Scrolling through our social media feeds like everyone else does in the morning, we came across a new interview with the Groovy One himself, Bruce Campbell.
Campbell was speaking with our fellow Evil Dead fan, Brian Particelli, for Men’s Journal while on the press tour for his new film, Ernie & Emma. Campbell also opened up about his recent cancer diagnosis, his health overall, and, naturally, had a few thoughts on what the ongoing Evil Dead franchise has been missing, as well as his hopes for the next film, “Evil Dead Wrath”. He jokes that it’s a personal problem: the humor that is gone from the new films, but we have a feeling he’s being pretty damn honest.
And we agree.
“The three features have been mostly humorless and I personally have a problem with that.”
Now, that’s not to say Campbell isn’t happy about the franchise reaching new audiences and scaring the pants off people, just as his films did back in the late 1980s and early 1990s with Evil Dead 2 and Army of Darkness. He just points out that these movies can be scary without being completely grim, and that’s a pretty big distinction.
He’s right.
Alyssa Sutherland in Evil Dead Rise (2023)
The past three films, Evil Dead (2013), Evil Dead Rise (2023), and Evil Dead Burn (2026), have all been considerably darker and bleaker in tone, with the humor becoming few and far between. In total, all three films have grossed roughly $310 million worldwide. Sure, the blood is still flowing, the Deadites are still doing what Deadites do best, and nobody should ever expect an Evil Dead movie to be a particularly pleasant evening at the movies. There’s something about that twisted sense of humor that has always made this franchise stand apart. Campbell’s Ash wasn’t simply running around hacking Deadites to pieces. He was also getting his ass kicked, talking shit, making terrible decisions, and somehow finding himself in situations that were every bit as funny as they were horrifying.
That’s a big part of what made Evil Dead 2 and Army of Darkness so damn memorable.
And while we certainly aren’t complaining about more people discovering the franchise, we wouldn’t exactly turn down a return to that gloriously stupid, slapstick, blood soaked insanity either.
We want the gore, we want the deadites and the terror around every corner, but we want to laugh our asses off as well, all while trying to survive until the credits role.
You can watch the full discussion about the Evil Dead franchise below, including Campbell’s complete comments.
Maybe this will reach the right folks and we’ll eventually get the good old fashioned slapstick gore fest we’ve been waiting for.
If not, we’ll just be watching our complete Ash vs. Evil Dead series on a loop.
Again.