On Tuesday night, I went to see the theatrical premiere of the new Bruce Campbell movie, The Man With the Screaming Brain, hosted by Bruce himself. He came out before the movie for a 20-minute Q&A session with the audience, and was witty and sarcastic and charming and weird. He said that B-movies are the truest form of alternative cinema, and in this day and age where the biggest blockbusters are all sequels and remakes and comic book adaptations and updates of ancient TV shows, it’s unfair to dismiss B-movies when they contain some of the most original ideas around. He also joked and said that movies where a guy gets bitten by a radioactive spider or dresses up as a giant bat are B-movies through and through, so let’s not kid ourselves. He told us there were no plans for him to return as Ash in another Evil Dead/Army of Darkness movie, but he would most likely be in Spider-Man 3 after having small but memorable roles in the first two.
Bruce’s new movie was made for the Sci-Fi Channel, so it’s a low-budget B-movie all the way. Still, it definitely kept us entertained, and I recommend true Bruce Campbell fans try to watch it on TV on September 10th. As I said to my friend, I’d rather watch a bad Bruce Campbell movie than a good Tom Cruise movie any day.
The movie is set in Bulgaria, which is apparently a hotbed of cheap film production now. (I know they shoot a lot of porno movies in Hungary and the Czech Republic, but didn’t realize mainstream filmmakers had caught onto this as well.) Bruce plays a rich “ugly American” CEO of a major corporation, who goes to Bulgaria with his spoiled and bitchy wife. Without giving any major spoilers, they immediately meet a beautiful and mysterious gypsy woman and a resourceful taxi driver who is an ex-KGB operative, and before long, everyone turns up dead. Luckily, a Russian scientist, Dr. Ivan Ivanovitch Ivanovsky (played by Stacey Keach, the former MIKE HAMMER) is experimenting with new brain transplant techniques, and the results are hilarious. Even more hilarious is his assistant, frequent Campbell collaborator Ted Raimi (Sam’s brother and Joxer from Xena), who speaks in American hip-hop ghetto slang in a heavy Russian accent.
While The Man With the Screaming Brain has the trappings of an old-fashioned sci-fi/horror movie, it is more funny than anything else, thanks in large part to Bruce’s great talent for physical comedy and Ted’s ridiculous dialogue. I should mention that Bruce was not only the star of the movie, but also the producer, writer, and director. When you see it on the Sci-Fi Channel, stick around for the credits for Ted Raimi rapping in Russian!
Before the movie, Bruce was also signing autographs at the comic store at the mall, and there was a huge crowd of geeks, hipsters, and horror fans by the time I got there after work. I’m not one to fawn over celebrities, but he is such a cool guy I would have liked to meet him. Unfortunately, the line was already long by the time we got there, you couldn’t meet Bruce without a ticket, and you couldn’t get a ticket unless you bought his new $25 hardcover book, Make Love the Bruce Campbell Way, FROM the comic store. So if people had the book already, from Amazon.com or actual bookstores, too bad, so sad, they had to purchase another copy right there… and people were lined up to buy them. We weren’t going to play that game or wait in line for hours, so I didn’t get to meet Bruce or take my picture with him, but oh well.
). One thing to remember - Bruce is usually not willing to bend the terms of the contract he signed - from what I’ve read of him in the past, this is not unusual - he prides himself on being very honorable when it comes to contracts like this - he values his word very highly.