Ash vs Evil Dead (2015-2018)

The Physical Comedy In Ash vs Evil Dead (Episode I)

Ash vs Evil Dead, developed by Sam Raimi, is one of the greatest horror-comedy shows on television and certainly one of the bloodiest.

There are so many reasons why it was amazing. Probably because there were so many types of comedy in Ash vs Evil Dead: wit, sarcasm, one-liners, wise-cracks, blunders, black comedy, Freudian slips, absurdity, aggressive humor, blue comedy, blatant insults, shock comedy, prop comedy, and yes—physical comedy. And there were several types of physical comedy in the show as well: demon pratfalls, gore slapstick, deadite clowning, bloody physical stunts, ax gags, knife-gags, chainsaw gangs, all kinds of gags and antics, making big faces, and mugging; and yes, mugging counts.

Ash vs Evil Dead has them all and, even better, updated versions of old pratfalls and slapstick, layered into the horror of the world. It’s not a banana pie in the face, it’s a bloody torso to the face. It’s not slipping on a banana peel, it’s slipping on deadite blood.

Here are three physical comedy bits in just the first episode alone of Ash vs Evil Dead that are particularly funny; and yes, it was hard to choose.

1. Ash’s Leather Girdle Of The Dead

It's been thirty years since we last saw Ash (Bruce Campbell)—he's now a slacker working at a dead-end job, living in a motor-home, getting drunk at seedy bars, having sex with strangers, and doing everything he can to forget the horror of the deadites. But he's still funny as hell with charisma to burn. He's gained weight over the years (we all do), but he goes to absurd lengths to hide it when he's getting dressed up for an evening of seduction. He squeezes himself into (what looks like) a leather girdle or corset for men and gloats proudly at his image; he preens, hamming it up.

It's funny because Ash has aged since we last saw him; aging happens to everyone, it's relatable. It's funny because he's sucking in his gut with a girdle. It's funny because Ash is still a Bachelor on the prowl. Don't get me wrong, Ash looks great. No body-shaming, here! But it's funny; it's played to be funny, and the way Ash squishes himself inside the girdle is ridiculous. His absurd confidence is what makes the scene work. Ash is delighted with himself. So, maybe he did gain ten pounds (after saving the world); alright, perhaps it was thirty pounds, big deal. He looks even better after gaining some weight, that's called LIVING, and that's why he's the King. This isn't body horror; this is body comedy, body positivity.

And yes, it is absurd to be that delighted from hiding weight gain with a leather strap contraption, but that's why it's funny. Ash shouldn't be pleased, he should be ashamed since society asks us to hate ourselves (so we can be easily targeted by putter-downers), and the refusal…is funny! Because deadites hate it when you like yourself.

However, it's also funny that Ash is under pressure to stay hot. Ash is a killer and a lover, apparently. Plus, where did he get that girdle-corset? It looks like something made in an old cowboy tanning shop for deadite-killers on the run.

 2. Ash Has Sex With A Deadite (almost)

Ash picks up a woman (Jennifer Freed) at a bar after telling her that he lost his hand saving an eight-year-old boy. Not true, but he did save the world once or twice. They then have wild sex in the bathroom (what is this Burger King?), and she turns into a deadite, mid-coitus, and threatens him. "Ash!"

But before that, Ash does a physical comedy bit at the beginning of the clip: He spanks the woman with his wooden hand while having sex, standing up. Ash lost his hand in EVIL DEAD II; he cut it off after the deadites possessed it. We remember that he had a chainsaw hand, a chainsaw that we watched him rig to his sawed-off stump. So, seeing him use a wooden hand to spank a person while having sex is totally unexpected. Ash knows how to make everything work for him. We didn't expect to see that, we didn't even want to see it, but we did. It's surprising, so surprising, you have to laugh. Campbell plays it broadly too, "You like THAT???"

Also, the timing of the event is funny. It's funny to think that the deadites waited until that particular moment to pop back in Ash's life and say hi. They were like, “oh, now is the perfect time to reappear in this dude's life—when he's having sex with a woman, mid-spank.”

The deadites ruined Ash's life in the first three films, and now they want to destroy his sex life in the TV series. Weirdly, they made it even spicier.

…Because Ash continues to have sex with the woman from behind. At first, he stopped because she turned into a deadite, but she turned back into a human being and asked him to continue. And he does. Okay, that's funny. Ash knows how deadly the deadites are, he knows they might possess the woman he's banging again, but he doesn't care. It's worth it to him.

So, he obliges; He finishes, but he looks around dramatically for deadites while humping away. The expression on Ash's face is hilarious; he makes a couple of over-the-top facial expressions while looking out for deadites who might attack him, which is great physical comedy; he's clowning with his face while having sex. The whole having-sex-but-a-deadite-possesses-the-person-in-the-middle-of-it is a sex-horror, physical comedy bit that's hilarious and original.

It's a tense moment, too. The deadites could repossess the woman's body at any moment. Why risk it? He doesn't have his chainsaw with him either. But she asked him to finish, and so he does. It's funny because it's absurdly practical.

 3. Ash Vs Deadite Granny Landlord

Ash returns to his sad motor home to find that his landlord, Vivian (Sian Davis), has turned into a deadite. It's attacking his co-worker Kelly (Dana DeLorenzo), and Pablo (Ray Santiago) is trying to help her; they're both begging Ash to help them. Ash doesn't want to be a hero anymore. He wants to get out of there and save himself; he wants to be selfish, but he can't. This is what makes Ash so lovable; he risks his own life, again and again, to save others, to save the world even if the world doesn't know it. So, he saves his friends by cutting off the old lady's head with a chainsaw after mocking her with, "Hope you took your Geritol this morning. It's time to dance!"

Cutting off a person's head isn't funny, except when sometimes it is. How can that be? How is this gore, physical comedy? I don't know; horror-comedy is weird. Occasionally dark and startling things are funny because it's the only way our brain knows how to process the horror. Sometimes, we laugh at the absurdity of it. Sometimes we laugh because it's over. Sometimes we laugh because the villain is dead and we are safe.

Ash cuts off the head of a deadite with a chainsaw, and it's hilarious. It's not a human being, or it would be horrifying. It's a deadite, a zombie demon piece of shit from another world trying to murder Ash. And, not just Ash, the deadite is attacking Kelly too, his new friend. We have seen deadites destroy an entire cabin of innocent people, one by one. So, it's not murder; it's self-defense. The deadite runs at him like an Olympic sprinter, it jumps up on the wall and springs at him, and it's terrifying. But the way Ash screams when the deadite attacks him, flying in the air at him, is so funny. He screams bloody murder while using his chainsaw hand to hack off her head in one giant 120-degree swivel. Swish!

It's funny at the end because we were scared and now we're safe. The laugher is tension relief. We're not dead; the deadite is dead!

We were so afraid they (we) might die; we were worried for Kelly, we were scared for Pablo, and we were frightened for Ash, the Hero.

The granny’s death is so over-the-top it doesn't feel real, and that's a big part of it too. The granny deadite is a monster; the more of a monster it looks like, the more justified we feel when Ash kills it. The whole scene is deliberately operatic, an orgy of colors, music, and chainsaw, and so extreme, it's comical. The more blood, the funnier it is because the farther we get away from reality, the more we can laugh. If it were close to real, we wouldn't find it funny; it would be horrible instead of funny.

All three seasons of Ash vs Evil Dead are streaming on Netflix right now if you want to rewatch it or ended up missing it when it first streamed. In 2015, it was on the Starz network instead of HBO. Today, it'd probably go to a bigger platform. But that's another discussion, for another time. So don't miss the show this time around. It’s the spooky fun season! Dead at dawn! Dead at dawn!