Sam Raimi, iconic movie director known for his “Spider-Man” trilogy, the first three “Evil Dead” movies, gritty superhero flick “Darkman” and, most recently, “Doctor Strange in The Multiverse of Madness,” stopped by Cleveland in April at the Fan Expo pop culture convention.
Raimi was one of many celebrity guests at Cleveland Fan Expo, which took place in the Huntington Convention Center from Friday, April 12 to Sunday, April 14. During his panel on the last day of the convention, Raimi discussed his favorite movies, some of his unique directing choices and “Spider-Man 4,” which never saw the light of day.
The movies that inspired him
In his impressive filmmaking career, Raimi has directed over a dozen feature films, ranging from Westerns to superhero movies to sinisterly comedic horror films. He also has numerous writing credits and has appeared as an actor in a variety of small roles.
While his career as a filmmaker started in the 1970s, his love of movies goes back to when he was just a kid. He said he’d often stay home from school to watch black-and-white films.
“I remember seeing ‘Treasure of The Sierra Madre,” Raimi said. “That was my favorite kind of day: when I’d skip school and watch old black-and-white movies.”
When asked about who his heroes are, he had an impressive list of filmmakers from across the globe.
“I’ve been inspired by the great John Houston, a filmmaker, Akira Kurosawa, the great Japanese filmmaker, I studied [Federico] Felini at Michigan State University—I was only there briefly—but Felini, what a masterful artist. And… [Alfred] Hitchcock, the great British filmmaker.”
Much like the late, great Hitchcock, much of Raimi’s career has been devoted to horror movies.
Why horror movies?
Raimi’s career really took off with the release of “The Evil Dead” in 1981, which he directed, wrote and executive-produced. Initially, the filmmaker was skeptical about making a horror movie, but today he says it’s his favorite genre of movie to make.
“Horror has become my favorite genre. I really like them,” Raimi said. “I used to just make comedies, and my buddy Rob Tapert told me we could only raise $60,000 to make a feature, and they don’t show $60,000 rom-coms, so he asked me if I wanted to make a horror movie and I said no, I don’t want to make a horror movie, I don’t like horror movies. I don’t know how to make them.”
Raimi said that as a child, he wasn’t even allowed to watch horror movies, so he didn’t know much about the genre at all. Tapert, a filmmaker who met Raimi through Ivan Raimi, Raimi’s brother and Tapert’s college roommate, took the future “Evil Dead” creator to see John Carpenter’s “Halloween” to give him some inspiration.
“I see the audiences screaming and being riveted by it, and he [Rob Tapert] asked me if I could make one that good and I said ‘no.’”
Bruce Campbell, a high school friend of Raimi’s and the star of the “Evil Dead” franchise, joined Raimi and Tapert on their journey to find inspiration for their then-unwritten horror movie, and they found it in an unconventional place.
“Unlike artists who are inspired by great works of art,” Raimi said, “Bruce Campbell, Rob Tapert and myself, we’d go to drive-ins, and we’d see a terrible one and go ‘oh, that’s inspiring, I can made a movie as good as that!’”
“Halloween” might’ve intimidated him, but he claimed the less-spectacular movies gave him the confidence he needed.
While “Evil Dead” was intended to be a horror movie, Raimi’s comedic roots seeped their way into the script, making the movie unintentionally hilarious to many audiences but Raimi didn’t see that as a failure.
“I saw the audience laughing, and thought we made comedies anyways, let’s just embrace it,” the filmmaker said. “That is nothing special about me. It’s something any comedian does. They listen to the audience, and there’s a communication going back-and-forth, and that’s what I do with test screenings. They’re for the filmmaker and the audience to parlay.”
In his subsequent “Evil Dead” films, “Evil Dead 2” and “Army of Darkness,” Raimi really leaned into the comedic side and put his B-movie star friend, Bruce Campbell, in some hilarious and grotesque situations.
The “Raimi Cam” and other groovy ways to torture Bruce Campbell
In 2021, the media was abuzz with rumors about Alfred Molina—who played Otto Octavius, also known as Doc Ock, in Raimi’s “Spider-Man 2,” returning to reprise the role in “Spider-Man: No Way Home,” the third addition to Jon Watts’s “Spider-Man” franchise. The rumors were evidently true and, in a 2021 interview with Den of Geek, Tom Holland, who plays the eponymous Spider-Man in Watts’s films, said that Watts used what he called the “Raimi Cam” to pay homage to Raimi.
“I don’t know what that [Raimi Cam] is,” Raimi said, laughing. “I loved ‘No Way Home,’ and I did read that once and I didn’t know what it was referring to.”
While the Raimi Cam may not be one of Raimi’s signatures, he does have a number of creative “Cams” that he’s used in his films, namely in the “Evil Dead” franchise.”
“I’ve made a lot of different camera devices. I’ve had the camera put on hydraulic rails and raced at actors for dynamic effects, or I’ve put the camera on two-by-fours to get a ‘Shaky Cam’ because we couldn’t afford the steady cam,” he said.
There might not be a “Raimi Cam,” but there is a “Sam-o-Cam,” and a “Ram-o-Cam,” and a “Blam-o-Cam.”
“I made something called a ‘Ram-o-Cam” that I put on a rail and smashed through a car windshield chasing Bruce [Campbell]. I’ve had the ‘Blam-o-Cam,’ which is a camera mounted on a gun. I had a ‘Sam-o-Cam’ made, where I put Bruce Campbell on a rig where I could spin him and torture him,” Sam added, smiling. “I’ve had every kind of ‘Cam’ name that I can rhyme with. Ram, Can, Bam, Slam, Bruce, Goose—I don’t know what ‘Raimi Cam’ is.”
Raimi’s unique use of his cameras directly reflects on his penchant for creative practical effects in his films. He added that, regardless if an effect is practical or computer-generated, an entire production crew goes into making it happen and, when it does happen, it’s like “magic.”
“I like practical effects better,” he said. “I enjoy watching them better, and I like the magic that goes on on set to create them. I was a magician when I was a kid, and I find them very similar.”
“Spider-Man” and the inevitable sequel rumors
It’s true that a fourth addition to Raimi’s “Spider-Man” series was in development, but the film was eventually canceled in 2010.
“The ‘Spider-Man 4’ script just stayed on the shelf,” Raimi said.
“Spider-Man 3,” the last movie in Raimi’s trilogy, wasn’t well-received by critics. Stories about studio interference and complaints about a poor script really brought the movie down, and even Raimi himself called it “awful.”
A scene from the controversial movie was actually filmed on Euclid Avenue—eagle-eyed viewers can catch Heinen’s, Playhouse Square, and Tower City in the background of Spider-Man’s fight with Sandman on an armored truck. However, Raimi himself wasn’t on set for the filming of that particular scene.
Many blame “Spider-Man 3” for the cancellation of “Spider-Man 4,” but that doesn’t mean the rumors about it aren’t still around.
After the success of 2021’s “Spider-Man: No Way Home,” which saw the return of Tobey Maguire’s Spider-Man, Willem Dafoe’s Green Goblin, Alfred Molina’s Doctor Octopus, and Thomas Haden Church’s Sandman, rumors about a fourth Raimi Spider-Man movie started to spread like wildfire.
“I don’t have a script yet,” Raimi clarified. “But… you couldn’t stop me from making a great script.”
If he were to go back to working on “Spider-Man 4,” he said he doesn’t have a particular villain in mind just yet.
“It would really depend on the main character’s story, where he was going, what he was growing through as Peter Parker, and trying to find that villain that represented that obstacle that he had to grow past,” Raimi said. “I don’t know [the villain] until I know what Peter Parker’s story is for that particular movie.”
Overall, Raimi said his favorite Spider-Man villain is the Green Goblin, who was the main antagonist in Raimi’s first “Spider-Man” movie.
“It’s really because of the personal relationship he has with Peter,” he said. “He’s Peter’s best friend’s father, so there’s a lot of drama. There’s a lot of inherent drama with the character, and I think that’s why Green Goblin is my favorite.”
Raimi has his doubts about whether or not SONY would even want a fourth addition to his series following the success of “Spider-Man: No Way Home.”
“I did love that movie, ‘Spider-Man: No Way Home.’ All three Spider-Men did such a great job,” Raimi added. “With ‘Spider-Man 4,’ I don’t know that SONY would go back to it because they’re so successful with the ongoing, new Spider-Man stories.”
The latest rumor, which took X/Twitter by storm on April 16, alleged that Raimi is “in talks” to direct the next addition to the Marvel Studios Spider-Man films starring Tom Holland.
Raimi directed “Doctor Strange in The Multiverse of Madness” in 2022, so it wouldn’t be the first time he’d work with Marvel Studios.
While the filmmaker didn’t directly address the rumors at Fan Expo, he did allude to only wanting to work with the cast of his past Spider-Man movies on any future Spidey projects.
“I’ve made ‘Spider-Man,’ ‘Spider-Man 2,’ [and] ‘Spider-Man 3.’ I have such close relationships with those actors… that I wouldn’t, at this point, want to go back and make them [Spider-Man movies] without them.”
“Spider-Man” might be a bit up in the air, but Raimi doesn’t plan on slowing down any time soon.
When asked about what his “dream project” would be, he said he’d really like to remake a film that had a good script but “just wasn’t executed well.”Raimi also said he’d love to make more superhero movies.
“I love a lot of superheroes, so I’d like to tell their stories too.”
Overall, he thinks it’s important that he really understands the story he’s trying to tell.
“I’d like to tell a story where I understand the journey of the main character. Then I’d know how to direct it,” he said. “It’s hard to tell a story, as a director, when the story is not well-written. More than any particular project, I’d like a story where I understand the main character.”
Ava Fuduric 
Hannah Gates