This piece was written during the 2023 WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes. Without the labour of the writers and actors currently on strike, the movie being covered here wouldn't exist.
Ted Raimi is a staple in genre cinema, from his frequent appearances in the Evil Dead franchise to starring roles in Xena: Warrior Princess, Twin Peaks, Skinner, Shocker, Candyman, Crimewave, and many more across four decades.
Now, the actor is back in the big screen with Alex Kahuam in Failure! a tense crime thriller shot in one, impressive, 87-minute take. With its world premiere taking place at this year's FrightFest, the film sees Raimi step out of his comfort zone and take on the lead role. Speaking to FILMHOUNDS, he let us in on how the cast and crew prepared for the mammoth shooting of the film and why horror is so beloved to him.
You play James in Failure! What was it that attracted you to the role?
I had worked with Alex [Kahuam, director] before and I found him to be a very engaging, smart, and interesting director. And then my old friend and co-producer Marco De Molina had a script that he had gotten from Alex, and he said, “Look, you know, I'm making a movie with Alex, and I think you should star in it.” I was rather reluctant at first because I hadn't starred in a movie for probably 30 years. I was a character actor, where you just go from smaller part to smaller part, so I was nervous and a little reluctant about taking a leading role. But when I read the script, I thought, “No, this is great,” and I wanted to do it. What I then learned, though, was that it was gonna be done in one take.
As you say, the film is shot in one, huge, 87-minute take. What is that like and how do you prepare for that sort of scene?
It's like a play. We shot a three-act, no intermission play, that's almost an hour and a half long. And the same rules as doing it in theatre apply to this film, which is that you can't eff up. And if you do, you have to get yourself out of it just like a play, which means you cannot rely on the director once he says action. The same as a play, when the curtain goes up, it's up to those actors to entertain the audience. When we would stumble, the other actors serve to help us and you help them too. There are a thousand little moments like that where you don't see it. I've had secret props put in my hand that I forgot to pick up 30 minutes ago.
I read that your career began in theatre and that for a time you worked exclusively on the stage, did you find performing in this a similar experience?
If I hadn't done theatre training, I may not have been able to do [the film]. People with classic theatrical skills learn sustainability. They are able to focus for an hour and a half without a break and that's something that takes a while to develop. The second thing is they know how to improv. Some actors are okay with it, and then others are not able to pick it up. I've had a great deal of experience doing it. So when I stumbled, and I did, I was able to pick myself up.
You're also a producer on the film. How did you go at balancing your responsibilities of acting and producing?
It was busy, but the primary producer duties were done by our producer Marco, and our executive producer Roza Marchenko. So I was relieved of those duties while we were shooting. In fact, in any movie where you see a hyphenated job, that person is not doing those roles at the same time, there's no way you can do it. It's too much concentration, it's impossible. Even Clint Eastwood or the likes, set up their shots but then when they're walking on camera, they're just an actor.
This film is somewhat different from some of your more dark and morbid roles in that it leans more on the drama and crime element. What was that shift in tone like?
It made me very nervous. My fans know me as a horror actor. People gravitate toward that and, of course, we all tend to do better in the things we love. The second is more apprehension because I haven't starred in a picture for about 30 years. I never wanted to do a starring role in a picture primarily because it didn't appeal to me. The star is a reactor, they react to what the instigators do. And I find that very boring and found a great deal more excitement in being the instigator. That's why I became primarily a character actor, I get to be that shooting, killing, cutting, crazy guy. For all those reasons I felt nervous.
It does have a lot of violence in it though which is pretty brutal. How did you choreograph that and achieve the practical effects when you didn't have the benefit of cuts between scenes?
With the effects, it's done exactly like you would on a stage. If there's a punch, and blood splatters out of a person's mouth or nose, it's a blood packet. If there's brutal beating and there are bruises, the moment that actor turns away and the cameras on the other person, there's a makeup artist doing the bruise. It's all classic trickery that is quite literally thousands of years old.
There's another aspect of doing practical effects over digital ones, which we certainly could have done and they're incredibly cheap to do. But no matter how good they are, there's always something in the back of the audience's minds that knows that that isn't real. It's in little things like the way that blood may trickle out of your mouth, but it's there. Practical effects add to the intensity of the picture.
Horror is really enjoying a moment right now with so many wildly successful releases and you of course have had a lot of roles in the genre, from Evil Dead II's Henrietta to Travis Hackett in 2022 video game The Quarry – what is it that attracts you to horror?
I love horror, simply. I started looking at it this way – we've all been given a very short loan on this Earth, not a big long lease of life, and horror to me is this rehearsal for the inevitable moment that none of us want. But when you kind of get it out, things are much better. It's like when psychologists or psychiatrists, should you have the fortune to be able to speak to one if you need one, tell you to write a letter out to the person that you're angry with. And horror to me is that but with death. And I feel much better when I'm doing it. We're quite fragile creatures, so when I play characters that are violent, it's sort of relief.
Another reason I love it so much is I grew up with it. It was just in my house a lot, and when I couldn't watch it because something was too violent, I'd listen to something. In the 1970s, the American Broadcasting Company, CBS decided they would get back a lot of their radio listeners who were listening to radio dramas. So they created a new, weekly radio drama called the CBS Radio Mystery Theatre. And the stories were so scary, and so thrilling, that I would stay up late and listen to it. And I thought to myself, “This is what I want to do. With regard to your comment about it being so popular now, when I began it was not like that at all. In fact, as I often mentioned to people, it was only a tiny bit better than doing porn as far as producers were concerned. They would say, “Well, I guess he's not doing a commercial in Poughkeepsie” or “I guess he's not doing a denture commercial.” You were better off not doing it at all. However, I loved the genre and I didn't care what it did to my resume. Because of that and my enthusiasm, I was able to read for guys like Wes Craven, Tobe Hooper, John Carpenter, and George Romero. All these guys were available to you if you wanted to read for them. It's funny if you look back, for example, at A Nightmare on Elm Street. They're all nobodies who star, and that's for a reason because nobody wanted horror and it was low budget. Now, the same film would have major stars with Bradley Cooper probably playing Freddie. I would tell any other actor to not to worry about what's popular. Just do what's in your heart, and it'll probably turn out okay.
Failure! had its world premiere at FrightFest 2o23 on August 28. Ted's promotional appearance is possible because of the non-studio and non-streaming provision for feature films as outlined by SAG.
