My Name Is Bruce (2007)
There aren't a lot of horror comedies I can openly admit to really enjoying but very few can truly resist the charm of quite possibly the best B-actor to walk the face of the planet - Bruce Campbell. Honestly if you haven't seen the other major films Bruce has been in (The Evil Dead series) you may not yet be ready to watch this one. This film not only gives us Bruce in the starring role but also is directed by the man, the myth, the legend - Bruce Campbell. Yes he has learned the art of multitasking on this one and could only be better if it was written by none other than... Mark Verheiden. OK Bruce can do quite a bit but he doesn't do everything under the sun. Mark Verheiden has mainly written television shows until this point (aside from a small 90's comedy known as The Mask) but did such a great job Bruce signed him up for his next epic battle - Bruce Vs. Frankenstein. I for one after seeing My Name Is Bruce cannot wait for the next film they do together and with a title like that you know comedy gold will be in the works.
At any rate in this film Bruce Campbell plays – himself. Yes a run down B-Actor who is doing film after film of horrible movies with nowhere to go in life and running out of friends and jobs. Meanwhile in a small hillbilly town an ancient evil, Guan-Di (the Chinese God of War, protector of the dead, and bean curd) has been awakened and is terrorizing the countryside. No one is quite sure what to do but one of the town’s inhabitants, Jeff (Taylor Sharpe), is a huge fan (stalker) of Bruce and believes that he is the only man capable of saving the town from the curse that has befallen it. Anyone who has been able to live through so many B-Movies has to know how to handle a real life situation of the same magnitude, right?
To get Bruce out there he kidnaps him and due to an entertaining set of circumstances (and Bruce being Bruce) he quickly believes that he is actually being hired to star in a new movie, not save a town from a monster that is real. We are introduced to the boy’s mother where a love interest blooms between Bruce and Kelly Grahm (Grace Thorsen,) at least in Bruce’s mind this is happening. When he realizes that the demon is actually real he responds in true Bruce fashion – he runs away as far and fast as he can.
Bruce never fails to delivery on entertainment. He has B-Movie campiness down to an art form and can fuse this talent into any genre. Gladly he has chosen to mix it with horror as it is non-stop laughs in a very twisted and self loathing kind of way. The movie also gets bonus points for casting Ted Raimi (Sam Raimi’s brother) in 3 separate rolls within the film, each one of them more entertaining than the last. You really do need to have an interesting sense of humor to be able to enjoy such an abundant source of B movie madness.
