The Evil Dead series is so great. The first one being almost completely serious, and trying to be an all out horror film. The second although it continues the story from the first one, is basically a remake. With larger budget, and this time they've added a lot of comedy. Army of Darkness, the 3rd in the series, is nothing but comedy, 3 Stooges slapstick comedy with the living dead. It's hysterical, the more you watch it the funnier it gets. Not to mention it has the best one-liners ever created on film.

Crimewave, Sam's 2nd film, is fun little crime caper. The Coen brothers co-wrote the screenplay. It looks very film noir, but is high slapstick, with some over the top performances. It's a fun film, pretty hard to find, but if you see it get it.

Darkman, is a top notch comic book movie. Sam really started to come into his own with this film. The camera work is just great, there are so many memorable shots and scenes in this film. Liam Neeson is pretty good in the lead role.

The Quick and the Dead, a fun western with the Raimi twist. Story is just a standard western, but since the whole thing revolves around gun fights. It gives Sam plenty of chances to show off his camera tricks. It's a beautiful film to watch. Sharon Stone is pretty annoying, but Gene Hackman and Russell Crowe make up for her.

A Simple Plan, is what I would call Sam's first grown up film. A fun, yet hard ride to take. You are horrified by what the characters are doing, but can completely sympathize because it's what almost anybody would do in their same situation. A great film, I can't believe it wasn't up for best picture of 1998.

For Love of the Game, standard Kevin Costner dreck. I believe Sam did this to please the big studio. I heard that Kevin and Sam were often clashing on the set. A pretty boring love story, set around a baseball game. I blame Kevin for the blandness of this film.

Sam is currently working on The Gift, which sounds like another Simple Plan type film. I'm sure it will be good. What I'm really looking forward to is, along with millions of others, Spider-Man. Sam was one of the top directors I would have picked to bring my favorite comic book hero to life. I have great faith that this movie will be amazing.

From the beginning Sam has created some very cool images. I dig his constantly moving almost cartoonish camera work. All of his films have some very redeeming qualities to them, whether it be visual, cool characters, or just a well told story.

1/11/1: Added Spider-Man teaser and The Gift trailer to watch section. Also added The Gift poster to sights section.

1/22/1: Saw The Gift this past weekend. I was kind of disappointed with it. I was hoping this film would really bring him back from the shlock that For Love of the Game was. Now it's much better than that film, but based on how great a thriller that A Simple Plan was, I was definitely hoping for better. Cate Blanchet turns in a good performance as the main character, with The Gift of being a physic. Keanu Reeves is the best I've ever seen him as the wife beating redneck who is the main suspect in the murder. The film is a real by-the-numbers murder-mystery / horror-thriller. The film moves quite slow, and focuses too much on the cliche' sub-plots of infidelity and child abuse. If these sub-plots had been more interesting it would have worked better, but they weren't and we watch these for half the film before they finally get to the murder. Once there the film picks up a bit, and Cate's visions are effectively creepy. These are the few moments of the film that hearken back to Raimi's more experimental days. The rest of the film, feels like any old studio director.

While watching The Gift one thing become blindingly clear to me. Sam Raimi loves trees, at least photographically. There were an uncountable amount of shots up into the mossy branches of the southern oaks, and a lot of reflection shots of the bases of the trees in the swamps. This made me think of all the shots that he had in A Simple Plan, in that film it was black, bare branches against the white skies and snow covered ground. In the Evil Dead films, of course there was the camera flying through the forest, the infamous raping of a girl by the trees and at one point a tree grows a face and attacks Ash in the cabin. This is just an observation, nothing more.

11/21/1: Fixed all the broken links that were in this Sam Raimi section. Everything should work again.