AN APPRECIATION OF SAM RAIMI

While I engage in this multi-year, hundreds of entries project regarding nation states (Next: Zimbabwe) and their history, I sometimes will take detours to discuss something that has crossed my mind recently. Think of this as a mind worm that just needs to be written down for my personal wellbeing.

My partner is a massive horror movie fan. She has watched probably twice as many over the last twenty years as I have. On Valentine’s Day, instead of doing the full date night with dinner, we went to see SEND HELP, the latest “horror-themed” film from director Sam Raimi. The movie has grossed over 75 million so far and has surprisingly turned a profit for risk averse Hollywood that has lost billions of dollars on films in the 2020s. Since COVID, the traditional public theater experience has started to get replaced by in-home streaming and rentals. Movie theaters are starting to become like the hundreds of empty retail malls that litter our landscape. So, any film that is this creative that turns a profit should be a sign to Hollywood about what the future for their industry should be if they want to turn their present-day fortunes around.

Raimi has been around since my early youth. He became famous for making a brutal independent film called THE EVIL DEAD that quickly became a cult classic and was promoted by public figures like Stephen King. That franchise has spun off into video games, comic books and even its own reboot. But since becoming famous with THE EVIL DEAD trilogy (The next two films, EVIL DEAD II is a masterpiece and ARMY OF DARKNESS is a crazy, comedic conclusion to the series), Raimi has really spread his wings into different genres from doing small, low budget, indie classics to the biggest high budget comic book films. A career that is good enough to be declared an auteur. But Raimi will be remembered for two specific things. First, for bringing his childhood friend Bruce Campbell into the public domain. Campbell has a massive nerd-like following and has created a very interesting career for himself including doing seven seasons on one of the most respected television shows of the 2000s, BURN NOTICE. But Raimi also invented and perfected a new genre that he can call his own, COMEDY HORROR. No director can show you such well-produced gore pieces while bringing a smile to your face. Plus, like Hitchcock, he loves to put Easter Eggs into his films. Every single film including his fantasy and western movies has his trademark 1973 Oldsmobile Cutlass in it whether as a key part of the story (EVIL DEAD and SPIDERMAN) or dismantled into parts and spread around the set (OZ: THE GREAT AND POWERFUL and THE QUICK AND THE DEAD). As Bruce Campbell likes to joke, that car has been in more scenes than he has. Raimi is also known for directing scenes that create discomfort for his lead actors/actresses usually involving something being splattered onto their various body parts for comedic reasons. Raimi is also a massive fan of the THREE STOOGES shorts that used to air on television on Saturday afternoons and many of his film scenes have that slapstick aura to them. Raimi has even created his own job in a film called a FAKE SHEMP inspired by Shemp Howard who died at 60 of a heart attack while The Stooges still needed to deliver four more short films to the studio. Per Raimi and Wikipedia:

A fake Shemp is a type of body double who appears in a film to replace another actor or person, usually when the original actor has died or is otherwise unable or unwilling to reprise their role.

This evaluation of Raimi will be broken down into only the films he directed and the three main categories they fall under:

Horror Films with a Sprinkle of Comedy
Other Genre Films
Big Budget Films

Going over his television production efforts, like helping to create the famous syndicated shows HERCULES and XENA: WARRIOR PRINCESS in the 90s is a topic for another debate.

Horror Films with a Sprinkle of Comedy

When Raimi passes over into the Great Divide in the future and a career retrospective will be given in his honor, these films are the ones that will cement his legacy. Besides the incredibly influential EVIL DEAD trilogy discussed above that changed how people view gore in movies while also making the movies incredibly fun and entertaining to watch, he has done three other horror movies that were quite good.

2000’s THE GIFT with Cate Blanchett
2009’s DRAG ME TO HELL with Alison Lohman
And a return to form, 2026’s SEND HELP with a career defining performance from Rachel McAdams.

These films are all very stylistic. Raimi is an expert at blending comedic elements with a sense of underlying dread that builds into a third act that usually turns out batshit crazy. The formula has worked over six films and whenever he decides to make another horror film in the future, I have no doubt it will be just as entertaining as his previous films. Like Michael Bay with action films or Stanley Kubrick with artistic films, this is what Raimi will be remembered for. Let’s hope he has another three or four left in him.

OTHER GENRE FILMS

This category is something that I wish Raimi would return to. But since Hollywood is in a state of perpetual decline, this aspect of Sam Raimi’s career may be lost to time. After ARMY OF DARKNESS was released in 1992, Raimi decided to do three films outside of the horror genre from 1995-1999. All three are spectacular.

1995’s THE QUICK AND THE DEAD with Sharon Stone, Leonardo DiCaprio, Russell Crowe and Gene Hackman
1998’s A SIMPLE PLAN with Bill Paxton and Billy Bob Thornton (Who would be Academy nominated for this role.)
And finally, 1999’s FOR LOVE OF THE GAME with Kevin Costner and Kelly Preston.

The former is an incredibly creative and rich Western revolving around a tournament to determine who is the best sharpshooter. The movie has a surprisingly emotional story, a wonderful villain turn by Gene Hackman and some of the best cinematography in a Western (The shot from behind someone’s head as it pops open from one of DiCaprio’s bullets is pure perfection.).

A SIMPLE PLAN is arguably his best movie, a complex heist movie that is Raimi’s best directed script with wonderful acting performances from the three leads.

Finally, FOR LOVE OF THE GAME is arguably better than Costner’s other baseball gem BULL DURHAM. It is about a retired pitcher throwing a perfect game at the end of his career while it juggles his life in flashbacks that brought him to this point.

After ARMY OF DARKNESS, Raimi began working with composer Danny Elfman for all his scores and that collaboration pays off with these three movies. Since 1999, Raimi has not returned to trying out different genres and based on the quality of these three movies above, this has been a tragedy.

NOTE: There is a 4th genre movie that he did after THE EVIL DEAD in 1985 called CRIMEWAVE. Have you heard of it? Of course not. He was not ready for this film as a young director, and it is a terrible mess.

2ND NOTE: CRIMEWAVE was written by Raimi friends Joel and Ethan Coen who eventually moved onto bigger and better things. Raimi cowrote one of the Coen’s best early works, THE HUDSUCKER PROXY, and directed the famous hula hoop sequence which is one of the funniest scenes in any 90s movie. They supported each other early in their careers when both began in independent films.

BIG BUDGET SUPERHERO AND COMIC BOOK FILMS

Here is where we see the flaws of Raimi’s directing style and it almost makes you wish that he would just continue to make smaller budget movies like SEND HELP. Raimi was given the SPIDERMAN franchise by Sony in the late 90s during his “genre” run. Raimi was an avid reader of SPIDERMAN comics growing up so I was enthusiastic that his style of filmmaking would convert over to big screen success. And for two films, Raimi did not disappoint the comic book Nerds. While not a great film, the first SPIDERMAN is iconic with memorable scenes like the upside-down kiss with Kirsten Dunst and a wonderful, maniacal villain turn by Willem Dafoe as the Green Goblin. The tone of the movie was perfect. Then, he made SPIDERMAN 2. Still on my Top 3 list of all-time comic book movies. I have nothing negative to say about the movie. It just worked from the first shot till the end. So why am I only praising his big budget films? Because after SPIDERMAN 3, something changed. Due to a dispute with the producer of the SPIDERMAN franchise, Raimi was forced to put Venom into the film, a character that came later in the comic books that Raimi openly admitted he did not understand. When you watch SPIDERMAN 3, you can see his lack of connection to that character. While the Sandman played by the always wonderful Thomas Haden Church worked, the addition of Venom and the black suited Spiderman did not. The movie is disjointed and looks like a movie with two different visions trying to come together as one. Raimi got out of big budget movies for a while. But he came back and directed the incredibly mediocre OZ: THE GREAT AND POWERFUL and a few years ago, Raimi was again hired by Marvel to direct the 2nd DR. STRANGE movie, which is very mediocre despite having a fun scene near the end that felt like it came from a Sam Raimi horror film. According to IMDB, Raimi is returning to big budget movies for an upcoming project called World War III. I am not looking forward to this.

NOTE: Raimi is known for being the only director to direct three superheroes on screen. Who was the third? In 1990, he created his own named DARKMAN, an underrated movie that does not hold up that well with time, starring Liam Neeson. DARKMAN was very well made and an enjoyable watch for my teenage self in the early 90s when I was getting swamped with NEW KIDS ON THE BLOCK and ICE, ICE BABY daily.
​
I hope you enjoyed this career retrospective. Hollywood needs more people that come from nowhere like Sam Raimi. Having now directed 16 films and having established quite a catalog of memorable films, let’s hope that Sam can still give us quite a few more before retirement.