powered freaks could have easily shown up in a classic creature feature.
The scares aren’t all retro, however, as the showrunners also injected plenty of body-horror into the mix during their attempt at unifying the origin stories for all these larger-than-life characters. Hell, the Spider himself is now revealed to have gained his powers after being bitten by a half-mutated Man-Spider during World War I, and the aforementioned mad scientist keeps a disturbing collection of failed experiments in her basement, proving that not all of her patients were lucky enough to simply gain superpowers after being experimented on.
Nicolas Cage Reinvents Spider-Man Noir for Television
Ben Reilly/Spiderman (Nicolas Cage) in SPIDER-NOIR
Photo: Aaron Epstein/Prime
© Amazon Content Services LLC
I also really appreciate how Cage insists on depicting Ben Reilly as an arachnid trapped inside of a human body, with his uncanny physical performance and classic Hollywood impressions keeping your eyes glued to the screen while also providing some of the show’s funniest moments.
I still think it’s a shame that the character is no longer politically motivated, and I miss the detail about Uncle Ben having been cannibalized by Vulture after his social activism ruffled too many feathers, but at least this time our protagonist actually feels like someone who could have been written by Raymond Chandler if he were a fan of Superheroes.
In fact, the writers nailed the snappy back-and-forth that Noir authors like Dashiel Hammett used to refer to as the “riposte”, and it’s fun to see supervillains being depicted as horrific movie monsters instead of specialized henchmen – with The Spider feeling like just as much of a Freak Show attraction as the rest of them. Purists might be put off by the lack of reverence for the source material, but I think that’s a small price to pay when even the show’s most clichéd moments intentionally harken back to the golden age of Hollywood.
That’s why I’d argue that Amazon’s Spider-Noir isn’t really an adaptation, but rather an equally valid take on the same premise that inspired Marvel back in 2009. And in a world filled with recycled storylines that only serve to advertise future releases, I’d rather have two completely different visions of the same character than a straight-up retelling of the same handful of ideas.
At the end of the day, there’s enough space inside this comic fan’s heart for both man-eating Vultures and a Cronenberg-inspired Man-Spider. And if you’re also a fan of nostalgic creature features with comic book flair, I’d highly recommend this street-level superhero story with a spooky twist.
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