Review by Eric Hillis (@hilliseric)
Ash Vs Evil Dead skipped witty one-liners in favour of gross-out humour this week as, in a riff on the famous Mr Bean turkey sketch, our hero found himself writhing around a morgue, his head jammed up the ass of a particularly putrid corpse.
How does one find oneself in such a compromising position? Well, if you're Ash Williams (Bruce Campbell), it's because you're slicing open corpses to find which one Ruby (Lucy Lawless) stashed the Necronomicon inside. After rooting through the guts of several cadavers at Elk Grove's local, and somewhat overpopulated morgue, Ash finally located the book in one stiff's belly. Trouble was, once he tried to retrieve it, the corpse's guts came to life, wrapping themselves around the Necronomicon, resulting in a tug of war that Ash lost, the intestinal tract reeling him inside the corpse's body in disgusting fashion.
Meanwhile, back at the ranch, or rather the Williams house, Pablo (Ray Santiago) was left to keep an eye on Ruby, but found himself suffering another of his premonitions. Worryingly, this one featured Ruby, whom we still don't know whether we should trust or not, slicing his throat open.
Not too happy with his estranged kid turning up unannounced after 30 years, Ash's Dad, Brock (Lee Majors), decided he wasn't going to have his regular routine upset, and so invited a date over, in the form of Ash's former high school Phys Ed teacher (who we're told once experienced the warm leather of the backseat of Ash's iconic Oldsmobile). Trouble is, the woman was dead, as Ash discovered when he found the body of a morgue attendant in a drawer marked with her name. That didn't prevent her turning up at Brock's place, possessed by a Deadite. To paraphrase Tom Atkins' cop in that '80s gem Night of the Creeps - "The good news is your date's here; the bad news is she's dead."
This episode was skillfully directed by Tony Tilse, a veteran Aussie TV director whose work on the small screen Wolf Creek adaptation caught our attention. On that show he proved adept at slow burning atmosphere. Here, he's asked to do quite the opposite, and his impressive construction of the 'splatstick' morgue sequence will no doubt have made show developer Sam Raimi sit up. I wouldn't be surprised to see Tilse helming a big screen horror in the near future.
The script, by former Aussie soap star Cameron Welsh, is less memorable. Two episodes into its sophomore season and Ash Vs Evil Dead has yet to deliver a classic 'Ash-ism'. Majors is inspired casting as Brock, but we've yet to see himself and Ash engage in any real juicy interactions. While the production levels have thankfully carried over from the first season, so far the writing is failing to live up to that memorable debut season.
How does one find oneself in such a compromising position? Well, if you're Ash Williams (Bruce Campbell), it's because you're slicing open corpses to find which one Ruby (Lucy Lawless) stashed the Necronomicon inside. After rooting through the guts of several cadavers at Elk Grove's local, and somewhat overpopulated morgue, Ash finally located the book in one stiff's belly. Trouble was, once he tried to retrieve it, the corpse's guts came to life, wrapping themselves around the Necronomicon, resulting in a tug of war that Ash lost, the intestinal tract reeling him inside the corpse's body in disgusting fashion.
Meanwhile, back at the ranch, or rather the Williams house, Pablo (Ray Santiago) was left to keep an eye on Ruby, but found himself suffering another of his premonitions. Worryingly, this one featured Ruby, whom we still don't know whether we should trust or not, slicing his throat open.
Not too happy with his estranged kid turning up unannounced after 30 years, Ash's Dad, Brock (Lee Majors), decided he wasn't going to have his regular routine upset, and so invited a date over, in the form of Ash's former high school Phys Ed teacher (who we're told once experienced the warm leather of the backseat of Ash's iconic Oldsmobile). Trouble is, the woman was dead, as Ash discovered when he found the body of a morgue attendant in a drawer marked with her name. That didn't prevent her turning up at Brock's place, possessed by a Deadite. To paraphrase Tom Atkins' cop in that '80s gem Night of the Creeps - "The good news is your date's here; the bad news is she's dead."
This episode was skillfully directed by Tony Tilse, a veteran Aussie TV director whose work on the small screen Wolf Creek adaptation caught our attention. On that show he proved adept at slow burning atmosphere. Here, he's asked to do quite the opposite, and his impressive construction of the 'splatstick' morgue sequence will no doubt have made show developer Sam Raimi sit up. I wouldn't be surprised to see Tilse helming a big screen horror in the near future.
The script, by former Aussie soap star Cameron Welsh, is less memorable. Two episodes into its sophomore season and Ash Vs Evil Dead has yet to deliver a classic 'Ash-ism'. Majors is inspired casting as Brock, but we've yet to see himself and Ash engage in any real juicy interactions. While the production levels have thankfully carried over from the first season, so far the writing is failing to live up to that memorable debut season.
