Evil Dead Videogames Minisode Retrospect (with Erica Wright, Daniel Ryan & Jon Mark)

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[00:00:19] All right, you primitive screwheads, listen up. See this? This is my boomstick! It's a 12-gauge double-barreled Remington, S-Mart's top of the line. You can find this in the sporting goods department.

[00:00:39] That's right, this sweet baby was made in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Retails for about $109.95. It's got a walnut stock, cobalt blue steel, and a hair trigger. That's right, shop smart. Shop S-Mart. You got that?

[00:00:59] Now I swear, the next one of you primates even touches me.

[00:01:08] Yeah!

[00:01:31] Let's talk about how I get back home.

[00:02:21] Horrific Life's Erica Wright joins in.

[00:02:24] Thanks for having me.

[00:02:26] Nightmare nerd Daniel Ryan is out of Dead-Eyed's to Kill.

[00:02:31] Greetings, my fellow horror fanatics. This oughta be Groovy.

[00:02:35] And Jonathan Mark of the Action Elite is looking for a new chainsaw.

[00:02:40] Good to be here.

[00:02:44] For those that don't know, yeah.

[00:02:47] Ash Williams. He's a guy who's just always wrong place at the wrong time.

[00:02:54] And Groovy, baby.

[00:02:57] Groovy, baby.

[00:02:58] Daniel, I think you remarked about it before.

[00:03:01] You caught it in cable TV in the early days and how it was kind of just a rather talked about movie.

[00:03:10] Yeah, it was really like around the pretty much from like the 80s and 90s.

[00:03:14] Evil Dead was kind of a cult film.

[00:03:17] It was really in the 2000s when mainstream.

[00:03:21] That's a good way of putting it because it's like now it starts, you know, it starts getting played on, you know, the first one to this day is still often played on Showtime and used to be frequently promoted on.

[00:03:33] You know, it's on Netflix now, even probably the goryest movie on there in the streaming service by far.

[00:03:38] And, you know, I would see it on IFC on occasion and, you know, Army of Darkness frequently showed on SciFi Channel because it was a universal co-production.

[00:03:48] And then, you know, Evil Dead 2 just was talked about just because it was it launched again, you know, more special effects guys like Robert Kurtzman and company and just seeing other people even try and ape the various chainsaw fights or just a lot of references.

[00:04:06] And of course, yeah, not critical hits and then remarked about afterwards.

[00:04:10] And I remember a recent interview how, you know, Bruce Campbell, who also got his career launched by this, you know, was like we made a shitty movie.

[00:04:20] People loved it. So we made another shitty movie.

[00:04:22] People love that, too.

[00:04:24] And so on and so on.

[00:04:26] And so just seeing him have just kind of just no shame.

[00:04:31] And again, just even more.

[00:04:33] For any time you look at an article on bloody disgusting dread central or even a typical site reviewing fantasy or sci fi or action movies, they'll even always say this is kind of like Evil Dead.

[00:04:47] And that just instantly gives you a picture is like what to expect.

[00:04:52] I've seen similar movies promoted that I haven't seen yet, like Hell Baby and Wormwood Book of the Dead or something.

[00:05:02] The original working title.

[00:05:06] Was that really?

[00:05:07] OK, so there you go.

[00:05:09] Dead.

[00:05:09] Dead.

[00:05:12] Erica, did you frequent this on cable TV or the video stores or was it just kind of in your household?

[00:05:19] The original franchise.

[00:05:21] The first one I actually saw was Army of Darkness.

[00:05:25] And I think it was on USA.

[00:05:27] That was a much more frequent play.

[00:05:29] I just I just like loved how silly it was.

[00:05:33] I didn't see the first Evil Dead or Evil Dead 2 until years later when I was in college.

[00:05:39] But even more, I really love the intensity of them and the gore.

[00:05:45] I felt like Evil Dead 2 was sort of the best of both worlds.

[00:05:48] It's very funny, but it's also very gory.

[00:05:51] That's probably my favorite of the the film series.

[00:05:57] So, yeah, once they announced that they were having the Ash vs. Evil Dead TV show, of course, they had to watch that.

[00:06:05] Right.

[00:06:07] And it's what it was such BS when they're like, oh, we're canceling the show due to piracy.

[00:06:12] It's like you weren't even promoting it all that much.

[00:06:16] Yeah.

[00:06:18] It's like they got into a contract, didn't want to honor it.

[00:06:21] So then they just wanted to kill the show.

[00:06:22] And it's like I never excuse.

[00:06:25] You think that's for the cancellation.

[00:06:28] It's like, yeah, that's how it always is.

[00:06:30] It's like if someone just doesn't like like the first frame or one of the trailers is like it's amazing how they will just try any way they can to jeopardize a show's success.

[00:06:41] And it's like it's just so inconvenient to everybody involved to just want to do that.

[00:06:48] And even those who aren't familiar with it, they're going to see the trailer for that and be like, this looks outrageous.

[00:06:54] Like, what the hell is this?

[00:06:56] I got to check it out, you know?

[00:06:57] And so now, Daniel, you're pretty experienced knowing about some of the video games.

[00:07:02] I remember seeing at least two of them promoted in Game Informer.

[00:07:06] There was like one in like 05 that was like for PlayStation 2 and the PC.

[00:07:09] And then there was like two other ones.

[00:07:13] Well, of course, there was the one all the way back in the 80s for the Commodore 64, which is atrocious.

[00:07:20] Is it worse than E.T., the video game?

[00:07:24] But yeah, there was for the original PlayStation, I believe it was Evil Dead Hail to the King, which was a fun game for its time, but it has not aged well at all.

[00:07:35] The controls were god awful.

[00:07:38] And the way the camera angle is constantly changing.

[00:07:42] Oh, is it is it kind of like Star Wars Jedi power battles where you go to you go to a certain area of the screen and it just randomly goes to like a different angle and you're like, wait, no, someone's attacking me.

[00:07:56] There are points where you've got some dead eye attacking you from basically off screen because the camera angle is wrong and you don't know what the heck you're supposed to do because you don't see where it's coming from.

[00:08:05] Sounds like a junkie version of one of those House of the Dead arcade games.

[00:08:10] And then came Evil Dead Fistful of Boomstick PlayStation 2, which is the one I'm thinking of.

[00:08:15] Yeah, I am. Oh, that's the best of them.

[00:08:18] And Ted Raimi came in to play a different character.

[00:08:20] That was the next one.

[00:08:22] Oh, OK. So that's the one I'm thinking of is like he's playing a small person who is basically.

[00:08:28] Yeah, Evil Dead Fistful of Boomstick.

[00:08:30] To me, it has a brilliant story.

[00:08:32] It feels like a continuation from the films.

[00:08:36] Where does it kind of line up?

[00:08:37] Is it kind of like set after part two or three or is it just kind of just.

[00:08:41] It's basically it's basically I would say post part two.

[00:08:48] If you didn't know about this, the original planned ending for Army of Darkness was going to be that Ash wakes up in a post apocalyptic world where the deadites took over.

[00:08:59] That's kind of what they did with that particular game was because that's the final stage.

[00:09:04] Ash has to go back in time when he comes back to the present.

[00:09:07] It's a burnt out apocalyptic world where the deadites have taken over.

[00:09:11] And so I guess it picks up more directly after the second film.

[00:09:15] Right. OK, that makes sense.

[00:09:18] Yeah. And then came Evil Dead Regeneration for PlayStation 2 as well.

[00:09:22] That it has not been ported to any other ones since.

[00:09:25] And none of them have actually.

[00:09:28] That's what's so weird.

[00:09:29] It's like there was plenty of gamers.

[00:09:31] They were always renting, you know, various violent movies at the video store.

[00:09:34] So they always were pretty much in the know of, you know, it's like, oh, I've seen that.

[00:09:37] I've seen, you know, Warlock, Robocop.

[00:09:40] I've seen all these various movies.

[00:09:42] And yet, like you say, it's like it was very limited appeal.

[00:09:46] This is like they would only do it for like the computer games and Sony for whatever.

[00:09:50] I guess they had a stake in it.

[00:09:52] I don't know.

[00:09:53] Yeah. And then was Evil Dead Regeneration.

[00:09:56] And that's again, it picks up out of the second film.

[00:09:58] They totally disregard the other two games.

[00:10:02] And that's the one where Ted Raimi was Ash's sidekick, a dwarf deadite.

[00:10:09] OK.

[00:10:11] There you go.

[00:10:13] John, how did you come into knowledge of this in your household?

[00:10:17] Were your parents watching it or you just see it at the video store and just be like,

[00:10:21] yeah, I got to check this out.

[00:10:24] Well, my brother actually had a DVDs of both Evil Dead 2 and Only in Darkness.

[00:10:29] Oh, OK.

[00:10:30] So you were able to watch both of them at the same time.

[00:10:33] And I didn't get to see the original until like many years later.

[00:10:37] Oh, good.

[00:10:37] Well, that's how I got introduced.

[00:10:42] Yeah, this was pretty weird.

[00:10:44] I had a bunch of pals.

[00:10:45] They would like certain over-the-top movies and then be picky about others.

[00:10:48] And it was wild how it transferred.

[00:10:50] I see this movie's influence definitely in like the first two mummies, even other just movies that have horror elements, but also have some darkly humorous stuff.

[00:11:03] You know, we've talked about Wishmaster to Death on here, but I see its influence even in parts of like the first Jeepers Creepers with some of the dialogue in that.

[00:11:09] You know, establishing shots.

[00:11:13] I mean, it is one of those.

[00:11:14] It's like I've seen some people list this so bad.

[00:11:19] It's good.

[00:11:19] I've seen people listed as classic.

[00:11:21] I've seen some people listed as cheesy, but awesome.

[00:11:25] You know, it is one of those.

[00:11:26] I don't think anyone really considers it a bad movie any of these nowadays, but it is one of those.

[00:11:31] It's like depending on the audience depends on who you talk to.

[00:11:33] But I think most people will just instantly say, you know, it's like it's not just a movie.

[00:11:37] You don't get it.

[00:11:38] It's an action horror comedy fantasy or it's just a Bruce Campbell epic.

[00:11:45] So therefore, you know, it's kind of like the William Shatner thing.

[00:11:48] It's like it's not just a regular movie anymore.

[00:11:53] It's not just in any movie.

[00:11:56] It's got Arnold Schwarzenegger in it.

[00:11:57] Yeah, I think I think it bears mentioning that the reason Evil Dead went mainstream of the 2000s for one thing was Sam Raimi directing the first three Spider-Man movies.

[00:12:08] Even use the same cinematographer, Bill Pope, who he had used on Darkness and Darkman.

[00:12:14] And Darkman was definitely another one where you saw a lot of his just zany just moments where he's like like Tarantino.

[00:12:20] I don't know how to even classify this as a genre.

[00:12:22] It's just so loopy and awesome.

[00:12:23] So outrageous.

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