Miami Herald, The (FL) - September 4, 1983
Author: FREDERICK BURGER Herald Arts Writer
There is a look of wonderment on Sam Raimi’s innocent face, a deferential expression of curiosity in his drowsy brown eyes.
The looks are deceiving. The 23-year-old Michigan State dropout is a driven man. He is obsessed with a passion for making movies .
Raimi is savoring an early success. He has written and directed The Evil Dead, an unrated movie so gloriously gory that some American critics are calling it a cult classic.
The guts of the story:
Five Michigan college kids on a winter getaway to Tennessee are engulfed by demons and turned into horrific zombies. Carnage between them and a lone, spared soul ensues. Villainous vines and trees ravage a female character. Blood spurts everywhere, sometimes in blue and orange, just to keep things from getting too predictable. Eye sockets ooze. Arms and legs -- ripped, axed or bitten apart -- fly everywhere. Dismembered limbs twitch on splattered wooden floors, refusing to die.
This is violent rampage at its best -- or worst -- depending on your point of view. Sometimes camp, the movie doubtless will be seen as comic by many viewers because of its almost unimaginable excess. It owes its existence to every major horrormovie ever made and Raimi’s interest, as he puts it, in producing a movie that will make people scream.
"I think a lot of people go to horror films to be challenged, to see how much they can take," Raimi says. "We just kept it coming. It’s unrelenting."
Most all is done with surprising sophistication for a film that initially was shot as a Super-8 home movie , reshot in 16 mm and then blown up to 35 mm for theatrical release.
Raimi is learning fast about making movies , but he is rather
oblivious of ways used to promote them. So he is somewhat baffled that, during a promotional trip to coincide with the opening in Miami, reporters are coming around to ask him questions. He seems more content to be in the area so he can visit brother Ivan in Fort Lauderdale.
He figures he has precious little wisdom to impart, but he responds, however sheepishly, to anything that’s asked. And, perhaps unsurprisingly, he speaks with uncalculated candor.
"It has a limited purpose," Raimi says of The Evil Dead, his first nationally distributed movie . "It is schlocky, but it’s fun. I think it’s entertaining and jolting. We made it to shock and amuse, to get the adrenaline flowing. That’s really all the movie has to offer. It certainly doesn’t have much of a plot.
"For raw, visceral shocks and roller-coaster effects, it’s definitely the movie to see."
Horror -story author Stephen King has said the same thing. King admiringly calls The Evil Dead -- it long lacked a distributor -- "the most ferociously original horror film of 1982." King further notes that it represents a "black rainbow of horror ."
Of course, not everyone agrees.
A British critic castigated it as a "mindless, tasteless glut of gore." Raimi himself likes to quote the Atlanta critic who observed: "Even though the director is 23, this work looks like the work of an out-of-control 12-year-old."
For now, the criticism is only slightly bothersome. Raimi is more amused by it than anything else. What’s important, though, is that the movie is getting attention. And that could lead to another film.
Raimi didn’t have an easy time getting the film together. It was quite different from the Super-8 epics he started making when he was 12. This time he had to worry about "financing."
"None of my friends or relatives gave me money, because they knew what kind of punk I was," he says with a grin. "I was just a loudmouth kid making Super-8 movies . We were just punks with no track records, so we put on suits and started carrying briefcases."
In suits and with briefcases, Raimi and a couple of friends -- producer Robert Tapert and Bruce Campbell, who plays the lead character Ash -- were able to talk 15 doctors, lawyers, contractors and insurance agents in Detroit into investing $380,000 in the film.
That is what The Evil Dead cost when the eight-month production was finished in the summer of 1980.
The movie ’s distributor, New Line Cinema, estimates that it will gross $10 million from theatrical release in the United States and Canada. It should gross much more in Europe. There are reports that some French audiences literally have jumped to their feet and applauded when the closing credits rolled.
That’s heady stuff, but Raimi isn’t even counting his money yet. In fact, he may not make any, the finances of selling an independent film being what they are. He says he’s personally in debt $20,000, which his share of the profits ultimately may cut to a $10,000 deficit. He has been living with his parents in Detroit to curb personal expenses.
Raimi, the son of a furniture salesman, shakes his head when
discussing the finances of his first significant film, but it doesn’t discourage him. Another project is in the works, and there’s financing, which he cannot yet discuss.
Only one thing is important to him, regardless of the cost: making movies . He and friends now have formed Renaissance Pictures Ltd., which has offices in downtown Ferndale, a suburb 10 miles north of Detroit.
He hopes to begin filming The X Y Z Murders, a crime thriller, in Detroit in November.
"That would be my big break, and I wouldn’t louse it up," Raimi says. "I’ll try to make a good movie and come in below budget, so they
backers> will have a good experience with me. I got an early start, but it could be an early finish, too, if I don’t get the money for the next one."
The looks are deceiving. The 23-year-old Michigan State dropout is a driven man. He is obsessed with a passion for making movies .
Raimi is savoring an early success. He has written and directed The Evil Dead, an unrated movie so gloriously gory that some American critics are calling it a cult classic.
The guts of the story:
Five Michigan college kids on a winter getaway to Tennessee are engulfed by demons and turned into horrific zombies. Carnage between them and a lone, spared soul ensues. Villainous vines and trees ravage a female character. Blood spurts everywhere, sometimes in blue and orange, just to keep things from getting too predictable. Eye sockets ooze. Arms and legs -- ripped, axed or bitten apart -- fly everywhere. Dismembered limbs twitch on splattered wooden floors, refusing to die.
This is violent rampage at its best -- or worst -- depending on your point of view. Sometimes camp, the movie doubtless will be seen as comic by many viewers because of its almost unimaginable excess. It owes its existence to every major horrormovie ever made and Raimi’s interest, as he puts it, in producing a movie that will make people scream.
"I think a lot of people go to horror films to be challenged, to see how much they can take," Raimi says. "We just kept it coming. It’s unrelenting."
Most all is done with surprising sophistication for a film that initially was shot as a Super-8 home movie , reshot in 16 mm and then blown up to 35 mm for theatrical release.
Raimi is learning fast about making movies , but he is rather
oblivious of ways used to promote them. So he is somewhat baffled that, during a promotional trip to coincide with the opening in Miami, reporters are coming around to ask him questions. He seems more content to be in the area so he can visit brother Ivan in Fort Lauderdale.
He figures he has precious little wisdom to impart, but he responds, however sheepishly, to anything that’s asked. And, perhaps unsurprisingly, he speaks with uncalculated candor.
"It has a limited purpose," Raimi says of The Evil Dead, his first nationally distributed movie . "It is schlocky, but it’s fun. I think it’s entertaining and jolting. We made it to shock and amuse, to get the adrenaline flowing. That’s really all the movie has to offer. It certainly doesn’t have much of a plot.
"For raw, visceral shocks and roller-coaster effects, it’s definitely the movie to see."
Horror -story author Stephen King has said the same thing. King admiringly calls The Evil Dead -- it long lacked a distributor -- "the most ferociously original horror film of 1982." King further notes that it represents a "black rainbow of horror ."
Of course, not everyone agrees.
A British critic castigated it as a "mindless, tasteless glut of gore." Raimi himself likes to quote the Atlanta critic who observed: "Even though the director is 23, this work looks like the work of an out-of-control 12-year-old."
For now, the criticism is only slightly bothersome. Raimi is more amused by it than anything else. What’s important, though, is that the movie is getting attention. And that could lead to another film.
Raimi didn’t have an easy time getting the film together. It was quite different from the Super-8 epics he started making when he was 12. This time he had to worry about "financing."
"None of my friends or relatives gave me money, because they knew what kind of punk I was," he says with a grin. "I was just a loudmouth kid making Super-8 movies . We were just punks with no track records, so we put on suits and started carrying briefcases."
In suits and with briefcases, Raimi and a couple of friends -- producer Robert Tapert and Bruce Campbell, who plays the lead character Ash -- were able to talk 15 doctors, lawyers, contractors and insurance agents in Detroit into investing $380,000 in the film.
That is what The Evil Dead cost when the eight-month production was finished in the summer of 1980.
The movie ’s distributor, New Line Cinema, estimates that it will gross $10 million from theatrical release in the United States and Canada. It should gross much more in Europe. There are reports that some French audiences literally have jumped to their feet and applauded when the closing credits rolled.
That’s heady stuff, but Raimi isn’t even counting his money yet. In fact, he may not make any, the finances of selling an independent film being what they are. He says he’s personally in debt $20,000, which his share of the profits ultimately may cut to a $10,000 deficit. He has been living with his parents in Detroit to curb personal expenses.
Raimi, the son of a furniture salesman, shakes his head when
discussing the finances of his first significant film, but it doesn’t discourage him. Another project is in the works, and there’s financing, which he cannot yet discuss.
Only one thing is important to him, regardless of the cost: making movies . He and friends now have formed Renaissance Pictures Ltd., which has offices in downtown Ferndale, a suburb 10 miles north of Detroit.
He hopes to begin filming The X Y Z Murders, a crime thriller, in Detroit in November.
"That would be my big break, and I wouldn’t louse it up," Raimi says. "I’ll try to make a good movie and come in below budget, so they
backers> will have a good experience with me. I got an early start, but it could be an early finish, too, if I don’t get the money for the next one."
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