The Evil Dead (1981)
Five college students vacationing at a Tennessee cabin awaken demonic spirits through a Sumerian text, in Sam Raimi's debut. Bruce Campbell plays Ash Williams.
Director: Sam Raimi
Sam Raimi made The Evil Dead with friends, no money and a camera mounted on a plank of wood, and the resulting shot, the low fast rush through the woods, became one of the most imitated in horror. Evil Dead II turned the same material into slapstick without losing the fear.
His Spider-Man trilogy brought that kinetic camera into the studio system and the first two films are still among the best superhero pictures made. Spider-Man 2 in particular is built on a genuinely difficult moral choice instead of on a fight.
Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness let him make a Marvel horror film, complete with Bruce Campbell, which is roughly where he started.
