Bruce Campbell on Death, Dying, and the Evil Dead

I can't be the guy lugging around a chainsaw anymore. by Melissa Locker

“If you live in LA, you get attacked by the spores And the spores come in through your ears, and they lay eggs in your brain, and they make you start thinking that movies with guys with spandex are the only movies that you can make,” Bruce Campbell tells the Mercury.

After years on the inside of Hollywood—first in the Evil Dead franchise and then on many, many seasons of the USA Network spy drama, Burn Notice— Campbell felt ready for something different. He wanted to make a movie, but was tired of all the red tape, budgets, and notes that come with working within the traditional studio system.

“Who needs all those notes?” Campbell asked. “I got tired of that. Really, really tired of that. And I'm like, man, if you're in the arts, you should do everything you can to protect your art.”

So Campbell knew he wanted to make a movie, and he knew he didn’t want to go through the big Hollywood machine.“There was a question that my wife and I would always pose,” he says. “Could you do something where you make it off the grid, and then you distribute it off the grid?”

He’s hoping the answer is yes, because he just wrote, directed, and starred in Ernie & Emma, which was self-financed and so far self-distributed. It was produced with his wife, Ida Gearon, and features Cerina Vincent, Robin McAlpine, Emma Raimi, and Campbell’s longtime colleague Ted Raimi, playing a persnickety dance instructor.

In the film, Campbell plays Ernie, or “the Pear Guy” as he’s called throughout the movie, a former pear pitchman loosely based on the fruit basket legends Harry & David, and culled a little from Campbell’s own life. “I am very used to being a type of guy,” he says. “I'm the Evil Dead guy. He's the Pear Guy.”

The protagonist’s character arc was also partly inspired by Campbell’s father. “My dad was an old ad guy. He was a Detroit Mad Man from the ’50s, ’60s, ’70s, the three martini lunches, all that crap, but he washed out,” Campbell says. “It's sort of a story of a guy, a little bit past his prime, who is sort of gliding along through life, and then stuff happens to him to wake him up. My dad was like that.”

In Ernie & Emma, the adman main character loses his largest client early on, but it’s the death of his wife that spurs him into action—when he is sent on a treasure hunt, of sorts, from beyond the grave. The idea for the movie came straight from Campbell’s head. “I just decided to write it, and it came out pretty quick. It was about two, three months, just banging it out.”

Campbell was thrilled to be able to create something by himself, for himself. “I could write myself a good part,” he says.

The film distribution bit was a little trickier, though, but he knew there were ways around the system. “One of my favorite guys—and I've never seen his movie, Iron Lung —the guy went right to theaters. I love that guy. Never even met him. His movie could suck. And it doesn't matter, 'cause I love what he's doing. And we're just trying to do the same thing,” he says.

Working outside the studio system is freeing in certain ways, but it does make things harder, too, particularly when it comes to film distribution. “We don't have the ability to get 4,000 theaters behind us, but, you know, I'll take 40,” he explains. Campbell hosted the world premiere of Ernie & Emma at the historic Holly Theater in Medford, OR on Valentine’s Day, and has a few more screenings planned, including an already sold-out show at the Hollywood Theater in Portland on April 4.

He had planned a summer of screenings and attending fan conventions, but in a sad twist of fate for a man who spent months writing and making a movie about grief and the ripple effect of a death on a family, Campbell recently announced that he was diagnosed with treatable, but incurable cancer.

He announced the diagnosis on X, “Hi folks, these days, when someone is having a health issue, it’s referred to as an ‘opportunity,’ so let’s go with that – I’m having one of those. It’s also called a type of cancer that’s ‘treatable’ not ‘curable.’ I apologize if that’s a shock – it was to me too.

The message Campbell posted on X.

“The good news is, I’m not gonna go into any more detail. I’m posting this, because professionally, a few things will have to change – appearances and cons and work in general need to take back seat to treatment. My plan is to get as well as I possibly can over the summer so that I can tour with my new movie Ernie & Emma this fall.”

He added, “There are several cons this year summer that I have to cancel. Big regrets on my part. Treatment needs and professional obligations don’t always go hand-in-hand. That’s about it. I’m not trying enlist sympathy – or advice – I just want to get ahead of this information in case false information gets out (which it will). Fear not, I am a tough old son-of-a-bitch and I have great support, so I expect to be around a while. As always, you’re the greatest fans in the world and I hope to see you soon!,” Campbell wrote, signing off with: “Much love.”

Luckily, perhaps due to the nature of his film, Campbell has spent a great deal of time thinking about death and grief. “I think we have got to handle [death and grief] better. We have got to accept it more. We've got to deal with it. We've got to acknowledge it,” he says. “That was going to be the first question I was gonna ask at Q and A's when I go on tours [with the film], ‘how many people here have lost a loved one? Raise your hand.’ You know, everybody has lost someone…Death has a big impact on people.”

As for Campbell, he has given some thought to his own end, too. “If it's over, I want my wife, Ida, to take me to Eastern Oregon, give me a bottle of water, a hat, and a joint, and leave me alone. I just go wander off into the Eastern Oregon desert,” Campbell says.

His love of Oregon is evident in Ernie & Emma, too. In the film, Ernie travels around Southern Oregon scattering Emma’s ashes in meaningful locations, but also giving viewers an eyeful of the Oregon landscape. “I think it's an underutilized state,” he says. “It's just gorgeous. Cascades are really wonderful. The Siskiyous, which I live nearby, are one of the few east-west mountain ranges in the country. Crater Lake, and, Jesus, I mean, it's just on and on and on. The coast of Oregon is scary and spectacular, and I want to make a murder mystery on the Oregon coast. I think that would be really cool. A real dark murder mystery.“

Whether this film is Campbell’s swan song or not, audiences will find a lot to love in Ernie & Emma. It's a quiet, thoughtful, heartwarming film with more than a few laughs: a description that should make it clear that people expecting to see Campbell playing a character like the ones he has played in the past may be disappointed.

“Admittedly, it's a huge pivot from everything that I've done, and I'm good with that,” Campbell explains. “This is a pivot where I want to go. I can't be the guy lugging around a chainsaw anymore.”

Ernie & Emma _screens at Hollywood Theatre, 4122 NE Sandy, Sat April 4, 7 pm, SOLD OUT. _