My introduction to Sam Raimi’s Evil Dead films was Army of Darkness, the third entry in the series and the one that’s the least “Evil Dead-ish” of them all. (It’s more “Ray Harryhausen meets The Three Stooges” than “the ultimate experience in grueling terror,” which was the tagline for the original Evil Dead.) It’s also my favorite of the series, which I’m sure would disgust the hard-core fans of the franchise and means I’m probably not the target audience for the upcoming cable-TV continuation, Ash vs. Evil Dead. Nevertheless, the teaser that hit the ‘nets today makes me a little giddy:

I really like the ideas behind this series, i.e., it’s set in current time and takes the age of star Bruce Campbell into account; that Ash (Campbell’s character) has, ahem, problems based on his earlier experiences; that the Deadites (the evil of the title) have been quiet for 20 years (the real-world time since Army of Darkness) but are now roaring back to life; that Ash is some kind of whacked-out Obi-Wan Kenobi figure for a couple of younger sidekicks; and that there’s a mysterious woman (played by Lucy Lawless of Xena fame) hunting Ash, because she blames him for the Evil loose in the world (and she’s right!). Basically it sounds like Raimi and Campbell, along with producer Rob Tapert, have really worked out how to logically continue this franchise decades after the last entry, rather than just rebooting it or recasting a younger actor or pretending no time has passed.

You can read up on the details here, if you’re so inclined; Ash vs. Evil Dead will premiere on the Starz network this fall…