I used to be am so easily afraid of everything that I couldn’t even watch The Simpsons Halloween specials as a kid. To this day, I still don’t watch any horror, despite a love-hate relationship with the concept of zombies. Exceptions to this rule are any movie with Bruce Campbell in them, because I think that if I weren’t a rampant lesbian, I would be in love with him.
Swoon
For those not in the know (which is tragically sad), Bruce Campbell first rose to infamy as the star of The Evil Dead, which came out about a thousand years ago as a horror movie. Despite one actually scary scene, the movie turned out to be quite hilarious. A few years later, they decided to remake the movie but they called it Evil Dead 2, for some reason. This incarnation of the film made less attempts to be scary and gave in more to the campy style that would eventually lead the way to the series’ third and probably most popular installment: Army of Darkness. Army of Darkness and Bruce Campbell’s character of Ash has spawned video games, comic books, and a veritable army of rabid fans. In fact, in my own webcomic Departmental (shameless self promotion), the character Ashe who runs the housewares department is a reference to this great franchise.
Bruce Campbell went on to make several more amazing films, such as Alien Apocalypse, The Man with the Screaming Brain, and Bubba Ho-Tep. He also had cameo appearances in the Sam Raimi directed Spider-Man movies and in Darkman, also directed by Sam Raimi (noticing a pattern?). Currently, he is a main character in the USA series Burn Notice, which I don’t watch but I certainly should. He also cameo-d in Xena: Warrior Princess and Hercules, which had some Raimi involvement on several levels.
He's so Butch
In any case, the reason I think so highly of Mr. Campbell is that he was able to take someone like me and ease me into the genre of horror. And while I still very rarely watch anything that’s gory or scary, if there is any hint of some camp, it is very likely that I have seen it or intend to see it. His tongue-in-cheek approach to acting and the horror genre has proven time and again that there is humor in everything, even oatmeal bursting out of someone’s ankle for no good reason.
They're All Gonna Laugh At You!
I first met Bruce Campbell as the Prince of Thieves in the Hercules/Xena shows! He was fantastic. I’m currently watching him in Brisco County Jr. It’s a fun western. I would highly recommend Burn Notice. I would gladly call his portrayal as ex Navy SEAL Sam Axe to be Bruce Campbell’s greatest role. He’s essentially playing Bruce Campbell: witty, smart, loyal, a great actor, only he also has the skills and badassery of a Navy SEAL. He’s fantastic on that show!
If you get a chance to see him do a Q&A at a screening of one of his movies it’s wicked awesome. It’s on par with Kevin Smith’s legendary audience question events but I will say I enjoy Bruce more.
He’s twitter is fan loving and fair at the same time. He doesn’t tolerate stupidity but shows a lot of love for his fans.
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