Ash Williams

Ash and four friends, including girlfriend Linda and sister Cheryl, rent a cabin in Tennessee. In the cellar they find the Naturom Demonto, a Sumerian book, and a tape of incantations. Scott plays the tape, and a demonic force awakens. Cheryl is the first to be possessed. One by one the friends turn into monsters, and Ash learns the hard way that only dismembering the possessed works.

In the end Ash survives at the cost of everyone he knew. He throws the book into the fire and watches the bodies fall apart, but the film ends leaving the evil loose.

In Evil Dead II, Ash returns to a cabin with Linda, plays another tape by archaeologist Raymond Knowby and unleashes the same evil. He beheads Linda and buries her. His right hand is possessed, and Ash cuts it off with a chainsaw, which ends up attached to his arm stump. Knowby's daughter Annie arrives with the book's missing pages.

With her help, Ash finds a ritual that can send the demon back. Annie dies in the process, and the ritual opens a portal that pulls in the demon, Ash's Oldsmobile and Ash himself.

In Army of Darkness, Ash lands in the Middle Ages and is taken for a spy of Duke Henry. He kills a Deadite in front of everyone and becomes a hero, and the castle's Wise Man says only the Necronomicon can get him home. Ash goes for the book in a haunted forest, where a reflection turns into a copy of him.

When he takes the book, he forgets a magic word and raises an army of the dead. With his mechanical know-how and his car, Ash leads the castle into battle, defeats the army and returns to the present. In a store, he tells a coworker everything, and a leftover Deadite attacks. Ash kills it and delivers the line that became a trademark: Hail to the king, baby.

In Ash vs Evil Dead, Ash lives in a trailer, works at the Value Stop store and runs from his past. One night he reads from the Necronomicon to impress a woman, and the Deadites return. With Pablo and Kelly, he flees Ruby, a mysterious woman who wants the book too, and a cop who blames him for the deaths. The three return to the cabin, where Ash faces what he woke up once and for all.

In the second season, Ash goes back to his hometown, Elk Grove, and meets his father, Brock. In the third, he discovers he has a daughter, Brandy, and that his life will never be normal.

Ash Williams was born in Sam Raimi's films and came back in comics, games and the series Ash vs Evil Dead. In August 2026, Bruce Campbell confirmed he has retired from the role and that the animated revival is not happening.