Evil Dead's Ash Williams' calling in life is slaying Deadites, and over the course of three films and a TV show, he's racked up quite the kill count. Bruce Campbell is a true icon of the horror genre, and that's entirely due to his performances as Ash. Full of charisma and a knack for physical comedy, Campbell is reliably entertaining in just about any project, but when fans think of him, Ash will always come to mind first and foremost.
Horror so often revolves around its villains, with it being fairly rare that the genre will give birth to an iconic hero, a character who doesn't just survive, but lays a beating on any monster in their path. Ash is one of the best examples of that phenomena, along with fellow legends like Alien's Ellen Ripley, Phantasm's Reggie, and Buffy the Vampire Slayer. With his devastating chainsaw hand attachment and trusty "boomstick" always at the ready, Ash may be a reluctant hero, and sometimes a buffoon, but he's ultimately good at his job.
With that in mind, here's a look at the mountain of Deadite victims Ash has racked up over the course of the Evil Dead franchise. This includes the movies The Evil Dead, Evil Dead 2, and Army of Darkness, as well as the Ash vs Evil Dead TV series. The video games starring Ash aren't being considered, as there's just too many variables based on player actions, as far as how many Deadites meet the sharp edge of Ash's chainsaw.
It's easy to forget after all these years, but in Sam Raimi's original Evil Dead movie, Bruce Campbell's Ash is far from the badass demon-slayer he would become. He's more of a resourceful survivor, albeit one understandably scared out of his mind. Interestingly, the first kill doesn't go to Ash, as his friend Scotty hacks up the latter's possessed girlfriend Shelly. Ash does appear to take out his own possessed girlfriend Linda via shovel decapitation, although this kill is a bit murky, since he ends up having to re-kill her early in Evil Dead 2. Finally, Ash burning the Necronomicon causes possessed Scotty and Ash's possessed sister Cheryl to disintegrate. That gives Ash a grand total of 3 kills in The Evil Dead, a surprisingly low amount in hindsight, but one set to grow rapidly going forward.
Evil Dead 2 is where Ash really started to become the loudmouth braggart fans know and love. He's now a battle-hardened killer of Deadites, and ready to take out any in his path. After he turns evil for a bit and laughs insanely with household objects of course. Ash first re-kills Linda, this time via chainsaw. When Professor Ed Getley shows up with Annie Knowby and subsequently gets possessed, Ash hacks him up with an ax. Local hick Bobby Joe gets killed by the trees, so not a kill for Ash. Her boyfriend Jake gets killed by a possessed Henrietta Knowby, so another not in Ash's column.
Ash gets another kill finally by taking out Henrietta with his shotgun, forcing her to "swallow this." Annie gets stabbed by Ash's possessed severed hand, which could be counted as a kill for him if one wanted to be technical, but it has a mind of its own, so nah. Ash does manage to kill the giant demon creature he encounters near the end of the film, although he unfortunately gets sucked into the time portal along with it, ending up in the middle ages. Ash then kills a flying Deadite to set up Army of Darkness. So Ash ends Evil Dead 2 with a kill count of 5 for the film, 8 total.
Just a note to begin the section, while lots and lots of Deadites likely die in the great battle between Ash's forces and Evil Ash's Deadites, this is only counting specific kills seen onscreen that are made by Ash. Ash begins the film in slavery, but he quickly proves his worth by slaughtering two Deadites in a fight pit. Not long after, Ash easily dispatches a female Deadite via his boomstick. Ash first appears to kill Evil Ash via bodily dismemberment, although the jerk comes back when Ash says the words wrong and unleashes the Deadite horde while trying to retrieve the Necronomicon. Ash is many things, but perfect isn't one of them. Still, it's being counted as a kill.
During the big battle, Ash first kills 2 Deadites by driving the Delta through a drawbridge, crushing them. He kills 6 more with the propeller blades fashioned to the car, as part of making it a battle mobile. He blasts another Deadite with his boomstick, runs another over with the car, and kills 6 more with the propeller blades. A bit later, Ash breaks the back of another Deadite. Further into the battle, Ash causes a net filled with rocks to crush another Deadite, stabs one, throws another off the castle roof, kills another with the blunt end of a torch, and then finally explodes Evil Ash using gunpowder. To end Army of Darkness, at least in the standard theatrical cut, Ash kills a Deadite at S-Mart back in the present. Hail to the king, baby. That's a total of 27 kills for the film, 35 total for the franchise.
Since Ash had three seasons to work with for the Ash vs Evil Dead TV series, he got up to lots of demon-slaying. Based on the kills shown onscreen, Ash offs no less than 8 Deadites in season 1, including the sad instance of seemingly important character Detective Amanda Fisher. Ash takes out two Deadites in the season 2 premiere, and another in episode 2, following a horrifying trip up a corpse's butt in the franchise's grossest scene. In episode 3, Ash saves his dad from a Deadite, long enough for his head to get crushed by a car. By episode 5 he's chopping another in half. In episode 6, Ash has to put down his own possessed sister Cheryl, again. Ash caps off season 2 by killing both his old Deadite foe Henrietta Knowby, and the demon Baal. That's another eight kills for the season.
Ash kicks off season 3 of Ash vs Evil Dead in grand fashion, taking out the Deadite version of his daughter Brandi's best friend, much to her chagrin, as she doesn't seem to get the whole "possessed by demons" thing yet. He takes out two more Deadites in the next episode, during a very eventful trip to a sperm bank. Episode 3 gets quite crazy, with Ash being made to look nuts to Brandi by way of killing her possessed mom and a returned from the grave Brock Williams. Ash slays a two-headed Deadite fusion of two people in episode 6, counting for two kills. Episode 7 sees Ash take out a new version of Evil Ash, used by Ruby to frame him for several murders. In the series finale, Ash decapitates one Deadite and blows up a giant-size final boss to cap things off. That puts Ash at a grand total of 61 Deadite kills total over the course of the Evil Dead franchise. Groovy.
