Once upon a time Sam Raimi wasn't the boring, franchise-friendly director on display in those anemic "Spiderman" movies. No, Raimi started out as a wild man of excess; his debut film, 1984's "The Evil Dead," was a slavering undead movie that went far, far beyond all previous limits of taste or imagination.

Having hit us with one of the most disturbing and terrifying films ever made, Raimi followed it up with the even crazier "Evil Dead 2" (1987), which starts out looking like it will be even scarier before suddenly morphing into an outrageous parody of itself. By the third installment, the amazingly under-rated "Army of Darkness" (1992), Raimi had perfected his signature style of Three Stooges slapstick mixed with sick, sick, sick cartoon splatter.

Mid-career saw the director as journeyman: Raimi turned in arch, comic-book pastiche with a superhero no one had ever heard of in "Darkman" (1990), and a hyper-Western romp in "The Quick and The Dead" (1995); he tried his hand at more traditional suspense with "A Simple Plan" (1998, excellent) and "The Gift" (2000, less so), and even helmed a Kevin Costner baseball flick ("For Love of the Game," 1999). Then along came "Spiderman," mass success, and the utter dilution of all that made Raimi interesting.