Hail to the king, baby!

B-rated movies Movies hold a particularly special place in my heart, and books about B movies might be the source of even more enjoyment. Stories about how the great low-budget masterpieces get thrown together by a few seemingly insane, obsessed filmmakers on a few bucks and a lucky break or two are dependably enjoyable down the line. The memoirs of Bruce Campbell, the icon of modern independent horror movies from the Evil Dead trilogy, are no exception. The book is almost up there with the impossibly great autobiographies of Roger Corman and William Castle, and such essential interview books as Filmmaking On The Fringe (featuring more than one of Bruce's directors) - which, coming from me, is no small praise.

Bruce Campbell is one of a group of seven or eight enthusiastic young filmmakers, including the Raimi brothers and producer/director Josh Becker, which started making 8-mm movies in junior high and high school and worked their way up to the bigs with their first feature, helmed by Sam Raimi and starring Bruce - The Evil Dead. Begun when they were both 20 years old and finished four rocky years later, the film proved to be one of the best horror films of the '80s (surpassed, perhaps, only by its slightly larger-budgeted sequel), and one of the most exciting debut films of any kind in recent memory.

The Evil Dead formula, consisting of a Three Stooges approach (all of them are very vocal Stooges fans) to seriously scary material, fit Bruce perfectly. His mix of cartoonish mugging and everyman charm made him an immediate celebrity among horror-film buffs, a celebrity that would only continue to grow as he starred in the two sequels (the third being Army of Darkness). As he recounts in his book, however, the whole time he was scraping every penny together, working as a security guard between acting jobs, and praying for any kind of opportunity to come along.

Anyone who has listened to his DVD commentaries knows that Bruce is a great storyteller. Hearing or listening to him explain the perverse delight Sam Raimi would get out of causing him, as a character and an actor, as much pain and discomfort as possible is almost as enjoyable as watching the movies themselves for the first time. The book peters out a little after he reaches the end of his B-movie horror film days, but he's always fun to read, or listen to.

With the self-important turn independent movies have taken in the past decade, the art of great B-moviemaking has almost disappeared. This book is an ode to the kind of excitement that can only come from a small band of movie-obsessed friends taking a crazy step into a world of budgets, agents and distribution deals, all the while devoting every ounce of energy to their goal of making a film. That enthusiasm is what sets Bruce's movies apart from other low-budget movies, and it's still evident in his writing. Bruce Campbell loves what he does, and that's always fun to read about.

Bruce Campbell reads from and signs If Chins Could Kill: Confessions of a B-Movie Actor at 7 p.m. on Wednesday, July 11 at the University Book Store.