The Evil Dead franchise is one of horror’s landmark series. For years it has merged comedy, horror, and gratuitous bloody violence into one enjoyable series. But fans have noticed something about the series at long last which has stoked the fires of debate online, and it surrounds its lead character.
It’s as simple as this — is Evil Dead the only horror franchise which hinges entirely on how much people love the protagonist rather than the antagonist? A Nightmare on Elm Street requires Freddy Krueger, Friday the 13th needs Jason Vorhees, but Evil Dead doesn’t feel like Evil Dead without Ash.
Ash is played masterfully hammy and charismatically by Bruce Campbell and his glorious chin, with him driving the trilogy in such a strong way. The original post does bring up Laurie from Halloween and Sydney from Scream, but both of those franchises have had strong entries without their protagonist.
Ash didn’t appear in the 2013 remake, and the film suffers without his outrageousness. Alien is probably the closest rival for Evil Dead with this, with the franchise going flat as soon as Ripley was killed off in Alien 3. The titular creature however is probably more crucial to the franchise than Ripley, because there have been some half-decent films since
Television presents an interesting answer as well with Buffy, who you absolutely could not leave out of any future versions of the franchise. Perhaps there’s a way of determining this debate — is the franchise capable of seeing further entries with someone else as the lead character?
The Evil Dead will be returning very shortly, with sequel-reboot hybrid Evil Dead Rise set to haunt cinemas from April 2023 — without Bruce Campbell.