CANNES -- Returning to horror revitalized him after three consecutive Spider-Man blockbusters since 2002, director Sam Raimi said yesterday at Cannes.
The wickedly funny but unfailingly polite filmmaker is at Cannes with Drag Me to Hell, a gonzo return to the comedy gore he used to make. That includes the now legendary Evil Dead movies.
Raimi's Hell went to hog heaven yesterday by playing in the Cannes Film Festival as an out-of-competition screening.
"It's been great to work on Drag Me to Hell because there is a very small cast," Raimi said, referring to leads Alison Lohman, Justin Long, Lorna Raver, Dileep Rao and David Paymer.
"It was very intimate and that was something -- the only thing -- that I don't normally get on those Spider-Man films. I love the Spider-Man character. Actually, I love working with Columbia Pictures and I love the technicians on those films, and the actors.
"But it's not intimate. It is more like conducting a symphony orchestra and this film is like playing with a jazz quartet. So it is refreshing. It reminds me how to live the music and not just tell others how to play it. It is just that intimate and a blast. I love working without the restraints of a character that many other people own and children look up to."
Raimi appeared unsure how much of the self-renewal he can take back to the Spider-Man 4 movie he will direct for a 2011 release.
Asked by Sun Media if it will carry over, Raimi said: "No! Yes! I hope so!"
But there is one attribute of Hell he will remember: "I've been reminded of the beauty of brevity."
Raimi employed brevity in discussing the revitalization of the Spider-Man franchise.
Spider-Man 3 generated lousy reviews, after raves on the first two.
When Sun Media suggested the franchise needed a kickstart because 3 had problems, Raimi amusingly fiddled with his French translation headphones and said: "What? I don't think my translator is working properly ..."
Justin Long, sitting beside Raimi, jumped into the fray.
"He said he loved the third one," Long wrongly reported.
Everybody laughed.
Raimi said he still has a lot to contribute to Spider-Man, even if those restraints limit the creativity of a director.
"You could consider it mitigating the vision of the filmmaker," he said of the expectations of the studio and of Spidey fans. "But it just so happens that I think I can direct a picture if I know the character. I so know the character of Peter Parker. I am just pulled to direct him because I know I can do it really well and I feel I know him even better than I have been able to put in the pictures so far."
Rigor mortis has set in on Raimi's re-make of his 1981 horror movie, Evil Dead.
The low-budget shocker remains a cult favourite and Raimi has been talking about a slick re-do. But those plans are shelved, Raimi admitted yesterday.
"I don't know when we're going to make that, the re-make of Evil Dead. We did talk about it a couple of years ago. I really wanted to do it. But then Drag Me to Hell came along and I was so busy ... I just never pursued that. One day I would like to pursue that."
Fanboys will just have to wait -- maybe forever.
Raimi is delighted to be in Cannes. The first time he was here was in 1981, when trying to sell Evil Dead in the market.
"No American distributor would touch that film with a 10-foot plague pole. No one wanted it."
Enthusiastic audiences in Cannes led to sales to France and Britain.
"Then, suddenly, people in America wanted it, too," Raimi said. "So, basically, I'm coming home when I have a chance to come here."
He added, however, "I never expected to come home to this fancy house of being 'in' the festival. I'm honoured to be here and I think it says a lot about the artistic parameters of the festival committee that they would even recognize artistic merit in what some might consider a lowly horror film."
Meek and mild American actress Alison Lohman found herself grossed out on the set of Raimi's Drag Me to Hell, especially when it came to eating maggots.
Still, she did have her limits about Raimi's brand of comedy horror and the horrible things she had to do as her character Christine, Lohman said yesterday at Cannes.
"The maggots were just really wild," Lohman shyly blurted out. "I didn't want to kill the cat -- because I have three cats. But I said yes to maggots."
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
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