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![]() Sam Raimi. Few filmmakers can boast
the amazing tale of his rise from loser with a
Brownie camera in someone's backyard…to cult
hero…to A-List powerhouse.
Raimi's Renaissance Pictures has been in
action since 1982 - when the opening credits of
his cult classic debut The Evil Dead first
unspooled all over audiences at the Cannes Film
Festival.
The unsuspecting French were the first
victims of Raimi's unrelenting visual style - a
style that would inform music video,
commercials, and the entire horror genre (would
there be any other reason to call your Japanese
cheese-gore flick Evil Dead Trap? Or to shoot an
Italo hack-job called Revenge of the Evil Dead?
Probably not) - and inspire swarms of young
filmmakers to follow in his footsteps.
Sam Raimi and his Renaissance Men made an
entire generation pick up a camera and want it
more than anything. I'm one of them - one of
those kids inspired by a few guys from the
Midwest who grabbed some Super 8 gear and took
over Hollywood.
Now some would say that "took over
Hollywood" is a little strong, so how about
let's take a look at this
objectively…
The guy has produced nine TV shows
(including the ridiculously successful Hercules
and Xena programs and the cult classic American
Gothic) as well as over a dozen feature films,
ranging from John Woo's American debut Hard
Target, to J.R. Bookwalter's low-budget,
large-scale zombie flick The Dead Next Door. As
comfortable with a major studio release as he is
on a guerilla-style independent feature, Sam
Raimi's efforts as a producer are inspired,
demented, and more often than not -
successful.
But it is his directorial talent that has
made him a legend in certain circles, and in his
eleven directorial forays, we see him grow
inside himself.
Watching Sam Raimi's movies in the order
in which they were released is like watching and
adolescent grow into a man - and when you
realize that he's been directing feature films
for 23 years - well, it seems about
right.
SAM RAIMI, IDIOT SAVANT - without the
savant part…
We all know the story of the
boy.
Or maybe you don't.
He was, by all accounts, fairly normal -
maybe even ordinary. He liked what all boys like
- cartoons, the Stooges (Moe, Larry, Curly,
SHEMP, and oddly enough - Iggy - but we'll get
to that later…), monsters…
![]() A natural born ham - Raimi used to
develop demented stand-up (or "fall-down")
routines for his school talent shows. Frequent
collaborator (DeNiro to his Scorsese, the Chow
to his Woo) Bruce Campbell makes mention of the
duo's time as "The Bonzoid Sisters" - a bit of
absurdity wherein Campbell and Raimi wore long
underwear and beat each other up while making
silly noises.
I'm not kidding, and neither was
Bruce.
Eventually, Sam picked up that camera (at
age 8) and went to work.
Manic, oddball shorts were the result. He
and his band of misfits (which saw the ranks
swell with the assimilation of Evil Dead 2
co-scribe Scott Spiegel, among others) made
movies that re-enacted the events of favorite
Stooges reels…parodied of all sorts of pop
culture ('The Attack of the Helping Hand'
features the pudgy glove mascot for Hamburger
Helper terrorizing Ellen Sandweiss, Raimi puts
Campbell through his paces as
explorer/adventurer/moron 'Cleveland Smith:
Bounty Hunter')…these little flicks were mostly
vaudeville antics taken to ridiculous extremes -
many of the shorts resemble something akin to
Your Show of Shows had it been produced by
comically mean-spirited toddlers.
Soon Sam was college bound, and after
adding Robert "Rip" Tapert to the mix, he began
shooting ambitious not-quite-feature length
Super 8 movies for consumption by his
class.
Team Raimi would rent a hall or a theater
and actually charge admission.
And it worked.
Films like the 'Happy Valley Kid' (in
which a student takes on teachers 'Dirty Harry'
style) and 'It's Murder' prepared Raimi and
company for their next step - feature
films.
INTO THE WOODS
 They had an odd, yet
amazingly ballsy plan. Rip persuaded his family
lawyer (who, it has been said, was retained to
get Tapert's older brother out of brushes with
the law) to try his hand at movie law, founding
a limited partnership.
The next step was to nab the go-to gal
(Ellen Sandweiss again) and the go-to shemp
(Scott Spiegel), and - over the course of a
weekend - shoot a rapid-fire horror short as a
trailer reel for Raimi's directorial talents.
'Within the Woods' was born.
Here's the ballsy part - the fledgling
Renaissance kids dragged their projection
equipment all over Detroit, and screened the
film for doctors, lawyers, dentists, and
merchants, then asked these people if they
wanted to join the limited partnership and
produce their feature.
If the country club set wasn't covered in
its own vomit at the end of 'Within the Woods'
30 minute running time, they'd cut a check - or
maybe not. This process continued for three
months until Raimi and the lads raised just shy
of $90,000 to begin production.
After
the long and laborious period of investor
wrangling, Sam shemped his not-so-merry band
(including Josh Becker, who went on to
direct 'Thou Shalt not Kill…Except', and the
exceptional 'Running Time') into the wilds of
Tennessee for the ultimate experience in
grueling guerrilla filmmaking.
BOOK OF THE DEAD
It depends on how you look at it, I
guess.
Is it a cheesy gorefest? Is it brutal and
horrific? Is it a big joke?
It could be all three - but there's one
thing that's certain. 1983's 'Evil Dead' is a
horror classic.
You know the plot, even if you've never
seen the flick - because it's every horror flick
EVER.
Group of friends goes to spooky house.
Group of friends meddle with forces they
cannot understand.
Group of friends are dispatched one by
one until one remains.
The nightmare is over…OR IS
IT?
In most hands, this is the plot of a
shot-on-tape, straight-to-tape crappile that
might have an ex-Penthouse Pet in it. In Sam
Raimi's hands - it's not quite like anything
you've ever seen before.
The imagery…the setting…it's all pretty
familiar and yet - astoundingly
alien.
I mean - it's a CABIN. It's not some fire
and brimstone hellscape - It's JUST A
CABIN.
Sure, it's a little run down, but it's
right up in the mountains.
Inside that cabin, though…when day turns
to night…
Shadows are cast that simply cannot
exist. We watch people while perched in places
we can't possibly be. Here, atmosphere and
camera become characters.
There's always supposed to be a character
we identify with. Someone we can cheer for. This
is especially necessary in a horror film. It
doesn't happen here.
We're left intentionally rudderless the
entire film in this regard, and Raimi's choices
as a stylist make this so. He forces us to be
bystanders…or accomplices. Rarely do we see any
of the proceedings from a character's standpoint
- and when we do, it's usually the perspective
of the vile force that is torturing the people
we should be sympathetic to.
But how can we be sympathetic to them?
Most genre entries don't spend much time on
characterization - so there is no sympathy to be
had when Kevin Bacon gets an implement pushed
through his throat.
But 'Evil Dead'…surprisingly
character-driven.
Take a look. You'll see
it.
At first, it seems like this might just
be Cheryl's (Ellen once more) story. She's
the introspective one…the quiet, artistic
one…the one who was seemingly invited because
she was someone's sister - not because she had a
fella' to make out with. She's the fifth
wheel.
She's the first one the demons come in
contact with - she's the first one they
punish…
Perhaps this will be a story of a woman
fighting to survive? It was in vogue at the time
- as 'Evil Dead' was being shot, 'Halloween', 'I
Spit on Your Grave', 'Friday the 13th', and 18
or so THOUSAND rip-offs of the above-mentioned
films sought to celebrate the woman as Victim No
More.
The infamous, mean-spirited tree-rape
scene (which Raimi often said he regrets ever
shooting) tears this girl to pieces, and the
logic of the screen dictates that she FIGHT
BACK.
Instead, she becomes the principal
spokesmodel for the Deadites. Hmm.
Scotty? Is this where we look to find a
hero? Sure, "Hal Delrich" (Or, should we say
Rick Demanicor) does his very best to ape a
Harrison Ford performance, but the guy is
completely mercenary. Once the bile hits the
fan, he bolts on his friends. When he returns
from the woods a tortured wreck, we figure he
got what he deserved. We can't possibly back
this guy.
Linda (Betsy Baker) is a
sweet-natured kewpie doll head - maybe she'll
rally everyone for some kind of escape. She
seems den-mother concerned…
Nope - just a kewpie doll head
DEADITE.
Shelly (Sarah York - aka Theresa
Tilly) seems a bit of the hard-bitten cynic
("Probably a real pit," she utters - before even
seeing the cabin). Maybe she'll be the "by the
bootstraps" hard broad…
Nope - hot coals burn her pretty flesh.
Too bad.
That leaves us with ASHLEY (Bruce Campbell).
Ashley is a girl's name. He's not very
slick all. He makes a really wimpy "scared face"
when the bridge creaks. He buys his girlfriend a
really stupid pendant. He stands in slack (yet
square) jawed shock when confronted by
danger.
He is constantly felled by the flimsiest
of bookcases and shelves.
And yet, he is the one left standing at
the end of the film (or perhaps not, as Raimi
knocked him on his ass and ruined his front
teeth while nabbing the final shot).
And the fact of the matter is - he's the
only one left through process of elimination.
He's not strong, he's not smart, he's terribly
scared….
He's kinda' like us. Everyone in that
cabin is kinda' like us. If something horrid
happened to us, we'd probably die - or try to
run away and die.
The most disturbing thing about Evil Dead
is that no one takes fear away. No one is safe;
everyone dies. There are no heroes.
Sam would go on to fix that…but first he
had to take his first film to Cannes.
Old School mastermind
producer/distributor Irwin Shapiro handed Raimi
the 'Evil Dead' title (he influenced the
production greatly; Ash's cellar nightmare -
with the old bloody film projector - was Raimi's
reaction to Shapiro's insistence that "the blood
needs to drip down the screen"), and pointed
them toward France.
At Cannes, Raimi found two
things.
The distributor for their film - and the
line they'd put on the poster.
"When I met Sam Raimi at
the Cannes Film Festival in May of 1982, my
first thought was that this fellow was one of
three things: a busboy, a runaway American high
school student, or a genius. He wasn't a busboy,
and Raimi finished high school some time ago,
although he has the sort of ageless sophomore
looks that are going to keep bartenders asking
to see his driver's license or state liquor card
until he's at least thirty-five. That he is a
genius is yet unproven; that he has made the
most ferociously original horror film of 1982
seems to me beyond doubt." - Stephen
King.
The film was picked up by a fledgling
distributor - Bob Shaye's NEW LINE
CINEMA.
It was fairly popular on the
drive-in/grindhouse circuit (which, along with
colleges, were Shaye's bread and butter), and
found an incredible longevity and a rabid cult
on home video.
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