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:
… after filming yet another vicious graveyard encounter, I ran down a steep hill, rejoicing that we had finished the scene. On the way down, my foot caught a root and my ankle turned in a direction that was diametrically opposed to the way I was going. I hit the ground, curled up in pain. Sam and Rob thought this was particularly hilarious, and prodded me to get off my ass—there was more to shoot. I managed to get to my feet, but that was about it. Next thing I knew, Sam had a pretty good-sized stick.
Raimi and Rob Tapert allegedly decided this was the perfect time to turn his injury into a low-budget anthropology experiment. The Bubba Ho-Tep star continues:
What the hell is he gonna do with that? I thought. Then Rob appeared with one of his own. They circled me, like Amazon tribesman around a downed animal and began poking my ankle. I couldn’t help but laugh at the insanity of it all. This misinterpreted angst only spurred them on and I was soon huddled in the corner of a back room begging—no pleading—for them to stop.
Campbell’s account is wild enough on its own, but the cherry on top is that the limp you see on camera afterward is not performance. It’s the real injury, captured in the middle of a shoot that apparently had no concept of “light duty.”
That story also reframes Ash’s whole vibe in The Evil Dead. He isn’t just terrified, he’s physically compromised, constantly off-balance and trying to survive the night while his body is actively filing complaints. It adds a grim little authenticity to the chaos, like the film is running on pure adrenaline and spite.
And the ankle incident wasn’t the only indignity Campbell endured for the cause. If the woods didn’t get him, the blood certainly tried. The Black Friday actor also describes being the primary target of the movie’s sticky, syrupy gore, getting soaked so frequently that it dried on him like “the inbred cousin of Super Glue.” Anyone who’s ever gotten pancake syrup on their hands knows exactly how cursed that must have felt. Now imagine that syrup is tinted, slathered, repeatedly reapplied, and left to crust while you’re being tossed around a cabin set like a ragdoll with a leading man credit.
This is the part where you realize The Evil Dead didn’t just create a horror icon, but thanks to shenanigans on set, it forged one. Campbell’s suffering becomes part of the film’s texture, the same way the frantic camera moves and breakneck momentum do. It’s scrappy filmmaking with a best-friends-and-bruises ethos, and somehow it turned into a classic.
Is the longtime Ash performer's story horrifying? Absolutely. Weirdly hilarious? Also yes, mostly because Bruce Campbell lived to tell the tale and recounts it with that wincing charm that makes you laugh even as you swear you’d never agree to “just one more take” in the woods.
If you want to revisit his war stories in action, The Evil Dead is one of the best movies streaming for free right now. And if you’d rather jump to the most recent theatrical chapter, Evil Dead Rise is available to anyone with an HBO Max subscription.
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