Sam Raimi Movies: My Top Five

With the success of the Spider Man franchise and the recent release of 30 Days of Night, I started thinking of all the great films Sam Raimi has directed over the years. What strikes me is what a diverse body of work Sam has compiled in his career. I remember seeing the original Evil Dead movie as a kid and being stuck by the originality of and how over the top and cartoonish the gore and violence were.

While Raimi has been involved in several more movies as a producer, writer or actor, I will confine my list to those films he has directed.

1. The Evil Dead 2: Dead by Dawn

The Evil Dead 2 was basically a remake of the original with a larger budget. As in the original, the central character and hero of Evil Dead 2 is Ash, as portrayed by the great Bruce Campbell. This was one of the first movies I ever saw that blended extreme gore and horror with slapstick comedy, and surprisingly it is very entertaining. The humor in this movie is great, especially the scenes when Ash's hand becomes possessed by an evil spirit and needs to be graphically removed with a chainsaw ( which Ash is able to start with his teeth) and then engages in hilarious hand-to-hand combat with Ash that uses several gags lifted from Three Stooges routines. I'd recommend ED2 to any horror fan with a sense of humor and a strong stomach.

2. Spider Man 3

Perhaps comparing a low-budget horror film with the pinnacle of big-budget Hollywood blockbusters is an apples and oranges affair, but this illustrates the broad range of work Raimi has done in his career. The Spider Man films are all among the best super hero movies ever, if not among the best action films period, and this one is the best of the series...so far.

3. Army of Darkness

Army of Darkness- sometimes known as Evil Dead 3- is a sequel of sorts to Evil Dead 2 in that it stars Bruce Campbell again as Ash and is filled with evil creatures, but that is all the two films have in common in terms of story. At the end of ED2, Ash is hurtled into some sort of time-travel portal and ends up in the Dark Ages, along with his car. The humor is again present as in ED2, along with some gore, but the over the top non-stop gore is toned down significantly here in favor of lots of re-animated skeletons and other bizarre creatures. What struck me is that the special effects, whether intentional or incidental, very much reminded me of Ray Harryhausen's effects in the Sinbad films, Jason and the Argonauts and Clash of the Titans. The stop motion animation is cheesy but it just fits into the whole corny, slapstick-laden nature of the movie. Bruce Campbell became a legend to me with this one.

4. Spider Man 2

I can't really say what it is about Spider Man 2 that gives it the nod over the first movie in the series, It's probably due in large part to the great performance by Alfred Molina as Otto Octavius/ Doctor Octopus that gives it the edge for me.

5. (Tie) Spider Man and A Simple Plan

Spider Man is the obvious choice here. It is a great movie and it was the first super hero movie that really lived up to the hype and to the potential of the original source.

A Simple Plan is a much more obscure choice from Raimi but is one of the most underrated movies I can recall seeing. Billy Bob Thornton is great in one of his best roles and even Bill Paxton is impressive in this film. The gist of the story is that two brothers, Hank and Jacob (played by Paxton and Thornton), along with their friend Lou (played by Brent Briscoe), come upon a wrecked plane in the woods and discover a huge amount of money in the wreckage. They decide to keep it, with the stipulation that Hank hangs on to it until spring to be sure that no one is suspicious. The rest of the movie deals with the greed and distrust among the three men and the evil things that money will cause us to do. This one is very unlike any of the other films in Sam Raimi's catalog. In fact, it could easily pass for a Coen Brothers film. A very memorable and original movie.

There you have it- my favorite Sam Raimi movies of all time. I am sure most, if not all, of the readers of this list have seen the Spider Man films, but I urge to seek out copies of the other movies on this list and give them a chance.