I’m the kind of The Evil Dead franchise fan who can never get enough of the gloriously blood-soaked behind-the-scenes stories that went into making one of the best horror movies of all time. But long before Bruce Campbell became horror’s most lovable chin-first hero and made one of the best MCU cameos, and long before we were scanning the 2026 movie schedule for when the newest entry in the series, Evil Dead Burn, might finally arrive, he was also, by his own account, the primary stress ball Sam Raimi used to squeeze the movie into existence. Not metaphorically, either, but physically, and with sticks.
In Campbell’s memoir If Chins Could Kill, he recounts one of those moments that feels too deranged to be embellished. After a brutal graveyard sequence, he’s sprinting downhill, hits a bad step and twists his ankle hard enough that he goes down for real. Campbell's not “movie hurt,” but feeling actual, lights-out pain. He writes:
