Spartacus: House of Ashur Drops Red-Band Trailer & Poster—Brace for Gladiatorial Gore
“Spartacus: House of Ashur” is the forthcoming sequel series to Starz’s early-2010s sword-and-sandals drama show “Spartacus.” Its first trailer, released back in July, was a mere teaser that revealed little more than the fact that the titular House will be struggling to prove itself to its detractors, and that it will acquire a female gladiator (Tenika Davis) who will face an even greater challenge proving herself capable of fighting any man. The latest trailer, dropped on October 30, is an even more compelling sell for the series, presenting its characters and political dynamics with greater depth and even more grit.
Spartacus: House of Underdogs
The official trailer for “Spartacus: House of Ashur” begins with a visual and voiceover paean to the glory of theatrical combat, as two gladiators battle to the death with massive sledgehammers while a reverent voice waxes poetic about the sensations of the arena. This grandiloquent note is short-lived, however, as the trailer then segues into contextualizing the vicious and pervasive derision accorded the House of Ashur.
Ashur himself (Nick E. Tarabay), who was slain by one of his former slaves in the second season of “Spartacus,” has been retconned back to life, and is credited with having given Spartacus his “deserved end.” (Previously, the titular character was killed in battle during the season finale of “Spartacus,” well after Ashur’s death). In “Spartacus: House of Ashur,” he presides over a House that has been “blemished by constant defeat in the games,” and is once taunted as “the House of Asses.” If they are to attain gladiatorial glory, they “must present unknown delights to ignite the crowd.”
The Newest and Most Compelling Underdog of Them All
Enter Tenika Davis’s Achillia, a truly ferocious fighter whom the House of Ashur views as a potential “unexpected gift.” Anyone who sees even one snapshot of her locked in ferocious combat is truly a fool for judging her a rank outsider, but there’s an inherent prejudice directed towards any woman who enters the arena. Of course, this stigma dovetails very tidily and appropriately with the laughingstock reputation of Ashur’s House, and “Spartacus: House of Ashur” will presumably show how she and the House that owns her will spectacularly shuck off this dishonor.
Davis is the true standout of this overall absorbing trailer. In the teaser for “Spartacus: House of Ashur,” Achillia declares: “I did not ask to be in this House, yet I stand equal as any man within it!” After watching the full-length trailer, it’s clear that this line shouldn’t be mistaken for a proclamation of cheap and predictable female empowerment.
Davis plays this formidable, subjugated warrior not only with almost palpable grit, but with genuine vulnerability. Shortly after her introduction in the trailer, we see her knocked down in a sparring match with a man who has warned her: “You have fought before, but not against such as I.” “I fear that my fall has already been written,” she then confesses fearfully. We see one more violent clip of her being bested in combat, and then of her with a bruised and bloody face being helped to her feet by Ashur.
Achillia will have to fight very hard for her survival, and she is truly afraid (good on “Spartacus: House of Ashur” for highlighting the easily-forgotten fact that its gladiators are in fact enslaved men and women who are partaking in mortal combat against their wills), and it’s impossible not to root for her triumph in the arena – and, we may hope, for the free status that she may earn through such championship.
By All Appearances, a Rousing Piece of Sword-and-Sandals Entertainment
All in all, “Spartacus: House of Ashur” has the potential to be a truly gripping gladiator drama, telling a story that is brutally gritty without being too dark to prevent viewers from having fun watching the disgraced House reclaim its glory in the arena.
While the trailer swells with all the epic combat music one would expect from a series about gladiators, the set design looks uncommonly down-to-earth: it’s a Spartan (is it literally Sparta?) settlement of plain stone walls, where combatants fight one another in a space the size of a tennis court. It’s the kind of setting that can give viewers the raw, unembellished tension of two people battling to the death, as opposed to the flamboyantly silly thrills of watching, for instance, those warriors in “Gladiator II” engaging in a mock naval battle within a flooded Colosseum filled with ravenous sharks.
The trailer concludes with a spectating noblewoman (Ivana Baquero) remarking with a smile: “The gods themselves could not pry me loose!” Let’s hope that “Spartacus: House of Ashur” (which premieres on December 5) will exert an equally spellbinding effect on us.
