2000 - THE GIFT, southern gothic story from Sam Raimi

Sam Raimi who's film making style can at times can be considered over the top and frantic actually restrains himself for this film set in Georgia.  The film stars Cate Blanchett as a woman who is apparently endowed with a psychic ability to see into the future.  She gets involved in the murder investigation of a rich woman where her visions eventually lead her to understand what happened to the dead woman.

For a modestly budgeted film Raimi put together a seriously good cast.  Keenau Reeves is a very dangerous redneck, Hillary Swank is his white trash wife.  Greg Kinnear is the nice guy school principal with a tramp of a fiancee played by Katie Holmes.  Gary Cole and J. K. Simmons are the law enforcement officials trying to understand if Blanchett's visions are real or imaginary.

 

But this film is really all about Cate Blanchett who gives another flawless performance as a clairvoyant. Blanchett has the accent and more importantly the character down.  It's even more impressive when you remember she was raised in Australia not exactly a country loaded with American southerners.  Raimi must have realized he was dealing with an impressive performer because he focuses the entire film around her.

 

Raimi is still Raimi so when he needs to put in a scary scene he reverts to some of the tricks he has learned form directing his over the top horror films, however he is good at getting a lot of southern atmosphere into the film.  This is a very good southern gothic genre film.

Written by Billy Bob Thornton and Tom Epperson, the running time is 112 minutes.

1995 - THE QUICK AND THE DEAD, Sam Raimi's eccentric western

Sam Raimi's hyped up visual style is applied to this western about a contest to see who is the fastest gun in town.  Sharon Stone stars and gets a producer credit on the film.  Stone isn't really playing her usual sexy self for some reason, she's rather sullen throughout the film.

I will say this about the film is has an amazing cast.  Gene Hackman, Russell Crowe, Leonardo DiCaprio, Pat Hingle, Lance Henrickson, Keith David and in his last appearance on film Woody Strode.

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The film is essentially a series of gunfights staged by Raimi with about every bit of visual craziness he can muster.  Gene Hackman basically recreates his Uncle Billy character from Clint Eastwood's The Unforgiven.  Russel Crowe and Leonardo DiCaprio were still fairly new in their film career.  

 

The film is a lot of fun to watch mostly for the crazy gunfights and Hackman's scenery chewing performance.  The Quick and the Dead was written by Simon Moore and runs 108 minutes.

1978 - WITHIN THE WOODS, the super 8 warmup for The Evil Dead series.

When will people finally stop partying on sacred Indian burial grounds?  This is the question posed by Sam Raimi's warm up for The Evil Dead series made on the whooping budget of $1600.00 bucks.

All the Raimi tricks are here at the beginning of his career, the camera running through the woods, the possession stuff and the slapstick blood splattered killing stuff. Let's not forget Bruce Campbell who has been associated with Raimi for a long time.  It's interesting to see him use the same tricks over and over in his subsequent films.

You get what you get watching a film made by a couple of guys starting out in their careers and filming in super 8.

30 minutes, written by Sam Raimi.