I’m pretty happy with that.
Perhaps the smartest choice director Fede Alvarez and screenwriter Diablo Cody made when whipping Sam Raimi’s old calling card into shape for a modern audience was to ditch fan favourite character Ash – a figure that is both laden with pop culture baggage, and unplayable by either original star Bruce Campbell (hate to be harsh, but too old and too fat) or anyone else game enough to try and fill his shoes; Campbell’s Ash is iconic as all hell, and the thought of some new kid – Ryan Reynolds? Seann William Scott?One of the Supernatural doofuses? – turns the stomach.
It’s also worth remembering that Ash as we currently understand him bears almost no resemblance to the character in the ’81 film, where he was a fairly normal dude in way over his head, rather than the chainsaw-wielding, boomstick-slinging killing machine he morphed into down the track. The Evil Dead was a pure horror movie, with nary a lick of humour to it and that seems to be what they’re shooting for here. Of course, this is more a sizzle reel than anything else, so it’s hard to say how the final film will work narratively, but aesthetically I like where this is going.
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