Bruce Campell is my Valentine

In college my roommate and I were perpetually single and weren’t particularly looking forward to Valentine’s Day. The roomie was the bitter type, and suggested that we protest the day by wearing all black. I thought that was a bit melodramatic, and proposed that we think of some alternative to moping around. We decided a horror movie marathon was a good solution, since it was such an un-Valentine’s Day thing to be doing. After some debate we chose The Evil Dead trilogy, mostly because we had all three movies in our possession. Besides, three seemed like a good number for a marathon.

We had such a good time with the marathon that we decided to repeat the tradition the next year, this time inviting friends to watch the movies with us. The event was a success, and by the third year people were clambering for invitations to “Evil Dead Day”.

In early February of my senior year not long after being unceremoniously dumped by my current boyfriend, I happened to come across bruce-campbell.com, Bruce’s personal website. There was a link to send him e-mail, which he said he always read, but couldn’t always respond to. I spontaneously sent him the following e-mail [I’m paraphrasing, it was six years ago]:

Dear Bruce,

I have been a big fan of yours for the past five years, so much so that I actually went to see McHale’s Navy in the theatre, though I don’t hold that against you. I just wanted to drop you a quick note to tell you about a tradition that has developed at my college over the past three years. Every Valentine’s Day becomes Evil Dead Day, and my friends and I watch you kick Deadite ass rather than eat too much chocolate and feel sorry for ourselves. It’s a lot of fun, and I want to thank you for your part in helping us to get through what would otherwise be a truly crappy holiday.

~Jaime

I’m flaky, so I forgot about the e-mail as soon as I sent it, and was therefore shocked to receive the following reply, on Evil Dead Eve, no less [I’m quoting exactly, I remember every word]:

Thanks for the kooky note and Happy Evil Dead Day.

Best,
Bruce

A belated sense of dignity prevents me from describing my response to this e-mail in detail, but sufficed to say I was excited.

I still celebrate Evil Dead Day, lo these many years later. I’ve actually (!) had a boyfriend for the last three V-Days now, but I don’t want to be a hypocrite and also, the holiday is still lame. Besides, I wouldn’t want to be unfaithful to Brucey.