[For The Love Of Franchises] Comedy in The Evil Dead Franchise

Horror and comedy go together like peanut butter and jelly, and anyone who tries to tell you differently is a gaslighter of the third kind. 

There are horror films with comedy and comedies with horror, and then there's The Evil Dead — a franchise that spawned one of the greatest characters in horror and one of the funniest—Ash Williams. Ash is even funnier than Freddy Krueger, and that's saying a lot, although I suppose that's a matter of taste. The remarkable thing about Ash (played by the legendary Bruce Campbell) is his growth as a character as the franchise expanded from The Evil Dead in 1981, Evil Dead 2: Dead at Dawn (1987), Army of Darkness (1992), and the tv show Ash vs. Evil Dead in 2015. 

What becomes clear after watching the trilogy and the tv show is that Ash gets funnier over the years; the more horror Ash endures, the funnier he becomes. Ash develops a dark sense of humor as a shield and to relieve stress and tension when something frightening happens. For example, in Ash vs. Evil Dead, a baby doll (fueled by the prehistoric evil of the Kandarian Demon) attacks him in the stockroom. Ash is supposed to be scared because that's what the deadites want—they're sadists that feed on humiliation, and what is more humbling than raw terror? But Ash isn't scared. When the doll cries, sniveling after Ash flings her off him, he sarcastically mocks her in a little-girl voice, "D-d-do you think you'll be alright?" 

Ash discovered that the best way to fight the deadites is—to make fun of them. Ridiculing them reduces their power; they have no authority over Ash. And, like most authoritarians and sadists, the deadites hate being laughed at; they want to be the ones laughing at you. (How dare Ash laugh at them when they're trying to murder him and take over the world? The audacity!) Ash's sense of play saves the franchise from being a repeat of the first film (as well as placing the third film in a different time and place). 

In fact, Ash's personality is so powerful the genre itself changes to accommodate him. It's true; the franchise starts as a horror film, but it becomes a horror-comedy with action elements—and it's because of Ash. It's how Ash sees the world. The Evil Dead is a horror film because Ash is fucking terrified (it's his first time seeing a deadite up-close), but in Evil Dead 2, we're in a horror-comedy (there's slapstick, physical comedy, and visual gags) because what is happening to Ash is absurd, so absurd it has to be a comedy. Ash's brain registers the paranormal events in Evil Dead 2 as comedy; how else to explain his second night in the cabin? 

In Evil Dead 2, the deadites torture Ash psychologically by sending his dead girlfriend, Linda, after him. She tries to kill Ash with a chainsaw after he screws her disembodied head into a vise. But the deadite immediately transforms into Linda, and she begs Ash so he won't hurt her. Ash is conflicted: how can you hurt a person even if you know they're possessed by a fucking demon? He doesn't want to hurt Linda; he wants to crush the deadite out of her brain (out of her soul) because he wants it to stop tormenting him. The deadites have a cruel sense of humor. Linda's head rolls around the cabin, making fun of Ash. "Hello, lover!" They enjoy inflicting pain, which is probably one of the most frightening things about them (besides their horrible eyes). 

The deadites use comedy to attack Ash; they use it to terrify him. They're like, okay, funny man, how do you like this joke? They possess his body, but when he fights them off, they retreat and take over his hand (after tricking him with a rocking chair bit). The hand attacks Ash, smashing his head with plates, and tries to kill him, forcing Ash to cut off his own hand with a chainsaw. 

Why would the deadites choose to do this? Because they think it's funny to torture Ash mentally—and comedically. They know the hand can't win (not really, unless Ash is asleep), but they also know that having to fight your own hand (one that you just hacked off) is a mind-fuck, and that's part of what the deadites like to do—if they don't possess you at first, they take their time mentally torturing you, not unlike a poltergeist, or a trickster spirit. When Ash saws off his hand, his own blood squirts in his face and he asks at them, screaming “Who’s laughing now?! Who’s laughing now!?” 

When Ash is sleeping in the cabin at the beginning of Evil Dead 2 (after he's chased inside by a sentient mist), he dreams that a headless Linda attacks him. She breaks through a boarded window and rams his head against it, smashing it repeatedly. This is pretty funny; it looks right out of a Bugs Bunny cartoon, but then Ash wakes up sitting in a chair. It was a nightmare, or was it? The deadites have the power to obliterate a bridge (magically), so why wouldn't they have the ability to visit his dreams and invade his mind? 

It's part of the torture; the deadites won't let him sleep. If Ash falls asleep, the deadites will kill him or possess him utterly, as they possessed his sister, girlfriend, and friends. Ash is stuck in the cabin; he can't escape in his 1973 Oldsmobile Delta 88 because the bridge is blown up (The Cabin in the Woods parodies this unlikely event), so he's trapped for another night when he barely survived the first one.

So why does Ash get funnier? He gets funnier because comedy is the only way to endure the deadites. Instead of being afraid of them, he laughs at them. But first, he laughs at himself; and the position he's in, stuck in a cabin in the middle of nowhere, hunted by a supernatural force that wants him dead. But the inanimate objects in the cabin laugh at him—the whole room shakes with laughter; not with him, at him. Everything laughs: the walls, the lights, the clock, even the stuffed deer's head cackles with glee, rolling its head side to side. It's one of the creepiest and most original scenes in The Evil Dead and straight out of a child's nightmare.

But this is why Ash becomes so funny; the deadites torture him but he beats them; he overcomes them and escapes. But only to find himself transported to 1300 AD, where he is hailed as a hero for his wicked ability to murder deadites. This time, Ash leads an army against them (and one of his doppelgangers) and wins. Ash is funny in Army of Darkness but more action-hero funny; he has one-liners like "Give me some sugar!" before kissing a princess (who likes him), which is gross but funny, although not something he would have said to Linda in The Evil Dead. 

Murder, death, carnage, and time travel have changed Ash fundamentally. He'll never be the same again; he's funny now and cocky, and why shouldn't he be? He has a swagger that he's earned—he's paid the iron price. He has discovered that comedy is a tool, a mask, and a weapon. It's a tool to relieve stress, a weapon against the deadites, and a mask to protect the vulnerable Ash, who gave Linda the locket in The Evil Dead.

Oddly enough, in Ash vs. Evil Dead, the deadites know who Ash is. It's as if he's a celebrity in the demon world, a human the clan want to kill so they can drag his soul back to their pit in hell and torture him for eternity. You get the sense that the deadites almost enjoy Ash; they torment him because he's new, different, challenging, tough, gamey, and almost sinewy. They want to chew him up and spit him out, but they find they can't. Ash is too grounded and his sense of humor protects him. Some might say Ash is "too stupid" to go crazy, but that's not true. Ash is a slacker but an intelligent one; no, he's not an intellectual, but he's smart enough to lead an army in Army of Darkness. And that's pretty smart. 

Although Ash is a hero, "the one from the sky," who saves the world from the evil of the Kandarian Demon, he doesn't have a great life afterward. We know Ash has been through so much trauma that he's no longer a "normal" person. Nobody believed him when he told them about the deadites, and they blamed him for the cabin murders. Everyone thought he was crazy and called him "Ashy Slashy." The deadites ruined his life. He's the town weirdo now; the outgoing Ash becomes a social pariah and a loner. He lives in a busted-out camper, works a dead-end job, and parties with barflies at night. 

But he's still funny. You can't take that away from him. He's the funniest that he's ever been, which is why it was sad when Bruce Campbell retired the character at the end of Ash vs. Evil Dead when Starz canceled the show in 2018. But there are rumors that Ash Williams is returning in an animated version of the tv series, so there's hope to see him again. 

There are comic books, video games, and musicals, and Ash's sense of humor marks each one. It's black humor, grim, witty, sarcastic, vulgar, crass, occasionally self-deprecating, sometimes braggy, but always constant. Yet, there is something warm and human about Ash's jokes. Have you ever been so down that the only thing you could do was laugh? Needing to laugh at the pain in life is something everyone can relate to; perhaps even the deadites understand.

RELATED ARTICLES

---

---

EXPLORE

---

MORE ARTICLES

---

---