Home (Ash vs Evil Dead)

Lore & Background

The episode is set 30 years after the events of the Evil Dead trilogy. Ash Williams, now working as a stock boy at Value Stop, is forced out of retirement when Ruby's children start causing chaos. In the plot, Ruby is attacked by her Deadite children, who want the Necronomicon. Ash, enjoying retirement in Elk Grove, Michigan with Pablo and Kelly, is attacked by two Deadites who mention "Ashy Slashy" and claim Ruby sent them. Ash deduces Ruby is in his hometown Elk Grove, Michigan, and travels there with his companions. At his old house, Ash reunites with his father Brock, who is not fond of his return. At a local bar, sheriff Thomas Emery mocks Ash, while waitress Linda Bates welcomes him. Pablo experiences visions and concludes Ruby is at the town's crematorium. There, Kelly is nearly drowned by a Deadite but is saved by Pablo.

Reader's Guide

"Home" serves as the season premiere for the second season of Ash vs Evil Dead, reintroducing the main characters and setting up a new storyline involving Ruby's children. The episode was seen by an estimated 0.436 million household viewers with a 0.21 ratings share among adults 18–49, according to Nielsen Media Research, representing a 15% decrease from the previous episode. Critical reception was extremely positive. Matt Fowler of IGN gave it an 8.6 out of 10, praising the blood, backstory, and Ruby's character development. Michael Roffman of The A.V. Club gave it an "A–", noting its self-aware humor. Stephen Harber of Den of Geek gave it 3 out of 5 stars, questioning the episode's purpose in the larger season arc. Steve Ford of TV Fanatic gave it a perfect 5-star rating. Jasef Wisener of TV Overmind called it an extremely strong episode that reintroduces the storyline while wrapping viewers into a new plot. Blair Marnell of Nerdist praised it as funny, gory, and action-packed. The episode was written by Craig DiGregorio and directed by Rick Jacobson, marking the second writing credit for DiGregorio and second directorial credit for Jacobson.

Did You Know?

• The episode was available early on September 27, 2016 through Facebook and Starz.com, before its official air date of October 2, 2016.
• The episode introduced Lee Majors as Brock Williams, Ash's father.
• Viewership decreased by 15% from the previous episode, which had 0.508 million viewers.

From Short Film to Feature

Raimi, Campbell, Tapert and their circle of friends first tested the waters with a 1979 short called Within the Woods, crafted specifically as a proof-of-concept reel to convince potential backers that their wilder ideas could translate to a full-length project. That gamble paid off when the short secured ninety thousand dollars in funding, enough to greenlight a feature. Principal photography was shot on location in a remote cabin outside Morristown, Tennessee, and the conditions proved grueling for everyone involved in the production. The film's signature look—its elaborate prosthetic makeup and stop-motion sequences—was the work of artist Tom Sullivan, whose effects gave the demonic set pieces their visceral, handmade quality. For Raimi, this was his first feature as a director, and the entire endeavor carried the scrappy, low-budget energy of a true independent production. The result was a supernatural horror film about college students trapped in an isolated woodland cabin, where a cursed audio tape unleashes a legion of demonic entities and leaves only one survivor to fight through escalating gore.

From Private Screening to Cannes

The finished film's first audience was a small gathering of friends and family at the Redford Theatre in Detroit on October 15, 1981. That modest private showing, however, caught the eye of producer Irvin Shapiro, who recognized the project's potential and arranged for it to be screened at the 1982 Cannes Film Festival—a remarkable jump for a ninety-thousand-dollar independent. The film's fortunes truly turned when horror novelist Stephen King penned a glowing review, lending the project a level of credibility that opened doors throughout the industry. New Line Cinema seized the opportunity, acquiring the distribution rights and committing to a wide theatrical release that finally hit screens on April 15, 1983. The trajectory from a cramped Detroit screening room to a major studio's national rollout in a matter of eighteen months underscored just how hungry the market was for a fresh, unapologetically gory voice in horror. What began as a scrappy proof-of-concept short had become a bona fide theatrical event, setting the stage for the financial and cultural impact that would follow.

Box Office Triumph and Enduring Critical Acclaim

The financial results spoke for themselves: two and a half million dollars at the domestic box office and a staggering twenty-seven million from overseas markets, bringing the worldwide total to twenty-nine and a half million against a production budget of just ninety thousand. That ratio made The Evil Dead one of the most financially successful independent films ever made. Critically, the reception has remained remarkably consistent across decades—both the reviews that appeared in 1983 and the reassessments published years later have been overwhelmingly positive. Over time, the film cemented its reputation as one of the most significant cult classics in cinema history and has been repeatedly cited among the greatest horror films of all time. Beyond the numbers and accolades, the project served as a career launchpad of extraordinary consequence. Raimi, Tapert, and Campbell all went on to build substantial bodies of work, and the three have maintained a creative partnership that stretches across multiple decades, culminating in collaborations as far removed from cabin horror as Raimi's Spider-Man trilogy. The film's early success gave each of them the credibility and momentum to pursue increasingly ambitious projects.

A Franchise That Keeps Growing

The 1981 original was merely the first chapter in what has become one of horror's most prolific and enduring media franchises. Raimi himself returned to direct two immediate successors—Evil Dead II in 1987 and Army of Darkness in 1992—before the property was passed to new voices. A standalone sequel bearing the original title arrived in 2013, followed by Evil Dead Rise in 2023 and the upcoming Evil Dead Burn in 2026. The franchise also expanded into television with Ash vs Evil Dead, a series that ran from 2015 to 2018, and its reach extended further still into video games and comic book adaptations. At the center of all this expansion is Ash Williams, the lone survivor who has transcended his origins in a low-budget cabin film to become a widely recognized cultural icon. The character's longevity across films, a TV series, games, and printed stories over more than four decades testifies to how deeply the original 1981 vision embedded itself in popular culture, continuing to generate new stories and new audiences well into the twenty-first century.