The confessions of Bruce Campbell

A cult figure since 'The Evil Dead,' funny Michigan actor leads with his chin

June 12, 2001

BY TERRY LAWSON
FREE PRESS MOVIE WRITER

Bruce Campbell is not sure exactly when he acquired a cult, or exactly what to do with it. But he figures it ought to be good for at least one book.

WHERE TO FIND BRUCE CAMPBELL

Though Bruce Campbell's book "If Chins Could Kill" is subtitled "Confessions of a B Movie Actor," he has made his share of A films, and Z films, too. For a more or less complete filmography, you can check the Internet Movie database (www.imdb.com). But if you're wondering where you've seen that chin, it might have been in one of these: Film "Evil Dead" (1982) "Maniac Cop" (1988) "Darkman" (1990) "The Hudsucker Proxy" (1994) "Congo" (1995) "Fargo" (1996) "McHale's Navy" (1997) "Icebreaker" (1999) Television As a star "Generations," a locally produced soap opera (1989) "The Adventures of Brisco County Jr." (Fox, 1993-1994) "Jack of All Trades" (Syndicated, 2000-2001) In a recurring role "Ellen," as Ed Billik, 1996-97 (ABC, 1994-98) Video games Pitfall 3-D: Beyond the Jungle (1997) Evil Dead: Hail to the King (2000) Tachyon: The Fringe (2000)

"I go to all these fan conventions, and I'm always signing old magazines or 'Xena' and 'X-Files' crap and all this other stuff," says Campbell. "So when this guy contacts me about writing a book, I thought, 'Well, now, that's an idea! Let's give these saps a whole book! A feast for the fans! And I can sign that!' "

Books have been written for worse reasons, but Campbell is being funny, which is not among the least of his talents. He also is pretty handy with a chain saw, looks pretty manly on a horse, and the guy can just gush blood, as anyone who has seen his classic performances in "Evil Dead," 'Evil Dead 2" and "Army of Darkness" (a.k.a. "Evil Dead 3") can attest.

Still, the truth is that Campbell spent the past four years writing "If Chins Could Kill: Confessions of a B Movie Actor" because he wanted to rip the lid off Hollywood's dirty secret: Most people in the movie business are working schleps, just like him.

"Hollywood is more protected than the Pentagon," says Campbell, who is camped out in the conference room of Anchor Bay Video, the Troy company he blames for helping create the Campbell cult.

It was Anchor Bay that sorted out the legal issues plaguing the re-releases of the "Evil Dead" movies on video and DVD and issued them in spiffed-up deluxe collector's editions that sold millions. Campbell's hilarious commentary on the "Army of Darkness" DVD helped it win an industry award last year, the only award Campbell has ever been part of save one he got at a French film festival, probably for showing up.

The Anchor Bay office looks almost like a Campbell shrine, with "Evil Dead" lunch boxes and posters everywhere. And that chin does in fact look lethal; if he were walking up the stairs at the Palace while you were walking down, you'd want to give it a wide berth.

"They'd have you believe working there is all premieres and glamour and $100-million movies," says Campbell, continuing his discourse on Hollywood, "when the fact is, 95 percent of the people in the movie business are like me, working for a living, with a bunch of crappy movies and television shows in their credits which they never, ever mention. I met some big-deal actor a couple of weeks ago and I said, 'Where you from?,' and he said 'Back East.' Like, where the hell is back East? He doesn't want to say he's from Nowhere, Idaho. It would, like, screw up his image."

As any moviegoing Michigander knows, or certainly should know, Campbell is plenty proud of where he's from, which would be Bloomfield Township, or more specifically the middle-class neighborhood known as the Braes, for reasons everyone has pretty much forgotten. He made his performance debut in the third grade, doing a dance routine to the Monkees' hit "Last Train to Clarksville" with two other boys. when the girls laughed, he swore off showbiz for almost a year, making his comeback in a production of "The King and I" at St. Dunstan's Guild at Cranbrook.

By eighth grade, under the influence of "The Poseidon Adventure" and the local TV show "The Ghoul," he'd begun making Super-8 movies, an interest shared by his grade-school buddies Scott Spiegel, Mike Ditz and Josh Becker. At Birmingham Groves High School, they hooked up with similarly movie-motivated Sam Raimi and John Cameron, and the Michigan Mafia, a.k.a. the Metropolitan Film Group, was born. Among their productions: "Bogus Monkey Peanut Swindle" and "Three Pests in a Mess."

"We were pretty much your textbook high school geeks," says Campbell. "I had like two dates in four years, but because we had movie cameras, the popular girls would come around on Saturday and hang out until we pointed the camera at them. Sometimes their jock boyfriends would come to watch, and we'd cast them as the bad guys or jerks."

The legend of "Evil Dead" has been told about a million times and a million different ways, but the book's version goes like this: With Raimi's college roommate Rob Tapert handling the confusing financial stuff, the group formed a limited partnership in 1979. They raised $150,000 from family friends and gullible people who thought they had a clue and headed off to Tennessee -- the Michigan Travel Bureau never returned their calls -- to make a horror movie that would be "the Ultimate Experience in Grueling Terror!"

Shot in 16mm, it's the story of Ash, played by Campbell, and four other college students who take refuge in a remote cabin in the woods, where they stumble on the Sumerian Book of the Dead and unleash all kind of gory chaos. Even exploitation filmmakers specializing in drive-in junk rejected it as too crude and bloody, but after screenings at Michigan State produced the desired results -- screams and laughter -- they sought help from a veteran sales agent named Irvin Shapiro, who took it to the Cannes Film Festival market in 1982.

Stephen King saw it at Cannes and called it "the most ferociously original horror film of the year." The Los Angeles Times dubbed it an instant classic, and eventually a then-scrappy little distributor called New Line -- whose president, Bob Shaye, was also from Detroit -- agreed to put it on screens around the country. Everyone involved became fabulously wealthy and bought houses in Hollywood with tennis courts, though they eventually had an enormous falling out and never spoke to each other again, not even in rehab.

That last part is a lie. The truth is everyone just kept on working, some with more success than others. After a big bomb -- the shot-in-Detroit "Crimewave," a.k.a. "The XYZ Murders" -- the Michigan Mafia had a hit with the inevitable "Evil Dead 2," which was basically the same movie, only with better acting and effects.

Everyone eventually moved to Hollywood, and Campbell began getting work in low-budget films, on television series and in the occasional studio film. Spiegel began directing his own genre films, like "The Intruder," and straight-to-video titles, which Campbell appeared in. Josh Becker remained "true-blue" to the independent film ethos, says Campbell, making movies like "Running Time," which Campbell appeared in. Tapert and Raimi formed a production company that made hit syndicated series like "Xena" and "Hercules," which Campbell appeared in. And Raimi eventually shed his reputation as a goremeister to become an A-list director whose current project is the big-budget "Spiderman," which Campbell appears in.

In the process, Campbell, 42, got this cult, whose members line up at conventions to get his signature, hold up signs at wrestling matches saying "Bruce Campbell is God" and fill his electronic mailbox with so many messages AOL can't log them all.

Campbell has peppered "If Chins Could Kill" with these missives from fans, which if nothing else prove this is one diverse cult: "Even though you do some of the cheesiest stuff I've ever seen ...you're great at what you do," writes Joelle. "I think I convinced my marching band teacher to do an Army of Darkness theme for next year's show! I am pleased," reports Neil. "It was a dark night in Saudi Arabia, with inbound Scud missiles headed our way," writes Gulf War veteran Glynis. "We just sat there listening, as a tired voice spoke up from the back of the hole, 'Wonder what Bruce Campbell would do?' "

"They know I'm not a movie star, bitching about my fame while sitting in a trailer making a million dollars a week," says Campbell of the cult. "They understand I don't take that kind of stuff seriously. I've had agents who gave me that pitch, about all the stuff I would have to do to be that guy, and I just think it's hilarious. It sounds so Machiavellian to me. The bottom line is, I don't like people telling me what to do. What color to dye my hair and what parties to go to and what restaurants to eat at. You do all that stuff, you have no time for acting, or even living. I'm not suited for that world. I'm more comfortable with people who are slugging it out."

Still, he says his wife, Ida Gearon (a previous marriage produced two children, Rebecca and Andy), pointed out the irony in last week's ad in Variety, congratulating him on the publication of "Confessions of a B Movie Actor" and then listing three films in which he will soon appear: "Spiderman," "Seducing Sarah" (with Matthew Perry and Elizabeth Hurley) and "Majestic," Frank Darabont's follow-up to "The Green Mile," starring Jim Carrey -- A movies all.

But true to form, Campbell seems far more excited about a film still looking for distribution called "Bubba-Hotep," in which he plays a 68-year-old Elvis, hidden away in an East Texas retirement home, who teams up with a fellow resident who's convinced he is JFK to do battle with the evil Egyptian entity of the title.

"I read this script, and it was so weird and so cool and so original, it was the sort of thing they would have thrown you out of Universal if you had come in with it. I thought, 'Oh, yeah, that's for me.' "

Contact TERRY LAWSON at 313-223-4524 or lawson@freepress.com.