"Believe it or not, I am more pigeonholed by fans than within my own industry." Bruce Campbell has taken time out of his visit to New York Comic-Con to speak with me about "Hysteria!," presumably the main reason he's there. Then again, Campbell is one of those guys who can never attend such events without people greeting him with an Ash Williams signature line from their favorite "Evil Dead" movie.

"Hail to the King, baby" has to be a popular one, although I don't confirm that — one senses he's asked such questions a lot. Although Campbell will always be recognized as his demon-hunting hero, he has an impressively varied filmography.

"I've done a French film," he said, referring to his role in a 1998 comedy called "The Ice Rink." "I've done a spy show for seven years" — that would be "Burn Notice," the top action treat of USA Network's Blue Skies era. Then he mentions Autolycus, the King of Thieves from "Xena: Warrior Princess." He does not mention his starring role in the much-adored '90s cult hit, "The Adventures of Brisco County, Jr." or his recurring role on "Ellen," or his cameos in several Coen Brothers films. That's fine since the titles he offers are sufficient to make his point. "I've run the gamut," Campbell said, "but fans identify you with what they watch."

Anna Camp as Tracy Whitehead in "Hysteria" (Daniel Delgado/PEACOCK)Since "Hysteria!" takes place during the Satanic Panic of the mid-to-late '80s, that's not necessarily a bad thing. One might think of it as a hero's return to the story that made Campbell a Gen X icon  — the possession tale. "Hysteria!" presents him as a sensible small-town lawman. As Chief Dandridge, Campbell plays it straight as the top cop in the fictional Michigan hamlet of Happy Hollow. Everything's groovy until a series of bizarre occurrences, ranging from an inexplicable and highly contagious rash to what looks like a full-blown possession case, coincide with a local garage band rebranding themselves as Satanic rockers.

Most of the local teens embrace their classmates' theatrics as an act of rebellion. But a couple of concerned mothers (played by Julie Bowen and Anna Camp) fear the band's music has opened a gateway to Hell. The truth is more ambiguous, because when is it not?

This being spooky season, I took the opportunity to revisit Campbell's first best-seller, 2001's "If Chins Could Kill: Confessions of a B-Movie Actor" which is simultaneously a career biography and a how-to manual for making the "Evil Dead" films, movies that went on to influence horror directors over many decades, including Peter Jackson. 

So lest that remark about his fans' limited view of him be read as anything other than happy acceptance, Campbell assured me, "It's always good. Look, I'm from Detroit. They used to introduce job rotation to keep the workers on the line interested . . . And I like the rotation — a little, writing, a little acting, a little producing." 

An apt set-up for our wide-ranging conversation, which traveled between the then and now of horror filmmaking, a surprising bit of KISS dish, sage advice for aspiring filmmakers and a proposal for the most successful holiday entertainment assembly line on TV.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Recognizing that you've been in many things over the years, including “Burn Notice,” I wonder if there were any elements in the making of “Hysteria!” that you recognized from the back-in-the-day “Evil Dead” horror era.

Compared to the old days? Yeah, there's a lot of similarities. When you make horror stuff, you shoot at night a lot, which is always a drag. And you're always going to get fog. The way they make fog, they just do that differently now…Now it's non-toxic. In our day it was oil-based, and you had just two idiots running around with these foggers in the woods, crisscrossing each other, trying to pay attention to the movement of the breezes of the night, as that would change sometimes. … But some things don't change when you do scary stuff, like darkness and smoke.

Is there anything that you miss about the old way versus the way it’s done now? Because a lot of the effects are digitally rendered too.

Well, some stuff is still tricky to do digitally. They haven't quite figured out digital blood yet. It looks too opaque and it moves strangely. But I long for small, efficient crews. I always have. I made a movie in June with a teeny, tiny crew of friends and family, and, man, there's nothing like it because you move faster than anybody . . .  It is funny how you can make a movie with fewer people.

I think a lot of people are doing that now by using their phones.

I just did a panel at the Ashland Independent Film Festival on the status of indie filmmaking. And the answer is, "Pull your phone out of your pocket and make a movie. What the hell are you waiting for?" You don't need a Sony camera. Get your smartphone out there and use existing light. It looks fine. Every new phone that comes out makes you closer to being Steven Spielberg. I was half tempted with the movie I did a few months ago to really just go, “You know what? Forget it. Let's just use phones. Let's be done with this baloney.”

Bringing this back to “Hysteria!”: Besides the filmmaking aspect, what was it about this story that drew you in?

I like the time period. The ‘80s were weird! I'm from Michigan, you know, so it wasn't a big stretch there, rural Michigan. So I know the mentality. I know those cops. You know, it's all pretty slow, and nothing happens in those towns ever. You have bored farm kids racing from stoplight to stoplight in town, and that's pretty much the end of the story. So it's a good setting, I thought, to put a pandemic. You don't put it in New York City, where they have crises happening on a daily basis. Put in a small town where nothing happens and the police are not really tested.

. . . But what I found most interesting was the writing. I've been a part of lousy scripts over the years, and as an actor, you learn what a lousy script is. So I like the approach that they took as far as the characters. This is a 100% character-based show. Sure, it's horror, it's a little weirdness, and the demonic aspects are pretty cool and creepy. But it's about families dealing with this. And my character, he's not one-dimensional. He’s a small-town cop in the way you think they should be. So I liked all of those dynamics.

Around the same time as the actual Satanic Panic was when you, Sam Raimi and Rob Tapert made “The Evil Dead,” and you were in the process of getting your film career launched. Do you recall whether that movie got swept up in it?

“Evil Dead” got banned. I was just reminded of that yesterday at a panel. It was labeled in the UK as a "video nasty" and was banned from distribution because it was considered just . . . nasty.

I love how the English system works. It just cracked me up. So, “Evil Dead II” [which came out in 1987] was a really crazy movie. The only thing the English censors cut is when Ash is unconscious on the floor, and a redneck guy comes up, and he blames Ash for some bad stuff . . . and boom, he kicks Ash in the face. But Ash was unconscious. So [Campbell adopts a British accent] – “No! You can't kick a man while he's down. That's just not proper.”

Out of the whole movie, that's the only thing they cared about. I'm like, “Wow, you can't predict these people. This is ridiculous.”  So we won the case, and there was such publicity about these video nasties.  . . . Germany just unbanned it a few years ago, which is stunning to me. [In 2017, an uncut edition of “Evil Dead” was finally released in Germany.]  I joked the other day, “Have you seen German porn?”  

Anyway, to each country its own. But yeah, we felt a little tinge of it. We had to fight our way to make our way — our unrated way, by the way — to the public. Interesting takeaway, what's the movie now that's like No. 1? “Terrifier 3.” Two of the “Evil Dead” movies have been unrated. But back in the day, if you had an unrated movie, there were newspapers and TV stations that would not advertise your movie if it didn't have a rating.

So I feel independent films should be allowed to be free of any of that system. I'm not in favor, though, of luring somebody into a movie they didn't suspect, like “Evil Dead.” It was unrated, but we put, “The producers strongly recommend no one under 18 see this film” to let people know what you're getting into. Make what you want as a filmmaker but be truthful in your advertising.

And “Evil Dead” is highly influential on horror and culture. One of the things my husband remembers from high school was that a friend's book was taken away by their science teacher. The book was “The Necronomicon.” [I was later informed it was "The History of the Necronomicon" by H.P. Lovecraft.]

I'd take that away too! That’s a bad book.

That segues back to “Hysteria!” though. When we look back at the Satanic Panic, like “Stranger Things” did, it’s presented as almost quaint and nostalgic. But I wonder if you think part of the “Hysteria!” storyline relates to anything directly in the present.

Of course! Disinformation is nothing new, you know? When I started to read about Satanic Panic, and the investigation into all of these accusations, whether it's child molestation, sacrifices, cult worship, or devil worship, there were an incredibly few cases that actually amounted to anything. What they found was society went about its normal business. You still got creepers doing creepy stuff, but there was nothing happening, is the bottom line. So it really shows you the absolute danger of the loss of truth. And if that's not a current issue, I don't know what is.

I wonder if the reason Satanic Panic became such a huge deal is that the label sounded catchy.

Very catchy, yeah. But, you know, there were some bands, I'm sort of learning the names people had for them: AC/ DC: Antichrist, Devil's Child. KISS: Knights in Satan’s Service. I'm like, “Okay, guys, fine. You're fooling around, having fun, but you put a freaking target on the backs of these groups, because people go, “Oh, my God, wait, wait, you're Satan worshipers!” I mean, that's disturbing to anybody of faith.

Kills me, though, that Gene Simmons said we couldn't use a KISS song in our show because KISS had determined it was not good for kids. That, to me, is so awesome. And Gene Simmons is such a square himself. Guy drinks Coca-Cola. That's it! You know, big rocker.

Emjay Anthony as Dylan, Kezii Curtis as Spud and Chiara Aurelia as Jordy in "Hysteria" (Daniel Delgado/PEACOCK)Wait a minute. Gene Simmons said that the show, “Hysteria!”, was not good for kids?

Well, I don't know what all went down, but one of the producers was saying they wanted to use a KISS song for one of the scenes. And KISS said no, they didn't feel it was appropriate.

Oh, wow, that's…

That's rich.

I love the fact that you namecheck some hard rock bands in the show in that scene where you're having this discussion with the band’s leader, Dylan (Emjay Anthony), saying, “Yeah, I remember these bands. But I don't understand what you’re doing.” Do you feel like this show is using that era of music as a way of connecting to people who, say, listened to Ozzy, in a way that's beyond nostalgia? We were just talking about the message of “Hysteria!” —

Too deep! You're starting to get too deep.

It's kind of my job to get deep, Bruce.

Now Matthew Kane, the creator of the show, may go, “You know Melanie, that's the most astute thing I've ever heard in my life.” Me, I wish I knew. I mean, Matthew's definitely trying to be contemporary with this whole thing: Satanic Panic, people getting rashes and things. This show pushes a lot of buttons, but it's also funny. Oddly I think families could watch the show together. I think of a classic suburban family: My dad might enjoy cracking a beer watching this on a Friday night on USA, watch a little wrestling, and then watch “Hysteria!” I mean, it's not a stretch.

I love the fact that you have this whole Satanic Panic subplot, the horror element, where there's possession, and also some sort of “48 Hours Mystery” about cult Christian deprogramming.

Oh, there's a lot to unpack on this show. That's what I love. And there are a lot of fun characters to interact with as a cop. Some characters will not crack because it would not be good for them. It's funny for these good little Christian women to just be lying their faces off the entire time.

You’ve been in many series and movies, and you're in “Hysteria!” now, but a lot of people consider you to be a luminary in the horror world. What is your take on the type of horror that's catching on right now?

I'm just glad we're past torture porn, because that was the thing where you take some innocent backpacker and, you know, you put a body part in a vise and you poke it with a stick for half an hour. Where's the drama, where's the suspense, where's the mood? That's just being twisted. So I'm glad we're past that.

I've done horror comedy, which we call “splatstick,” but those don't always go together. You know, a lot of people like to say, “Hey, ‘Hysteria!’ is a horror comedy” but it's not a har-har comedy. There's stuff in there that I think you'll be amused by just because of either how people talked in the ‘80s or because of the technology that they had. The boxy cars are pretty funny.

---

Want a daily wrap-up of all the news and commentary Salon has to offer? Subscribe to our morning newsletter, Crash Course.

---

So I'm going to just break down three different storylines really quickly. You have the teenage storyline with the band. You have what's going on with Anna Camp’s religious mother, and her wanting to impress her will on the community —

She’s great, by the way. She's so watchable, and she's my favorite character to interact with because she's the one that'll never break. She'll lie right to your face with a smile. And it infuriates me, not only as an actor, but also as a character. I hope the writers do more stuff with her.

And then we have the possession storyline with Julie Bowen. Which did you connect with the most?

Also, my character’s got a granddaughter who's involved in all this, right? Who was being one of the perpetrators, the freaking granddaughter of the chief of police.

… It's just nice to have scenes that have motivation behind them, that really have a strong lead, a strong voice. So, you know, fingers crossed to everybody. I think fans will dig it, though, because, hey, we're as high quality as everybody else now. You can't do crappy TV on streaming. You know, one of my first TV roles was “Knots Landing.” And let me tell you, that's crappy TV right there.

Have you gone back and watched it?

I've seen clips of scenes that I have with Michele Lee. The dialogue was so stilted that it reminded me of a Kmart industrial film that I did to train people how to use the Commodore 64. The dialogue that these ad guys think was natural was pretty much how this dialog was in "Knots Landing." So I went, "Okay, I'll just pretend I'm in a Commodore 64 training film, and my dialogue will sound pretty much that fake."

I was mortified, mortified at how bad television was. Now, everyone's trying to get into TV. TV was where you started your career and where you ended your career. I mean, if you're an older actor, you went to “Love Boat,” you went to “Hotel,” you went to “The Colbys.” They had lots of places for old actors to go. I don't know where they go now — Hallmark, that's where they go.

You know, Hallmark is starting up their Christmas movie season. Is that something you'd ever do?

I've done two Hallmark movies.

Oh, forgive me. I should have known.

I have a classic called “One December Night.” It pushes all the buttons. They need a horror division at Hallmark, though. I think they could do a really sweet little horror film.

How would that go? It's Hallmark.

You can have all the problems in the beginning. You just have to solve them at the end. So the demon would have to be vanquished by the end, no question. There'd be no hand poking out of the grave at the end to scare you. No eyes opening at the very end. You just have to defeat the demon, and everyone says goodbye, and then we have cider and we trim the tree.

Do you think Hallmark would even have a demon in one of its movies?

If they were smart, they would. You want to expand your demographic. Come on, Hallmark, get busy. You'd be surprised at the type of people who watch Hallmark. My most jaded filmmaking friend, I was hesitant to tell him that I was doing a Hallmark movie, and he said, “Do you know what? Hallmark plays by the rules. They set up a problem, they confront it, and they resolve it. Most filmmakers don't even know how to do that.”

That's pretty amazing.

So congratulations, Hallmark. You play by the rules.

All episodes of "Hysteria!" are streaming on Peacock. Episodes also air weekly at 10:30 p.m. Thursdays on USA Network.