Television series

Ash vs Evil Dead

Name: Ash vs Evil Dead
Genre: Comedy, Action, Horror
Released: 2015
Cast: Bruce Campbell, Ray Santiago, Dana DeLorenzo, Lucy Lawless, Jill Marie Jones

A 30-years-later return for Ash Williams, the chainsaw-handed deadite slayer. This is *Evil Dead* remade as a half-hour comedy: gleeful gore, rubber-limbed slapstick, and Bruce Campbell doing what he was born to do. It's trashy, it's bloody, it's stupid in the smartest way. For people who love horror that knows it's funny and comedy that respects the horror.

TVMaze rating

4.0

Should you watch it?

Watch it if you love gleefully gross, splattery horror that keeps cracking jokes at its own expense, and you find a washed-up hero who refuses to grow up more lovable than tragic.

Skip it if you want your horror to frighten you rather than just soak you in goo, since the gore arrives in cheerful buckets and the scares often play second fiddle to the slapstick.

What it asks of you: Thirty-minute episodes that move briskly, with a loud, irreverent energy and little patience for quiet dread; it rewards you for leaning into the excess rather than waiting for it to settle down.

Not sure? Find tonight's pick in a minute.

If you liked this

What We Do in the Shadows2019

Vampires in New York treated with the same affectionate absurdity Ash vs Evil Dead brings to deadites. Mockumentary chaos, character-driven comedy, and genuine warmth underneath the gore and weirdness.

But The humour is deadpan and often quiet. If you want constant action and shouting, this moves at a slower, weirder rhythm.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer1997

The template: monsters as metaphor, horror as comedy, a charismatic lead with terrible one-liners battling the undead. Seven seasons of growing stakes, genuine scares, and Joss Whedon proving horror and warmth aren't opposites.

But The early seasons are genuinely dated. CGI is rough, pacing is slow. You have to trust it gets better, and that takes patience.

Maniac Cop1988

Bruce Campbell's spiritual cousin: a film that's far too earnest about its ridiculous premise and hilariously committed to treating its absurd plot as tragedy. Gloriously dumb, competently made, pure fun.

But It's an 80s action film with the budget to match. Production values are rough. The plot doesn't really hold up to scrutiny.

Not sure tonight? Get a pick in a minute, starting from Ash vs Evil Dead

The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

The Cabin in the Woods2012

Both understand that horror works best when played with absolute sincerity about ridiculous premises. Both love the form enough to mess with it.

Drew Goddard's deconstruction of horror itself. A film about people who understand horror movies fighting a system designed around horror tropes. It operates on the same frequency as Ash vs Evil Dead: knowing the rules and having fun breaking them.

But The second half pivots hard into sci-fi complexity. If you want straightforward horror fun, the metanarrative machinery can feel exhausting.

Tucker and Dale vs. Evil2010

Subverts the cabin horror formula by making the 'killers' sympathetic idiots and the college kids the real threat. Smart, funny, genuinely touching, and understands exactly how to weaponize comedy in a horror setting.

But Once you know the twist, rewatching loses some punch. It's a concept film, and the concept is most of what it has.

Re-Animator1985

Peak 80s camp-horror: a mad scientist reanimates the dead with absurd results. It commits fully to its grotesque comedy, features genuinely inventive gore, and understanding itself is exactly what makes it endure.

But It's transgressive for shock value sometimes, in ways that haven't aged gracefully. The tone can be distasteful in moments beyond just the gore.

Braindead1992

Peter Jackson's pre-Lord of the Rings masterpiece of practical gore: a New Zealand film that treats zombie apocalypse as comedy-horror romance. Unhinged, inventive, and genuinely affecting beneath the carnage.

But The gore is extreme and genuinely grotesque, not stylised. If practical blood and guts disgust you, you won't make it through the climax.

The Boys2019

Like Ash vs Evil Dead but for superheroes: violent, crude, funny, and genuinely angry beneath the chaos. Characters you actually care about, stakes that land, gore that means something.

But It gets increasingly dark and serious as it goes. By season three, the comedy recedes. Early episodes promise fun; later ones deliver trauma.

Slither2006

Alien invasion B-movie by James Gunn with practical effects, genuine scares, and commitment to the bit. It's gooey, it's silly, it's gross, and it never winks at the audience.

But It's too committed to its own premise for some viewers. If you need constant meta-commentary to enjoy horror-comedy, this might feel earnest to the point of tedium.

Fortitude2015

Arctic noir where the body horror and existential dread gradually overtake the detective procedural. Visually stunning, genuinely unsettling, characters that live in moral grey zones.

But It's slow and bleak. The pleasure is in atmosphere and unease, not action. Some plotlines feel like they're going nowhere until they suddenly don't.

Severance2022

Both are ensemble pieces where the hero is surrounded by strangers he has to trust. Both find horror in human behaviour and confusion about what's real. Both feature protagonists who don't fit the world they're in.

Dan Erickson's high-concept thriller about corporate horror: slow-burn, visually precise, genuinely unsettling. It's proof that television can be sculpture instead of noise. Gorgeous, intricate, and deeply strange.

But There is no gore, no action sequences, no punchlines. It's the opposite of Ash's chaos. Season two is incomplete. Patience required.

Dead Ringers2023

Both feature protagonists who are profoundly ill-suited to adulthood and responsibility, stumbling through chaos they've created or inherited. Both treat grotesque physicality and emotional damage as inseparable. Both understand that horror is funniest when it's never the joke.

Cronenberg's miniseries about twin gynaecologists in psychological free-fall. Rachel Weisz in a double role doing career-best work. Grotesque, funny, tragic, and absolutely committed to its own insanity without ever acknowledging the absurdity.

But It's claustrophobic, unsettling, and deeply uncomfortable. The body horror is psychological, not visual, but pervasive. Medical obsession and addiction are the subjects; neither is played for laughs.