Editorials
The Long History of Wes Craven and Sam Raimi’s Communication Through Film
All these years later, the fun continues in “Ash vs. Evil Dead.”
It all started back in 1977. In The Hills Have Eyes, a torn Jaws poster was seen in the Carter family’s camper, and many took it as Wes Craven essentially saying that his movie was much scarier than anything on display in Spielberg’s hit money-maker. Whether or not that was actually Craven’s intention is up for debate – and looking back, I’m not even sure that actually was a Jaws poster – but all that really matters here is the way Sam Raimi interpreted the homage. And when it came time to make his own movie a few years later, he took a page out of Craven’s playbook.
As has been well documented here on the web, 1981’s The Evil Dead prominently featured a Hills Have Eyes poster on a wall of the cabin’s fruit cellar, and like the Jaws poster in Craven’s film, it was torn into a barely recognizable piece by Sam Raimi. As Raimi explained to Esquire back in 2007, the tribute was very much an intentional jab at Craven:
There’s a torn-up poster of Jaws in [Craven’s] The Hills Have Eyes, so I thought it would be funny to tear a Hills Have Eyes poster into pieces in The Evil Dead, to tell Wes, ‘No, this is the real horror, pal.’
The friendly war, which was really nothing more than a fun method of communication between two filmmakers who didn’t even meet until years later, continued in Craven’s A Nightmare on Elm Street, released in 1984. In a desperate bid to stay awake and avoid the wrath of Freddy Krueger, Nancy Thompson watches a movie in her bedroom. Her movie of choice? The Evil Dead!
Not to read too far into things, but it’s worth noting that Nancy repeatedly nods off while watching The Evil Dead, and eventually turns the TV off. A tribute and a fun jab at Raimi, all in one.
How did Raimi respond? In Evil Dead 2, released in 1987, Freddy Krueger’s iconic glove was prominently on display on a wall in the fruit cellar AND above the door in the workshed…
Legend has it that the glove used in Evil Dead 2 was a prop borrowed from the production of an actual Nightmare on Elm Street film, and it certainly does appear to be a higher quality than any replica glove that was on the market at the time. Either way, this was clearly more of a tribute than any sort of jab at Craven – stories of a Craven/Raimi rivalry are pure sensationalism.
In the same 2007 interview with Esquire, Raimi confirmed that it was all in fun:
Years ago, I was at the Cannes Film Festival giving a radio interview — I had never met Wes — and he came up to the booth. I thought, ‘This is where I’m going to get old Wes.’ I hid and leaped out with a terrific shout, and he just jumped out of his skin. [Laughs] Then I introduced myself. He gave me a look like, ‘Are you out of your mind?’ He’s been very kind to me ever since.
The cinema communication between Sam Raimi and Wes Craven continued into the ’90s with Scream. Randy, the character played by Jamie Kennedy, was of course a hardcore fan of horror movies, and at the start of the film’s party scene he holds up a series of VHS tapes and asks the characters which one they want to watch. Not surprisingly, The Evil Dead is one of the choices.
They choose Halloween – Craven’s final jab at Raimi.
Sadly, Wes Craven passed away last year, but through the Starz series “Ash vs. Evil Dead,” Sam Raimi has kept the tradition alive. In the Season One finale, Ash returned to the iconic cabin in the woods, and wouldn’t ya know it, that Freddy glove was still hanging up in the fruit cellar. Later, in the penultimate episode of Season 2, Ash and the gang traveled back in time to 1982. A retro movie theater was briefly glimpsed, and hanging outside was a vintage movie poster.
Yup. The Hills Have Eyes. A friendly game come full circle.
Having grown up in a religious family, Christian movie night was something that happened a lot more often than I care to admit. However, back when I was a teenager, my parents showed up one night with an unusually cool-looking DVD of a movie that had been recommended to them by a church leader. Curious to see what new kind of evangelical propaganda my parents had rented this time, I proceeded to watch the film with them expecting a heavy-handed snoozefest.
To my surprise, I was a few minutes in when Denzel Washington proceeded to dismember a band of cannibal raiders when I realized that this was in fact a real movie. My mom was horrified by the flick’s extreme violence and dark subject matter, but I instantly became a fan of the Hughes Brothers’ faith-based 2010 thriller, The Book of Eli. And with the film’s atomic apocalypse having apparently taken place in 2024, I think this is the perfect time to dive into why this grim parable might also be entertaining for horror fans.
Originally penned by gaming journalist and The Walking Dead: The Game co-writer Gary Whitta, the spec script for The Book of Eli was already making waves back in 2007 when it appeared on the coveted Blacklist. It wasn’t long before Columbia and Warner Bros. snatched up the rights to the project, hiring From Hell directors Albert and Allen Hughes while also garnering attention from industry heavyweights like Denzel Washington and Gary Oldman.
After a series of revisions by Anthony Peckham meant to make the story more consumer-friendly, the picture was finally released in January of 2010, with the finished film following Denzel as a mysterious wanderer making his way across a post-apocalyptic America while protecting a sacred book. Along the way, he encounters a run-down settlement controlled by Bill Carnegie (Gary Oldman), a man desperate to get his hands on Eli’s book so he can motivate his underlings to expand his empire. Unwilling to let this power fall into the wrong hands, Eli embarks on a dangerous journey that will test the limits of his faith.
SO WHY IS IT WORTH WATCHING?
Judging by the film’s box-office success, mainstream audiences appear to have enjoyed the Hughes’ bleak vision of a future where everything went wrong, but critics were left divided by the flick’s trope-heavy narrative and unapologetic religious elements. And while I’ll be the first to admit that The Book of Eli isn’t particularly subtle or original, I appreciate the film’s earnest execution of familiar ideas.
For starters, I’d like to address the religious elephant in the room, as I understand the hesitation that some folks (myself included) might have about watching something that sounds like Christian propaganda. Faith does indeed play a huge part in the narrative here, but I’d argue that the film is more about the power of stories than a specific religion. The entire point of Oldman’s character is that he needs a unifying narrative that he can take advantage of in order to manipulate others, while Eli ultimately chooses to deliver his gift to a community of scholars. In fact, the movie even makes a point of placing the Bible in between equally culturally important books like the Torah and Quran, which I think is pretty poignant for a flick inspired by exploitation cinema.
Sure, the film has its fair share of logical inconsistencies (ranging from the extent of Eli’s Daredevil superpowers to his impossibly small Braille Bible), but I think the film more than makes up for these nitpicks with a genuine passion for classic post-apocalyptic cinema. Several critics accused the film of being a knockoff of superior productions, but I’d argue that both Whitta and the Hughes knowingly crafted a loving pastiche of genre influences like Mad Max and A Boy and His Dog.
Lastly, it’s no surprise that the cast here absolutely kicks ass. Denzel plays the title role of a stoic badass perfectly (going so far as to train with Bruce Lee’s protégée in order to perform his own stunts) while Oldman effortlessly assumes a surprisingly subdued yet incredibly intimidating persona. Even Mila Kunis is remarkably charming here, though I wish the script had taken the time to develop these secondary characters a little further. And hey, did I mention that Tom Waits is in this?
AND WHAT MAKES IT HORROR ADJACENT?
Denzel’s very first interaction with another human being in this movie results in a gory fight scene culminating in a face-off against a masked brute wielding a chainsaw (which he presumably uses to butcher travelers before eating them), so I think it’s safe to say that this dog-eat-dog vision of America will likely appeal to horror fans.
From diseased cannibals to hyper-violent motorcycle gangs roaming the wasteland, there’s plenty of disturbing R-rated material here – which is even more impressive when you remember that this story revolves around the bible. And while there are a few too many references to sexual assault for my taste, even if it does make sense in-universe, the flick does a great job of immersing you in this post-nuclear nightmare.
The excessively depressing color palette and obvious green screen effects may take some viewers out of the experience, but the beat-up and lived-in sets and costume design do their best to bring this dead world to life – which might just be the scariest part of the experience.
Ultimately, I believe your enjoyment of The Book of Eli will largely depend on how willing you are to overlook some ham-fisted biblical references in order to enjoy some brutal post-apocalyptic shenanigans. And while I can’t really blame folks who’d rather not deal with that, I think it would be a shame to miss out on a genuinely engaging thrill-ride because of one minor detail.
With that in mind, I’m incredibly curious to see what Whitta and the Hughes Brothers have planned for the upcoming prequel series starring John Boyega…
There’s no understating the importance of a balanced media diet, and since bloody and disgusting entertainment isn’t exclusive to the horror genre, we’ve come up with Horror Adjacent – a recurring column where we recommend non-horror movies that horror fans might enjoy.
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