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Season two of "Ash vs. The Evil Dead" debuts in Wells Hall

September 30, 2016

On Thursday night, the Starz show “Ash vs Evil Dead” premiered its first episode of the second season in Wells Hall.

The premiere was put on by the University Activities Board (UAB) at MSU, but they didn’t initiate the conversation.

“Starz reached out to us, knowing the MSU connections that a lot of the cast had with MSU and Michigan,” UAB assistant manager Brian Proffer said.

Some of those connections include MSU alumnus Ivan Raimi. 

“I can tell you that I graduated,” Ivan Raimi said. “I can’t remember now (what I majored in), but I’m sure I did.”

Ivan’s film career however, started in the Wells Hall room that the premiere was held in on Thursday night.

“My brother Sam and Rob Tapert, who’s a producer of "Ash Vs. Evil Dead"… shot a movie called "The Happy Valley Kid"… and we created a film club,” Ivan Raimi said. “From that we kept making movies some part comedy, part horror and we couldn’t really figure out which one it was. We couldn’t stop coloring within the lines, (because) we didn’t have the technical skills to do that so we just kept doing it.”

The three brothers are all associated with the show; Ivan is the executive producer, Ted is an actor on the show and Sam is a screenwriter for the show.

Ted Raimi only attended MSU for four to six weeks he said in a Q&A after the premiere, and Sam Raimi only attended for for about three semesters.

“I was bullied, thrown against a locker and couldn’t get a date… so I left,” Ted Raimi said jokingly. “But I loved every minute of it.”

Bruce Campbell, who plays the main character Ash, also has ties to Michigan as he went to Western Michigan University for sixth months, according to Campbell.

“(It was also) known as 'Wastern' at the time,” Campbell said.

However, Campbell and Sam Raimi met before the first The Evil Dead movie in 1981, which Campbell starred in and Sam directed and wrote.

“I met Sam at (Wylie E. Groves) high school in 1975… it was rich then and now it’s really rich,” Campbell said.

They met in a radio speech class at Groves High School, after Campbell dropped out of a typing class, which he said was “the smartest thing I ever did.”

“I took a class that I thought was cool, that turned out to be cool,” Campbell said. “The only problem is that Sam was in the class.”

Sam was a nuisance to Campbell as he kept trying to poke the back of his neck whenever he tried to answer a question in class to his teacher Jim Mall, who was also the head of theater, according to Campbell.

“He would take a No. 2 pencil… and the longer my question got, he would start to apply pressure (to the back of my neck),” Campbell said. “I would get the answer out and turn back and he would say this, ‘I tried to help you pal.’ That was in first day of high school.”

The second season of “Ash vs Evil Dead” is set to premiere on Oct. 2 at 8 pm on Starz.

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