Page 2 Previous  The boys also loved to do Three Stooges type of shorts, starting with one-reelers and expanding from there. They had a lot of support and encouragement from adults in the neighborhood where they grew up in Michigan. "We started showing these little movies at the clubhouse (at the lake where the boys lived) And the adults there thought they were really cool and said, 'Hey, let's chip in for an editor for these boys.'" So a bunch of people in the community put in $5 each or so and got them an editor. "It was so cool, but at the time we sort of took it for granted, you know. Once you get out in the world and start moving around, you look back at it and go, 'My God, it sounds so fake… very Disneyesque, it's like that Disney movie THE MYSTERY IN DRACULA'S CASTLE with the brothers making their movie in San Mateo or whatever. It was kind of like that." Scott and Bruce Campbell went to the same church, and then to junior high school together. Bruce was already working with Sam Raimi on making short movies, so by the time they were 13 or 14 years old they were all gathering to show each other their movies and start working together. "We were far more advanced than Bruce was, because he wasn't even editing the movies. I'll never forget one time he said, 'I'm embarrassed to show mine,' because we had a big reel-to-reel tape recorder that we would play alongside our silent movies. So we had kind of a sound track with dialogue and music and sound effects. It was always a trick trying to sync up like a punch or a hammer hit on the head, or a pie in the face." Another stroke of luck was that Scott's friend Matt Taylor (who was involved in a lot of the early short movies and later played the muscleman in Sam Raimi's Crimewave) had a movie theater designed in his basement with the booth and the little glass windows, and the projection stand. The boys, at this point including Bruce and Sam, got together there to show their movies for many years. "So we kept making these movies, and one by one you'd see us doing these movies, and Bruce all of a sudden is special guest star, and then Sam and Bruce are special guest stars. And then as Matt Taylor and Bill Ward went on to other things and didn't pursue what we were doing as seriously, they kind of fell in the background (Matt always kind of hung around and played the bad guy or comic relief or whatever.) And then it was just kind of an addiction, you know. We enjoyed working together, and it was a lot of fun showing them at Groves High School in the auditorium. Then we started charging. When we were in high school we got all of our friends, like Tim Quill, who was the really popular guy, he got us all the really popular people and the girls, you know." (Tim Quill was the Blacksmith in Army of Darkness and recently had a small part in Texas Blood Money.) The young entertainers showed their short films throughout high school, both for fun and the occasional dollar or two. Scott recalled an experience with an English Lit teacher who was "very cut and dried. But then she saw me in this Civil War movie where Bruce, Sam and I went to Gladwyn, Michigan and shot this movie, and I'm playing this kind of wacky character. When we screened it, this woman viewed me as a completely different person. She kept saying 'You were so funny!' It totally changed the way she acted with me. It was really cool. And to see the kids laughing, you know, you just kinda get high on that stuff and you want to keep going." They kept making their short films, and even returned to Groves High School a year after they graduated to show their movies, for which they charged admission. "So that kept happening, and then we made WITHIN THE WOODS and we showed it at the little theater in Groves and charged admission there, too. And the audience went absolutely crazy. And then that kind of begat THE EVIL DEAD." While Scott grew up filming a mix of horror and slapstick, and has experience as both an actor and a producer, he's become best known as a horror genre writer and director. He worked with Sam Raimi and Bruce Campbell on THE EVIL DEAD (1982) (horror) and co-wrote and produced THOU SHALT NOT KILL… EXCEPT (1985) (revenge/action/war) with Josh Becker, then co-wrote EVIL DEAD 2, (1987) (fantasy/horror/comedy) with Sam Raimi. His first full-length feature as a director was INTRUDER (1988) (pure slasher). Next he teamed up with his friend Boaz Yakin to write the script for THE ROOKIE (action) which Clint Eastwood directed in 1990, starring Eastwood and Charlie Sheen. Over the years he teamed up to work with another solid group of filmmaking talent including Quentin Tarantino, Robert Rodriguez, and Lawrence Bender, the team that created FROM DUSK TILL DAWN. Scott's most recent project was TEXAS BLOOD MONEY, the sequel to FROM DUSK TILL DAWN and the film that earned him the Saturn Award. His interest in slapstick and comedy continues, though like his old friend Sam Raimi he's found it's not always so easy to switch tracks once you're known for a certain genre. "I think it's different for actors, they can really get out and do different genres obviously more readily. And then followed by writers. I think for directors it's a little more difficult because obviously Michael Bay is not going to do the third AUSTIN POWERS movie, you know what I mean? But I think now, after TEXAS BLOOD MONEY, certain companies might be a little more receptive knowing that I'm a very efficient filmmaker and I bring things in on time and on budget. So they might be willing to take a chance. But you never know, you just hope for that." When asked if it was a stretch to switch from horror to comedy, Scott replied, "Horror and comedy are so similar obviously, in so many ways. You're still doing the set-up, set-up, payoff… for the horror film it'll be a scare or a suspense sequence, for the comedy it'll be set-up, set-up for the punchline, or instead of the suspense sequence it'll be a pie fight sequence or whatever. I think that's what's so much fun about EVIL DEAD 2, perhaps. There you're in like, loony world, but it's still scary in like a haunted mansion kind of way, whereas the first EVIL DEAD is more of an all-out horror film." "So hopefully, with all the slapstick now with AUSTIN POWERS making so much money, and BIG DADDY and all this other stuff… maybe something can happen there. And what's so nice about a comedy is that although you do have to worry about censorship in terms of 'maybe that's a little too risqué' or whatever, it's not to any extent that something like FROM DUSK TILL DAWN or a pure out and out horror movie is. I love being in that arena. It's a lot of fun, and it opens you up to a larger crowd." Scott's fun-loving creative style reveals itself in his fondness for unusual point-of-view shots. While watching his films you might at any moment find yourself looking up at a character's face through spiraling coils of phone cord, spinning around as the knob on a safe that's being cracked, or watching a man's face bob into and out of frame as you do a macho set of pushups. "I just ask myself, 'What's the most interesting way to shoot it?'" Scott says. "You've seen a lot bank-heists, but never from the point of view of the knob on the safe while it's turning. Why can't the camera be there?" Also known to be a very efficient director prepared with detailed pre-planning, Scott brought TEXAS BLOOD MONEY in well under budget. That led to being able to add the scene with Luther, Razor Eddie, and the bats on the road instead of just having Luther be bitten in the bar as originally planned. An avid writer, Scott Spiegel is currently working on a new script and considering another project as a director in the near future. Whether it will be horror, or slapstick comedy, or the combination of the two that his fans have loved for years, no doubt Scott's creativity and sense of humor will stand out in his future films as in the past.