First Films by Famous Directors: Sam Raimi

Before the mega-budgets and A-list talent, some of the biggest directors in Hollywood started out making little films with friends and family. Others made student films. But however the filmmaker started, these are the movies that launched their careers.

Sam Raimi is another one of the many filmmakers on this list that started making films at a very young age. His inventive use of the camera has spawned many imitators, but perhaps the most noticeable feature of most of Raimi's films is simply that they're fun.

Sam Raimi
Born on October 23, 1959, Samuel Marshall Raimi was born in Royal Oak, Michigan. As a child, Sam Raimi filled his days with comic books, television and baseball; however, by his early teens making movies became his passion. He made 8mm shorts with his brothers, Ivan and Ted Raimi as well as school friends and other kids from the neighborhood; such as Bruce Campbell and Scott Spiegel. The three would often recreate Three Stooges skits as well as create their own Stooges-inspired shorts.

In 1977 Raimi graduated from Wiley E. Groves High School and left for Michigan State University where he majored in English. At Michigan State he and older brother Ivan started the campus "Creative Filmmaking Society". While there, Raimi made a film called "The Happy Valley Kid", which proved to be a campus success. This film led him to try a more ambitious project, this time starring childhood friend, Bruce Campbell. The project was entitled It's Murder, and although it was not as successful as "The Happy Valley Kid", the movie proved the group could make a feature film. The next step would be to make a successful one.

Raimi decided low-budget horror was the best way to proceed, but with little to no experience in the genre, he made two short films as practice and to show potential investors. These films were "Clockwork" and "Within the Woods", a 32-minute horror film. "Within the Woods" cost $1600 to make, but a feature would cost considerably more.

In a college course Raimi had been studying H.P. Lovecraft. He'd read a short story about being alone in a cabin. In his ancient history class he'd studied The Necronomicon - the concept for The Evil Dead was born.

Sam Raimi, Bruce Campbell and Rob Tapert sought out investors, eventually scraping together enough money to make The Evil Dead. By all accounts it was a grueling and difficult shoot. Long hours, little money on location in rural Tennessee, the movie was a difficult endeavor; however, the hard work paid off. After a lukewarm response by American distributors, the trio decided to take their film to Europe. At Cannes, Stephen King saw The Evil Dead and loved it. He endorsed the film in Twilight Zone magazine. The notoriety of the king of horror endorsing the film enabled Raimi and company to sell The Evil Dead to New Line Cinema. The film was a big success and Raimi's career as a professional director began.

While The Evil Dead was Raimi's first professional success, he had made plenty of fun movies prior to this.

One early work was "Attack of the Pillsbury Dough Boy" (1976), which you can view HERE.

Another early slapstick film shows Raimi's Three Stooges influences. You can watch "Six Months to Live" (1977) HERE.

Notable Films by Sam Raimi

The Evil Dead (1981)

Crimewave (1985)

Evil Dead II (1987)

Darkman (1990)

Army of Darkness (1992)

The Quick and the Dead (1995)

For Love of the Game (1999)

Spider-Man (2002)

Spider-Man 2 (2004)