It’d be easy to be cynical about a director trying to revive a beloved 30-year-old cult horror franchise—especially when said series has already had a reboot within the last five years. But fans of Sam Raimi and Bruce Campbell’s Evil Dead might want to prepare for their jaded feelings to get shredded faster than an animated corpse on the wrong side of a chainsaw arm, because the new trailer for Starz’s Ash Vs. Evil Dead seems to be hitting all of the gory right notes.
Besides showing off the show’s cast, including Campbell, newcomers Jill Marie Jones, Dana Delorenzo, Ray Santiago, and Raimi veteran Lucy Lawless, the trailer suggests the creators have dropped back into Ash’s world without missing a beat. One-liners, rushing POV shots, gallons of jelly-like fake blood, milky-eyed Deadites, battles with tiny but vicious opponents, and the sort of cartoon logic that results in hidden switches that spring-launch loaded shotguns into Ashley Williams’ waiting hand: it’s everything a fan of Raimi’s gleeful blend of comedy and gore could possibly want. Sure, there’s some blocky exposition and stilted line deliveries, and Campbell’s been running his aging, overly confident doofus schtick for so long that it’s starting to seem old hat. But this is also a TV show where a zombie turns her own head backward and then stabs someone with a pair of scissors, while Bruce Campbell dives through the air to catch a flying chainsaw with his desperately extended stump, and that’s something to be treated with the thoughtful, reverent awe that it deserves.
Ash Vs. Evil Dead premieres October 31 on Starz.