Bruce Campbell is used to being mistaken for his on-screen persona. The week he moved into his new home, a neighbor solicited his help. "He came up to my driveway and said, 'I understand you used to be a movie cowboy on a TV show," recalls the actor, imitating his neighbor's drawl. When Campbell confirmed he was, he was enlisted to help run a hundred head of cattle up the road, a request which didn't phase him in the least. "I said, 'Hey baby, I'm there,'" he continues. "We rode, and I bounced my ass in the saddle, and we did it -- we herded them doggies."

This sort of experience is the essence of Campbell's new film My Name Is Bruce, which has had horror fans champing at the bit for over a year. In it, a monster-afflicted small town decides the only person who can save them is the hero they've seen bravely smiting the undead in movies. The townsfolk, however, find him less helpful than Campbell's real-life neighbor did. "Mike Richardson at Dark Horse Comics and his buddy Mark Verheiden, whom he'd worked with on Timecop, pitched this concept, and they had the idea, 'What if Bruce was really just a jerk and a moron?' I think by the end of it, some people are going to be very confused by how I've portrayed myself," says Campbell who stars in and directed the movie. "That's the fun of it. There are some extreme Sunset Boulevard moments, where truth intersects with fiction just a little too roughly." It's a classic storyline, however, and one Campbell hopes will charm fans of both movies and comics. "It's really based on a '40s cartoon The Adventures of Alan Ladd. Alan Ladd the movie star gets kidnapped by pirates at one point and they think he's a swashbuckler who can help them," says Campbell. "We thought it's kind of like Galaxy Quest for the horror crowd -- I sort of owe the horror crowd something!"

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