Bruce Campbell’sHysteria!is his first horror show in years, and it’s the perfect follow-up to his fame-making franchise. Campbell is best known for playingprotagonist Ash Williams in the classic horror seriesEvil Dead.Released in 1981,The Evil Deadimmediately cemented Campbell as an ’80s horror icon, along with writer-director Sam Raimi.Campbell reprised the role in the next two movies,Evil Dead IIandArmy of Darkness, then once again returned in 2015 for the spinoff TV showAsh vs Evil Dead.
Now 66 years old, Campbell has to play a different kind of role than college student Ash when taking on horror projects. Having joined theHysteria!cast, the actor plays the town’s chief of police, Dandridge, who is trying to investigate a mysterious disappearance while having run-ins with some local kids who are starting a Satan-inspired band.Hysteria!a fun show, butit is a notable role in Campbell’s career for one reason.
Hysteria! Is A Great Return To Horror For Campbell
Hysteria!is Campbell’s first horror TV show role sinceAsh vs Evil Dead, which ended in 2018.The three-season series followed Ash Williams decades after the original trilogy, when he has to break out the old chainsaw hand and boomstick when he accidentally unleashes the Evil Dead in the pilot episode.The sequel series was fairly well regarded, and fans were dismayed whenAsh vs Evil Deadwas canceled before season 4, despite Sam Raimi and Campbell having plans for the next season.
Along with Campbell,Hysteria’s cast also includes Julie Bowen, Jessica Treska, Emjay Anthony, Chiara Aurelia, Kezli Curtis, Nikki Hahn, Anna Camp, and Milly Shapiro.
Now,Hysteria!finally brings the actor back to horror television.While he’s in a completely different role than the one he played for so long in theEvil Deadfranchise,Hysteria!gives the actor another shot in the genre. It’s not Ash Williams, but Campbell’s new take on a new role has the added fun of giving him something new to work with while also giving audiences another opportunity to see him in the genre that made him famous, especially asHysteria!incorporates some of the dark humor Campbell and Raimi used so well inThe Evil Dead.
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Hysteria! Has Slasher And Supernatural Elements
Beyond merely returning Campbell to horror TV,Hysteria!stands on its own as a quality horror TV showand a great homage to past horror. In addition to its themes,The style ofHysteria!also harkens back to ’80s-era horror films. It incorporates both over-the-top slasher kills and supernatural elements that clearly play with tropes that were first established in this decade of horror films.Hysteria!is a great tribute to the ‘80s as an era, deeply rooted as it is in its period setting.
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Appropriately for that 1980s setting,Hysteria!deals with the Satanic Panic phenomenon, which was a conspiracy theory over imagined cases of Satan worshipping and satanic ritual abuse that spread to become a cultural moral panic in the ’80s and early ’90s. As the teenagers' band plays their relatively tame “Satanic” metal, the hysterical moralizing of the parents in the suburban landscape creates an intentionally campy feel toHysteria!.With Campbell’s appearance adding nostalgia,Hysteria!deftly capturesthe extravagance of both ‘80s horror and the decade itself.
Campbell Plays The Chief Of Police In Hysteria!
WhileHysteria!brings Campbell’s career full circle, it is also an interesting departure from his Ash Williams roles. As a college-aged student who stumbles into waking the Evil Dead, Ash is a do-it-yourself horror hero who is thrust into a nightmarish situation and must figure out his own creative ways to get out of it.As Chief Dandridge inHysteria!,Campbell is tasked withportraying a more mature character.While he may not anticipate the supernatural, he is already willingly a crime-fighter, whereas Ash had to transform himself to take down the villain.
Hysteria!takes existing tropes that audiences love and turn them on their heads to create some unexpected dynamics, epitomized by Campbell’s police chief role.
Tracing Campbell’s career as it relates toHysteria!helps highlight the strengths of the new horror show.Hysteria!is not reinventing the wheel; many of its beats have been seen before. Rather,Hysteria!takes existing tropes that audiences love and turns them on their heads to create some unexpected dynamics, epitomized by Campbell’s police chief role. In that,Hysteria!makes for a horror TV show that is deliciously fresh and familiar, making it a fitting place for Bruce Campbell to make his return.
Hysteria!
Cast
A group of high school outcasts rebrands as a Satanic metal band during the 1980s “Satanic Panic” after a quarterback vanishes. However, a series of violent incidents and paranormal reports lead to a town-wide witch hunt, which eventually points to the band.
