sam "the man" raimi

SDP chats with EVIL DEAD director SAM RAIMI, about his Academy Award nominated flick A SIMPLE PLAN, his buddy BRUCE CAMPBELL, his violent behaviour...and the time he jammed with IGGY POP!

Good. I’m so sorry about being so delayed...the ‘big shot’ producer came by and I had to yab, yab, yab with him, I could not stop him. He would not let me go, I’m terribly sorry. Thankyou for waiting so long...please accept my apologies.

Thanks alot, I really appreciate that. That’s a cool rag you have.

Yeah. Really cutting edge, man...WILD.

Thankyou.

You mean in Australia it got a good response?

Yeah, it got a very good response. I haven’t read any of the reviews out there, but thankyou for tellin’ me. Um, it felt very unusual. I’m not a guy that usually gets good critical notices.

(laughs) Finally pulled ‘em?! Ahh...I don’t feel like I’ve tricked ‘em. I mean, it’s great to hear that some people, who write for films, think...uh...that they like this one. I mean, cause you make a movie hoping that people will like it and...it’s always harsh when you read...um..."That sucked", "That blew chunks" or whatever they say about it. It’s nice when they say...um..."I liked it this time". You think "God, I’ve done something right!"...and I didn’t let my crew down. Those are the thoughts that go through my mind, very simple thoughts that a dog has when he’s patted on the head...or if he’s kicked in the guts.

Well, it was very challenging for me...because I usually can tell my story with the visuals and just...um...I can usually show the audience, you know, how I feel. Or I can try and manipulate them through the visuals, purely. And it’s a pure way of communication with the audience ‘cause I have control over the camera, absolutely. But when you have to tell the story through the actors that’s a much greater collaboration. So it’s much more challenging because everything that I wanted to tell the story through was...human beings. And they have all their own input, all their own ideas and...it was remarkably difficult, and incredibly rewarding. We had to communicate to a great degree for it to work for me...I really had to make sure that they and I agreed upon every thought that they had, you know, all the time. So that we were in complete sync telling the same story...um...they were my mouthpiece. I tried to remain invisible and really let them do all the work, and that was a new experience too.

Like, it was not difficult...maybe it should have been. I think that the studios just thought "Oh this is a suspense piece and he is a guy that does horror movies, maybe it’s not that different." But I don’t really know what they were thinking, you know.

Yes...yes, it was called ‘Star City’ at the time. And it later came out as, um, ‘One False Move’.

Yeah, and Bill (Paxton)...their first pairing.

Well, um, let’s see... No, I was never offered ‘Robocop 2’. Um, ‘The Fly 2’...Scott Rudin, who was the head of Fox at the time, ended up being the fella’ who hired me on this film...he wanted me to direct ‘Fly 2’ and I said "Okay I’d love to", cause I love ‘The Fly’, "But I want to write it with my brother Ivan". And we wrote a treatment and they didn’t go with it, they went with a different one...another story. And I said "I’d rather not...I really wanted to make the one I had written". So I didn’t end up directing that. And then...what was the last one you mentioned?

They did offer me ‘Godzilla’, but I didn’t think that...ahh...I was the right guy for it. And then ‘Doom’...they talked about that.

I was gonna’ make that, but they wanted to take the script in a different direction than I did.

It was just...ahh...it was darker and it was edgier. They wanted more of a lighter, family film...but the snowman already was so much that, that I didn’t think I could go further in that direction.

No...what happened was he...you’re right, you don’t see ‘em break. I decided to play that act of violence from Bill Paxton’s perspective and from a great long-shot...ahh...because I thought it was more unusual and I thought, in a weird way, it was more horrible. But, um, it’s when Jacob hits him and falls into the snow in that shot is when we decided his glasses would break. And you’ll see him coming up from the shot with them hanging on either side of his head...but no, you don’t actually see ‘em break.

I brought her on board. I think she’s great...a real hard-working, professional actress too.

Originally I asked her to play that role...but we had, like, no money and she was in, you know, much more respectable pictures and she said (laughs) "What if I just play, like, a two day part or something." So I said "Okay." But actually, Embeth Davidtz, who eventually played the role, when on to become a big shot.

(laughs) Did she say that?

Oh well, I don’t know...I mean...it was a silly monster movie that she made, she’s right. But, um, when it’s all you’ve got under your belt as a director...(laughs)...you know...I feel fine.

I really haven’t. What happened was I got married and have children and I never get out to the theatre. So I have not seen them and I have not seen them on video...but ahh...like I haven’t seen ‘Scream’. I read ‘Scream’, I thought it was a great screenplay...but I didn’t see it. I saw ‘I Know What You Did Last Summer’...that was fun. But I like... I’m an old-fashion guy so I like...horror movies as a grounds for filmmaking experimentation. I love, absolutely love, the devices of generating horror and fear and shocks and scares. But I was always into horror filmmaking as a time when the filmmaker could explore the supernatural, therefore it was a great ground for film experimentation; I mean through technique, lighting technique, sound technique, camera technique. And so I really love the idea of trying to present the world of the supernatural through film, cause it really opens up what you can play with.

I’d love to go back to horror and, um... God, do I have any credibility?

Okay. (laughs)... What I like to do is try things that are different...that’s always been my concern. I don’t really care how people perceive me, whether or not they think I’m credible or incredible or uncredible or...you know, a hack. What I really love to do is entertain the audience and I love to challenge myself, so if it was something that was challenging and that I thought could be a cool audience experience then I would absolutely make it...at any cost.

Well I’ve got a four and a half year-old and I showed him some of ‘Army Of Darkness’. That’s the only one I think. He thought it was kind of, ahh, okay...till he got bored...basically.

No, he’s not really a fan of ‘Hercules’ or ‘Xena’, he’s into...ahh...’Rugrats’. That’s his poison of choice.

(BIG laughs) Cause I had forgotten what we had called it in the first one! And maybe...um... I don’t know why it changed. Maybe I forgot and the other thing is maybe the second one sounded better.

No, it doesn’t exist. I don’t have an uncut version of ‘The Evil Dead 2’. Ah, pretty much, um, that is the director’s cut you’re looking at. I did shoot a scene where they lopped his head off and all his body parts flap about...but, the scene didn’t play great with it, so that’s why I cut it out.

I guess that, although I’m a really big Geoge Miller fan and he’s really the guy who puts pictures and sounds together better than anyone, better than Spielberg, although I am a giant fan of his that particular thing wasn’t an homage to him. I was trying to... do an effect (snickers) that didn’t work, which was I was trying to say he was so scared at the sight of this rotten apple that had burst in the door his hair streaked grey. I had heard it in a horror story once about these five college guys who went into this haunted house and one after another they disappeared, until somebody went in and opened up a closet door and found them. And their fingernails had grown three inches and their hair had turned grey. You know, what had they seen? It just terrified me, the thought. So I said, "Oh well, when Bruce see’s this thing his hair’ll turn grey." It turned into this horribly cheesy effect (laughs) but we tried to do it the best we could. The concept may have been a little...ahh...lame.

(BIG laughs) Ha! Don’t print that! (laughs) Absolutely.

Oh my god, you poor demented guy you.

Well, um, let’s see... Hal, he went on to do television acting for a number of years, in America, but I don’t know where he is now. The one who played the ‘doll creature’...Betsy Baker, she became married to a gentleman in the motion picture industry and I think she’s living out here in Los Angeles. I saw her a number of years ago, she’s doing great. I think she’s got kids too. Ellen Sandweiss, who played the sister is back in Detroit...she’s married and is a professional singer. And, um, Bruce Campbell’s still acting and... Sarah York is an actress out here also. Does television work occasionally.

Oh that was just to sell tickets. (laughs) I dunno what I was thinking. Yeah, it’s less intense than ‘Evil Dead 2’...it’s not intense it’s just all-out comedy pretty much.

Well...here’s how I feel. I like the movie anytime I’m in Bruce’s head, you know...anytime I’m with the cowardly idiot. But when it turns into just, like, a fight-fest...then I lose interest, like at the three quarter point. Until he comes back at the end, you know, until Bruce comes back. Cause I really like being with Bruce. I mean, that’s what’s unique about the movie...that idiot. The idiot, blowhard, American, coward...who thinks he’s smarter than everybody and is actually not. That’s what I’m interested in and so when it just becomes those battle scenes I lose interest...it becomes more generic to me.

Yeah. Um...I don’t know what Universal marketing department was thinking. They showed me and said "What do ya’ think?" "God it wasn’t what I was thinking, can’t we call it ‘Evil Dead 3’?" "No, no, no, it’s just how it’s gonna’ be!" "Okay, yeah then I love it."

Oh yeah, I was (‘Spies Like Us’)...but, no, that was just Universal marketing.

That was Dino DeLaurentis, DEG. They told me what they were gonna’ do and it sounded cool so I told ‘em to go for it. But I didn’t do it. It was Bruce Campbell’s eyes. (if for some reason you’re unaware the poster features a skull with eyeballs)

Maybe one day we will release it...maybe at some later point. Right now the problem is...I don’t own any of the music, cause it’s all from old horror movies, you know, cause it was made on Super-8. So I’d have to go back and re-sound it...but I don’t mind doin’ that if people are really interested in seeing it

Well if you’re ever in L.A, give me a call.

Ahh, that is, um, that was just a Super-8 picture we made about these special power-enhancing, bogus, monkey pignuts...that people were stealing. It was a high school project.

They looked like acorns. Infact, I think that they were...acorns and wallnuts, yeah. That’s all it was.

Ahh...blockhead? That’s the only one I can think of. (laughs) That’s a vague description.

That’s right, I was a summer camp counceller...at that camp. And, uh, they teach kids about the canooing and backpacking and wilderness survival, crafts, wood crafts. It was a great camp and I always felt a great attatchment to it.

No, the kids are too young but I’d like to send them there when they are a little older.

He is, but I knew him before. We became closer friends there but, um, I actually met Bill when we were making a movie called ‘Darkman’...and he was gonna’ be the Darkman.

Yeah. At the last second we cast Liam Neeson instead. It broke Bill’s heart.

Me too, me too...but I finally got a chance to star Bill in a picture just now.

I think Bruce was busy. I think he was busy shooting ‘Brisco County’, his television program, everyday...and he just couldn’t get away to even think about it. I don’t think we ever even talked about it...he was just locked up for the next year and a half or something.

I actually brought him down and shot him in a scene in ‘Quick and The Dead’. When we were making ‘Quick and The Dead’ is when the ‘Darkman’ sequels were being shot...and he couldn’t get away for the same reason on both projects. But I dragged him down for a scene in ‘Quick and The Dead’ which, unfortunately, hit the editing room floor. But, um, with ‘A Simple Plan’ he was busy directing and starring in, co-starring in alot of these ‘Xena’ and ‘Hercules’ episodes. He’s one of our big directors down there so I didn’t want to damage the TV side. But I’d love to direct Bruce in an all-out Bruce Campbell vehicle...a funny movie with Bruce, I absolutely do. He’s a very good guy Bruce.

Ah, no...I just have always been a little devil. The fun of poking Bruce is when he can’t cry out, basically. For instance, he might be at one of those Fangoria conventions and I’m sitting next to him and, if the audience can’t see, I might have a fork being inbedded into his spleen. Because the fun thing is to watch Bruce perform...you know, try and hide the pain. That’s my game with Bruce...punish him. He thrives on punishment. And I think those ‘Evil Dead’ movies were proportionally successful as to the amount of pain Bruce endures, actually.

See, that’s what I tell him. (laughs)

No pain, no gain. Oh god, I don’t know that I’ve taught Bruce anything or that he’s taught me anything, except that we really love joking together, performing together and riffing off each other. But, you know, I guess that to have a great friend who’s a creative partner just can’t be beat.

No, not in the last few years we haven’t...just very rarely.

Terrible. Terrible. I love Bruce...one of my best friends. He’s up in Oregan right now, and with the kids it’s just very hard to find the time.

Well first they, ahh...first they recast it. They got rid off Bruce from the lead.

Exactly. And he was a good guy, you know, he just...I have a special relationship with Bruce that was just foolproof. So suddenly I couldn’t do comedy with him anymore and, um, then they took the picture away and they recut it, and they put their own music on it and they just made a mess of it...so I’ve kind of disowned that movie.

I did.

No, I never kept it because they never let me keep a cut...they just disassembled it. It was really rude.

It’s a mind-blower.

Um, I tried to do the best I could with it and, um, I don’t know that I made a very good picture out of it. Sharon (Stone) was a very good professional. She really gave it her all and so did Gene Hackman. It was great working with those guys and great working with Leonardo, but, um, that one just didn’t come together one hundred percent. Well, I tried to do the best I could but, overall, I’m not sure that the audience liked it enough. It probably was not a success.

I like ‘Evil Dead 2’ and I like, um... I like ‘Evil Dead’ and ‘Darkman’, I like those...those are okay for me. Because they turned out to be what I wanted them to be, you know, that’s how I judge it.

No they’re just a light bouncing into some mirror gag, like, a lot of little mirrors. Some disco gag from the early 80’s.

God, I hope not. I think people are still just easy-going, hard-working guys. I mean, I just work with people in the industry...you know, editors and cameramen. They don’t have time for any of that crap, they just go to work.

It’s not a great town to live in. I’d love to live just a little more in the country, a little further away from the hustle and bustle. Or I’d love to live in a great city like New York, or Paris, or...something like that. But, L.A’s not a great city and, ahh, you really have to be here if you wanna’ make movies in the States...you know, professionally.

Them replacing Bruce Campbell on ‘Crimewave’. That just killed the movie...killed it in an instant.

What did they say? God, I’m tryna’ remember now... "We want you to make ‘Hercules’...". Um...yeah, no maybe it is what they said. God, I can’t remember anymore. (pauses) I think that is right. Yes. "Would you make us a new ‘Army of Darkness’ TV series", and we said ,"No, but we’ll take the same type of humour and make a ‘Hercules’. We’ll use him as our main character and apply the same type of humour." I think that’s what happened. I’m not sure you should quote me, I may be getting it wrong.

We were going to but the script never turned out, so we’re going back to the drawing board...it probably is not gonna’ turn out, unfortunately.

(BIG laughs) God, you’ve really done your research! Well, I don’t live in Detroit anymore, so I don’t use that same compost pile. I do have a vege garden...but I don’t feed it film anymore. That was just unique with that garden...I didn’t want to start the same thing over again.

God, did I say I wanted to remake it? God, what a weird thing. I...I’d hate to remake it. I mean, it was so beautifully made...it’s one of my favourite movies, it’s maybe my favourite movie.

I’d love to, but...yeah, absolutely, I’d love to make a story of man’s greed. Maybe I’ve already done that now though. It’s in the same vein, I mean, it’s the same genre in ‘Simple Plan’; men lusting after gold and how it reveals their hearts to be black.

Yeah, I just finished shooting that...and I’m now gonna’ start the editing process. It’s a drama, a romantic drama and also with the backdrop of a sports picture...it’s a baseball movie. It’s a different thing for me, but I think it’s gonna’ be good.

Exactly. And, ahh...he’s really great in it...surprisingly good.

Well, I just thought that he had a more limited range than he turns out to have...he actually has a very good range as an actor. He’s very talented...and, ahh...you really only know that when you work with somebody...see ‘em day-in, day-out, perform. See what they’re capable of.

No...I don’t think like that, I just...get in there and do it. If I like the story I go for it. Nothing about the ‘career’ thing. That’s probably gonna’ be my doom, but so far I haven’t been affected by that stuff. Maybe cause I’ve never been that successful, you know. I think that’s more about guys who are successful...they’ve got something and they don’t want to lose it. My movies have never really made money.

I feel it’s...the hardest part is writing the picture. And I like both...I love writing them and I love directing them, so when I get a good screenplay like ‘A Simple Plan’ I’m thrilled at directing, even though I didn’t write it. Or when I get a great actor like Kevin, who has a great screenplay...that’s another interesting and different challenge. So I like ‘em both, but I do wanna’ write my own screenplay. My brother and I are working on something right now.

Um...it’s a detective story.

That’s it.

(BIG laughs) Ahh, I’ve always liked Mr.T. Is that a lame response? I don’t know all the guys but I would say it’s him...he was so great in ‘Rocky 3’.

Yeah, I made an Iggy Pop rock video for his song ‘Cold Metal’, for A&M records. That was a blast. Somebody said, "Do you want to make a rock video?" I said, "Yeah, if you can give me a really great artist like Iggy Pop or David Bowie." And then I got a call back, "Okay, you can do Iggy Pop’s video." I said, "Oh my God! I can’t believe it!". So I actually got a shot to do it...it was really cool. And he was kind of shocked cause he comes over my house to talk about it and he goes, "Hey, what’s that...under that sheet?". So I pulled back the sheet and I had, like, some drums and some guitars and harmonicas and stuff...cause I wanted to play with Iggy Pop! So lame... You know, I say, "Let’s jam Iggy", and he was, "Alright."

Harmonica...and my brother Ivan plays guitar.

Yeah. ‘Little Baby Moses and The Thrillers"...we used to play in Detroit. Just a basement band...but then we got to jam with Iggy and he did some of our songs, which is really cool, and I got ‘em on tape. It was such a blast.

Just tell ‘em I said "Thanks alot. I hope you’ve enjoyed the pictures." And, um...that’s always been my goal, to try and make pictures that people like...and if they liked ‘em...ahh..."Thankyou. Thanks for makin’ my day."