The Gift (2001)

Sam Raimi knows how to scare people. With the Evil Dead trilogy, his name became a byword for pure pulp horror: slicing, dicing, stabbing, gushing, oozing, bursting... Raimi's ghouls were the Three Stooges run amok. Since then, Raimi has slowly slipped into the mainstream with mixed results. High point: the taut, Fargo-style thriller A Simple Plan. Low point: the Kevin Costner baseball vehicle For Love Of The Game, which had even his most hardcore fans throwing up. Coming so soon after this, The Gift poses some questions. Is it an attempt by Raimi to get back to his genre roots and round up the old fans while they'll still forgive him? Or is he trying to infiltrate the mainstream with something he's more comfortable with?

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