As Guan-di's gruesome killings mount, the town lies terrified and helpless. Feeling responsible, Jeff drives to California to recruit the only expert he knows in fighting evil incarnate: Bruce Campbell himself. The man he finds, though, is a divorced, self-obsessed lout who lives in a dirty trailer, shares cheap whiskey with his dog and despises the movies that made his career. Campbell rudely refuses Jeff's entreaties, which leaves the desperate teen no choice but to hit him over the head with a baseball bat and haul him back to Gold Lick in the trunk of his car.

Though angry at first at being kidnapped by what he assumes is a crazed fan, Campbell changes his tune when the townspeople greet him as a hero and a liberator. Believing the scenario to have been concocted as an elaborate birthday prank by his agent Mills, (Raimi), the actor takes more than full advantage of the town's hospitality—which includes sleazily hitting on Jeff's skeptical mother, Kelly (Thorsen), owner of the local honkytonk. Only when he leads a posse into the woods to confront Guan-di does the cowardly Campbell discover how real the menace to Gold Lick is—and how lethal.

The cream of Campbell's corn

Let's be honest. By any reasonable standard of moviemaking, My Name Is Bruce is terrible. The production values are poor, the blocking and camera setups are hackneyed, the acting and pacing lack urgency in general, the monster isn't all that scary and the ending stinks. But how can reasonable standards of moviemaking apply when Bruce Campbell is directing himself in a wry sendup of his own career and persona? The elements that make a bad horror flick truly bad are precisely the point.

Though Campbell directs, produces and stars, it's hard to call this a vanity project. For one thing, he's utterly fearless in portraying himself as a bitter, drunken boor so malignly egocentric that he can't see how he's alienated friends, family and colleagues alike. That he does so with unflagging, caddish charm not only imbues the movie with a cheerful buoyancy but also illustrates the qualities that made his long career possible in the first place. A very funny Bruce Campbell sails through this corny schlockfest with his celebrated chin held high.

The witty script by Mark Verheiden knowingly dissects the tropes of corny low-budget horror, at the same time mining Campbell's extensive catalog for references only true fans will appreciate. From the moment Taylor Sharpe declares the amulet that frees Guan-di "groovy" to the sardonic references to filmmaking in Bulgaria to the chainsaw that doesn't quite become a plot element to the presence of original "Fake Shemp" Ted Raimi (brother of Sam), audiences in on the joke will find a movie tuned to their own demented wavelength. That insularity, and the general lack of polish, may at times make broader audiences feel like clueless outsiders. But overall they'll likely find themselves laughing just as hard as their neighbors at this frequently hilarious concoction.

My Name Is Bruce is not about scaring audiences, or even fooling them into thinking they've seen some worthwhile entertainment. It's about celebrating everything that has made Bruce Campbell perhaps the greatest B-movie actor of all time, and about rewarding the fans who have made that career possible. On that level it succeeds beyond any reasonable expectation.