Xuenou > Editor's Picks > Inside Sam Raimi’s cinematic multiverse of madness
Inside Sam Raimi’s cinematic multiverse of madness
How a DIY splatter director armed with a shaky camera become Hollywood's wildest – and most influential – genre-bender

The much-anticipated Doctor Strange sequel, the awkwardly titled In the Multiverse of Madness, has just been released in cinemas. Within days it’s taken $450 million at the global box office and dispelled all awkward memories of the dire Eternals in the process. 

But amidst all of the chatter about fan-service cameos and Benedict Cumberbatch’s increasingly strained attempts at an American accent, cineastes who would not usually have any particular interest in the latest offering from the Marvel production line might be tempted to see this one purely for its director: Sam Raimi. He replaced the original’s Scott Derrickson after “creative differences”; not an unusual occurrence in the world of Marvel, where the true auteur is the all-powerful, baseball-capped producer Kevin Feige.

Nevertheless, ardent fans of Raimi will be delighted by many of the directorial flourishes that he has been allowed to retain, whether it’s the baroque camera moves, a signature cameo by his long-standing favourite actor Bruce Campbell or amusingly grotesque moments of body horror that owe as much to the comic traditions of the Three Stooges as they do to the demands of big-budget spectacle.

But it would be overstating the case to call this “a Sam Raimi film“; Marvel are not generally known for their indulgence towards auteur filmmakers. Yet there is enough of Raimi’s strange, inimitable sensibility here to make it worthwhile for those who would generally eschew superhero pictures.   

It represents a homecoming of sorts for Raimi, 40 years after the then 22-year old filmmaker broke through with his brilliant low-budget debut The Evil Dead. Raimi’s return to the genre that made his name, to make what has been described excitably as “Marvel’s first horror film”, is a very long way from a picture that included everything from (still shocking) scenes of rape by possessed trees and deliriously gruesome special effects that are no less enjoyably lurid for their obviously homespun qualities. 

Guerrilla filmmaking: Sam Raimi's Evil DeadCredit: Alamy

Although Raimi has only directed two films in the past decade, preferring to concentrate on his work as a producer instead, he remains one of the most influential mainstream filmmakers of the past few decades. His return to the superhero stable should be greeted with cautious optimism in some quarters, given that he directed the finest example of the genre, with the exception of Nolan’s The Dark Knight, in the form of the mighty Spider-Man 2. 

Although his first Spider-Man film, released in 2002, managed to do some intelligent and surprising things with a character who the likes of James Cameron had tried and failed to bring to cinema, it was its sequel that truly demonstrated Rami’s abilities. It combined thrilling, large-scale action set-pieces – that subway battle! – with genuinely touching human drama, perhaps best epitomised by its unforgettable villain, Alfred Molina’s Otto “Doc Oc” Octavius. Over its tight two-hour length, Spider-Man 2 brought in everything from allusions to The Importance of Being Earnest to one of blockbuster cinema’s most romantic pairings between Tobey Maguire’s charmingly vulnerable Peter Parker and Kirsten Dunst’s Mary Jane Watson. It is no exaggeration to call it not just Raimi’s best film, but one of the greatest mainstream pictures of the past few decades.

Yet the 2007 sequel was a ridiculous misstep, hobbled from the outset by incoherent plotting and a desperate need to crowbar in too many villains. The worst offender in this regard was Topher Grace’s photographer character Eddie Brock, who metamorphoses into the dastardly Venom, many years before Tom Hardy would assume the role with rather more distinction. Maguire’s interpretation of Peter Parker as an emo-lite teenager was much ridiculed on release, although when I saw it at a press screening, I simply assumed it was meant to be funny, and laughed uproariously. Others disagreed. 

Tobey Maguire in Spider-Man 2Credit: Alamy

It was a notoriously difficult and unhappy production, and Raimi openly denounced the film subsequently as “awful”. He said in 2015 that: s “It’s a movie that just didn’t work very well. I tried to make it work, but I didn’t really believe in all the characters, so that couldn’t be hidden from people who loved Spider-Man. If the director doesn’t love something, it’s wrong of them to make it when so many other people love it… I should’ve just stuck with the characters and the relationships and progressed them to the next step and not tried to top the bar.” Spider-Man 4 did not happen.

His candour did him credit, as it has done throughout his career; he said in a recent interview that his return to the superhero genre was one that had given him pause. “I didn’t know that I could face it again because it was so awful, having been the director of Spider-Man 3. The Internet was getting revved up and people disliked that movie and they sure let me know about it. So, it was difficult to take back on.” 

He openly admitted that “they’re really demanding, those types of pictures”, but he believed that the challenge was reason enough to take on the Marvel machine. But those of us who long for more distinctive, personal work from him may also hope that the film’s inevitable success will give Raimi a seat at the top table that he has been absent from for some time, despite the near half-billion dollar gross of his last picture, the oddly anonymous Wizard of Oz prequel, 2013’s Oz the Great and Powerful. A conspicuous flop – even if not a financial one – will do that to a career. 

Cursed: Brion James in Raimi's Coen brothers collaboration CrimewaveCredit: Alamy

There is another, more interesting side to Sam Raimi that has been allowed to emerge periodically throughout his mainstream career. He has worked consistently with the Coen brothers, whose early work, especially, shares a similar high-energy absurdity with his pictures, but their collaboration on the 1985 dark comedy Crimewave, which Raimi directed and co-wrote with the Coens, was an incoherent disaster. 

It was beset by studio interference – something of a consistent problem throughout Raimi’s career – and strange mishaps on set. The lead actress, under the influence of cocaine, insisted on doing her own make-up, which made her look like a melancholy clown, and the actor Brion James caused chaos by destroying his hotel room in a vain attempt to exorcise an evil spirit from the light fittings. When it was completed, its financiers despised it so much that they tried to destroy all the prints of it; even today, it remains underseen and, perhaps, underrated. 

Raimi’s other non-superhero films demonstrate a similarly offbeat sensibility. His western The Quick and the Dead was a Sharon Stone vehicle made at the height of her fame and influence, and is more notable today for its astonishing cast (including Gene Hackman, Leonardo DiCaprio and Russell Crowe) and virtuoso gunfight scenes than for its studiedly Sergio Leone-aping visual sense and storyline. 

Raimi's camerawork on display in the western The Quick and the Dead

His subsequent Evil Dead pictures were very popular with fans – and the bizarre, cod-medieval Army of Darkness has to be seen to be believed – but their blend of comedy and grotesque absurdity never fully broke through with mainstream audiences. His 2009 horror film Drag Me To Hell, an unacknowledged adaptation of MR James’ Casting The Runes, was an enthusiastically unpleasant return to his origins, and should be higher regarded than it is.

But for a true demonstration of what the director is capable of, then his 1998 thriller A Simple Plan is a masterclass in chilly noir perfection. Starring the late, much missed Bill Paxton as a put-upon accountant who finds himself in accidental possession of a fortune courtesy of a crashed plane and a missing ransom, it eschewed the flashy cinematography and look-at-me pyrotechnics of Raimi’s earlier – and subsequent – films in favour of a tense, nasty narrative that slowly builds to an unforgettably affecting finale, thanks to Billy Bob Thornton’s brilliant (and deservedly Oscar-nominated) performance as Paxton’s older brother. 

It demonstrated that Raimi could work brilliantly with actors, and make a real success of a narrative that did not need special effects for its impact. Unfortunately, it was a commercial flop, and it was not long until he returned to the safer territory of horror and fantasy. 

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He is a producer of note on television, having worked on everything from Xena: Warrior Princess to the full-throated Spartacus series (which remain oddly underseen and underrated), and has devoted more of his energies and interests to that more lucrative activity than to cinema for a considerable while. And although not an actor, he has made numerous cameo appearances in his own films and in those of his director friends, perhaps most notably as “Snickering gunman” in Miller’s Crossing and as a news reporter in the demented action film Maniac Cop.

Yet ultimately it is the horror genre that has made his name, and that he seems most comfortable with returning to. It is something that he is philosophical about, saying: “I feel the horror audience is a great audience, and I would ideally make a movie that would give them as much energy as they’re willing to give to the picture.” 

With the success of his biggest film in decades, one would be mad to bet against an excess of Raimian loopy energy – complete with eyebrow-raising Bruce Campbell guest appearances – positively exploding off screens again imminently.