ission accomplished. It took 19 years, but Bruce Campbell has at long last realized his goal of making Man With the Screaming Brain into a movie. Man With the Screaming Brain—a SCI FI Channel original movie—written, produced, directed by and starring Campbell—casts the genre favorite as William Cole, a snooty American industrialist who has his brain merged with that of Yegor (Vladimir Kolev), a Bulgarian taxi driver and former CIA operative. Once merged, they seek out the enigmatic Gypsy woman Tatoya (Tamara Gorski), who killed them.
Campbell (The Evil Dead and Spider-Man movies) spent much of the summer on a promotional tour, signing copies of his latest book, Make Love the Bruce Campbell Way, and playing Man With the Screaming Brain for moviegoers at theaters across the country. And on Saturday, Sept. 10, at 9 p.m. ET, Man With the Screaming Brain will debut on SCI FI. Campbell and Gorski (Angel, Witchblade and Poltergeist: The Legacy) recently talked to Science Fiction Weekly about their film.
Bruce Campbell, how different is the version of Man With the Screaming Brain that we'll see on SCI FI from what people saw in movie theaters this summer?
Campbell: SCI FI doesn't like swearing and stuff like that, and we've got swearing. Some of the holes we put in there for commercials are gone, and now it plays through like a feature. It was always designed as a feature film. It was designed with a three-act structure. So basically SCI FI is getting a TV version of that. The plan was always to treat it as a feature, but we knew it was being done for the SCI FI Channel. And so there's not any gore or blood missing. We actually held back on that. Really, at the end of the day, the movie is PG-13. There are no beheadings or s--t like that.
How much fun did you have barnstorming the country, doing signings and showing the movie? And what are the odds of Screaming Brain playing even more widely?
Campbell: We were actually doing book signings at the theaters. The coolest thing about Screaming Brain is that it's given me a chance to see these great old revival houses and art houses. That's where it's been playing, which really makes me happy. So far as releasing it wider, they're playing it by ear. This was all a grand experiment. The bottom line is this was meant to promote the showing on SCI FI and also the DVD, which comes out in October. Some theaters have done well enough that they're bringing it back and doing midnight screenings in the weeks following my going through town. So we're just going to see how it goes. There are no plans. We're just staying loosey-goosey with it.
Is it true that it took 19 years to get this made?
Campbell: The first idea was given to my partner, David Goodman, in a rowboat in 1986. What we've got as a DVD extra is we chart out almost 20 years, from the '80s, the '90s and into the new millennium, and we list every company we ever took it to, because it was the craziest, weirdest course to get made. Honestly, I'm very grateful to SCI FI Channel because those guys are really proactive. They make movies. I think it's really cool what they've done, and I hope they benefit from it.
How did the Screaming Brain comic books come about?
Campbell: We [Campbell and Goodman] knew Dark Horse from before. We had a good relationship because they did, we thought, a nice job on the Army of Darkness comics from way back. The good news was that we already had a script written. So when we moved forward they adapted it from there into a four-issue structure. And that wasn't bad, because the TV movie structure is eight acts. So there were natural breaks that they could take advantage of. They could end certain issues at a certain point. So we've got the four issues, and we'll see what happens beyond that.
What are the chances that we'll see a Screaming Brain sequel one of these days?
Campbell: Oh, that'll depend on how well it does when it airs. All these creative decisions are really economically driven. We've got to see if it does what it needs to do before we can do more.
You were in the family fantasy-comedy Sky High, which was released over the summer. You've got a horror movie, The Woods, due out soon, and you've provided the voice of Ash for the upcoming video game Evil Dead: Regeneration. But everyone's buzzing about the announcement that a new Evil Dead movie is in the works. What can you say about it? How will you be involved?
Campbell: I'll be just a producer [along with Sam Raimi and Rob Tapert]. Sam [Raimi] is not directing it. I won't be in it at all, hell no. What am I going to play? The old guy at the bait shop? "Hey, you kids, be careful of that cabin now. It's haunted." I don't even know that there's going to be an Ash character. It will be an Evil Dead story, but I'm not sure that we're going to mimic the first one.
Tamara Gorski, you'd done Anonymous Rex for SCI FI Channel, and you'd worked with Bruce Campbell before when he directed an episode of Hercules: The Legendary Journeys in which you appeared. So how did you hook up with Man With the Screaming Brain?
Gorski: I was in my trailer while making Anonymous Rex, and I called Bruce to tell him how much fun I was having. I'd been still acting in Canada, but trying to produce in America, and Anonymous Rex was sort of my second or third acting job in my big comeback. So I was telling Bruce what a great time I was having and how much I really love acting and how great a job [director] Julian Jarrold was doing with us. Bruce said, "Good, good, I've got a little tip for you." I said, "Yeah?" And he said, "You'd better start making some plans and make some changes in your schedule and make yourself available." It sounded like something was around the bend. Sure enough, about two weeks later he called and said, "All right, I've got three words for you: gypsy, gypsy, gypsy," and he told me that they'd gotten financing for a movie they'd been trying to set up for 18 years, called Man With the Screaming Brain, they being Bruce and his good old pal David Goodman. So I said yes, of course.
How would you explain this movie to someone who knows nothing about it?
Gorski: I would say that Bruce has taken a horror film title and some investors' money and really played with the form. Bruce is unwittingly one of the coolest artists I know. He'd shoot me for saying that, but he really is. I would say that Screaming Brain is an amalgam. You know how rap samples from songs and they build a new song out of it? He's made a very entertaining horror type of film that's not unlike Phantom of the Opera, Bride of Frankenstein and Young Frankenstein as well, because it's funny. And he also makes social and political comments in this thing. So it's a very entertaining quasi-horror film.
How surreal was it to be directed by Campbell when he was in makeup?
Gorski: There's one scene that, every time I see it, I get creeped out, and that is when William turns over and you see the blood on his head. Tatoya has just whacked him. When we take him out at the top of the movie he gets this head wound that, to me, is just all too real. Towards the end of the scene, the camera pulls back and there are all these dead bodies everywhere. I remember on the set it was hilarious because the camera would pull back and Bruce would yell, "Cut!" So you just have to imagine when you see the film that there's a body, Bruce's body, lying down, with his skull cracked open. We'd be acting out these scenes, he'd been dead on the ground, and then he'd sit up and shout, "Cut!" It was kind of fun and kind of funny.
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Bradley Denton
