Sam Raimi

Darkman (1990)

Darkman (1990)
Rating: ★★★½
Jan 3, 2000Disfigured Avenging Superhero
Amid the early 1990s spate of dark superhero films, Sam Raimi created one of the few original screen superheroes with Darkman, essentially a superhero film where The Joker (by way of The Phantom of the Opera) is the hero of the piece
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Army of Darkness (1992)

Army of Darkness (1992)
Rating: ★★
Jun 5, 2000Evil Dead Sequel/War with the Dead/Horror Comedy
Sam Raimi and Bruce Campbell make their third Evil Dead film. The series hit a peak with the delirious balance of horror and comedy in the second film but here the comedy over-balances and becomes too broad
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The Hudsucker Proxy (1994)

The Hudsucker Proxy (1994)
Rating: ★★★★
Sep 10, 2001Black Comedy/Divine Intervention
One of the Coen Brothers’ strangest films – imagine a homage to a 1940s Howard Hawks film conducted on giant oversized sets like something out of Brazil with a blacker-than-black sense of humour and angels in the mix
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Darkman III: Die Darkman Die (1996)

Darkman III: Die Darkman Die (1996)
Rating: ★★★
Jun 15, 2008Disfigured Avenging Superhero
This was the second and better of the two video-released sequels to Sam Raimi's Darkman starring Arnold Vosloo in the title role. This adds a much more interestingly complex plot to the mix
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Spider-Man (2002)

Spider-Man (2002)
Rating: ★★½
Jun 20, 2002Comic-Book Superhero
A huge hit and one of the key influences that created the box-office dominance of Marvel Comics in the 2000s/10s. A fine incarnation of the comic-book, Sam Raimi brings it to life with exhilarating web-slinging scenes but overdoes the winsome innocence of Peter Parker
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Spider-Man 2 (2004)

Spider-Man 2 (2004)
Rating: ★★★½
Jul 5, 2004Comic-Book Superhero
Sam Raimi and Tobey Maguire get it just right in the second entry in their trilogy of Spider-Man films. The writing team deliver a fantastic Soul of the Superhero script while Raimi delivers some superheroic action sequences that are about as exciting as it is possible to get (*)
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Spider-Man 3 (2007)

Spider-Man 3 (2007)
Rating: ★★★
May 5, 2007Comic-Book Superhero
Last and by general opinion the least of the Sam Raimi-Tobey Maguire Spider-Man films. With three super-villains present, the plot feels as though it is bursting at the seams juggling the various origin stories and ongoing dramas, although Raimi still delivers some solid superheroic action scenes
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The Possession (2012)

The Possession (2012)
Rating: ★
Aug 31, 2012Occult Box/Possession
Based on the urban legend surrounding a dybbuk box that turned up on an EBay auction, although the film throws this out to conduct an utterly generic possession story. Despite the novelty of drawing on Judaic mythology, the film still trades in the same tired cliches as the Christian exorcism film
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Oz: The Great and Powerful (2013)

Oz: The Great and Powerful (2013)
Rating: ★★★
Mar 8, 2013The Wizard of Oz Prequel
Sam Raimi's prequel to The Wizard of Oz is now; the story of how a conman fools an entire land rather than of an innocent girl just trying to find her way home. The reconceptualisation of Oz comes with a colourful sweep
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Poltergeist (2015)

Poltergeist (2015)
Rating: ★★
May 30, 2015Haunting
It has become an overused phrase in this site's critical arsenal to say "yet another 70s/80s remake that is inferior to the original". The 1982 Poltergeist was one of the great ghost stories of the era; this hits all the beats and with bigger effects but fails to find any of the haunted mood of the original
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Don’t Breathe (2016)

Don’t Breathe (2016)
Rating: ★★
Sep 3, 2016House Breakers Stalked by a Blind Man
This, which is sort of The People Under the Stairs by way of Wait Until Dark, was greeted with terms like ‘an instant classic'. It is a well-oiled machine that produces some undeniable jumps but little remains in memory after it is over
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Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness (2022)

Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness (2022)
Rating: ★★
Jul 1, 2022Marvel Comics Magician Superhero
Doctor Strange was one of the better MCU films. Here Sam Raimi takes over in the director's chair. This readily delves into multiverse themes but requires a major crash course in a plethora of Marvel tv series to follow
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