Ash Versus Evil Dead Episodes 3 and 4 reviewed

OK so if you follow this blog you have probably been wondering why I made such a big fuss of the first 2 episodes of Ash Versus Evil Dead and then went silent. Well one of the reasons was just plain being busy another is that with the rather short nature of the episodes I wanted to wait till I had a chunk of stuff to write about. So here I am going to cover tepisode 3 and 4 and what I think about them both. Obviously there will be some spoilers here , the episodes are good enough to watch so Id recommend doing that first and then seeing if you agree or disagree with my opinion on them. Hopefully I will also catch up with 5 and 6 and reviewing them before 7 hits the air.

Episode 3: Books From Beyond

Now this episode is all about an occult bookstore that had been mentioned in the first two episodes. Now kudos where it is due the set design is excellent, there are so many fantastic little props which add detail and character to this shop, its just amazing to see them put so much effort in to a place which we will most likely never see again, it makes the world seem more true, more real.So basically they are there to see if the owner can read the necronomicon and find an undo spell in it which will get rid of all of the deadities, but in short he cant. So Ash being typical ash decides that what they are going to do is use the book to summon a wimpy demon which they can then quiz but of course if you've seen the Evil Dead films you know how well Ash luck and Ash plans usually go and true to form things go from bad to worse. Now I have always loved the fact that Ash essentially is despite being a hero a dumb ass, a blow hard zero brained kind of guy who just goes chasing in to trouble with his boom stick chainsaw and a bag full of one liners.Pablo does stand up to Ash a little and kind of says its a dumb idea but hero worships Ash to much to really push it. The whole uniqueness of this series is that our bunch of heroes are incredibly outclassed and hopeless but they are what we have got.We also got to see a bit more of Lucy Lawless’ character in a scene which showed how good she is at dispatching Deadites. I have seen people go ''oh what is her link to Ash, oh how does she know him why does she want him?'', I wont spoilt it but I will give you the tools to work it out yourself, find her last name either in credits or a press release and then watch the first film again and that will tell you all you need to know. I do think that the future interactions we will get between her and Ash will be the stuff of legends.

So far the slapstick and gratuitous gore has been well mixed with a sense of genuine horror, it seems to be towing the line set by the second Evil Dead film never really getting quite as disturbing as the original movie nor ending up as silly as the third (I dont meen silly as in bad I love Evil Dead 3/Army of Darkness) I think that the demon that was summoned in this episode was well designed and actually a pretty cool and scary character, it kind of shows that the book is not just about zombie like deadite creatures it is so much more than that, so much more dangerous. This episode was all in all pretty darn fantastic.

Episode 4: Brujo

OK so really so far Ash vs. Evil Dead has been all about the witty one liners, the comedy and the gory killing of Deadites, the last episode gave us an interesting demon who I was a bit disappointed didn't get more time, well guess what he does. The tone of this particular episode is a lot different to the early ones but your going to get that when you change directors and this episode is definitely less fast-paced.

“Brujo” is about Ash, Pablo, and Kelly going to see a witch doctor relative of Pablo's who raised him, the reason being that all they seemed to learn from the previous episode is that the answer was inside Ash. So this episode is basically about Ash being taken on what could best be described as a spirit quest. He enters a world inside his own mind and we get to learn more about him as a person, what he likes, what he wants. We learn that his happy place is Jacksonville Florida a place he has an obsession with but has never visited. Apparently he wanted to go there instead of to the original cabin in the wood where all of this started in the first Evil Dead film. However before anything much can be learned it turns out that the demon from the last episode is not gone as they believed it is in fact inside of Kelly.

We also learn that another old enemy of Ash's is still about and is in fact how Lucy Lawless's character is managing to track him, who is this enemy? Well its his own hand which he cut off with a chainsaw after it got possessed. The hand is wrapped in cloth and although not moving around like it was is still twitching and showing signs of life, so maybe just maybe as it gets closer to Ash we will get to see another epic hand against man showdown like in Evil Dead 2.

For me this episode is a dream come true for Evil Dead fans, you get to learn more about Ash as a person how he thinks and feels, what he is like inside, your learn that his hand is still well not alive but well still twitching, still possessed or undead or howver you want to refer to it. You also see that Lucy Lawless's character has a knife not to unlike the one in Evil Dead 2. It might be a bit slower a bit more cerebral than the episodes before it but its the one that proves that this show has some real legs and enough ideas to go the distance.