‘Ash vs. Evil Dead’: Bruce Campbell Talks Bloody Return
Bruce Campbell can still feel the oppressive cling of fake blood pulling at his skin after shooting the particularly gory scenes in his first movie, 1981’s The Evil Dead. “I’d walk into a hot shower with my clothes on after a shoot because they were stuck to my body,” he says. “The blood would pull all my hair off.” The film was so over-the-top in its gruesome depiction of twentysomethings becoming possessed by evil spirits – after fiddling with an ancient Sumerian text (bound in human flesh, of course) that they’d found in the basement of a creepy cabin – that first-time filmmaker Sam Raimi didn’t flinch when dubbing the low-budget flick “the ultimate experience in grueling horror.” Ultimately, it became a cult hit; Stephen King called it “ferociously original” and Lord of the Rings director Peter Jackson later said he found it inspiring.
Now Campbell, a 57-year-old, square-jawed, self-described “B-movie actor” is returning to the world of Evil Dead. “The blood is still stickier than hell and it’s horrible, horrible, horrible,” he says, affecting a matter-of-fact snark that’s not unlike his character’s. Following two sequels and a reboot, the franchise will get a fifth life on Halloween, when Starz debuts the TV series Ash vs. Evil Dead.
The show, which kicks off with a Raimi-directed premiere, finds Campbell resuming the saga of Ash Williams, Dead‘s beleaguered deadbeat who once again accidentally (read: “while high”) summons the “Deadites” — those sinister spirits who turn unwitting people and inanimate objects into wise-cracking killing machines. Williams must find a way to put the “genie back in the bottle,” as Campbell puts it, or face world destruction. The cast also features franchise newbies Lucy Lawless, Mimi Rogers and Jill Marie Jones, among others, while retaining the series’ hilarious, Three Stooges–inspired “splat-tick” humor — making for a viewing experience that’s less Walking Dead and more “mocking dead.”
The way the actor tells it, fans have been relentlessly clamoring for a new Evil Dead film ever since the release of the series’ second sequel, 1992’s Army of Darkness. “I’m always surprised by the demand, because the first Evil Dead was financed by dentists and doctors,” he says. “It wasn’t even an indie darling. It clawed its way from nowhere to where it is today, which is still a mom-and-pop operation. We’re just glad that, after all this hard work, people want more.”
Campbell, who regularly attends horror conventions, has seen first-hand how the film series became a cult hit. By his own estimation, he’s autographed around 50 chainsaws (“They have to make sure they’re not working before entering,” he says) and “a lot” of shotguns, and he has witnessed first-hand just how far fans will go to show their love. “I saw an Iraq war veteran who had the entire poster of Army of Darkness [tattooed] on his back in color,” Campbell says. “It must have taken 40-plus hours. Another guy had my initials on his stomach. Try to explain that to your girlfriend.”