We all know that the horror genre is full of attractive people (see the casts of Sinners, Nosferatu, Jennifer’s Body, Scream, the list goes on), but no franchise commits to hotness quite like the Evil Dead. Everyone who has ever been involved in the 45-year-old franchise has been hot, whether they’re playing a rotting Deadite or working behind the camera—just look at the Internet’s recent realization that Evil Dead Burn director Sébastien Vaniček looks like this:
But for all the franchise’s cast and crew, nobody has come close to Bruce Campbell as the chainsaw-wielding, boomstick-slinging, klutzy yet capable hero and our personal pick as the ultimate horror hottie, Ash Williams.
Despite being a fan of the franchise after watching Fede Álvarez‘s grueling reboot/reimagining in 2013, I had no idea how Campbell landed the role of Ash. So imagine my surprise as I was writing this when I learned that Campbell was actually one of Sam Raimi‘s oldest friends. The two spent years making goofy Super 8 movies together before deciding to make a horror film (this might be a good time to mention that Raimi is adorable as well—just check out this 1987 TV spot where a very young Raimi is promoting the UK theatrical release of Evil Dead II and tell me he isn’t giving Jesse Eisenberg in that one very flirty interview from 2013). Campbell offered to produce The Evil Dead and was cast as the lead because, unlike the other actors, his production responsibilities meant he couldn’t leave the shoot.
It also helped that Raimi knew from experience how far his friend was physically willing to go. Campbell performed nearly all of his own stunts, reportedly only relying on a stunt double twice while filming Evil Dead II. And while he’s done everything from being pulled through a car windshield with nothing but wires to spending hours covered in fake blood, Campbell wasn’t able to get nearly as ripped as legendary producer Dino De Laurentiis had the marketing team portray him in the promotional materials for the franchise’s third installment, Army of Darkness—a decision De Laurentiis made to attract international audiences who were obsessed with Arnold Schwarzenegger.
I’m not trying to suggest I know better than De Laurentiis, but what I will say is that in his effort to have Army of Darkness attract a wider audience, he forgot what made Ash such a special character. Yes, Bruce Campbell is attractive, and yes, he has all the qualities that, in another universe, would have made him a major action star or Hollywood leading man. But Ash is not your traditional hero, and that’s exactly what makes him so irresistible to this day. He’s constantly humiliated, tossed like a rag doll, terrorized by his friends and his own possessed hand. In many ways, he resembles many of the final girls at the time despite having the appearance of a stereotypical “macho” man, a juxtaposition that I think many people find intriguing.
Case in point: search “Ash Williams” on TikTok and you’ll find fan edits like the one below. Set to a slowed version of New Order’s “Blue Monday,” the video has over 247k likes as of writing this, with users leaving comments like “sometimes i stare at my army of darkness poster longingly” and “I have something inappropriate to say.”
The fact that thousands of people are uploading, liking, and saving fan edits of a man with a chainsaw as a hand wouldn’t usually surprise anyone, considering young girls were writing fanfics about creepypasta characters like Jeff the Killer in the 2010s. But I think there’s something telling about the fact that Ash has remained a cross-generational horror crush both on and offline for more than 40 years. An actor can be conventionally attractive and beloved for their work in specific film or series, but very few can pull of being a slapstick comedian, a fearless hero, and, as this entry on Sexypedia put it (I can’t believe this exists and I can’t believe I’m referencing it), and an endearing “himbo” willing to be spun upside down over and over while having debris blown into his face all at once.
Even fewer can charm audiences of every age at any age. Campbell, in his fifties, is still as captivating as he was in his early twenties. Watch the tragically short-lived Starz series Ash vs Evil Dead and tell me you wouldn’t give 57-year-old Campbell (and by extension, Ash) your number.
By casting his childhood friend out of pure convenience, Raimi unintentionally established a very specific type that the franchise would return to again and again when casting its leads. Since Army of Darkness, the franchise has been carried by charismatic actors who are willing to go above and beyond as its complicated protagonists/relentless Deadites, with Jane Levy as Mia, the final girl to end all final girls in Evil Dead, Lily Sullivan and model-turned-actress Alyssa Sutherland as sisters Beth and Ellie in Evil Dead Rise, and Souheila Yacoub as the troubled widow Alice in Evil Dead Burn. It certainly doesn’t hurt that they’re all ridiculously attractive as well.
If you’re new to the franchise, there’s never been a better time to watch all the Evil Dead movies and TV spinoff before Evil Dead Burn hits theaters July 10. And if you’re already an Evil Dead fan like myself, then do yourself a favor and watch the Waka Flocka x Ash Williams TikTok below. If a blood-soaked Ash kicking ass to “No Hands” doesn’t convince you he’s the genre’s ultimate hottie, at this point, I don’t know what will.
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