Best known as the abuse magnet at the center of the Evil Dead series, Bruce Campbell has attained cult stardom as a sort of tongue-in-cheek matinee idol, a throwback to a more innocent era when men were men, and were occasionally called upon to battle the undead. Unmistakably written for Campbell's sizable fan base, If Chins Could Kill offers a likable but less-than-candid look at his life in the schlockier regions of pop culture, from his early days making Super-8 films with boyhood friend Sam Raimi to his recent work in syndicated television. Not surprisingly, the book centers on the making of the Evil Dead series, which Campbell portrays as a joyous continuation of the cheesy B-movies he and his enthusiastic buddies made during their idyllic childhood in suburban Michigan. This love of storytelling for its own sake dominates Campbell's autobiography; he expresses boyish delight in putting on silly costumes and concocting outrageous scenarios, many of which paid homage to Raimi and Campbell's boyhood heroes, The Three Stooges. The Campbell that emerges here is boyish to a fault, much like his public persona: affable, goofy, self-deprecating, and more than willing to endure horrible abuse for entertainment's sake. He's also far more comfortable discussing childhood mischief and practical jokes than his private life: Campbell's two marriages and his parents' divorce are mentioned only in passing, while a beat-up old car and an elaborate practical joke get a chapter apiece. For a book with the word Confessions in its title, Chins is short on dirt. The confessions pretty much begin and end with him drinking moonshine on the set of Evil Dead and not paying enough attention to his first wife. Books like Chins inevitably preach to the converted, as it's difficult to imagine casual fans being especially interested in, say, Campbell's supporting role in McHale's Navy, or his failed audition for the lead in The Phantom. Though a little too facile and whitewashed to appeal to an audience beyond his well-earned cult, as autograph fodder and a source of Evil Dead information, Chins should more than suffice.