One would think, in this age of IP-driven franchise media, that all the iconic horror movie franchises would be alive and well, regardless of quality. Yet despite a few spasms, most of the classics are long dead and showing no sign of rising again, with one notable exception.
Friday the 13th and A Nightmare on Elm Street have both gone a decade or so without a new entry. The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Halloween have embarrassed themselves with their recent attempts. It seems like trends and forces move much faster in the world of horror than in other cinematic genres — but Ash Williams has no trouble sticking around.
The Evil Dead dropped in 1981, the second film Sam Raimi ever wrote and directed. The tale of Raimi and his friends putting together Evil Dead is a legend of budget filmmaking at this point. It took begging family members and acquaintances to get the project funded. The production was a disaster at every turn, crew members and performers were injured regularly, and the entire film was pieced together on the fly. The film was the logical end-point of the years spent by Raimi, Bruce Campbell, and their friends making cheap indie movies in the woods, and it became a success against all odds. Partially thanks to a rave review by Stephen King, the film was recognized worldwide as a modern masterpiece of the genre. The sequel, Evil Dead II: Dead by Daylight, was ordered by the first film's producer and outperformed its predecessor by a leap.
By the time of Army of Darkness, Raimi had a blank check to do whatever he wanted, and what he wanted was apparently a stellar medieval comedy that still kept the tone of the franchise. The franchise now has an enormous presence across comics and video games, along with a little-known musical, which kept the fanbase alight until the 2013 remake. That film, easily amongst the highest echelon of horror film remakes, didn't quite spawn a franchise as it did add to the existing one. A couple of years later, Bruce Campbell returned to the beloved role he generated for three seasons of Ash vs Evil Dead. That series ended four years ago, but the franchise still just won't die. There's a triple-A game and a new film set to release this year, keeping fans engaged for even longer. Evil Dead somehow made the shift from gruesome horror to slapstick comedy and back without crashing, burning, or fading into obscurity.
Most of the big slashers of the 80s suffered a long and brutal death after making their comical shifts. By the time Friday the 13th was invading Manhattan or A Nightmare on Elm Street was invading the real set of its own production, things were looking grim. In both cases, the final nail in the coffin seems to be the Platinum Dunes 2010s remakes. Evil Dead, though, tanked silly comedy and came out stronger, and then walked through a modern reinterpretation unscathed. Beyond that, every version manages to remain good, a far cry from most modern incarnations of old horror films. The secret behind its apparent immortality is more than just the love of its fans. All of these franchises have die-hard fans, but that hasn't saved most of them. Evil Dead perseveres with no end in sight, but why?
The obvious answer is intentionality. The concept that became Army of Darkness was the idea Raimi had for Evil Dead II; the intent behind the franchise was to slip into comical self-parody right away. Of course, Raimi and the producers didn't have a 30-year plan for the Evil Dead franchise, but they did have a full vision of what the franchise would look like. It's more than pre-planning; it's a fundamental understanding of what's good about the films. The big slashers try to walk a tightrope line, but they eventually fall, and never seem to make it back. The critical understanding of exactly where on the spectrum each Evil Dead film needs to fall is what allows new filmmakers to take over and carry the torch. The last time Raimi directed any of the Evil Dead action was in the pilot of Ash vs Evil Dead. Fede Alvarez and a handful of TV directors took over with stellar results.
The Evil Dead franchise works by basing itself entirely around two extremes of visceral horror and slapstick comedy, then planting its flag somewhere on the spectrum for each new entry. Rather than simply going off the deep end, the franchise already had the comedic DNA from the start. The quality of the franchise has kept fans locked in. It's hard to believe that many of the series' fans would drop off, even if this year's game or film turns out to be awful. Evil Dead is a masterclass in building a beloved franchise through multiple eras of horror cinema.