Sam Raimi: Ranking His Movies From Worst To Best

13. Crimewave (1985)

url-4 Quick. Put Sam Raimi together with a script written by Ethan and Joel Coen and what do you get? If you said "pure awesomeness," you are so wrong. Crimewave was Raimi's second feature coming four years after his genre-bending Evil Dead and his first with active (too active) studio involvement. Having developed a working relationship with the Coen brothers in the editing room, they took the next logical step and came out with this mess - a comedy send-up of '50s movies versions of '20s gangsters. I think. It's the convoluted story of a hit gone bad. This was Raimi's first attempt at working with actual producers who immediately informed him that his 1st choice for the lead, Bruce Campbell would not happen. So instead of the Chin, there was somebody else. Campbell was cast as the 'The Heel' (seriously, that's his name) who did, at least, bring some prescene to the film. He delivered lines in a manner foreshadowing Ash in Army of Darkness, but this whole mess came out as too campy to be campy. Shot in and around Detroit with Hollywood C-actors, it was a rude awakening to the intricacies of working for others. I could easily see this being made by a group of high school seniors and a lot of jokes come across as if they were written by the same. On a estimated budget of $3 million dollars, it raked in a cool $5000 in 7 theaters (in Kansas and Alaska) during its limited release. If nothing else, this film is inspirational in that - despite its seeming awfulness - Raimi and the Coen Brothers are nowadays safely considered film legends showing that - in Hollywood, at least - anything is possible.
Contributor
Contributor

Been there, done that but not too well. Continually financially restrained. Now (and still) lives in Western Canada and talks some hockey and parenting on ogieoglethorpe.blogspot.ca and watching trailers on 2minutemovies.blogspot.ca.