Billy Bob Thornton Co-Wrote A Creepy Supernatural Thriller Directed By Sam Raimi

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Director Sam Raimi is best known for his horror movies and his superhero movies. His latest film, "Send Help," is a wicked and fun horror comedy about office workers trapped on a deserted island, and it possesses all of the goop and violence that Raimi has become known for. The director's fans can easily see echoes of Raimi's famed "The Evil Dead" still lurking inside of it.

Raimi, however, is perfectly capable of more adult material and proved his directorial chops with his first grown-up drama, "A Simple Plan," released in 1998. "A Simple Plan" was a dour and cynical crime story about a small group of remote Minnesotans — including Bill Paxton, Bridget Fonda, and Billy Bob Thornton — who discover a suitcase full of cash in the woods. Having the cash in their presence, however, introduces paranoia and resentment, and it tears them all apart. It was nominated for two Academy Awards, including for Thornton's performance.

In 2000, Raimi made what might be his most underrated film, a Southern noir with a supernatural twist called "The Gift." It also marked an additional collaboration between Raimi and Billy Bob Thornton, who also co-wrote the screenplay. In "The Gift," Cate Blanchett plays a woman named Annie who is possessed of mild clairvoyant powers. The plot follows Annie after she has a vision of a local murder. The film's impressive cast also included Hilary Swank, Keanu Reeves, Katie Holmes, Greg Kinnear, Giovanni Ribisi, and J.K. Simmons. 

Thornton does not appear in the movie, but it seems that "The Gift" was very dear to him. On Thornton's official website (handily archived in its early 2000s form), it is noted that Thornton wrote "The Gift" to be based on his mother's own psychic experiences.

Billy Bob Thornton based The Gift on his mother

Billy Bob Thornton's mother, born Virginia Faulkner, was a self-proclaimed psychic, something he discussed in his episode of the interview show "Inside the Actor's Studio" (handily archived online). The show's host, James Lipton, asked Thornton quite directly about his mother's "gift," and Thornton was frank in response, saying: 

"She has the gift of E.S.P. People can believe what they want, but I've seen it in action. [...] My mom was called a witch and everything. That happened quite a bit at school. But everybody came to see her. And eventually people from New York and other places came to see her. [...] We were poor. I was raised with no electricity or running water. And we ate what my grandfather killed until I was six or seven." 

According to the Thornton website, his mother used the same patterned psychic cards — called Zener cards — that Blanchett's character, Annie, can be seen using in "The Gift." Thornton's father died in 1974, and Thornton has noted that he never really talked with him, so his mother took up the job of raising Billy and his brothers. It's not stated if Annie's personality closely matches Thornton's mother, but the parallels are clear, given that she's a widow who is also raising three children and making a living on the side as a professional psychic. 

Also on the website, it's stated that Thornton's mother predicted that he would be a successful actor. Specifically, she said that Billy would grow up and star on screen with Burt Reynolds. This prediction astonishingly came true when Thornton, way back in 1990, had a bit part as a flower deliveryman on the sitcom "Evening Shade." "Evening Shade" starred Burt Reynolds. 

How is The Gift?

It should be noted that Billy Bob Thornton wrote "The Gift," and several other screenplays, with his longtime writing partner, Tom Epperson. Epperson and Thornton penned the scripts for "One False Move" (which starred Thornton's "A Simple Plan" so-star Bill Paxton), as well as "A Family Thing," the TV movie "Don't Look Back," "Camouflage," and "Jayne Mansfield's Car," which Thornton also directed. They have had a long and lucrative career together. 

"The Gift," meanwhile, is almost a forgotten film in Sam Raimi's filmography. Perhaps because, like "A Simple Plan," it is devoid of the type of wild, stylish camerawork that is more typically Raimi's trademark. "The Gift" is a downbeat character drama about Annie and her trials, while also being a sweaty airport-style potboiler about murder and corruption in small-town Georgia. It's about abusive husbands and the fate of the town's "bad girl." I will remain vague on plot details, as the script is twisty and the film deserves to be discovered through its thick Southern atmosphere. "The Gift" was also a modest hit, making $46.6 million on its modest $10 million budget. 

Critics weren't super-kind to "The Gift," as it currently only holds a middling 57% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes (based on 123 reviews). Roger Ebert gave the film three stars, admiring that Annie took her psychic duties with a pragmatic air, presenting them as very matter-of-fact. He also noted, however, that the characters all live in a "swamp of melodrama," presenting a lot of Southern Gothic archetypes without much variation from the clichés he was used to. Curt Fields, meanwhile, writing for the Washington Post, wrote in his quote negative review that "The Gift" had no originality at all. 

/Film, however, thinks it's wholly underrated.