Sam Raimi Films

So after seeing Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, I felt it was time to go back to watch all of the Sam Raimi films that I could. Most I had seen before but some were new to me. Below is the list of his films that I either had or could find to watch:

The Evil Dead (1981)
Crimewave (1985)
Evil Dead II (1987)
Darkman (1990)
Army of Darkness (1992)
The Quick and the Dead (1995)
A Simple Plan (1998)
The Gift (2000)
Spider-man (2002)
Spider-man 2 (2004)
Spider-man 3 (2007)
Drag Me to Hell (2009)
Oz the Great and Powerful (2013)
Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness (2022)

Keep in mind, I could not find It's Murder (1997) ANYWHERE! Well, that's a partial lie as it is broken into parts on YouTube but the quality is so bad it's not even worth it. I also skipped For the Love of the Game as I don't care for the large majority of sports films.

I did not watch any of the three Spider-man films or Drag Me to Hell as I have seen all of them (again) recently enough that I didn't want to watch them yet again.

My introduction to Sam Raimi came back with Army of Darkness. I remember seeing that one at the Chapel Hills Mall theater when it was on the other side of the mall by the K-mart. I didn't know, at the time, that he also directed the other two Evil Dead films but I schooled myself fairly soon after that.

I would also credit Sam Raimi and Tim Burton with making superhero films marketable to a mass audience. With Batman and Batman Returns from Burton, he set the stage to allow Raimi to make one of the biggest budget films EVER with a $350 million budget for Spider-man.

There are some great titles in Raimi's list. I'll give full credit for all of the Evil Dead films with each being their own thing. Darkman, although pretty hokey now, was one worth remembering and viewing. A Simple Plan was one of those films that stuck in my brain and is still excellent. Of course, Spider-man 2 can be said to be one of the best versions of the Spider-man franchise. Sadly, I'll have to say Spider-man 3 kinda brought it down. Drag Me to Hell was a great throwback to the old days of The Evil Dead franchise. And I enjoyed Doctor Strange.

Raimi has a unique style and one of the things I love about him is his use of low-budget tools to get the job done. This is a part of the charm of his works. Even in some of the films that didn't have any horror elements to them, he managed to show his style. He also worked with Danny Elfman quite a bit so the careers of Burton and Raimi seem very in line with each other. The extreme close ups on faces. The montages. The following of an object as it careens towards someone. The use of Bruce Campbell and Ted Raimi in his films. There are just so many little facets that make his films work for me. (I will not mention Oz the Great and Powerful in the same sentence as every other film of his).

I enjoyed this marathon. It was fun and I saw a lot more things watching them close together than I ever would have on their own. His style needs to be taught in film classes everywhere as it shows what a $350,000 budget film can end up doing for a career!