Although Evil Dead Rise doesn’t include Ash Williams, Bruce Campbell had an interesting cameo, through which the movie cleverly avoided a plot hole with Sam Raimi’s original Evil Dead trilogy. Few horror franchises have had as much fun as the Evil Dead one, with different versions and some movies even mixing horror with comedy. The franchise began in 1981 with Sam Raimi’s The Evil Dead, followed by Evil Dead II in 1987 and Army of Darkness in 1993, all of them starring Bruce Campbell as Ash Williams, the ultimate Final Boy.

The Evil Dead franchise came back to life in 2013 with Fede Álvarez’s Evil Dead, a reimagining of Raimi’s original movie and the first in the franchise without Ash Williams as the main character. Ten years later, the franchise was revived again with Lee Cronin’s Evil Dead Rise, a standalone entry with new characters and a new version of the Necronomicon. Despite Ash not being part of the story, Evil Dead Rise found a way to include Bruce Campbell, and thanks to that, it avoided a plot hole with Raimi’s trilogy.

Ash Being Displaced To The 1920s Explains Why He Couldn't Change The Original Evil Dead Movies' Horrors

Bruce Campbell Had A Cameo As The Voice In The Phonograph Records From The 1920s

Bruce Campbell has a voice cameo in Evil Dead Rise that might be easy to miss for some viewers. The whole Deadite chaos in Evil Dead Rise begins with an earthquake uncovering a secret chamber underneath the parking lot of the building. While Beth (Lily Sullivan) and Ellie (Alyssa Sutherland) were upstairs, Ellie’s children Danny, Bridget, and Kassie were in the parking lot when the earthquake hit. Danny found three phonograph records in the chamber along with a mysterious book, and took them back to their apartment.

Danny listened to two of the records, which detailed the efforts of a priest to research the book and recited the incantation that summoned the evil force. After Ellie and Bridget became Deadites, Beth listened to the third record in hopes of finding a solution to the possessions, but instead, she heard another man warning the priests of the dangers of the ritual, the book, and the Deadites, demanding that the book be destroyed. The man in question was Bruce Campbell, and though the character is unnamed, Cronin teased that he could be a displaced Ash.

At the end of Army of Darkness, Ash returned to the present, but it wouldn’t be surprising if he ended up going back in time again.

At the end of Evil Dead II, Ash was transported to the Middle Ages, where Army of Darkness took place. At the end of Army of Darkness, Ash returned to the present, but it wouldn’t be surprising if he ended up going back in time again – after all, he was an expert in accidentally getting into major trouble.

Ash might not have control over where he travels to in the past, and if he landed in the 1920s, he was 60 years early to stop the events that killed his friends in the first movie. Even if Ash could find a way to escape the 1920s, he would likely have used this chance to return to his right time, though not without warning the priests.

Ash Preventing Professor Knowby From Reading The Book Wouldn't Change The Necronomicon's Effects

Basically, There’s No Stopping The Curse Carried By The Necronomicon

Even if Ash had traveled back to the 1980s to stop Professor Knowby from recording the reading of the Necronomicon and thus preventing the horrifying events that led to the deaths of their loved ones, that wouldn’t have stopped the evil force entirely. The Evil Dead franchise has had different versions of the Necronomicon, so Ash would have to do a lot of traveling and hard work to fully stop the effects of the curse book(s).

In addition to the Necronomicon in Raimi’s Evil Dead trilogy, there’s the Naturom Demonto in the cabin in Fede Álvarez’s Evil Dead and the Naturom Demonto underneath the building in Evil Dead Rise, as well as the 1920s priests who Ash couldn’t prevent from reading the latter. Ash is an inevitable thread keeping all versions of Evil Dead together, but as hard as he might try, he can’t stop the demons from the Necronomicon nor the many mistakes made through them.