Listen up, you primitive screwheads! Bruce Campbell has written a book, and he wants every last one of you to buy it! IF CHINS COULD KILL: CONFESSIONS OF A B-MOVIE ACTOR hits stores in June 2001; Campbell spent the last four years writing it, and is excited about this new stage of his career.

“It’s an untold side of the business, these sort of second-grade players, who represent a very large percentage of the people in the industry,” he says. “Anywhere from syndicated TV shows to exploitation movies, there’s a whole B-grade out there, and I don’t think their story’s been told enough.” Besides getting his own experiences out to his fans, Campbell hopes that the book will be educational to any aspiring actors and directors. “If you’re thinking of making a movie, it actually gives somewhat realistic pointers about the foibles of making a film independently.”

Known by most of his fans either as Ash of the EVIL DEAD trilogy or as Autolycus in XENA and HERCULES, Campbell has also amassed numerous other movie and television credits, including the recent TV starring vehicle JACK OF ALL TRADES. After such a long career in front of the camera, writing the book was a change of pace. “It has been a very good experience; creatively, it’s been great. St. Martin’s Press has been very, very good; it was nice to be hooked up with a real publisher, but they’ve also been very respectful. So if the book sucks, it’s my fault.”

But will the book answer any of the fans’ burning questions? Will there ever be an EVIL DEAD IV? Is he sick of being identified with Ash? Always a great promoter, Campbell answers, “It’ll tell the whole story. That way, there will be no more questions or pondering or wonderings or musings. There won’t be anything left to speculate about, so that’s why they need to buy the book. If they buy the book they can associate me with whatever they want, and if they buy more than one copy they can even call me names.” Good to know.

Hopefully, fans won’t want to call Campbell names after seeing his soon-to-be-released documentary FANALYSIS. In this short film, the actor turns the camera on his admirers to investigate the fan phenomenon. He’s noticed some trepidation when he talks about it to the jammed auditoriums he entertains at convention appearances like the recent FANGORIA Weekend of Horrors in New York. “Every time I mention it, there’s a hush in the auditorium. They get really creeped out by it.” Negotiations are still in the works, but the plan is to distribute FANALYSIS to coincide with the release of the book.

Campbell has been described as “the hardest-working, best-looking Detroit-born actor ever to reach cult status by replacing his own hand with a chainsaw.” Hard-working is right; in addition to these projects, he also has several feature films wrapped and slated to be released in the near future. The day before this interview, he finished filming BUBBA HO-TEP, a mummy movie directed by Don (PHANTASM) Coscarelli. They made a good team, according to Campbell, “because we had a lot in common with that whole PHANTASM/EVIL DEAD thing. About making them totally independently, and then being successful.” In BUBBA HO-TEP, Campbell plays an elderly Elvis Presley, slowly decaying in a Texas rest home, while his senile friend [Ossie Davis] believes himself to be Jack Kennedy and that their nursing home is being invaded by a mummy. He turns out to be right about the last part.

“It was the weirdest script I’d ever read,” Campbell says, explaining why he chose the project. He also thought the chance to play Elvis was cool. “There’s always an amusement there, but there’s also a chance to do an Elvis that not many people have seen, which is an old Elvis.” Campbell studied up on the King, even watching CLAMBAKE, old concert footage and a documentary on the Memphis Mafia to prepare for the role. But that didn’t prepare him for the grueling makeup required for the part. “It was horrible makeup [to wear]--it took like two and half hours, every day.” Campbell’s prosthetics were designed to age him, but the mummy makeup should be good and scary. “KNB EFX did it, and Melanie Tooker, she’s done all kinds of stuff [WISHMASTER, FROM DUSK TIL DAWN 2]--she goes all the way back to ARMY OF DARKNESS.”

Campbell also has some non-horror movies on the way. THE MAJESTIC, directed by Frank (THE GREEN MILE) Darabont, also stars Jim Carrey and Martin Landau and tells the story of a blacklisted Hollywood writer; Campbell plays the star of one of his epics. In SERVICING SARAH, Campbell appears with Elizabeth Hurley and Matthew Perry. “I’m Elizabeth Hurley’s ex-husband, and I’m trying to serve her papers in Texas and she’s trying to serve me in New York. I’m this rich Texas butthead and I don’t want her to get my money.”

And of course, there’s SPIDER-MAN. When Campbell heard that his friend Sam Raimi would be directing, he “didn’t really read the script, I just called Sam up and said, ‘Hey, Sam, put me in your movie.’ ” Sam gave him the role of the wrestling ring announcer who christens the hero with the moniker “The Amazing Spider-Man.” Campbell says with typical sarcasm, “That’s right, I name him. That’s why they call it a pivotal role.”

Campbell has done a huge portion of his work with childhood friend Raimi, and Campbell notes that working with less familiar directors requires some adjustments. “Everyone has to be kinda flexible, because you’re used to a certain way of doing stuff, and they’re used to a certain way of doing stuff. You just sorta feel ’em out, and hopefully you will basically get along. I can get along with most directors; the only guys I don’t are guys who are lazy, because I don’t think they should be lazy in that position--that’s a big job.”

A fear of many die-hard EVIL DEAD fans is that Campbell is gravitating away from horror. “Well, you go where the wind’s blowin’,” he says. “I went from the independent scene right into television, and then stayed in television for seven or eight years, and it just takes you out of that arena. It’s not even that you don’t want to do it, it’s that it’s off your radar for a while, you know? Now I’ve gotten into doing movies again, and with this book coming out, who knows what’s going to happen?” Addressing the rumors about his involvement in a PHANTASM 5, Campbell says, “Depends on the financing; they’ve had a hell of a difficult time. If it got financed, I would probably jump aboard because of Roger [PULP FICTION] Avary’s script.”

For now, though, Campbell is concentrating on being an author. He urges every one of his fans to buy a copy--at least one. “I’m going on a national tour that will be posted on my website [http://www.bruce-campbell.com/]. I’m going almost everywhere, so everyone who wants to come by, I will sign any amount of books for anybody; I will deny no one an autograph on a book, ever. They could meet me 10 years from now and I’ll sign it. I’ll give a lifetime guarantee of signing it, if they buy it.” You heard it here first.