TV Binge: Ash vs Evil Dead (Season 1, 2016)

Its time to take a little break from all the movie reviews to get a little TV Binge in.

Actually, full disclosure that I actually finished this show like 2 months ago. I still remember a great deal of it and know how I feel about it so its really just procrastinating to write it up, thats all. However, at a certain point, it was bumped till end of September and I was like, lets just slot it into October since it fits the theme, plus kind of gives the overlap from last year’s marathon of Evil Dead franchise to this one. If you missed those reviews, I have them all linked up in the horror marathon page up in the movies section on the menu above.

Let’s check it out!

Ash vs. Evil Dead [Season 1, 2015]

Creator: Ivan Raimi, Sam Raimi & Tom Spezialy

Cast: Bruce Campbell, Ray Santiago, Dana DeLorenzo, Lucy Lawless, Jill Marie Jones

Ash has spent the last 30 years avoiding responsibility, maturity and the terrors of the Evil Dead until a Deadite plague threatens to destroy all of mankind and Ash becomes mankind’s only hope. – IMDB

As usual, I’m late to the Evil Dead party even when it comes to a TV series thats released when I’m covering TV shows on the blog. I’ve had a rocky relationship with the Evil Dead franchise no matter how much my husband likes it a ton. It might be one of those rare franchise loves which grows more as it moves further into the franchise that Army of Darkness is so much fun and Bruce Campbell does such an entertaining Ash that I can’t help but just really enjoy that film a lot. With that said, Ash vs. Evil Dead is absolutely more of the Army of Darkness ton and builds on that really awesome Ash which has that humor as he gets really wreckless or tries to run away and not accept of the damage he has done by getting drunk and releasing the Deadite by playing around with the Necronomicon. He’s a fool and yet we just love him with all his chainsaw and shotgun glory.

With that said, the show grasps a lot of what the franchise was about to replicate it into a story for TV series. I can’t say that the story itself is really engaging. Its more wrapped up in creating moments but that was really was the movies felt like to me so it felt like it really nails on a lot of those notes to just make it a fun, blood splatter-filled show full of witty  humor and charming characters and lots of Deadites and some silly effects although it seems this one does have more budget so they look similar but with believable over the top effects.

On the terms of characters, Bruce Campbell does a fine job at capturing his role of Ash and manages to give it a lot of life and just really have a lot of fun with it. Its always entertaining to watch him play this role. In this series, he ends up picking up two younger companions, Pablo and Kelly. Pablo is played by Ray Santiago who is this silly character that really is very loyal and pure-hearted. His naivety is quite refreshing to have especially because he likes Kelly a lot, who doesn’t quite seem to reciprocate those feelings completely, at least for the most part. Looking over the other companion, Kelly played by Dana DeLorenzo, she is a very fun bad-ass girl and honestly, there’s some great moments especially when she’s wielding weapons and holding her own.

On the other hand, we have the story going on about Ruby, who is played by Lucy Lawless (which my husband recognized right away from Xena, which I’ve never seen) who plays somewhat of the sinister character here who seems to be hiding some secret motives. She’s pretty bad-ass as well. Its an interesting character altogether mostly because she brings in the plot of the season.

Overall, Ash vs. Evil Dead is pretty cool. Its fun and entertaining. It tries to bring in the moments from the Evil Dead franchise and it works really well. Bruce Campbell still has it down for his role in Ash and its really nice to see his rag tag team of Kelly and Pablo who are very awesome as well. While I have to say that the story could be a little more and not everything really does come together (or I’m just missing something), there are enough cool moments and great one-liners to make it totally worth your time, especially if you are a fan of the franchise.

Have you seen Ash vs. Evil Dead?

Halloween Horror Marathon Announcement!!

Its the 5th ANNUAL HALLOWEEN HORROR MARATHON ANNOUNCEMENT!

Another year sure passes by fast! 5 years since I’ve officially hopped back into the horror scene! For those who don’t know, I had stopped for a while from horror films mostly because I’m just a major scaredy-cat and almost anything scares me. My husband scares me occassionally just by walking up when I’m working. Jumpy? That I am. Anyways, the break was needed and in 2012, I decided to hop back in and man, has it been a fantastic journey. Most of my horror films now are seen in this month or during Fantasia Festival in July. And then its incredibly scattered throughout the year mostly whenever I feel like it, which isn’t too often because its a whole new challenge to figure out what horror subgenre I’d like to watch and then deciding on the film. Okay..stopping the rambling.

In the last 5 years, we’ve done a lot of the big franchises: Nightmare on Elm Street, Halloween, Friday the 13th and even did Scream and Evil Dead last year. So, what next? The contenders for this year went from Hellraiser (which was abandoned because apparently one or two of the Hellraiser sequels are impossible to find) then Final Destination (which I heard is pretty disgusting) and finally, the final final decision is THE SAW FRANCHISE! Barring the last movie that will open in October because I’ll be swamped at work at that time frame so we will be looking at 7 existing movies!

Alongside that will be a few book reviews, TV binges and of course, other movie selection. I had a head start this year so some absolute ones making an appearance will be Ash vs. Evil Dead Season 1 TV Binge for example. In terms of books, IT is being read but its taking a long time so I fill in the breaks with Horror Movies A Day. Hopefully that might inspire some of the movie choices if I can find them. As for movies, The Autopsy of Jane Doe review is coming up.

Those are just three (or four) entries that you will see. Add in the 7 from Saw, we still have a lot of empty space… You know what else I’m doing which is incredibly overdue is to watch George A Romero’s films. We can’t afford to buy any ones that we don’t own so we have 3 more selections that will be reviewed. All first time viewings! I think it’ll be fun and interesting 🙂

So we have close to 15 entries set along with some random posts like Music Obsessions, My Weekly Adventures and such. The rest will be surprises as I haven’t started them yet but hopefully, they’ll all get some love. I’ll try to pick from Netflix and my unwatched physical copies.

As usual, if you have any suggestions, please do tell me what you’d like me to watch and I’ll try my best to see if I can access it. However, if you do suggest, you can check out if I’ve reviewed it before right HERE. At the time you are looking at it, it should be updated till the end of September!

See you all tomorrow for the first entry as we kick off with the review of Saw!

What’s Up Thursday #5

Its been 2 months, y’all! 2 entire months that I haven’t done this post.

It was meant to be a casual segment though. So with the posts going up, really there wasn’t too much to talk about. Actually there was because when watching lots of movies, I actually binged through some TV series and played a ton of games on the downtime. However, this time, I do want to because I skipped a Weekly Adventures. Its okay if you didn’t notice but I want to make up for it just a little so here we are!

BINGING

Yup. The husband finally got his wish so we are watching Ash vs. Evil Dead, the first season. Its really fun and everything you would expect it to be especially if you like Army of Darkness which we do. You can see my review for it HERE.

Other than that, I’m just catching up with TV binge posts so not really watching anything else other than the last season Shark Tank. I am about to start Stranger Things though, or maybe something else like start Quantico or actually finish Cardinal, which I’ve put on hold for a few months.

READING

I literally just started Ready Player One a few days ago. I’ve been taking my time and energy levels are a little low in turn concentration not there also. So, hopefully next week, I will be back to the reading mood now that I’ve caught up with my long to-do list.

PLAYING

If you are a subscriber over on the Game Warp Youtube channel (consider subscribing if you haven’t), you’ll probably realize that I have a ton of playthroughs going on there. The goal now is to wrap games up so I always have a longer game and some shorter ones to work on. The main focus and ones that have me captivated and grinding through (respectively or simulataneously) are these three.

As of today, the goal is to wrap up The Darkside Detective and have all the playthroughs up by mid next week. Which is completely doable. The Darkside Detective is a fun point and click paranormal adventure. We had a chat with the devs Spooky Doorway last month. You can find it HERE. Our review should be up soon.

Now that I’ve gotten my husband watching Ash vs. Evil Dead, I have possession of the Playstation 4 again. And its gotten me back into the groove of console gaming so I’m playing through the first Crash Bandicoot from the Crash Bandicoot N.Sane Trilogy, which is so hard! Its a huge grind especially the level that I just passed with the helpful tip of my co-host. Now, its onwards to the next level which is another boulder chase…I’ll get it eventually. 😉

Thumper was the most recent game that I purchased, along with two rather popular visual novels which I’ll probably do a chill stream on soon (maybe Friday nights or something). I was determined to wait for it to have a price drop on PS4 because I just don’t see my PC giving me the same visual experience. And it did during E3! I’m a sucker for rhythm games and this one is kind of like a hardcore WipeOut with Patapon battle styles. Each level is about 20+ separate stages which act as checkpoints and it usually has at least a boss and a final boss to defeat. Its all about reaction and coordination (in some ways) and I love it. I love games that challenge you in this sort of way, possibly one of the biggest differences as gamers between myself and my husband, I’d say.

Other games that I’m working on would be

• The Elder Scrolls Legends: Heroes of Skyrim which this card battle is properly kicking me in the behind. So I’m taking a break from it as to gather my thoughts and strategy.
• Drifting Lands: a fun one but also stuck at a level right now. Shoot ’em up is not really my type of game but there’s some odd satisfaction to this one.

That’s it for this What’s Up segment!
What have you been binging, reading and/or playing?