The East Lansing Film Festival is back for one final iteration this weekend, and the headline film showing Thursday night comes from Michigan native and actor Bruce Campbell, best known for his roles in the "Evil Dead" series and the show, "Burn Notice."
Campbell wrote, directed and stars in "Ernie & Emma" which is described as "a Hallmark movie with booze, swearing, Bigfoot and drugs." It follows a widower named Ernie who's sent on an unexpected journey by his late wife to spread her ashes to places important to their lives and relationship.
Campbell says he started the project as a return to truly independent cinema, outside of the studio system. He says it's not something he's done since the original "The Evil Dead" which came out in 1981.
"I just didn't like how [studios] do business. It's not about them being evil and and independent filmmakers are good. It's just that they have a business model that they've followed for 125 years, and they don't want to listen to me or anybody else," he said.
Campbell jokingly calls the experience of working on this film "ruinous" because he's realized how freeing it is to make movies his way.
"People are shocked that I turn things down, but I turn things down all the time because I go, I'm not excited enough about this part to be on somebody else's film set, and I make movies how I want to make them."
Campbell and his crew shot the movie in less than a month, spending a day in each location, with a different actor most days. His primary scene partner throughout the movie is the urn carrying his wife's ashes.
"It was awesome. They're never late. They never talk back," he joked about the urn. "The original challenge came from I just wanted to make a movie off the grid, just from scratch, my own stuff. And I thought, can you do a whole movie with one character?"
Campbell pulled inspiration from his own life when writing the script for "Ernie & Emma." His father, a Detroit ad man, lost his job at 50, causing him to reevaluate where he thought he'd be. Campbell also says he'd be lost, like the main character, if his wife died before him.
"I'm in my golden years, anyone my age has has known heartache, disappointment, illness, setbacks, marriages that fall apart, jobs that fall apart. You know, and so, I'm sympathetic with that."
He also reckons with his own legacy. Ernie is well-known in his community for being the face of a pear business. Characters frequently call him out as "The Pear Guy" in town, to Ernie's exasperation. Campbell says despite his numerous projects, he'll probably be known as the "Evil Dead Guy" for rest of his life and beyond.
"It's gonna be my tombstone, Bruce Campbell, the 'Evil Dead Guy.'"
Campbell has been taking the film around the country in a tour with the Alamo Drafthouse chain. His plan is to continue to bring it to theaters until he can get a good deal for wider distribution, either streaming or theatrical, but he says the work is enjoyable.
"It's been really fun, but the end is unknown, and I don't mind that because I got nothing to do right now, but sell this movie for multiple years," Campbell said.
"Ernie & Emma" screens at the East Lansing Film Festival Thursday, October 22 at 7:00 p.m. Doors open at 6:15.
Interview Transcript
Sophia Saliby: With Inside the Arts, I'm Sophia Saliby.
The East Lansing Film Festival is back for one final iteration this weekend, and the headline film showing tonight comes from Michigan native and actor Bruce Campbell, best known for his roles in the "Evil Dead" series and the show, "Burn Notice."
Campbell wrote, directed and stars in "Ernie & Emma" which is described as "a Hallmark movie with booze, swearing, Bigfoot and drugs." And having seen it, I can confirm that's all in there!
Bruce Campbell joins me now in studio to talk about the movie. Thank you for being here.
Bruce Campbell: Campbell: Thanks for having me. It's always fun to get back to Michigan.
Saliby: Yeah, I was going to ask, has it been a while? Campbell: I get here, easily every couple years, I get back. I have two crazy brothers who still live here, so I still have a reason to come back. And plus, I like Michigan. Saliby: And you have some Michigan State connections. You went to Western, but—
Campbell: I went to Western, which at the time called it "Waste-ern." This was the fall of 1976. My brother went to MSU. My mother went to MSU. Sam Raimi went to MSU. So, I do have a connection. We came up here to shoot a couple of Sam's movies when he was attending here briefly. I don't think he graduated from MSU.
Saliby: I was trying to look on Wikipedia, and it just said he went to MSU.
Campbell: I think it was about two years, and then he bailed.
Saliby: So, do you have any strong memories of campus, just shooting stuff?
Campbell: Yes, it was freezing in the dead of winter, we were shooting one of his movies called "The Happy Valley Kid," and for some reason, we shot only in the winter outside, and it was a classic Michigan winter, which was just people shouldn't be filming. You should be, you know, cutting holes in ice and fishing, and you know, it's a silly thing. But that's Michigan. We didn't care.
Saliby: Yeah, I think if you grow up here, it is kind of just standard.
Campbell: It's good toboggan weather.
Saliby: So, you're most known for acting, but you've directed features a few times.
Campbell: Sure.
Saliby: Why was now the right time to lead another project?
Campbell: Because I wanted to make one that was completely, completely independent. Whereas I'm not putting my, I'm not putting my fate in anybody else's hands. Just me and my wife. We decided to put the money up ourselves, so that, I was thinking of this today as a matter of fact, this is an independent, right? This is an indie. It's a independent movie.
When you work for the studios, they should really call that a dependent movie, because you are dependent on them. And I just didn't like how they do business. It's not about them being evil and and independent filmmakers are good. It's just that they have a business model that they've followed for 125 years, and they don't want to listen to me or anybody else. "If I gave you this money, you're going to kind of do what we need you to do." And, I got tired of that after decades and decades.
The only other movie I've ever, ever worked on that had this much freedom was the original "Evil Dead," because we got money from dentists and doctors and lawyers, and the paperwork said they couldn't have any creative input, so that was it.
Ever since then, our second movie was a studio. First thing they did was oust me from the lead guy. They recut the movie. They retitled the movie. I'm like, this is this is Hollywood? You know, I can't wait to get out of this.
Saliby: So, what was this experience like putting together an independent film when you haven't really been in that fully free creative space for for decades?
Campbell: Ruinous. [laughs] Because why do you want to go back? Why would you go back? Why would I go back? People are shocked that I turn things down, but I turn things down all the time because I go, I'm not excited enough about this part to be on somebody else's film set, and I make movies how I want to make them.
You know, I don't really make them like how other people make them. I like shooting Russian style, for example.
Saliby: And what is Russian style? Campbell: Yeah, I'm glad you asked. Reverse, you shoot the close-up first. Saliby: Oh, okay.
Campbell: Usually they'd film the whole room here first.
Saliby: Yeah.
Campbell: You and me talking, they'd see everything. Then they come in closer, just the two of us. Then they'd go maybe over my shoulder to you, then you to me. Then they'd end with the close-up.
Saliby: Yeah. Campbell: Right when your performance is already done half a dozen times or more, and your makeup is melting off your face.
Saliby: I see. I see.
Campbell: Let's get it while we're fresh, man. And you only have to light this much. I could say to the cameraman, you don't have to light the whole room. Just light this much, and then we'll move back, light a little more, and move back. So, I enjoyed doing things like that.
Saliby: And I want to get into the film now.
Campbell: Yeah.
Saliby: "Ernie & Emma" is about a recent widower who goes on a journey to spread his late wife's ashes to important places to their lives and relationship. Where did the idea for this movie come from?
Campbell: The air, you know, where all movies where ideas come from. But look, I'm influenced by now that I'm in my golden years, anyone my age has has known heartache, disappointment, illness, setbacks, marriages that fall apart, jobs that fall apart. You know, and so, I'm sympathetic with that.
I watched my dad. It was a Detroit ad man, '50s, '60s, '70s, even into the 80s, he lost an account. He had the Marathon Oil account, which is a regional gas station or, you know, gas oil company. He lost it and he got fired, and he was 50. And a 50-year-old ad guy is like a 50-year-old gymnast. They're not looking for you, you know. I got to watch the panic in my dad's eyes because he thought he would just be a swingin' ad guy for his whole adult career, and so I had a lot of sympathy for that.
I've also seen this is, you know, the metaphors run deep in here that Ernie Tyler's a pear guy. Where I live in southern Oregon, Harry & David, that's the headquarters, and it's volcanic soil, beautiful place to grow stuff. But the pears are being pushed out by wine and weed.
Saliby: I was going to ask why pears? Because your character is a former pear guy.
Campbell: That's right, because no one's ever done a story about a pear salesman, you know? Why not? Because that's where I actually live, and when you drive around, yeah, there's a lot of pears. This whole valley.
Saliby: I didn't think about that. I guess I haven't been Oregon.
Campbell: Well, write what you know, write what you see, and you know, they don't make movies there, so no one has seen my valley. No one has seen, and I want to share it. I want to share that part of Oregon. The state of Oregon owes me money, man. I'm telling you, we made it look so good because when you put up your own money, you don't have to shoot in some other country at some other weird time because of an air date.
A lot of times they have to make these big movies because they have a theater date of May 5th. Well, you better get going, even if your script is not ready. So, we could plan, shoot it where it should be, at the exact best month of the year, and it's June for us.
Saliby: I've never seen Oregon so sunny. I was very surprised.
Campbell: You know we didn't fake any of that. It's just when you get to the summer, it's sunny there, but we got poofy clouds a lot too, you know. It's pretty. I tell people don't come though. It's like Nevada. We made it look good.
Saliby: Got it. Would you say some of your dad is in this performance then?
Campbell: 100% There's a lot of me in it. Look, this guy's "The Pear Guy." I'm the "Evil Dead Guy." It's gonna be my tombstone, Bruce Campbell, the "Evil Dead Guy." You know, I've done a French film for God's sake, but you know no, you're the "Evil Dead Guy." I've done a Western series, or Autolycus, the King of Thieves. You know I'm Bubba Ho-Tep, but no, I'm the "Evil Dead Guy."
So you know, and which is fine, I'm okay with that. So, but I can sympathize with that. The guy's got it on his license plate, Pear Guy.
Saliby: I see. This is all making more sense. More people should see the movie after listening to this conversation.
Campbell: Yeah.
Saliby: So, a lot of this movie is about grief, but it's also quite funny, and there's a lot of comedic moments.
How do you kind of strike that balance where it's about a sad thing, but it's about kind of the good parts of the sad thing?
Campbell: Well, I blame it on his wife. Like she's gonna drag him through a little bit first. So, like, dude, you gotta deal with some stuff. Like, you know, they lost a son in high school in a car crash, so he's never been back, and he was not going to go back until she said, "You've got to spread my ashes around that." They planted a tree at the crash site, and he's like, "Oh my God!" He just doesn't want to confront stuff.
He's like, he's me too. I mean, that Ernie is me so much. My wife got hit by a bus; that'd be a huge problem for me. I mean, recycling does it go out Thursday night, Wednesday night? Is it every other, you know, that sort of deal? What was the plumber's name? If I go, she would go, you know, I kind of miss that guy, you know, his old stale jokes. But she's got the information.
In our house, she is La Patrona. She's the boss, and she knows where all the bodies are buried. So you know, it's easy to make fun of yourself when I can hide under a character, but it's basically me.
Saliby: There you go. You're often acting opposite an urn. That's kind of your scene partner for a lot of the movie. Was that a difficult co-star?
Campbell: No, it was awesome. They're never late. They never talk back. No. The original challenge came from I just wanted to make a movie off the grid, just from scratch, my own stuff. And I thought, can you do a whole movie with one character? So that was the idea: guy burying his, you know, wife, spreading her ashes. You could do that as a singular person, but then it's what a monologue at each place. What do you do?
You know, so by introducing these simple little characters, and each actor only worked for a day, we did 27 locations. I think in 27 days, and it was really fun. It was very fresh. Every day was fresh in a whole new location, and we were done. We never came back to a location a second time.
Saliby: And I have another kind of fun question: What have you learned about best practices for spreading ashes? Because this comes up in the film as like, what are the right ways to do it and wrong ways to do it?
Campbell: A rig is pretty good. His wife draws a diagram. You know, you like to tinker. She knows him, so try this because you might have to spread some of the ashes in a discreet fashion, like at the hospital and stuff, so I think it's very practical.
I would recommend a rig for anybody who needs to kind of do things discreetly. It's a little backpack. Everyone wears a backpack today, you know. Run the tube down your leg, you're ready to go.
Saliby: So that's the endorsed plan. As we've talked about independent filmmaking, this film also doesn't have regular distribution. You've been taking it around the country for screenings and and film festivals. Yeah. What has the response been, and what has the response been to doing it in this way?
Campbell: Doing it this way, your future is never assured. But you know, the good news is, if you've been around for a little bit, I was able to call, get a hold of buddy of mine, Tim League, who is sort of the founder emeritus of Alamo Drafthouse, which is a very user-friendly chain of cinemas. They like alternative stuff. They show the mainstream stuff, but beer, pizza, gin and tonic while you're watching the movie, full meal, kick back in the barcalounger. They were some of the first to do that, beer and pizza while you watch the movie. Someone brings it right to you, you know.
And I just liked how sympathetic they were. I showed a lot of "Evil Dead" movies there, and and so I said, "Tim, you're about the only chain I know to go to that would give a rat's ass about a movie like this. So, I don't want to show it to you. You have bookers now. You're a big multi-city, you know, chain. Can I go to Austin and screen it in a theater, not a not a Vimeo link?" You know, not while you're watching it on your way to work. So, I showed it to the bookers, and I said, if you book this for one week in each market, I'll go to each market and I'll introduce the movie. And so, they foolishly said yes.
But so, it's been fun because it's a good match. It's a quirky movie in a quirky chain. And now the trick, I think, is to interestingly enough, Sony purchased the chain a few years ago. Are you listening, Sony?
Saliby: Sony's definitely listening to WKAR.
Campbell: Oh yeah. Just like they're watching our movie. I don't think they don't even know that we're in their movie chain. So, we're gonna finish this run and see what happens. I'll go back on the road. You know, if I have to do be Mike Love from the Beach Boys, 200 gigs a year. Okay.
Saliby: And is the goal for it to be available online or just?
Campbell: The goal is for it to be available everywhere in the entire world. So, the theory is though, you really want to start in theaters. That's still the apex of the whole thing, and then you don't go to streamers right now; they will disrespect you. "You haven't done anything. Why should I take your movie? You know, okay, Bruce Campbell, yeah, whatever." But if you can come back to them and say, "I've been in X amount of theatrical markets, and I've been overseas in this thing."
And what's nice by traveling and showing the movie, you know, we get reviews, so we don't have to go to film festivals. We'll go to the reviewer, you know, or whatever. So, it's been really fun, but the end is unknown, and I don't mind that because I got nothing to do right now, but sell this movie for multiple years.
Saliby: Well, we're at the end of our conversation. I wanted to end with talking about the film festival, the East Lansing Film Festival.
Campbell: Yes.
Saliby: You've brought films here before. This festival is ending this year. I'm sure you know that.
Campbell: Yeah. Bittersweet.
Saliby: What does this say about the changing environment for filmmakers, especially independent ones, you know, kind of burgeoning filmmakers that this might be their first time getting a short out there. Is that kind of a small scale festival like this?
Campbell: There are more festivals, so this is bittersweet. But it probably helped other festivals become festivals. So, I think if it's done, it's done its purpose. It may morph into something else.
The good news is there's places to show your stuff, and there's ways to show your stuff. Whether it's online, your own YouTube channel. You know, I shake my fist, un my day, we didn't have that way to get out to people. So filmmakers, you still need the drive. And you still need a story, but it's easier now.
Saliby: Bruce Campbell is the director and star of the film "Ernie & Emma." You can catch it at the East Lansing Film Festival tonight at the Hannah Community Center. Thank you for joining me, Bruce.
Campbell: Thank you for having me back in wonderful Michigan.
This conversation has been edited for clarity and conciseness.
