IvanRaimi Tagged Articles at Cinematical

(Spoilers herein.)

Okay, so you lot have had two weekends now with which to see Sam Raimi's sublimely ridiculous Drag Me to Hell, and I'm seeing the debate that a couple of us waged out in front of the Paramount at SXSW last March coming back around on a grander scale, so I want to open up the floor.

Some have claimed that the third-act twist -- in which Alison Lohman's character mistakenly gives away an envelope with a quarter instead of an envelope with a cursed button and is consequently dragged to, um, Hell -- is telegraphed so far in advance that it takes the suspense out of the last reel or so, while others (including yours truly) believe that Raimi is smarter than that, and knows that we're in for this ride anyway, so even if we know that her efforts to pass on the curse are futile, we'll take a certain pleasure in knowing that her fate is sealed regardless.

Sure, Raimi could have simply cut out an insert shot of everything falling on the floor and mixing up, thus letting himself slightly, temporarily off his own hook. Lohman's character could have simply reached into her boyfriend's bag and grabbed the wrong one (oddly enough, the button falls out of her purse -- which she's holding -- but the quarter was placed in her boyfriend's bag, which is nowhere to be seen...). But he does seem to go just enough out of his way to let us know what's afoot. If you've seen the film, what do you think - rookie mistake or intentional wink?

Hail to the king, baby! Our Ash is one step closer to being back.

I officially forgive Sam Raimi for any disagreement we have over Kirsten Dunst and Spider-Man. The director recently had a long chat with Empire magazine, and he had a lot of good things to say about the long-anticipated sequel in the Evil Dead series.

So far, he's seven pages into a script for Evil Dead 4, with brother Ivan, just as he hoped: "Every time I'm with my brother Ivan, we write another page of it. It's in Detroit and in my garage." Raimi continued: "There's some dialogue. Ash being an idiot. Ash taking some abuse. Some character stuff and then some structure of Act Two. Just other possibilities for things that could happen. It's ideas, jokes, things we'd like to see."

Of course, Bruce Campbell is "firmly in mind" to star, but I bet it would be more accurate to say that there's no project without him. Some recasts might work, and I might love Ryan Ward in Evil Dead: The Musical, but there is NO replacing Campbell's Ash.

The Raimis have secretly outlined what they want to see in the sequel, but what would you folks like to see?

For the horror freaks there are few headlines more potentially exciting than "Sam Raimi to Helm New Horror Flick," but this story just got a little cooler. Not only will Mr. Raimi return to direct his first horror film since ... damn since Evil Dead 2, I guess (Army of Darkness is barely a horror film), but he'll be bringing the adorable Ellen Page with him!

According to The Hollywood Reporter, Mr. Raimi will settle into the director's chair in mid-April, and the flick he'll be helming is something called Drag Me to Hell. Given that THR offers nothing in the way of a plot synopsis, we can assume that Raimi and his Ghost House Pictures are aiming to keep the details under wraps for now. What we know for sure is that A) Ms. Page is definitely on board, B) the script comes from Sam Raimi and his big bro Ivan, and C) a whole bunch of horror geeks across the globe just started clapping their hands in glee. (Universal chiefs Marc Shmuger and David Linde apparently agree: "Sam Raimi's return to horror is a cause for celebration for horror fans and movie lovers everywhere.")

Given that we love horror flicks, Sam Raimi and Ellen Page a whole lot at this blog ... you can expect a lot more news on Drag Me to Hell as soon as it becomes available.

For a while everyone has been buzzing about Sam Raimi possibly coming back for another Spider-Man sequel. For every story that says he won't there's another that says he will, and as Kirsten says, it wouldn't be good without each and every one of them returning. Considering that even the positive response picks out the film's flaws, it's probably a good idea that Sam is talking about other cinematic interests -- the Shop smart, shop S-Mart variety. And, even better yet, that the interest isn't re-making the first The Evil Dead yet again. Evil Dead 2 was fun, and the musical is all sorts of awesome, but I think it's been stretched to its limits.

But how could he bring Ash back and make his fans near and far bounce with anticipation? Evil. Dead. Four. (With no mention of the previously talked about remake.) Moviehole found some news from The Herald Sun, which Raimi talked to recently. From the man himself: "I'm trying to get my brother, Ivan, to write the screenplay with me. He wrote Army of Darkness, the third one, with me and we have been talking about another one, but we haven't started working on it." Granted, this is just in the almost-fetal stage, but it says something that it's coming from Sam himself. I'm ready for any new adventures that Ash, from Housewares, might face. And, it's time we had some new, classic Bruce Campbell lines. Hail to the king, baby!