THE MAKING OF
JAPAN'S
FRANKENSTEIN vs GAMORA SAVINI MEETS BUB!
DAYOFTHE DEAD TITAN OFTERROR
KARLOFF ::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW WITH
CHRISTOPHER LEE ONTHESETOF HP LOVECRAFT'S
RE·ANIMATOR
How can Roddy M cDowall. mild~mQ"n~rf!d TV hO$1 and B-mo u;e actor. hope to cope wht" All 0/ his I'lns grow fanss in the new v.mp;" ,•• rt.., Frigh. Nigh.?
REDUCED TO MONSTERS "The danger is that material can be falsely classified in order to achieve what the studio may think Is a ready audience," he explained. "It also leads to gratuitous product, in a great many cases. You see, you take a piece of material like The Hunchback of Notre Dame and you go to its source ...Victor Hugo wasn 't writing a story of a monster, he was writing a story about someone who was deformed, a story about love and the Inhumanity of that society. When it's reduced to being a 32 MONSTERLAND
monster movie-that isn't the thrust, nor is It the content of any of the three versions I've seen. The same goes for The Phantom of the Opera, which is a magnificent piece. The only way that those themes are successfully played, in my opinion, is with an enormous amount of humanity, trying to illuminate something that isn't merely horror. Fairy tales contain a great deal of horror, but we do not think of them as primarily horror stories. "Who was more monstrous, in a sense, than Scarface?" he continued . "In the original film , Scarface is absolutely
horrific. It was dangerous in its time. In that role, Paul Muni had such an ambivalence to humanity, he infused the role with It. As opposed to the second Scarface , which is just a blood bath-no humanity in i t at all. If someone tries to perform the hunchback as merely an ugly misbegotten " monster", it wou ld miss the point, which i s that the hunchback was longing to be accepted and to be loved . That was also the basis of the monster in Frankenstein. The fact that he was trapped in a horrible body was his particular problem, but he wanted , above
all, to be loved and accepted as a human being." BITE KNIGHT " Would you say that the vampire in Fright Night is given any particular humanity?" I queried. " Just imagine," replied Roddy, "if you were sentenced, like the Wandering Jew, to walk the earth for eternity. You can't rest , and you have to keep refueling . That 's what you 're condemned to-a helluva situation ." "Wouldn't that be true of any vampire? " I probed. "What is it about the vampire in this film that makes it special? " " It's told in modern terms, but the condition is still the same, I suppose. Once a vampire, always a vampire, " he said , laughing . " The condition is a constant until you 're put to rest. " We had a very good writer in Tom Holland," he went on. "I've known him for a long time. I'm a great admirer of his and I think he's a very good director. This is a very complex film. The 34 MONSTERLAND
audience will never know how complex it was to make-nor should they. But, knowing the special interests of your readers of MONSTERLAND, they should be aware that the makeups and transformations were extremely complex. In order to make a film like this dlrectorially and photographically, it has to be very carefully designed , because a great deal of it depends on mounting tension through the cuts involved , bu il ding tension and horror with variations of the same theme-it 's very hard to sustain. And I think all the other actors in the film were wonderful." " How did you feel about the character you were playing?" I asked him. HALFBAKED HAM " My part is that of an old ham actor, I mean a dreadful actor. He realizes it but doesn 't admit it. He-had a moderate success in an isolated film here and there , but all very bad product. Basically, he played one character for 8
or 10 films , for which he probably got paid next to nothing. He was a vampire killer in all those very bad films. Unlike stars of horror films who are very good actors, such as Peter Lorre and Vincent Price or Boris Karloff-and who played lots of different roles-this poor sonofabitch just played the same character all the time, which was awful. And then he disappeared from sight, 15 years beforehand. He's been peddling these movies to late night tv, various syndicated markets ... he'd go six months In Iowa, six months In Podunk. He'd introduce the movies. He's like the Cowardly Lion in The Wizard of Oz, really. Full of rubbish. " Then these kids come to him saying they need him to kill a real live vampire. Of course, he tells the kids he can't get involved because he doesn 't know anything about vampires. He has no belief in his own abilities at all. But In the view of the kids, he 's a hero. Their expectations are completely unrealistic." " Fright Night is more sexy than most
other vamp i re f i lms , wouldn't you agree? " I inquired. " There's a real undercurrent of sexual ity .... " SEX AND THE SINGLE VAMP
" Ah , but if you'd been around in 1930 when Dracula with Bela Lugosi came out , that was cons idered highly sexually disturbing," he repl ied. " The same way as Mae West. I mean, we 've all seen Mae West-but in her day, she was banned. Charl ie Chapl in was banned, cons idered vulgar. It was one of the reasons for his huge success. Mothers thought he was a dreadful influence on their children, and that was part of his great appeal. You see, we forget all those things and so when we see those films, they seem very tame to us. Of course, our shock level has gone up so much ...." " That's an important point," I Interjected . " Do you th ink we've been so inundated with visual shock that it's hard to shock us with anything any more?" " Sure, to some extent, " he agreed .
Can you b,litVt that tlrt SWllt little lady in tht ptetur, at right tunu in' o thlgrutSOmt girly pictured AbouD on Fright ightl lt's all 111fr work of tht new vampirt in Iht neighborhood. Chris Sarandon (opposi ttt pagt. upptr right), work tllat "Iuclemt vam pl,,.huntlr Roddy McDoWQII must put Q stop to ,
" The same is true of sound. If we went back fifty years to hear opera voices , they would probably sound very tiny to us. Because our decibel levels have been shattered. You see, we 're spoiled, in a sense. I don't mean that as a negative. But if we see 2001: A Space Odyssey now, it 's still wonderful , but it doesn't have the same effect any more as it did when it came out. For instance , Metropolis is absolutely remarkable- It 's a soph ist icated and brilliant film . But it's impossible for us to Imagine its true Impact in its own
day. It was utterly un ique when it came out-they invented the futurist ic concepts of the film. But tOday, we just accept all that sort of thing . It 's like, well , 40 years from now, can you imagine trying to explain to your grandchildren what Barbara Streisand meant, or what the Beatles meant? 30 years from now, how can Judy Garland have the same effect on the needs and neuroses of that future soc iety as she did on her own society?" COMTINUED ON PAGE 38
FRIGHT NIGH-
Lell: Roddy's ready tos lakc our his claim 10 l'ampir~·killi,tg taml' ABove! But is Bloodsuckor Next Door Cltris Sarc",riotf going to gillr him enough tim(' to gct the job donl'?
STALKING THE FRIGHT, AT NIGHT
THE FRIGHT OF THE NIGHT CONTINUED FROM PAGE 35
"It seems to me, " I said, "that there's something in all of us that draws us to seek out the bizarre, the uncanny, or even the monstrous. There is almost a universal curios ity and attraction. Would you agree with that? " " There always has been that kind of fascination in mankind," replied Roddy. " Again , look at fairy tales. They reveal the dark side of our nature. We live in a Judeo·Christian Society, which for centuries has been dedicated to the idea of appeasing God. Or going back to ancient times, when they used to bui Id bridges, they would sacrifice babies and put their bodies into the foundation. They would take the most
innocent to sacrif ice, because they felt that otherwise it would anger the gods to bridge a natural impediment. So there's always been a relationship with, an inquiry into the dark side, the superstitious, how to appease the elements ... the end of the world was thought to have sea monsters near the edge, where you could fall off. It's all deeply ingrained in our psychology, our heritage. "There's usually a hidden feeling of attraction to things that repulse, " he continued. "When you ride a roller coaster and say, 'Oh, no, I'd never get on this again', there's nevertheless a desire to do it again, anyway. There 's a fascination with being terrified , with putting our lives in jeopardy."
"Going back to Fright Night for a moment," I said , " -you 've pOinted out that you were attracted to Tom Holland's script. How did it come about that you got the role? " " It was an unusual idea on Tom Holland's part, because I had never played anything like that , or that age bracket. In the film, I perform as being in my late 20s or early 30s in the film clips of myoid movies-all the way up to my 60s, when I'm the washed-up hasbeen. I'd never played anything that old." "Did you resist the idea?" "Oh no. I'm very glad I got the part. It was a pretty good part. And I hope it proves successful. I've played a lot of parts I liked , and then nobody saw the films." "Do you think there's a tendency for the lead roles today to be more and more anti-heroes? " I asked. "Heroes used to be swashbucklers who had their swords and muskets and never failed, " I emphasized. "But so many new heroes seem to have 'feet of clay'. MONSTERLAND 3i
"wt ,
Somf.' !{'Im", lrom Roddy's Rowdy NiSI" audi"nc('s qUIVt'ntlg u'Itl, Frls',t
40 MONSTER LAND
SIIft'
to
trat''"
Either they trip over their own feet, like the Ghostbust~rs , or they 're hand icap· ped by their own coward ice or iack of abilit ies li ke your character in Fright Night. " "I woul dn't call that a new trend , espec ially, if that 's what you mean," rep li ed Roddy. lilt seems to me that every decade , someth i ng happens where t here 's suddenly a new ex· press ion, or new form , of old themes . It 's why Montgomery Clift suddenly becam e a star, for instance, in Red River. Suddenly the hero was totally opposite to John Wayne, because it
was the end of the war, and the public was t ired of heroes that were all macho. Ten years before that, right before World War II , there was another sort of hero-Joon Garfield-a sort of romant ic fellow from the streets. I don 't th ink the bas ic themes have changed , just tile mores, and the man· ner in wh ich the themes are told . " In remakes," he went on, " It seems to me we're trying to take a message or theme that worked in another era and put it in a new context. Heaven Can Walt was a remake of Here Comes Mr. Jordan . One couldn't remake Here Comes Mr. Jordan exactly the way it was .. . it was too much a spec i fic product of the society of its time. Heaven Can Walt was a wonderful 'reassessment ' of that theme and story. Now, the opposite can occur, too, of course. Take Invasion of the Body Snatchers, The Cat People or King Kong-the remakes were nowhere as good as the originals." PSYCHO AOTORS " Wh ile you 're actually perform ing, do you get into the role so deeply that you the set and lose the consciousness
0'
the machinery of the film production? " I asked. " Well , that's very dangerous to talk about," he said. " I mean , there are people who say 'I live the part ', but then you 're getting into a scenario like a .double life. Wh ich Is certainly valid , but there 's something highly neurot ic about people going around living their role, because if they're living their role they 're no longer living the i r l i fe . They've abdicated for some neurotic or psychotic reason . So one has to be very careful-no, you Just do your work. " In a theatre you can see the people In the aud ience perfectly-especially if it's theatre In the round. They 're right next to you . They're as close as I am to you . They know you 're acting and that you 're that face there, buried under makeup. That proximity is one of the occupat ional hazards . One of the mistakes people make when they come from the theatre and go Into film Is that they don't realize, in the movies, the 'room ' ends where the lens is. And Just the oppos ite Is true with theatre. In a play, the 'room ' ends at the back of the house. " The childlike belief that one has to maintain Is all part of not over·reaching
MONSTERLAND .;
Is this that nl'W Demonic Duo - Bat$, Mart [, Roddy
the lens , and not acting for the camera," he went on. " The actor's job Is to understand the author's Intent, to fulfill moment to moment what the author expects, given the 'truth ' he Is conveying . The 'truth ' of Shaw Is very different from the 'truth' of Tennessee Williams. Or the 'truth ' of Shakespeare Is very different from the 'truth' of Noel Coward. So the actor has to know how to Illuminate the author's 'truth '-not 'believe' It , but Illuminate It. The actors who 'behave ' their roles are hams like the character I play In Fright Night, who goes around saying 'ha, ha', 'ho, ho' and posing. He's a 42 MONSTERLAND
behaviorist, not really an actor. There are some wonderful behaviorists who are quite effective, but they 're not good actors. And they're at a loss ult imately, because unless they have something to behave, an attitude to play (such as 'I am a hero'), they don't know what to do." " You 've certainly explained your point of view In a fascinat ing way," I concluded , " -espec ially your character In Fright Night." " Thank you ," he replied . " Frankly, I'm very hopeful for the success of the film , for a number of reasons. Number one, I love the people I worked with . I
th ink Tom Holland Is very talen ted. And Guy McElwalne , the Pres ident of Columbia Pictures, was certainly brave and wonderful to allow a new director to do It." And on that note, having completed a most satisfying breakfast, and having been delightfully Illuminated by one of the screen 's most prol ific and competent actors, I left the Polo Lounge to get on with my day. Roddy was heading to a studio meeting about yet another, new, upcoming project.
Tom Holland on
el's say you're a 1 7-year~ld boywho
L
loves horror movies. (For many of
our readers, that probably isn'l much of a stretch.) Your ideaof a near-perfect evening is bying to get past first base with your gi rl friend as the two of you watch some outrageous schlock opus on your local lY stalion's " Fright Night" presentation: Your family
and friends all know about your passions, so w hen you start insisting that your charming
and devilishly handsome new next-door-
neighbor is really a murderous vampire" everyl:xx:ly assumes the 01' cathode ray tube has begun"to fry your brai~s . Everybody, that
The Screenwriter of Psycho 2 Prepares For His Directorial Debut By Abbie Bernstein
is, except your neighbor, who knows you're absolutely right and doesn 't appreciate your interest in him one bit. You know that he knows that you know, so you desperate!y tum for help to :' Fright Night" host Peter Vi ncent,
a has-been ham actor who's played a lot of Van Helsing types in his day. Unfortunately, Mr. Vincent doesn't believe in vampires and, worse, has ·nerves of wann cream cheese. Meanwhile, Your nocturnal neighbor isdetermined toshut you up before you cancause him any more'trouble. So goes die premise of Fright Nigh!, a new feature fi lm currently in production under the auspices of Columbia Pictures. Fright Night has the distinction of being the first majorstudio theatrical release to treat vampires in a manner that is contemPorary (unlike Universal's remake of Dracula),_yet non-satirical (in contrast to Love at First Bite) in its depiction of traditional, shape-shifting, cross-learing, fanged undead (as o~ to the jaded nonbeasts of The Hunger). <" Back in Fango #30, Tom Holland-screeowriter of Psycho 2, The Beast Within and Class of 1984-said of.his craft, " ... unless you have a director who knows what you're talking about, you're dead."Since Holland is ooth writer and director of Fright Night, it may be safe to assume that, this time, the writer and the director each know exaa ly what the odier is trying to say. When I first spoke with Holland, it was at l aird Studios, where most of the film 's interiors were to be shot. With the start of principal photography a few weeks away, Fright Night's second-story production offices were humming with activity. Across the hall, darkly bearded director of phoiograp~y Jan Kiesser . conferred with production designer John DeCuir, Jr. on thedesign of a set planned loaecomoclate a major effects sequence (the senior DeCuir was desi'gner for Choslbusters, and serves as a production consultant on Fright Night). Hanging out in Holland 's reception area is amiable young actor William ("Call me BiII '1 Ragsdale, who will play Charley Brewster, the high school kid who knows too much. Pam Madeiros, assistant to Holland, is attempting to find the young star immed iate and affordable housing. Aft.....kla. ht. ...y lato t h. b.h..d-t • • -ca..... _d of th. _ ovl. bula ... wit • • crtp.. for .ad raVC. o 2, for.....ctorTo. HolY.d ....... eI••• c. to direct oa F,.,..t N,•• t.
B._t W,th,,,
Holland passes through with Fright Night casting director Jackie Burch. All the Fright Night roles have been cast. with the exception of Jerry Dandridge, Charley's vampire neighbor. With the start dale looming before them, they are understandably preoccupied with their search. (One week later, they sign Chris Sarandon, Best Supporting Oscar nominee for Dog Day Afternoon and most recently seen opposite Goldie Hawn in Protocol, to everyone's joy and relief.> In regard to this casting problem, Holland remarks that many adors "are afraid of playing vampires-they think either the movie won't work and they'l l get laughed at, or the movie does work and they get typed forever and become Christopher lee." Why does Holland like vampires? " I don't know-why do you like them?" Pressed, he elaborates: "I guess all of us would liketo be like that-sleep all day, play all night, live forever, be incredibly attradive to women. They're a terrific archetype. I'm in love with them more than I'm scared of them. I love Jerry." Holland is in his late 30s, with a deep voice, craggy good looks and dark hair that's beginningtogosilver.lnterviewinghim can bea little tricky, not because he's evasive-indeed, he couldn't be more candid-but because he
keeps soliciting his interviewer'sopinion. For instance, he wants to know if I think Fright Night has "crossover" potential-that is, will it appeal to a broader audience than hardcore horrorfans? I tell him I think it's all a question of how the fi lm is made. This launches us into a discussion of the various approaches to horrific themes--everything from critical writeoffs like Friday the' 3th (what Holland calls "the fuck-and-die movie") to pi llars of Hollywood respectabi lity like The Exorcist with its truckload of Oscar nominations, including one for Best Pidure. "Well, I don't think we're going to get an' Academy Award nomination for Best Picture," Holland says, "but if this is perceived as a good time, 'an E-ride at Disneyland' as [Columbia executive] John Byers would say, then I think we have a chance at having it taken seriously. If it's perceived as exploitation, no, but Fright Night's not an exploitation film to me. J really love this genre. It infuriates me when people look down on it." Holland's initial interest in writing came early. " I used to sit down and try to write Westerns. J waseight or nine, real young. But my parents are not terribly literary peoplethey were not very encouraging." Consequently, Holland put down his pencil and paper and took up acting instead . " I
think I got into acting partially because it was a way to get girls. It's not the most solid of motivations, I guess, but it was heartfelt." By the time he finished high school, Holland had found other ways to meet girls, but stuck with acting because " I made a living at it. I think I might have gotten completely discouraged if I hadn't done as well as I did as immediately as I did. I went to college for a year, came out to l os Angeles during the summerwitha girl who'd been a child actress. She had an agent, the agent took me on and sent me around to twoor three places, and the next thing I knew J was under contract at Warner Bros. When that happens to you, it carries you along with it. " It carried Hol land through a 1010ffilm and television work during the '60s and early 70s, in movies like Jacques Demy's The Model Shop and soap operas like Love of Life. He took timeout to graduate from U.Cl.A. and get a law degree that he never used, continuing to act as he found the scope of his ambitions changing. "I loved production. I loved being on a set. You know the old line, 'The first minute on the set's the most exciting minute in the world, the second minuteon the set is the most bori ng'? I never felt that way. I always loved it. What happened was, as an actor, I was saying in my head as thedirectorwas
FANGORIA #45 21
blocking out scenes, 'No, that's not right, it should be blocked this way.' That happened very early on, but it took me a long time to recognize that all my instincts were to direct and not to act. When I was acting, I got more and more frustrated because I really wanted to direct; it became more and more obvious that I wanted control. Not only was I thinking about what I was going to be doing as an actor, I was thinking about what the other actors should bedoing.. wherethecamera should be, what lenses should be on the camera, how it should cut together. Ialways had the ability to see things in shots and cuts-I could picture the sequences in my head. " He began aiming for a directorial career via the route of screenwriting. "I started back in '72 or '73. The hot thing around town then was original screenplays. Guys like John Milius wrote Judge Roy Bean, these scripts were going for $250,000 and then on the next script, these guys were gening the chance to direct. I was naive enouRh to think that I'd sit 22 FANGORIA #45
caused him to transform into a bloodthirsty swamp beast. Beast was notable mainly for Tom Burman's special effects; Holland saves us the trouble of being tactful about the film as a whole. " It's trash," he smi les, without a ' trace of defensiveness. "Things like The Beast Within were the kind of entry-level jobs J got as a screenwriter. I was thrown out of dailies, excluded from the set, excluded from location and gotten .rid of as soon as possible. J got thrown out of dailies because I told the producerthat they were in trouble. You could see it in dailies, but he didn't believe me. [finally got invited to a screening of the completed film after umpteen cuts. I saw it, got up and walked out past the producer without saying a word, I walked past the director without saying a word and J haven't seen or talked to either one of them to this day. His next writer-far-hire credit, The Class of 19B4, was a happier experience. Directed by Mark (Firestarter) lester, Class followed an urban high-school -teacher (played by Perry King) through a baptism of fire and blood with the sadistic students under his charge as he goes from innocence ("c'mon, the kids-can't be that bad'1 to gory vengeance after the young punks rape his pregnant wife and cause the nelVous breakdown and death of one of his colleagues(Roddy McDowall, who had a wonderful scene in which his character conducts class at gunpoint, threatening to shoot pupilswhogivethewrooganswers). The hero vented his wrath bydoing things like cutting off one of his tormentor's arms with a tabletop buzzsaw. Holland thinks this "was going over the top. Mark lester is terrific, I really li~e him. Except I think hedidn't need the buzzsaw, but hedidn't trust the story enough. Icould never answer the question of how to justify vigi lante violence, I don't think I was ever comfortable with it. The script had visual setpieces, but it never had a really coherent storyline that dealt with the vigilante theme. The theme got submerged and became exploitation. And that was my fault, because I could never deal with it." But we needn't fear that Holland, left to his own directorial devices, plans to shy away down and write one script, sell it for a quarter from violence in Fright Night-the script calls of a million and direct the next one." for throat-rtppings, blood-splatterings, That wasn't quite how it worked out. numerous unpleasant transformations, a "Screenwriting was the hardest thing I'd ever tribute to Evil Dead's infamous pencil scene done. I became obsessed with learning the and, of course, lots of staking and biting. For craft of it, it became a challenge in and of itself. Holland, the use of screen violence is dictated It became so difficult, a mountain that I by context: " I love violence. But there's wanted toclimb so badly, that Istopped wor- violence that is not reality for me, which is rying about directing and I wound up learning what I think I do, and what I consider a lot of how to write. In other words, I think I became horror movies do, as opposed to realitya serious writer afterthe fact. Istarted out want- psychological violence like Looking lor Mr. ingtodirect, but when I found out how hard Goodbar, which can be really horrifying and writing was-and that I couldn't do it-I took disturbing. When you're dealing with that, it real seriously." then I think restraint is catted for. But thiS kind In Holland's view, he finally hit his stride as of stuff, horror movie violence, is meant as a a screenwriter with hi s fifth effort, an as-yet- good time, I think." He grins. "I think." unproduced film noir script entitled Border Holland's next job after Class was the Crossing, which was admired enough to start screenplay for Psycho 2, a film in which getting him paying writing assignments. violence plus clever plot twists gave its auThe first film Holland wrote for hire to see diences a good time that translated into box of· the light of a projector was an independently- flce success. Being one of the creative forces made monster movie, The Beast Within, a tale behind a financially successful movie helps of a hapless teenager afflicted with a curse that propel a lot of people toward their career
HOl1'Or Ho•• P.'.r Vlac••• (Roddy McDow. D) pan. .... old P.'.r C ....... ro.tta. o ••••• _ •• " • •p ....."0 (oppoeke p ••e) goe. OD .o."ow .. I••can proadly.
goals. Holland did one more for-hire project. Cloak and Dagger (which reteamed him with Psycho /I director Richard Franklin), sold an original screenplay, Scream for Help (a thriller filmed by director Michael Winner, as yet unreleased) and finally " knew that my position in the community was strong enough that if Icould come upwith a commercial concept and execute it well, ! could direct. I knew by then !'dgained sufficient credibility. Sol had to design a script that X number of studios would want-which was the original dream 10 years ago." Thus was Fright Night born. Holland took his new work to producer Hero Jaffe, who agreed bo
As an example, he cites a sequence in which vampiricjerry Dandridge spies through the windowsofhis own house on Charley and Peter, who are inside seeking their adversary. "Those windows had to be designed in such a way that you see the heroes from outside at various points as they traverse through the house." As Holland continues, he uses the scale model of the house sitting on his desk as a visual aide, also referring to an enormous notebook filled with his shot lists. "We're going to have stairs inside the house. We start the camera in front of the house and watch them go up the stairs from outside, drift around to the side of the house, pick them up through another window farther up the stairs, then get a diagonaling crane up the house through the second floor, looking
through another window as they come up to the landing. When you're doing that with three different floors, it gets very, very complicated. The sets had to be designed to make that work." Holland also waxes enthusiastic for the scene in which "Charley comes into his bedroom and the phone rings. He picks it up and his back is to the window. He listens, and the vampire says, 'He llo. Are you there, Charley?' Charley doesn't say anything, figuring if he keeps his mouth shut, Dandridge won't know for sure. And Dandridge says, 'I know you're there, Charley. I can see you.' Then Charley turns around and looks out the window, and there across theyard standing in the window of the Dandridge house is Jerry. Now the usual way to do that shot is you'd do
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FANGORIA #45 23
a subjective shot and you'd zoom in on Jerry make it work for me without moving the standing in the window." Holland makes a whole wall of the house," says Holland, givwhooshing "zoom" noise, accompanied by ingcreditwhere it's due. "There area number a vampiric snarl. "Well, I wanted to do a shot of shots like that in this, that Idesigned without where from Charley's subjective point of view figuring how they'd ~ made to work. The in his terror, it feels to himasthoughJeny'sen- people around me have been able to come up tire house is moving closer to him, swooping with ways to make them work; I'm eternally towards him. In other words, as though Jerry grateful, and they're thrilled with me for givwasn't 30 feetaway in his house, but three feet ing them the challenge." away in his house and was gonna lean right Cinematographer Kiesser corroborates this: out the wind()Vol and [Holland mimes a gesture " The opticals and specia l effects are of fatal brutality1 do that to Charley. Five challenges-I've never flown bats before. million times I've seen the camera moving; Mostly we're combining different stuff that's let's seethe house move. There's a weirdness been done before in new ways. Fright Nighi to it. There are two ways to accomplish what is more high style than the average film in this I'm talking about. One is to build the Dan- genre. The script is attradive and so is the dridge house on rollers, and literally movethe visual concept. It's wonderful to have entire side of the Dandridge house across the something with this kind of visual concept. " soundstage over to Charley'S window." Un"One of the joys of doing a horror movie is fortunately, that would be extremely cumber- that you can bevisual ly stylish," Holland afsone and expensive. The alternative? 'We're finns. The style of Fright Night, he says, was doing blue-screen, we're shooting a plate of not imposed on the finished script, but was the Dandridge house and moving that. You'll rather an integral consideration from the see that image move toward you, which wi ll story's inception. "Idon't think you can write seem like the house is moving. " Theshotwill a story unless you're visualizing it as you go be accompanied by shooting Charley'S win- along, can you? You see something in your dow looking out on a blue-5creen, lit by head, you hear people talk in your head, you flourescent lights. A separate shot will be .see people coming out of light, you see the made of Dandridge looking out his window. darkness. I see all of that when [write. Oneof The room shot of the Dandridge house wi ll the reasons I think that I've done as well as I then be matted in to the shot of the stationary have as a~writer is that I do visual setpieces, window in Charley'S house. where the story moves forward with minimal "Jan Kiesser and John DeCuir are going to amounts of dialogue." 24 FANGORIA #4.5
He does think it's possible to get carried away with the visual aspects of filmmaking: ''If the shots become such show-off shots that they pull you out of the story, then it's to the detriment of the film, and I'll cut'em out." He believes the "show-off" shots usually occur "when filmmakers are ashamed of the genre, when they' re embarrassed by the genre. That's when fonn overwhelms content. In the script, there should be no scene that doesn't move the story forward. In the movie, there ideally should be no shot. that doesn't move the story forward. If you're so in love with a shot that doesn't do anything to move your story forwa rd, then something's wrong. And if you do too many of them, you're really in trouble. Story always takes precedence." Right now, pre-prOOUdion takes prece-. dence-I have to clear out so that Holland can meet with his cinematographer and production designer. As I leave, Kiesser is holding up the scale model ofJeny's house, tuming it so that Holland and Co. can enjoy a vampire'seye view of the interior as they visualize the tiny, terrified people within. In parting, Holland tells me I'm welcome on the set whenever I'd like to come. Events to subsequently unfold would surpass my wildest dreams of journalistic access-sevenhour makeup sessions, Jive wolves, blood splattering an entire mob of extras ... but these are stories for another day (and another issue of Fango). 0
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ By David Hutchison - - - -_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ __
Edito r 's nole: Heretofore, Richard Ed lund has been a film craftsman whose body of experience in SF film has made him a more suitable interview subject for
o ur illu st riou s sis t e r m agazine, STA RlOG. Wit h Poltergeist and Ghost· busters, hO\.vever, Edlund has begu n to wie ld con siderable in fl uence in the realm of state-of·the-art horror effects as
well. Early th is year, STAR lOG's David Hut chi son visited Edlund 's Boss Film Compa n y, chatting up seve ral of
Edl und 's key employees, as well as the Boss boss himself. ANCORI A: Did Columbia seek
F
you out for Fright Night, or did you go to them?
Pyrotechnician Thaine Morris readies the gas jets for a vampire meltdown. 20 FANGOR IA #48
Richard Edlund: They came to us. It has to be that way, sincewe don't know what's cooking in the back room of the studios, you know? We happen to have a very good relationship with Col umbia , because we did Ghostbusters for them. And naturally they want to keep that going, as we do. Fang: Fright Night isn't the sort of $20 million fantasy spectacular you're known for ... Edlund: I want us to be able to service shows that don't necessarily have blockbuster-level effects. I want to be able to do sma ller sha.vs; that helps us in terms
of keeping our talen ted staff em ployed. A flow of smaller pictures helps us to keep acomfortably large staff, which has benefits for both small and large pictu res. Fang: I notice that your st ud io makes a real effort to give individual recogni tion to it s effects art ists for their work, in con· trast to th e way things 'Nere done in the old studi o system. Edlund: W hat I' m tryi ng to d o is break away from the attitude of keeping every staff member invisible, hiding behind a billboard that has a company name on it. I get a lo t of press because I'm the guy that signs the cont racts and makes the deals and hires the people and all that; bu t I couldn't do it without these particular people. I don't believe that people are directly replaceable; wh en you get a team together that is as fin ely tuned as th is one is, when you lose one member it can be like losing a vital organ. Than e Morris, for instance,. is a master pyrotechnician, bu t he also kn()NS all about
machine processo rs, and he is excellent at controlling the logi stics of a projecthe has an enormous hand of cards to play with. Garry Wa ll er knows robot s, knows chemistry, knows lasers; and besides thai , he is basica lly an artist, with an artist's eye. To replace Waller. .. you could find a la se r person, or a chemist, but whoever yo u found would have a different ran ge of talen ts, and would fit it in a differen t way, so every person affect s everybod y else ... ce rtainly n ot lea st among these are my talented associates Mark Vargo, the optical su pervisor, Joh n Bruno, the art director, ou r matte department supervisor Nei l Krepela, our matte artist Man Yuricich and Terry Wendell, the animation supervisor. The theory is that this is a team like Blackhawks. Steve Joh nson and Randy Cook are also like that; they' re work ing out very well in the rubber d epartm ent here. Randy Cook is a great stop motion animator, and there's probably three or four guys in the vvorld w ho are any good at it,
but he's also a great scul ptor; Steve Johnso n -a n o th er o utra geously talented guy- is a very advanced sculptor, and he has also has an organizational ability, w hich you have to have in order to run a department like that. I deal with depa rtment head s pretty mu ch, and get around to talk to the guys occasionally- but I have so many things on my agendafang: I saw the stack of phone messages wa iti ng for you .. Ed lund: Right-t hi s is the deal-making pa nth eon. Plus trying to gel the word out so everybody knows where we are. Right n{JI.v I' m alm ost to the point of saying that I don 'I want an)Qn e else to know w here we are, beca use we've got enough work. But then, you want 10 keep the doors o pen for fut u re project s and so on. You knOVv', we've got script s, probably two feet h igh, that 'Nere added in th e last six to eig ht months; we're doin g the contract s. Plu s \NC have a couple of pet projects, and it's possible that , as a group, we will produce a pi cture before long.
Roddy McDowe ll confronts Fright Night 's v ampire in its lupine f o rm!
FANGOR IA "'48 21
The chilling afte rmath of vampire meltdown!!! Fang: I would have thought Poltergeist had exhausted your bag of tricks, but then you topped yourself with Chostbusters, and again w ith 2010. Now you face topping yourself again with Poltergeist 2 .. Edlund : Well, we did use everything tha t we had in our bag of tricks at the tim e of Poltergeist, as limited by budget and time constraints. The attempt to top yourself is inevitable in this business. For some reason, in visual effects, it's a thing where, when you start climbing the ladder, you don't know how far up it w ill take you; there are always a few rungs left, and sometimes you seem to see the rungs going into the clouds. I think that any id ea that can be thought about or sketched can be converted intoa very interesti ng, visual mov22 FANGORIA " 48
ing image. That's what is driving all of us along in th e group, because we love what we're doing,and I don't see any end to it. It's like saying to a writer, "You've written so many books, and the library is already full of really great, interesting book s:' But we keep getting bett er at what we do, and at the sa me time the audience gets more sophi sticated visually, and it takes more sleight-of-hand in order to trick them into believing what you \'\Iant them to beli eve. The respon sibility is therefo re on u s to keep coming up with new im· ages. Dan Ayckroyd, for instance, u sed Poltergeist as a sort of palel1e when he was writing Chostbus ters; he saw Poltergeist and said, " Hey, that's fantastic-I didn't know they could do that kind of st uff! " and he wrote Chostbusters wit h those
capabilities in mind. I think t hat Poltergeist \'\IaS the most interesting single projectl worked on at IlM, in that it had so many various things involved in it. And I was actually involved in concept ual izing a lot of the st uff with Steven Spielberg, because when we were shooting the background material , when the movie itself was being shot, we didn't know yet what we \\/ere going to do. Once the movie was rough-cut, then \'.e started figuring ho...... to balance the intensity of the pict ure's various effects, and they were, in every sequence, th e punch-line. The effects reel for Poltergeist is a very intense reel, because it's all ofthe climaxes and sub-cl imilxe s of th e movie; the scares and so on. We got a lot of ideas along the way that we didn't get to useso we'll use 'em thi s time. ~
,The v$jEaPIV Next ' Do~r Chris Sarandon on his variation on an undead theme in Fright Night. By Ed Gross
PHOTOS: () 1965 OOLUMBIA PICTURES
I
n the past, cinematic vampires have
been portrayed as pal e-s kinned ghouls wandering around cemete r-
ies, draped. in cu mbersome black capes, and threatening to s uck the blood out of any victims who happen' by. Then in the late 1970's Frank l angella romantici zed Brarn Stoker's Dracula in the play and film of the same name, proving
that vampires could be, above all else, charm ing. 10 FANGORIA 1149
NCI'N, Chris Sarandon has contemporized this incarnation of evil to great effect in Tom Holland's Fright Night, a film which has more in common with the Universal horror classics of the 30's and 40's than the current crop of slice-anddice production s which have proliferated in the genre. In thi s upd at ing of " The Boy Who Cried Wolf;' Sarandon plays Jerry Dandridge, a vampire :-vpo will go to any
means to make sure that his sec ret remains safe, including killing Charley Brewster, his teenaged next door neighbor, w ho has learned the truth. "The thing that appeals to me about Jerry;' expla ins Sarandon, "is that he's to- . tally contemporary. That was something we all strived for, and something I found very interestin g about the character becau se he wasn't the Count of legend or Bram Stoker, but a guy who everybody
knev.' and couldn 't believe.....-as being accused of being a vampire. He isn 't the personification of pure evil that vampires are knONn to be." What impressed the actor most about the character, was his multi-dimensional facets. " Ju st think about thi s guy's problem s," he says sincerely. " On the o ne hand you 've got somebod y who's got something which everybody would probably love to have, which is eternal life. Also, he's tremendously powerful, phys ically, and attractive sex ually. What he does, • people are, for some reason, attracted to. But at the same time, hONwould you like to know that if people found out about you, nobody would really want to hang around you? ,That is, to spend etern itybut to spend eternity shunned by any normal kind of society; not being able to form any kind of normal human relationship. To be, in a way, damned to eternity.' (There's a sen se o f thi s guy's Iragedy as well as hi s attractiveness." This obvious enthu siasm is surpri sing, especially when one considers thai the aClor nearly turned the role down . " I was sent the sc ript by my agent and immediately sort of got sucked in by the plot because ii 'S wonderfully co nstructed and plotted:' explains Sarandon. " After I read it , I said 'Gee, this is going to make a great movie. It's a shame Ihat I'm not really interested in playing this part: The reasons for that are that over the past couple of years I've played a few villain s and didn' t want to get locked into playing anolher one. I thought the character was an interesting one, though I didn 't think it was quite fleshed oul. Des pite my rese rvations, I had some conversat ions with Tom, we came up with some ideas, and I ended up doing W' " I made a promi se to Chris;' adds Hoiland, " that I would make Jerry sensual and into a leading man; to show that side of him. Hedidn't wan t todoanotherwild and crazy character role:' Sarandon felt that what was missing \\la S the character's haunted quality, part of which would come across in th e playing, and that there were a fev.' things needed in the scri pt wh ich wou ld express thi s. "The charaCler's not so much the personification of pu re evil, as he is a person who became a vamp ire by circumstance s," h e says. " We did all that groundwork for ou rselves in terms of who this guy was and what happened; how it happened. Tom.....-as very encouraging about thai . To come up with that kind of life for the character so that he ultimately ends up more interesting for the audience:' Coming up with identifiable characters has been an objective of the·actor's sj nce graduat ing from the University of West Vi rginia, and , besid es numerous stage roles, he's tried to achieve this goal
via his various screen personas, from AI Pacino's gay lover in Dog Day Afternoon (which won him an Oscar nom ination) and the rapi st of Lipstick, to a tool of the devil in The Sen tinel and, finall y, a leading role with Goldie Hawn in Protocol. Bearing thi s in mind , one \r\IOnders if he had any aversions"to the idea of play-
ing a vampire, certainly one of the most bizarre roles he's been offered. " It wasn 't so much that ;' he counters, " but that the guy was such a bad guy. In a way he was, but in away he wasn't. I th ink that I carried in some of my prejudices w hen I fir st read the sc ript. Rather than read ing it in a very objective way, I read it
,
FANGORIA N49 11
in a much more 'what's it going to do fo~ me?' way. Having played a couple of villains in the past, I was a little worried about it. "I don't want to get locked into playing anything;' he elaborates. "I don't want to be known as a heavy, or as anything in particular but just a good actor who can handle anything that comes along. Wishful thinking, but that's the image I would hope to have in the industry. That's something)Ou cultivate over time by the choice of roles you take. Also, t thin k I underestimated the fact that in the movie I did ju st before Fright Nigh/, Protocol, I was playing Mr. Total Straight Arrow. As nice a guy and as totally uncontroversial a character as you'll find -anywhere. Consideri ng that that 's the Sarandon in one of his in-between lDoods_
one I d id j u st before this, I think I needn't have worried so much . I came to realize that after a while:' One th ing which came close to being a problem was the marathon makeup sessions which enabled Sarandon to go from being the suave and good looking Dandrid ge, to the sna rling bat -l ike "spawn of Satan " during choice moments. "We had certain stages of change;' he says, "which had a lot todowith ju st how pi ssed off Jerry is at any particular momenl...how provoked he is. "I was stuck in makeup so goddam ned much of the tim e;' he sighs . "I had two weeks of eight-hour makeup ca ll s, everyday. I'd go in at four in the morning and the m akeup people would have to be in at three·something . They'd start on me at four and I'd go to work at noon or one. Quite a remarkable experience. You ei· ther learn how to hypnotize yourself and meditate, or }QU become stark-ravi ng mad. "I tried to do the fonner," the actor laughs. A big question on everybody's mi nd throughout production was whether or not Fright Night could find a niche for itself in thi s age of the slasher or splatter film. "That's a good question;' he says. "The feeling I had, and r have reasonabl ygood instincts as an audience, is that it would
work. When I first read the script, I cou ldn't put it down. I don't mean that as a cliche, I mean that for real. When I read that sc ript , I remember sitting in the very, chair I'm sitti ng in as we speak, my wife Sitting in bed knitting and I said, 'Sorry, honey, I knCMI it's time to go in and start dinner, but I can' t yet. I have to finish th is.' I put it down like an hour and 10 minutes later and I figured "that it was going to be a terrific movie. I'm hoping that my original instincts were correc!." The horror genre is one that has intrigued him o-,er th e years, though he isn't really a fan of splatter films. Friends of his really love those reall y shocking horror movies, but he is much more of an afficiand o of the older ones, such as the original Dracula and Ft;ankenstein. "And of practicioners like Hitchcock;" he adds, "who rea lly understood an audience. People who are much more interested in c reating work which leaves a lasting impression. I'm mu ch mo}e interested in the resonance or haunting qualit y of the rea lly good ones, and it'll be in teresting to see if we've got one of th ose. " Th ere are a cou ple of things towards the end of the film where there's your req ui site sort of special effects, bodies fl ying around and fallin g apart, and things like that;' he cont inues . "But that specifically comes about due to what's goi ng on in the script . "When I first read the script, there was, interestingly, very little real physical violence in it. What's so startling about it is you are in consta nt anticipation of a violent act, and that comes from good scriptwriting. The film also ha s a lot of humor, but it's intentional. It is a humor of irony in situation. Any humor comes out of the fact that the audience has invested a certain amount of emotional baggage w i t h the characters, and if somet h ing funny happens .they're going to laugh at that. We're having fun with it, but we're not making fun of it. "Also, I think you'll find in th is movie that in th e first 40 minutes or so there's only one violent act, and that's SQmebody sticki ng a pencil th rough somebody's hand. The rest of that time is spent leading up to something happening. You knOlN somet h ing's got to h"ppen, but nothing does. To me, that's much m ore effective, a kind of Hitchcockian app roach to that sort o f material. What's mu ch more important is how , you lead up to tre act rather than the act it self. It's not what you see, but what you've dreaded seeing:' he explains . Cou ld he see himself returning as Jerry Dandridge? " I might, but who knOlNs?/i concludes Sarandon. " l et's see what happen s with th is one fi rst. It's an int eresting character for me. I could perceive bringing him back, but it \-\Qu Id depend on the circumstances. It's a little prematu re to talk about that now."
D
}l Vumptre's13rew of
TERROR Randy and Steve Johnson on their Fright Night FX. From demon bats and werewolves to melt-downs and slobber tubes. By David Hutchison
EDITOR'S NOTE : By now most of you have had the chance to see Tom HoI-
land's Fright Night, which means that we can feel safe in run n ing a creat u re-e ffec ts story without spoi ling the pict ure's well-timed jolts. As pa ri of Richard Edlu nd's crack Entertainmen t Effects Group, Randy Cook and Steve Jo hnson have been credited with the design an d creation of Fright Night's ma ny creatures, a job that also includes all the various transformations
and mel t-downs that these creatures are subjected to. (Stories o n Cook and Johnson's cont ribution s to Ghoslbusters ca n be found in Fangos #39 and #41 respec-
tively.) As is the case wit h any large effects assignment, t he monster creations for Frighl Nighl req uired t he coordinated effort of a sizeable crew. Cook and Joh nson w ish to give due credit to their Creature FX Shop crew: Rob Cant rell, Dale Brad y, Craig Cato n, Makio Ki da, D avid Matherly, Richard Ru iz, Ste-..e Nei ll , Ken Diaz and Jack Bricker. They also have much p raise for Mar k Wilson, t h eir shop's first technician; Bo b Cole and Bill Sturgeo n, who vvorked on effects mechanisms; and Thaine M orris, t he f ilm's
St~phen Geoffreys (Evil Ed) is prepped by Johnson for hb impaling scene. Right: The effect on screen. • mechanical effects supervisor. The following interview was conducted w hile Fright Night was st ill in production. FANGORIA: One of the major effect s sequences in Fright Night is the tra nsformation of the ~rewo lf back to its original form, Evil Ed. How do you think this transformation compares to, say, The Howling? Steve Johnson: It's real different because it's asymmet rical. Everyt h ing since American Werewolf in London has just been chango-pieces; they've been stretc hing mechanical pieces on-set. So, I figured
Randy Cook worked on designing bat features Into the "ticked-off" makeup for Chris Saran don .
20 FANGORIA *49
we'd make it asymmetrica l; h e'd be changi ng unevenly. He's more human on one side/ but he's got a long sk in ny dog neck. He's got a hunchback on one side, and, at times, he's got one wolf-leg. And he's got this long, spindly arm that's worked with a rod, while h is real arm is tied behind him. Another thing-since ii's asymmetrical in its look, and if you're showing inse rt s of cha n gi ng extremities, w h y should you use the same technique for eac h change? So, if we see a foot changing and then we see a hand changing, we use different techniques. Besides changing at different rates o n different parts of the body at different times, ii's happening in di fferent ways too. Randy Cook: The way this effect, and ot her effects, are integrat ed in this film is also different. The picture-makers who made the origi nal st retcho-piece effects were really in love w ith what these things could do. As a consequence, one saw a series of fairly cli nical shots of limbs growing, faces stretching, and balloons bulging under b rows. Thi s Fright Night transformat ion so rt of takes that all for granted, and doesn't stop the show while this st uff is going on. This scene is not meant to say, "Okay, we' re goi ng to dispense with the plot for the next four minutes while}Ou watch this really marvelous special effect :' The special effects are going on w h ile the story is goi ng on, and they're integrated pretty well into the pi cture. Johnson: Another different Ihing, too, is that the director is really good to work with. Tom Holland listens to us, he respects u s, and he's sma rt enough to knqw that he hired experts to do a cer-
tain job. He's not so insecure that he'd feel like we were stepping on his toes when .....-e suggest someth ing. So, a 101 of our ideas have really galien through. Also the fact that Holland is an "actorish" director-he used to be an actormakes a lot of aUf stuff come off a lot better. He was rea lly concerned from the beginning that our c reatures "act". He was on the set when we shot the secondunit effects stuff and he actually directed it. And you need a director for a puppet. People seem to think yo u don't, but you
do. Cook: He realizes that these puppets are characters. Fang: Could you describe heM' the werewolf transformation was shot? Johnson: We shot the stuff here in the shop for the changi ng of the wolf. We altered th e set so the actor can put his legs through it, out of sig ht , and we cou ld just deal with the effects legs that look totally in human. We made a control board and we attached about 15 bladders to it; bladders not only in the head, but in the shoulders too. And the werev.Q1f had little slobber tubes; we ran slime out . Cook: We were spitting in a jar for days and days to get those slobber tubes ready and running! II demanded a lot of intensity. Fang: A usually laughable effect in just about every vampire movie is that motheaten bat that they fty in on a fi shing pole. Cook: We tried to do something with the bat that's a little more fantastically-oriented than just your standard flapping mouse-you know, as you say, the Universal bat-on· the-line. We decided to do
something a bit more horrifying and non-bat-like, that ma intai ned t he impression of a bat but was different, and also retained about the same amount of mass as the guy {Chris 5arandon) had . In stead of shrinking d(MIn to Chihuahua-size to take off, he's sti ll shi fting hi s shape, while still retaining most of hi s ma ss, so we've got somethi ng with about an eight-foot wingspread. And a very, very unpleasant disposition. We've also donea makeupon the actor when he sort of loses hi s composure and begins to decompose; he looks sort of like the bat-sculpture. It's a Nosferatutype approach on Chris 5arandon which retains certain eleme nts of the bat's look. I originally wanted to do a car icat ure of the actor in the bat, but the bat was the first thing tha t was scu lpted here, even before th e leading man wa s chosen. So, unfortunately, we had to v.ork sort of back-asswa rd s on that. It was not th e ideal sit uation, but I think we did all right with it. I've been making rubber appliances to put some of my puppet's features onto 5arandon. An}'\\lay, it's a little different. Johnson: Tell him how the bat rig .....-arks. Cook: It's a marionette on a track. The biggesl problem was one of speed. The down-flap of th e creat ure's wing is too fast. Plus, when it's free-falling it loses co ntrol when you catch it and attempt to pull it back up again. So, w hat we did was go through the bal 'S motions very slO'Nly, and then speeded it up. You can't gellhe necessary speed in real time wit hout
the v.mpirehenchm.n BUly Cole (don.th.n St.rk) ..... the one sequence In the fU ... In ... hlch dohn.on and Cook ... ent an
Two stages of the spectacular destruction of the vampire.
shaking it and making it go crazy. Fang: A favorite effect from Hammer's vampire films was the use of contact lenses to givt! Ch ri s lee red eyes. What sort of len ses did you use in Fright Night? Johnson : The lenses were mad e by Doctor Greenspan. Th ere's around seven pairs of them in the film. I've painted them all myself. Th e fir st idea was that the vampire's eyes should glow. It turned out they didn't have the moneytodothis ~ffect optically with rOloscoping. So I d esigned these len ses so they'd kick back as much light as possible. I painted them with day-g lo colors, enamel paint s and
actually laminated iridescent powders and glitter ont o them so they really do kick back a lot of light. Fang: To most aclors, wearing a contact lens is like wearing a potato chip under your eyelid. Johnson: It is, but all these lenses are laminated in sid e, so it's really smooth. And they' re buffed on the outside; we sent th em back to the doctor to buff them. Fang: The most gruesome effect in the movie would seem to be the disi ntegration of the vampire's henchman. Johnson: Yeah, it has a real putrefyin g look. We swabbed it with chemicals and
did internal things wilh cables, pulling parts of the face away and d",..,n in different places. The head has a real sku ll in there. The parts of the head are operated by hand , the moulh movement and tongue movement and so on . And besides just having the skin slide off of it, we made it as though it's melting from within. Swelling up with the chemicals, we found, 'NOrks really nice. It's similar to Dick Smith's method u se d for that snake-bit head in Spasms, except we did other things besides just s~ lIing it; we pulled it around and screwed around with il in other ways. We colored the c hemicals, for instan ce. If you put enough coloring in, it looks reall y nice pumping it from behind, because you start getting lillie blotchy areas breaking ou t allover the face before it starts to swell. It 's real nice. That is the one scene in Ihe film where H olland wanted the audience to be grossed out. All the way through, he's been really against the idea of us making anything disgusting, except for thi s one melt-dO\..,n sequence, and that's probably because you're supposed to really hale thi s guy. Fang: How 'MJuld you characterize the effects of Fright Night overall? Johnson: They're amazing, and they' re something )Qu \'\IOuld not want to look awayfrom, except maybe, once again, for th e Billy Bones melt-d(MIn thing. Even the transformation at the end where the vampire, Chris Sarandon, is burning is kind of fantastic becau se it's one face changing into another. Cook: Yeah, it is more fantastic than reo pellent, on the whole. Which is a nice change.
0
On the Set:
Lenaea. dentures. finger extender. and. ".ubtle" appliance help Saran dOD'. portrayal of Oandrldge'a nlildly ticked- off .tage.
L
ast summer, Columbi a Pictures gave the go-ahead to Fright Nig ht, a present-day vampire movie concerning average teenager Charley BreY.'ste rwho discovers that hi s suave next.cJoor-neighbor Jerry Dandrige is reo ally one of the Undead. H erb Jaffe is the producer; Ric hard Ed lu nd 's Boss Film Company facility is handling the effects, and screenw riter Tom Holland (Psycho II) is making his directorial debut with the project, sched uled to open August 2. W hen I initially interviewed Ho lland during Fright Night's preprodu ction (see Fango #45), Holland generous ly invited me to come visit the set as frequently as I w ished. This resulted in th e article you're about to read. Wednesday, Dec. 19, 1984 My first trip to the set. It 's the monsoon season in los Angeles, and a fierce rainstorm ba tter s th e dQ\.-\lnt ow n lot w here the Fright Night company vehicles are parked. The lot is convenien tly right behind today's locat ion , a former hardware store converted fo r use as a sou ndstage. A seq uence for Body Double was shot here, and the nightclub set has been left sem i-intact. The ground floor is filled with tabl es and chairs; more tables and chai rs dot t he upstairs balcony that runs along the upper floor. At least a hundred extras are on hand today, dressed in studded leather and Day-Glo NeY.' Wave chic to lend colo rfu l background as th e va mpire kill s a pair of disco bouncers who get in the way o f hi s pursuit of Charley and A my, Charley's gi rlfriend, played by Wi lliam Ragsdale and Amanda Bearse. First assista nt director Jerr y Sobul megaphones instructions to the mob of extras: "Everybody take a position on the 32 FANGOR IA" 47
Macdowall and mon.ter bat in a face-to-fang confrontation.
runway, except the blood people' Thi s refers to the lu cky soul s soon to be splashed w ith a mixture of Karo syrup and food coloring. Chris Sarandon enters the set, in costume as Jerry Oandrige. Ea rlier, Sarandan had ad mitted to me hi s hesitance in taking th is part; after his Oscar-nominated performance as a nervou s trans· sexual in Dog Day Afternoon was folIQ\.-\Ied by a turn as a vicious rapist in Lipstick, he found it hard to persuade the fi lm community he could play c ha racters other than od d-ba ll s and villains. After shak in g the mold. he wasn't anxious to risk more typecasting, but says he was won over by Holland 's vision of the vampire as " a very attractive, sexy guy.
The thing Tom wanted most from this character was not the evil awfulness of h im, but the fact that he was tremendously charming. Tom wanted him to have a senseof hu mor and also a sense of the price he has to pay for being w ho he isand w hat he is. Eternal life is not necessa rily a great gift; the re's a kind of myt h ic. tragic proportion to that :' Right nQ\.-\l, Sa randon looks like ju st another hand some leadi ng man-until you not ice th e two-i nch fingernail extensions secured to hi s right hand by latex false fin gertips. Someone yell s for the makeup artists to get the " baby fangs"slightly exaggerated canines our vam· pire sports when mildly annoyed. (When Jerry's really upset, he grCl"NS Doberman
Pinscher-sized chompers.) In another area of the set, Ri ck Stratton , John Goodwin and Ken Diaz (the head of the on-set makeup unit) are applying baldcaps to the bouncers' stun t doubles: strips of Kleenex are affixed to the edges of the caps then sprayed do...m with the surgical sealant Aeroplast. Stratton spends a lot of time in the lab, where he and frequent partner Steve Neill sculpted some of the appliances used in thi s shoot. H()INeVer, he also enjoys work ing on the set: " In th e lab, you're an unsung hero; on the set, you' re representing yourself. Also, J like working with actors:' Special effects worker Darrell Pritchett walks through the set, fann ing smoke around ou t of a film can contai ning a burning compound of non-toxic oi ls. :rhe smoke's purpose is to give visual definition to the shafts of light streaming down from the ceiling. Michaellantieri, the supervisor of onset special effects (as opposed to the erealures and makeup prepared at Boss Film s), readies a fire-extingui sher-type con traption that will spray " movie blood " onto the extras, just before stu ntman Strong's body is IhrCMIn off the stairway landing and into thecrO\rVd belO'N by the vampire (actually, Strong propels himself off the landing, but on film it will look like the vampire does it). The body crashes down on a table full of partyers, knocking a stuntwoman backward into the breakaway table behind her. At thi s point, the whole disco c r(MId freaks out and stampedes. Dangerous though il appears, the st unt comes off without a hitch. The next shot calls for Charley and Amy to pu sh past the ot her bouncer, played by Ernie H olm es . Before the bouncer ca n get to the kids, Jerry gets to him, squeezing the life out of the poor guy's throat, then toss ing the body off the landing onto the dance floor. Within an hour, carpenters erect a platform that extends out from the landing. To create the illu sion that Holmes is really being lifted up and held high over the dance floor, the actor stands on a wheel-mou nted box, man ipulated below camera range by lantieri and Pritchett . When he's supposed 10 be standing on hi s own, Holmes crol,lches on th e box so that he's eye-Ievel w ith Sarandon. As Sarandon uses his long-nailed hand to " Iih" the bouncer, Holmes (whowind s up doing hi s (MIn stunt) stra ighten s his knees. The added height of the box put s his head h igh above Sarandon, so that he really seems to be held in mid-air. Then lantieri and Pritchett wheel the box from t he landing onto the platform onscreen. it will look as though Holmes is being dangled over the landing's edge. As Holmes flail s at hi s attacker, Holland reminds him , "Hi s claws are two in ches into you r neck! You ' re slCMIly dying!" Holmesdives sideways off the box onto a
Sarandon. in. more elaborate vampire stage, prepares to do some major damage.
mass ive airbag, concluding h is "death scene:' At 9:10 p.m., they're done forth e night. Sa randon, "blood" on his hand s, breaks off his fal se fingert ips and flings them one by one al the makeup people: " Take that! And that!" Friday, Jan. 4,1985 On Soundstage 8 at laird Studios in Culver City, a large sheet of fake grass separates sets for both Charley's and Jerry's hou ses. A Champman ca mera crane
sit s on the grass, waiting to peer in the second-story windO\lV of Charley'S room, mounted o n wooden scaffolding. Ragsdal e, w ho plays Charley, says " I always liked horror as a kid- I lived in sort of a small to\lVn , EI Dorado, Arkan sas, so I guess believing in witches and vampires and th ings like that sort of zested it up a little. HO\IVwould he feel, faced w ith his character's predicament? " If I found out there was a real vampire living next door to me, I think my response to that \.YOu ld FANGORIA "'47 33
just be shock. It's like the stages of death: denial resignation , anger-those are stages Cha rley goes through . It's interesting to try and touch on those in performance, never having been that close to death:' H e's been close to minor di sast er, though; a few ..veeks back, during a shot in which Charley runs dCMIn a stairway, Ragsdale b roke hi s foot. Thanks to some in ventive rescheduling and reb lock ing, the show and Ragsdale are bo th goi ng on, but the actor's foot is still in a cast, whic h sometimes poses problems even when he's sitting down . like nO\rV, for instance: the upco ming shot has Ragsdale scrambling around on his back, having been thrO\rVn into Charley's closet by the vampire, and his feet are going to sh()\r\l. No shoes big eno ugh to fit over his cast can be found, but costumers Bettylee Balsam and Mort Schwartz hit upon a solution : they slit Ragsdale's shoe in several places, slip it on, then cover the portions of cast gleaming whitely through t h e slits with black cloth. Charley's mood in thi s scene is, according to director Holland , "stark ballsout terror" as the vampire reaches dOVv'n , seizing hi s intended victim by the neck and belt. The first take seems alright, but Sa randon grabs Ragsdale's shirt instead of his neck. On the second take, Ragsdale reacts with proper fear, but when "cut " is called, Sarandon is the one looking startled and pained: Ragsdale accid entally stepped on his foot. On the third take, Sarandon grabs his prey so violently that he slams his own shoulder into the ca mera lens. When they get a good take, they move on to the next shot. The ca mera takes over Ragsda le's position in the closet. assuming Charley's point of view. The lack of a body where he's reaching fo r Charley throws Sarandon off a little, so HoIland obligingly sits in the closet next to the camera. He asks if Sarandon would like h im to offer resistance to bei ng 'pulled up. " Yes, please;' the actor says. "Scare me ta death:' Holland instru cts. Sarandon duly gets scary; Holland is pleased. "Really good, Chri s:' Monday, ,an. 7, 1985 U's 6:15 a.m. Diaz and Stratto n, along with Jeff Kennemore, have already been worki ng on Sarandon for cr..er and ho ur in the makeup trailer. Today sees the actor in the third stage vampire makeup, whic h is the most ext reme; Jerry is at the height of fury, and thu s at h is most inhuman, because Charley's just stabbed him thrpugh the hand with a pencil. A ba ldcap with a long fringe o f hair attached is on Sarandon 's head; Stratton has applied latex thumb tips to Sarandon 's hands. N()\r\I Stratton painstakingly starts gluing dONn all the latex fingertips on Sarandon's left hand, keeping the Hngers separated with little foam wedges; Kennemore begins work on the hand. 34 FANGORIA "'47
Diaz puts ad hesive on the actor's nose, then stretc hes a o ne-piece foam latex appliance over Sarandon's entire face and begins applying adhesive under the unattached portions of the piece. Kennemore ho lds up a \o\eird-looking appliance, like a latex glove with the fin gers c ut off, and asks w hat it's for. Th is is the " penci l-s tab " piece (sculpted by Steve Neill); Kennemore powders Sarandon 's right hand , then with Stratton's help stretches th e appliance onto it. " What a stupid way to make a living;' Sarandon says. " Well, not stupid-silly:' Stratton: 'Who, you or u s?" Sarandon: " Me. You guys are having all the fun ." Darrell Pritchett co mes in with the plate that goes und er the hand appl iance, consisting of the pointed half of a pencil attached to a nickel-sized base. Kennemore makes an incision in the appliance's palm with scissors, then fits the base into the slit, along with a plastic tube that goes between Sarandon's forefinger and thumb, disappears into the hole, and emerges again at the actor's wrist. The tube will pump smoke out of the hand as Jerry is stabbed. Diaz uses hisONn left hand as a palette on which he mixes colors of makeup, alternating between a paintbrush and a sponge as he adds hues to the facial appliance. Talon-like fingernail s have been attached to the latex fingertips; Stratton applies liquid latex around the back of the nail s to build up simulated cuticles. Randy Cook, who with Steve Johnson designed and sculpted mostoftheFrigh l Night appliances and strange creatu res, pitches in to help by attachi ng eyebr()\r\l pieces-real hair woven into very fine mesh-to the applian ce b row. The fake eyebrows tangle in Sarandon 's real eyelashes; Cook di sen tangles them and cautions Sarandon to c lose his eyes. Sarandon, who's being a very good sport about all this, seems just a bit uneasy at all the strange th ings poki ng and prodding near hi s closed eyes. Cook reassures him , "This is ju st my finger, not some implement of d eath." Diaz and Cook ad here a hairpiece to the top of Sarandon's baldcap; the lace on one side buckles. They peel it back with infinite care, but a ti ny patch of makeup comes up with the lace. They readjust and reglue th e hairpiece, then repaint the patch of makeup. Hairdresser Marina Pedraza joins the group, trimming and shaping the hairpiece so that the contours of Sarandon's head won't be obscu red, taking special care around th e pointed ear appliances. Diaz steps back for a look at the whole ensemble: face, hair, ea rs, ha nd s. "it looks great." Stratton quips: " l et's go home. Chris, the contact lenses are over there, the teeth are ~r there, if anything comes loose, they can fix it in the cutti ng." At 12:55 p.m. , almost eigh t hours after
they started , the makeup crew is done. Steve John so n puts in t he fin is h ing tOUChes-fangs and cont act lensesw hen they arrive on the set. A crew member w ho hasn't been near the makeup trail er thi s morning walks up, takes a good look at Sarandon , mutters " Jeez;' and walks awdy again . Thursday, Jan. 24, 1985 I arrive on Soundstage 9 at 3:30 p.m . Ho lland promptly grabs me by the arm and d rags meover to today's set, the bedroom of C harley's mother, whe re Stephen Geoffreys is in fu ll makeup as "Evil Ed" Thompson, who starts out as a weird high-school kid and wi nds up as an even wei rder vampire. He looks really ghastly: Ed has just had a cross burnt into his forehead and some of his flesh is melting off (thanks to a full-face latex appliance), his eyes are vacant pools of darkness (via opaque contact lenses), hi s fang s are huge and, due to Ed's sense of humor, he's wearing a Raggedy Ann wig. Geoffreys wishes he had more scenes in the heavy makeup: " It 's great, great fun. At fir st, I was worried ho.v to make it look real , ' Should I be a human monster, should I be real sympathetic?' But I figured you've got to ju st go all the way for it, open your mouth as wide as you can and be as terrifyi ng as possibl e. And Evil Ed loves putting on a sho.v like that, this is his big chance. And he does a good job, I think :' Tuesday, Feb. 18,1985 "On a scale of one to len, isn't that a terrific baH" Holland is proudly showing me the lalest 'NOnder from Boss Films, a spec ial effects 001 with a body the size o f a greyhound , an eight-foot wingspan and a rema rkably mobile ca bl e-controll ed face. We're on Sound st age 15, which houses the ornate set for the main entrance to Jerry's house, complete with a staircase from the o riginal Gone With the Wind set, leading up to a balcony to pped by a breakaway-stained-glass window. The bat and its handlers-Cook, John· son, Joh n Axford, Kevin Brennan, Craig Caton, Scream ing Mad George and the bat's personal makeup person, Theresa Burkett- occupy one corner of the floor at the foot of the stairs. In the other corner, Cinematographer Jan Kiesser's camera crew set up a shot of the bat attacking Roddy M cDowall as Peter Vincent, an aging ham horror actorwhoreluclantly becomes Charley's ally. " He's such a terrible ac t or," M c Dowall says of hi s character. " He's got such a sad life, he's sort o f cowardly and then he find s his strength as a human being:' Right now, he's figh t ing for his life as the bat s......aops in for Ihe kill, knocking McDowa ll backwards (a stunt man lies below camera range to catch the actor as he falls). Brennan and Wilson use poles to manipulate the bat's right and left
wings, respectively; Cook crouches under its body, holding it aloft as he runs from tall box to small box to floor, sothat the bat appears to swoop swiftly dCPtNn at McDowall in a graceful, smooth arc. " I' m seeing Randy;" camera operator Craig Denault reports as he peers through his camera's viewfinder. "Do )
"Evil Ed" does his Raggedy Aaa haUaUoa_
Feb. 23. Of course, there will be pick-up shots-retakes of bits and pi eces that didn 't turn out right the first time-and work wilt continue at Boss Films for ....-eeks on the opticals and effects, but for most cast and crew, this is it. Two weeks later, there is a wrap party,
giving everyone a chance to say goodbye (or, in some cases, "see you later"), in a relaxed, congenial atmosphere. It's fun and pleasant, but it lacks the itltense ca maraderie of the set. In o ther words, it's a good party, but it's not the same as making a mcwie. Then again, what is?
FANGO RIA '47 35
There are new people In the old Hopkins place next door. They moved In by nlght and with good reason.
ig t"
SPECIAL PREVIEW
1d your next
ROddy McDowall occupation: Fearless vampire Killer By EDWARD GROSS
From beyond the "Planet of the Apes" to beneath the full moon of "Fright Night," this veteran ~ctor loves playing characters without any labels. e hunts vampires, but only· in the movies. He introduces those. fear flicks as host of TV's Fright Night Theatre. And then, one dark and stormy evening, the horror cinema's famed "vampire killer" is swept into battle between local teenager and neighborhood bloodsucker. And Fright Night becomes something more than movies. It becomes terrifying reality for Peter Vincent. "He's an absolutely marvelous character," declares the man who portrays him,
H
52 STARLOG/ December 1985
"I never saw that film," he begins emphatically, "but I absolutely apall the idea of comparing one thing to something else. Nothing is worth anything unless it's taken on its own terms. It's one of the great pathetic sins that people go around in the world trying to compare this to that or something to something else. Why doesn't everybody just accept a thing on its own terms? "All you can do is make a piece of product, sell it on its own terms, stand behind it and hope that people will go see it. If you try to be like something else or appeal to any given group, then you can very easily end up being· gratuitous and imitative. There's not much to be gained by that, and I think too much time is spent going around trying to be like someone else." Additionally, he doesn't appreciate Fright Night being labeled a "horror" fIlm. "Some people think Snow White and the Biting satire Seven Dwarfs is a horror movie, so I never When writer/director Tom Holland ap- quite know how to deal with that kind of proached him with the Fright Night script, labeling," McDowall says. "When I did the McDowall's reaction was immediate enthusi- pilot for Night Gallery, I never looked at it as asm. "I thought it was fascinating," he notes, horror. It was a wonderful script, and my "very imaginative and very good. Tom is a character was just a lousy son of a bitch who good director and writer, and all those turned people over to get what he wanted. I elements were very conscientious. A great don't look at Legend ofHell House as horror deal of hard work went into it." either. It was just a story of people trying to The-mixture of horror and humor in Fright exorcise a spirit from a haunted house. Nightmay recall the similar structure of John "The so-called 'slice-and-dice' fIlms are Landis' An American Werewolf in London, just gratuitous rubbish. I thought The Omen was a very good fIlm. To me, horror is but the comparison agitates McDowall. something gothic, strange and peculiar ,like a As lucky Pierre, McDowall took part in TV's fairy tale. Approaching the premise of Fright Tales of the Gold Monkey. Night realistically, it's very scary. The script
Roddy McDowall, a veteran of more than 80 fIlms. "I've never done anything like it, so it was extremely rewarding to me. "The appeal to me is that Vincent is such a terrible actor. The poor dear is awful. He's just a very sweet man with no talent in a difficult situation, though he's able to rise to the occasion-like the Cowardly Lion." While he feels that any explanation of his approach to the character would sound extremely "dumb" on the printed page, McDowall does mention that he drew Peter Vincent-named in tribute to Cushing and Price-partly from childhood memories. "There were a couple of very bad actors," he says, "whom I absolutely adored as a child, and whose names today's audience wouldn't know. They were very bad actors from another time, and Peter VinCent is like them. He's full of sounds, but no content."
made sense, dealing with a vampire living next door, just like a ghost-but I'm probably overstating my case because I think that too many things are labeled incorrectly. " Nevertheless, he feels that his character probably holds a great appeal for the audience. "I suppose every territory at various times has a horror host who introduces late night shows with rubbishy dialogue," he explains. "If the audience cringes watching them, they'll identify with the characters in Fright Night. Also, the kids in the cast [William Ragsdale, Amanda Bearse, Stephen Geoffreys] are excellent. What sticks out in my mind is the group camaraderie and closeness of everybody working on'this film, really caring about Fright Night being good. And I think that comes across on the screen. " Could he see himself returning as Peter Vincent for some future foray into fear? "He's a ~onderful character and great fun," McDowall observes. "It's a: little early to say, but it's like after I did the first Apes film. Nobody figured there would be five of them and a TV series. But there were, and they were all interesting to do, so you never can tell."
VldeOAp. McDowall previously captured the hearts of SF fans as Cornelius, the talking chimpanzee, in Planet of the Apes and Escape From the Planet of the Apes, and as Cornelius' son Caesar in Conquest of. . . and Battle for the Planet oftheApes (all of which he extensively discussed in ST ARLOG #6) . . Mcpowall makes no secret of the fact that he w6uld return to the series if somebody As Galen In the Apes TV series, McDowall IHtfrlended two human astronauts (Ron Harper, left, and James Naughton). "The shows were much beUer than they were giveR credit for," says the actor.
In spite of the presence of werewolves and vampires come Fright Night, McDowall shuns the "horror movie" label. PHOTO: CBS/20TH CENTURY FOX
seriously wanted to produce a new chapter. "You seldom get to play something unique like that," the once and future ape comments, " but doing it again would depend on the content. I think it would work today, just as Star Trek has worked. It took nine years to convince people, but Star Trek worked. I think the Apes films have aged very well, particularly the first, third and fourth ones. They deal with constant human problems." From the Apes films, the actor segued in 1974 to the small screen in CBS' short-lived Planet of the Apes series. McDowall portrayed the primetirne primate Galen, a dilettante chimpanzee who befriended two fugitive astronauts from Earth's past. The series aired on Friday nights at 8 p.m. against NBC's then-super hits, Sanford and Son and Chico and the Man, and failed to garner the ratings hoped for by CBS. Thirteen episodes later, it was cancelled. "Anyone who remembers all that has a (continued on page 71)
ED WARD GROSS, New York-based writer, profiled screenwriter Don Jakoby in STARLOG #99. STARLOG I December 1985
53
McDowall (continued from page 53) good memory," says McDowall, "but the TV shows were much better than they were given credit for being. Apes went off the air not because it wasn't good, but because it was on in the wrong place at an entirely wrong time slot. "Everybody has a reason for why something is taken off the air, though Apes shouldn't have gone off. The merchandising alone could have carried it, and there were plenty of directions to go storywise, but the show wasn't on long enough." Between his many film assignments, McDowall also appeared in two other genre TV series, Fantastic Journey ("which didn't last long enough to make an impression, n he says) and Tales of the Gold Monkey. "Gold Monkey is another series that I absolutely loved. Like Apes, Gold Monkey shouldn't have gone off the air. I loved everything about it. StepheI.1 Collins was a wonderful person to work With, and I truly liked my role.the show itself, though, was rather badly treated by the network, because half the time you never knew where it was on the schedule. Same old story," he sighs. Despite his TV disappointments, McDowall has two more forthcoming video excursions planned. The actor will portray the March Hare in Irwin Allen's mini-series production of Alice in Wonderland (scheduled for airing in December). He has a recurring role in Suzanne Pleshette's new CBS series, Bridges to Cross, an hour-long, newspaper drama/ adventure intended for a mid-season premiere. McDowall admits that he's hesitant to talk in detail about these projects. "The thing is," he explains, "when you listen to a record and then r~d the blurb on the back of the album cover which says what it was all about, you say, 'Oh, is that what it was about? I thought it was something entirely different.' Everything means something different to everyone. It's all in the eye of the beholder, and I'm fascinated when 10 different people in a room have 10 different reactions as to what a film was about. "I played my role," concludes Roddy McDowall. "I loved playing it. There it is, and I hope people like it. "It is what it is."
*
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SfARLOG I December 1985
71
WIN
A FREE TRIP TO
HOLLYWOOD Details '"sIde
THE DIRECTOR'S STORY
FRIGHT NIGHT • GEORGE ROMERO UNEARTHS THE
DAYOFTHE DEAD THE TRAGIC LIFE OF
LUGOSI HORRORWOOD'S NEW MAKEUP MASTER
JOHN CARL BUECHLER PLUS: A FANTASTIC FO:.;; R -...:-. TO FILMFESTS IN MADRID AND BERLIN!
BY MICHAEL MAYO Yes, friends & fiends , I bet you didn 't know it, but vamp ire pictures have been pretty anemic lately, at least ac· cording to Tom Holland , and he's up· set! The guy loves vampire pictures, but not the wlshy·washy stuff like The Hunger. The Good Stuff: AlP vampire films , and Hammer . . . especially Hammer. Tall , good·looking vampires that can paralyze you with one pinky, and girls wandering around barely sheathed In filmy clothing. That 's what Holland thinks a good vampire film should be and that's exactly what Holland has been holed up the last few months making. HOLLAND'S DUTCH TREAT If fi rstime director Holland can capture on film what he's got on his storyboards, theatergoers this Augu st are goi ng to see a very weird film when Columbia Pictures releases Fright Night, Holland's own contribution to the vam· plre genre. He's tried to make the film with the slick & glossy Hammer look, and certainly has the technical talent backing him. But Holland is also the screenwriter, and as befits the author of Psycho II and Cicek and Dagger, the material has just a slight " bent " to it. The stuff may be a little hokey and tat· tered, Holland seems to be saying, but we love It anyway. The title of the film comes from the name of the Fright Night horror movie televised weekly by a local station and hosted by a fading ham horror actor, 34 MONSTERLANO
TOM HOLLAN D PUTS SOME NEW TEETH IN THE OLD VAMPIRE LEGEND
Peter Vincent (Roddy McDowell made up to look like Peter Cushing). Vincent frequently embellishes his show with talks about how he's fought all these undead creatures and won . It's good for the show, you know? NOT A REEL VAM PIRE
The only problem Is that a real vampire does show up and he looks even better th an Christopher Lee. He's a swinging, sexy dude named Jerry Dandridge who 36 MONSTERLAND
says he restores old homes. Jerry 's ne ighbors Include Charl ey Brewster (newcomer Bill Ragsdale), an everyday ki d who discovers that Dandridge is a vamp ire when he acci den tally sees Dandridge put the bite on his girl friend. Charley st ili can 't believe It until a nearfatal encounter with Dandridge sends Charley sc urry ing f or some bod y, anybody who wil l believe him. Well, since Vincent has always been blowing about hi s battl es, what the hark? (as in Jonathan Harker). Charley goes to Vin-
cent and tells him his story. Vincent thi nks the kid Is bats but humors him by going to see Dandridge anyway. Vincen t Is charmed by the guy (everyone Is) and can 't see anything wrong with him until a peek at a pocket mirror shows there Isn't anything to see of Dandridge. Vincent now knows Charley Is right but doesn 't feel any better lor It . After 30 years spent fighting foam rubber and special effects, he's now up against the Real Thing , a supernaturally powerfu l creature
l£ft; Roddy MrDow.tll plQylng
If" n·horTo.
moVlII' sfur. Aoout
to J./lU1' If howl of If lim" wllh Q TN/·I,/II' 1Df!'f'lDolf i" Fright Night. Top: Til" V
80ft thl' I1l'ishborhood
who's very smart and very deadly . . . " I decided to resuscitate the genre because I have so many fond childhood memories of them. I want to see them, and nobody's been able to do a decent vampire film in 10 years. The last Drac flick that was any good was a parody, Lov. at Firat Bit., and a parody is always the last gasp of a dying genre. So I wanted to bring them back and be faithful to the legend. These are vam· pires that do everything we've been brought up to expect vampires to do:
they turn Into bats and wolves and bite pretty girls .. . all that good stuff. " I'D LIKE TO BE AN OSCAR WIENER And they do it, alright. Fright Night features some truly effective spec ial makeup and optical effects done by Oscar·win ner Richard Edlund 's BFC outfit. They haven 't built Holland just a tiny little bat that flaps rig idly against a wall but a huge, fleshy·plnk, redeyed MONsrERLANO 31
A kiD U slilll! ki5lll . f'Xcept whl'lI if, fro m thi5 too thsome Mi55
Nosferat lc nasty that Is the ugl iest thing you 've seen In ages. Th is oogle is so ugly It's beautifu l; just the sort of thing I wish I had sitting on my mailbox to snap at bil l collectors and junk mail carriers. And that's just one of the things McDowell and Ragsdale have to 31 MONSTER LAND
cope with. Dandridge also manages to turn Heaven Help Us star Steven Geoffreys Into a werewolf and Ragsdale's girlfriend (Amanda Bearse) into a vo l uptuous siren who grows more teeth than Rln Tin Tin.
"THE HUNGER" GAVE HOLLAND A GREYSTROKE
" I was so angry at The Hunger," says Holland. " I thought It was the biggest abortion I'd ever seen. Sheesh, it was so pretentious . .. right up there with
Graystoke. I mean, In Graystoke they were ashamed to mention the name Tarzan and they didn't say It once In the fil m, while In Tha Hungar they didn 't say the word vampire once. I think those guys should go out and make other kinds of movies If they're going to be ashamed of the genre." Holland 's affection for fantasy & horror began as a youngster when he was growing up in a small, mld·state New York town gobbling down HPLovecraft, Robert E. Howard, Robert Bloch and others. He wanted to be a writer but became an actor when he came to Hollywood. Holland stili pur· sued writing though, and finally sold a screenplay which almost sank his career before It got started . A BEASTLY BUSINESS
" It was the first script I'd done that got made and It was done so badly It put me out of the business for a year. That was Tha Ba..t Within. I got thrown off the set and out of the dailies because I told them exactly what I thought they were doing to the story. The next one I did was Cia.. of 1984, then Psycho II , then one called Scraam for Halp that was made so badly It was never released, then Cloak and Dagger." Fright Night Is Holland's first film as a director . Like many writers who become directors, part of Holland's
drive to direct was to present his stories as he thought they should be made. PSYCHO II: BOO HOO " I think you really have to know what you 're doing with the stories to make a good film . Some people have done badly with my stories and some have done okay, but even when It was done well , It's never been done the way I In· tended. Psycho II , on which I had a good relationsh ip with director Richard Franklin by the way, was supposed to 'be a very emotional and romantic film In Its own way. I designed It for you to feel a great deal of empathy for Nor· man. He and Meg Tilly really come to love each other but It's tragic because It 's never allowed to consummate Itself and then she 's killed . I th ink t his element of the story got subjugated to the murder mystery elements, which I don't think were as powerful as the emotional elements. So, with Fright Night I wrote It specifically to direct. I wanted to write something that was so completely commercial that nobody could afford to turn It down, they'd have to let me direct It, which Is exactly what happened. Every major studio In town wanted It ... It's that simple." Well , not exactly, and Holland knows It too. He wants to make a scary fil m that 's also funny; and a violent, sexy
vampire film that 's lo-cal on the gore. Might Holland be In danger of making a film with too much humor and not enough blood for today's genre aud iences? GOREABORE " This is meant to be a crossover film . It 's going to be an R, but because of the sex, not the gore. If you want that, go see the italians because I'm not Into gore. I think It's a cheap trick to squirt blood Into people's faces . It's the last refuge of the untalented who go to It because they can't think of any other way to do it. I make fun of It In the movie. CRYING FOUL " For the humor, I think It depends on If your laughs stem from kidding the genre or come from the situation. I think It 's a big, big mistake to spoof the genre and I don 't do that. If your humor evolves from the situation, though , that 's OK. I personally think Fright Night Is a very funny movie. You 've got this guy who's been fighting vamp ires for 30 years In all these bad movies, and he tries It on the vampire, waves a cross at him and says 'Back, you foul creat ure of the night! ' And the vampire just cracks up. "
MONSTER LAND 39
Tom Holland's Photos
German Lobby Cards
German Lobby Cards
American Lobby Cards
Amiga PC •• Arcade" Game
FRIGHT l~IGHT AM,a-Al
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Compiled by ANTHONY TIMPONE
The FANGORIA Fright File oj up-to-the-minute newsbreaks and other horrible happenings!
The Fearle•• Vampire KWer Brigade (Trac:i Lin. WiJ.J..i.aDl Ragsdale and Roddy McDoweU) prepare for batUe.
. ........, "1IT-..AItT 2", bent on doing a number on Bloodletting is better the second time around, on ideo whose time has finally come in the long anticipated sequel to Fright Night . Fright Night- Port 2, directed by Tommy (Hollo ween III) lee Wallace, once again teams those two unlike, Iy vampire fighters, confused student Charley Brewster (William Ragsdale) and TV horror show host Peter Vincent (Roddy McDowall). The story picks up three yeors after Fright Night ended. Brewster, now in college, lives a relatively normal life until up pops the devil in the guise of Regine (Julie Carmen), the undead sister of the first film's Jerry Dandridge . She is hell·
10 FANGO RIA #74
horror is even more believable because of the modern setting." Integral to the success of a Fright Night sequel was convincing McDowall and Ragsdale to come bock for more. McDowall sees na reol mystery in his agreeing to reprise his Vincent role. "I liked the story," says the British genre veteran. Ragsdale agrees with those points. "It's not like t was going to be playing a clone of the part 1 played in the first film ," reosons the younger actor. "They've made Charley more mature. There's a lot of running around, but mentally and emotionally they've given Chorley a whole lot to do." Director Wallace predicts the inherent problems of a se· quel and the inevitable camporisons to the original, but he is quick to defend his film as a legitimate piece of work.
"The story is the thing," argues Wallace. "There was a definite framework I knew 1 would have to work within when I agreed to do this film; I knew Chorley and Peter would be bock, and I knew we would be deoling with vampires again. But 1 also knew if there was a very real, very scary and very sexy story to tell that the movie would stand on its own." A Fright Night follow-up has been on ongoing rumor since the success of the original in 1985. Unfortunately, a shokeup at Columbia Pictures resulted in a number of pro· jects, including the proposed sequel, getting shelved. Producer Herb Joffe, who helmed the first film , bought bock the sequel rights lost yeor and found a willing company in Vista. Fright Night- Part 2 opens in August. - Marc Shapiro
Chorley for offing her big brother. With the aid of Vincent, Brewster goes into nightmarish bottle against the sexy Regine and a whole new · supporting cost of ghouls and nosties. Fright Night- Port 2, shot in 4S days in and around los Angeles, is on FX. heavy film , courtesy of such latex and optical stalwarts as Gene Warren Jr. , Rick Josephson , Bart Mixon , Brion Wade, Greg Cannom and others. "This is definitely a 'now' kind of movie," enthuses vampiress Carmen. "There's a reol new wove, '80s feel to both my character and the produclion values. This is definitely a Now it'. the py.' t1lnl to oCle as Fright Night-Part 2 presenu the sexy .amplre Regine IJalie Cannen). horror film , and I feel the
... RIGHTNIG PARI.2 Bares Its Fangs
:=---.
The .t.... of Frlght.lffght- Part 2 40 their 4arD.e4Ht to oatdo The Lo.t Boy.' l_bioDable attire. (Left to rilbt: Jonathall Onea, Brian ThOm.PMtD. Julle ClU'IIlea and . . . MUClark.)
H
ollywood Rule *1: Never kill
a goose laying golden eggs. Take, for example. Friday the 13th. Part VII (soon to be Part
VIII) , or A Nightma.re on Elm Street 3 (soon to be Part 4). or ALIENS (soon to be .. . well, you get the pic-
ture). So when a rather small but FX· crazed little exercise in vampire tomfoolery called Fright Night proved not only a critical success (I. e. somebody other than FANGORlA liked it) but a box office bonanza (an
snakes around an open bathroom door while the shower beats a estimated $50 million worldwide to background ra.ta.t.a.ta.t. Wallace is date) . it s eemed a safe bet that there satisfied and yells, "Cut." The studio where the lion's share would be further adventures for Peter Vincent and Charley Brewster. of Fright Night-Part 2 is being filmed is a little-used relic from the 1940s, The sucker's also pretty The Set Visit: Day ODe Tommy Lee Wallace plays footsies drafty, which explains why. after with shower steam. First take: U' s exiting a mock-up of Charley too thick . Second take: It's too thin. Brewster's apartment, Wallace puts Are you ready. baby bear? Third on a heavy jacket to snuggle up for a take: Wallace motions the cramped quick script read. Jeffrey Sudzin, camera crew slowly back. The steam the film's line producer, could do without the chill wreaking havoc on his ongoing head cold. But, between sniffles and sneezes, Sudzin chronicles the history of Fright By MARC SHAPIRO
Night-Part 2.
"There was never any question that a sequel to Fright Night would be made," swears Sudzin. "But when a new regime took over at Col· umbia, a number of projects were dumped, including the Fright Night • sequel. When that happened, Herb ~ Jaffe, who produced the first t'Fright Night, got the rights back from Columbia and took the project u to Vista." ~ Of course, Fright Night-Part 2, :g budgeted at $7.5 million for a ~ 45-day shoot, would have been .i! nothing without Roddy McDowall as i fearless vampire killer Peter Vincent j and William Ragsdale as perpetual victim Charley Brewster. "Getting Roddy and Bill back was no pro~ blem," claims Sudzin. "They were i happy to do it once they saw the ':: script." ! The second chapter in Fright f Night's stylish bloodsucking saga
i
:s i
begins three years after the original ended. Charley Brewster, now in college. celebrates the conclusion of three years of intense headshrinking that has convinced him everything that happened in the first film was all a dream. Brewster and his latest main squeeze Alex (Traci Lin) pay a visit to TV horror host Peter Vincent (McDowall), whose continued on-air tirades to beware of the unknown have once again gotten him fired. Charley begins to get that old uneasy feeling again. a feeling that·s justified with the appearance of female excitress Regine (Julie Carmen) and an equally eerie group of cohorts. Regine, as the tale unColds, turns out to be the sister of the dear departed Jerry Dandridge, come to take revenge on Charley by seducing him into the vampire life. After a series of near-misses, which include girlfriend Alex's fending off the amorous advances of some of Regine's ghouls, Charley, once again aided by horror host Vincent, sets about doing battle with the vampiress and her horror horde. Fright Night-Part 2's .cowriters-director Wallace (who plotted the course of Halloween Ill: Season oj the Witch) and the duo of Miguel Tejada-Flores and Tim Metcalfe {of Revenge oj the Nerds infamyl-have invested the sequel with so much '80s hi-tech and glitzy hipness that one is sorely tempted to compare Part 2 to an episode of Miami Vice. Sudzin is quick to laugh that comparison off. but Carmen, putting on makeup in preparation for a heavy seduction number. feels Fright Night-Part 2's attitude is definitely now. . "Intellectually, it's clever in a very new wave sort of way," judges Cannen, whose exotic appearance makes her the ideal candidate to suck Charley's blood.. "This film sits on the cutting edge all the way down the line. Regine is definitely a freaked-out personality, kind of like a cross between Tina Turner and Catherine Deneuve." Carmen, whose talents are on display in The Penitent and The Milagro Bea.nfield. War, hasn't always waxed so enthusiastic about the film, In fact. she remembers an early draft of the script that sent her looking for a stomach distress ~ag . "I was afraid of the part because Regine's character was nothing more than an Elvira imitation," the actress winces. "The revisions made her a more multidimensional being who happens to like sucking blood.." Subsequent rewrites so impressed Cannen that she began turning things down right and left in order to thoroughly prep herself for her
Loale tran.rorm., . . McDo_all' ••tant double bang. on ror dear ute. Fright Night-Part 2 romp. Carmen
read everything concerning vampires and watched every vampire movie she could lay her hands on. Naturally, she watched the original Fright Night until she was blue in the face. "I picked up some mannerisms from the Jerry Dandridge character, such as his wink and the Bela Lugosi way he held ~is hand. that 1 use in this film," Carmen reveals. "But I stopped looking at the first movie when I realized I could very easily fall into the trap of being a female clone of the Jerry Dandridge character. " The actress jokingly claims she will have a clause in future contracts against any latex being
poured on her body, thanks to the ordeal by fire required in the creation of a glamorized vampire mask by FX supervisor Bart Mixon and key sculptor Brian Wade. "The six hours required to get the neck and, face piece on was hard enough, but the actual molding of the mask was a killer." groans Carmen. "I had never had prosthetics applied before, so you can imagine what happened when Brian and Bart poured alginate and plaster over my head. When the plaster began to harden, I got totally claustrophobic and started to panic. The only thing that saved me was that I meditated and gave myself up to the weight of the plaster. But I was so freaked that I went home that night and cried. FANGO RIA 1176 45
during a break in his action. "I'll tell you. I meet a lot of people who say, 'I don't go to those kind of movies. but I hear you were very good.' .. Ragsdale. attired in a bathrobe (he spends a good part of this movie in the vicinity of a bed), remembers he took the persistent rumors of a Fright Night sequel in stride, but was more than willing to repeat the Tole of Charley when the rumors got serious, and he's happy to report
"The effects are a variation of things that have aD been done before." -visual FX
coordinator Gene Warren Jr.
"A few minutes after I stopped crying. the phone rang." she sighs . "There was a problem with the mold. and they wanted to know if I could come in early the next morning to do it again."
Day Two: Charley ...d Gene Speak Sudzin still coughs. Wallace and his camera crew are back in 46 FANGORIA #76
Charley's apartment. where Charley is about to get a rude awakening. There's a knock on the door. Brewster mumbles as good buddy Richie (Merritt Butrick) enters in search of a power tie, the better to impress the babes. Charley freaks when he realizes he's slept through half his classload. He rushes into the bathroom while Richie goes through Charley's drawers, looking for the proper cloth strip. Wallace halts the action and. true to his growing rep as a stickler for detail, confers with Bubick on the proper way to cross to the dresser from the door. Wallace collars Ragsdale and Butrick when the scene ends, and they retire to a darkened corner of the soundstage where, amid animated gestures and verbal rimshots. they rough out the tone of an upcoming scene. "What has being in Fright Night done for my career?" howls Ragsdale outside the soundstage
that his second turn at Charley is not a carbon copy of the first. "Charley gets involved in more of an emotional battle," he assesses. "The first fUm was more of a physical thing. He's been in therapy and is trying to cope and decide whether or not to believe in all this strange stuff that's happened to him. What he has to deal with is much more troublesome, emotionally. and so the role has a lot more substance. "Charley is a character that is very close to home for me at this point," continues Ragsdale. "but I don't think it's gotten to the point where I'm sleepwalking through the role." Following Fright Night-Part 2, Ragsdale hits the road in the national touring company of Neil Simon's play Broadway Bound, a sign that Ragsdale is avoiding the stereotype of "horror film actor," Gene Warren Jr" Part 2's visual FX coordinator, is one slow-talking dude. You could empty a bottle of ketchup in the time it takes him to complete a sentence. But slow does not equate with evasive; Warren bluntly points out that the most ambitious bit of wizardry in Fright Night-Part 2 never got off the drawing board. "In an early version of the script, Evil Ed was still in the film," explains Warren. "There was this sequence where he falls off the top of a building, makes a number of transformations while falling and, just before he hits the ground, changes into a bat and flys away. But once we lost Evil Ed, doing the same stunt for another character
just didn't seem to fit." Warren, whose Fantasy II shop did an estimated 300 bits on Nighiflyers before hitting the Fright Night trail, still has the majority of his stop motion, rear projection and other visual FX work in front of him in what will be an estimated three months of postproduction work. But he proves a good source of information on the FX highlights other people on the film have dished out thus far. "Greg Cannom does a real solid transformation on a monster character named Louie," praises Warren. "U's a limited, two or three cut transformation done in reverse. The character changes from a wolf back to a person. And that mask for Regine, which switches from normal to monstrous and back again at certain points in the movie, is something just that little bit different. "But I'm not going to sit here and jazz you that, effects-wise, any of us are doing anything totally off the wall," he admits . "What the effects on this film are is a variation of things that have all been done before. We may run into some unexpected things in postproduction that may necessitate our stretching a little bit. but effects people have been literally turning people inside out for years. What you're going to see are some very good special effects, yet nothing you haven't seen before ...
the actor expresses appropriate fear, then gives way to his stunt double for the long shots of Peter Vincent hanging in space. But while McDowall seems hardly the worse for his experience, the veteran actor is obviously in a snit about something. The vast majority of his responses to questions about character-or about differences between Fright Night and its sequel, or about on and off set anecdotes-are "I don't think that's a question you can ask me," "Asking something like that is asinine," and "This line of questioning upsets me." McDowall, however, does find a few questions to his liking. "J liked the script," he notes. "That's why I decided to play Peter Vincent again. Play the character differently? Why would J do that? Peter Vincent is Peter Vincent. To change his character in any way would not be wise." McDowall goes for your reporter's throat when asked. if Part 2 will be a picture to stand on its own merits rather than just as a sequel. This correspondent takes the hint and turns his attention back to the werewolf who, having climbed to the window and positioned. himself upside down on the ledge, awaits Wallace's signal to take the flop. We' re talking one-take territory, folks, so the director looks through the camera's eyepiece, makes like Rembrandt checking the angles and finally, with just about all the blood Day Three: Wel'ewolf Drops, having rushed. to the stuntman's Roddy Bites Fango head, calls for action. There is a moSubtitle this day "Just Hanging ment's hesitation before the Around." To wit: Easily 50 cast, crew and assorted visitors, crowded into the corner of a soundstage adjacent to the one housing Charley's digs, share small talk-who's doing what to whom, who's going where over the weekend, why the He-Man movie didn't wow them at the box office. The buzz carries on beneath the false front of an upper-story window, complete with cornices, genuine imitation brickwork and all those things that make a place oldlooking. A rather substantial air bag/mattress is hustled in and placed directly under the facade's open window, Off to one side, glancing from mattress to window and back again, is a stuntman in werewolf chic who will shortly take a jump out the window. But before the swan dive, Wallace maps out a shot in which Roddy McDowall, with stunt double, will hang precariously off the window's ledge as Charley and his girlfriend try to pull him in. McDowall mounts a ladder and positions his hands on the ledge. For a series of close-ups,
werewolf slowly pushes himself away from the window, executes an Olympic-caliber dive and lands dead center on his back. Applause rings out. The werewolf leaps off the bag and raises his arms in triumph. The only thing missing is the overture from Rocky. Wallace disappears shortly after the werewolf plunge, according to Sudzin, into a meeting where he cannot be disturbed. But splatter scribes are known for persistence, and Wallace is tracked down. The director is attempting, in reality, some sack/snack time in his trailer. Wallace does not pull a McDowall at being discovered. and offers some quickie insights on the care and (continued on page 68)
....e ·up FX UDlimited's aecoll4 -tac'e dummy head for the DMb· 1DIt1tiDC scene, Tbe Fright Night aeqael WOD't skimp OD the FlL
HELLBOUND- FRIGHT 2 - COI'ITRIBUTORS' ___ _ _ _ CRYPT
L
alT,. aarak,. 'reports on
C.H.U.D. n and Waxwork in future issues ........~ contributed to Famous Monsters in its hey· day. Ales 00rd0D produces Gene Autry's Melody Ranch. Theater (Nashville Network). Peter JUocIa.. . . . . . . covers The Kiss in our next
issue. Da'ri4 ........ wants to know ~bat we have against Cleveland. Da... ~. . . . . D ..... SweetaaD.'s A Cotton candy Autopsy is due soon from Piranha Press. stew. Kewtoa hails from British Columbia. GreJ"'71'1iooU keeps poundlDg
away at his first horror novel. Look for PbII JIhd::aaD's short story debut in Sldpp a: Spector's upcoming Book of the Dead. IIarc _
..... visited
the sets of They Li,ve and Elulra"
Mistress of the Doric. BID WarreD reviews movies for an LA newspaper. To. . . . .et'S first book. Interviews wUlt "B" Science Fiction and Horror Movie Makers. is due sooo from McFarland.
THINGS TO COJlllE _ _ _ __
Y
ou.ve got to get the most out of summer while it lasts. Summer means much more than working on your tan and. listening to the Beach Boys. Summer means reading Fango. Or elsc. how would you know the news about our dear friend Freddy? Yes. A N~taaate 08 Kia
"t
8treet The Dream. •••ler is 00 its way. and this is the place to get the full story! Hear the words of director (Prison) BarUa and Kob.rt B .....Dd. But you don' t want to mJS8 the rest of the issue, either, because you'd pass up definitive coverage of .1.........ar••• of lbe Dark. When one of the genre's loveliest ladies ever decided to make her motion picture debut, it's big news. Did we mention that this will be our annual special makeup FX issue? That explaJns why we've got an in-depth interview with Mr. Splatter himself. Tom SariD.i, plus a look at the FX of The Blob and PrlCJat I'IJCbt-Part 2 . Only one way to squeeze every drop of fun out of the season-by
K._.,.
reading I'AII001llA '771
01'1 SALE: AUGUST 11 68 FANGORIA #76
(continuedfrom page 38)
promotional tour of Japan. takes great pleasure in showing your correspondent a rough cut of Julia ' s resurrection scene. Officially c redited as executive producer on HeUbound, Barker is delighted by the reaction the footage generates. The material breaks taboos in its compelling combination of sexuality and selfmutilation; more than that, it is in credi bly gory, despite Christopher Figgs' great pains earlier on to stress that the sequel would not attempt to outdo the original in terms of splatter. Even in rough form, the footage is damn uncomfortable to watch, with Oliver Smith screaming nonstop throughout the proceedings as he repeatedly slashes his body with a straight razor. The mattress and room steadily becomes awash with blood that sprays the watching Channard. Then, from inside the fabric. the skinless Julia appears, caressing ·the still screaming Browning character before forcing her fingers into his neck and gorging herself on his life force. Strong meat, for sure . "I think Tony Randel has been getting a little carried away. don't you? " Barker chuckles as he calmly puffs away on his Cigar. This impression is confirmed o n my return to the soundstage. where 1 find the director, goresplashed and happy, assisting the makeup guys in blOOdying up several lunatics for a scene in which the Cenobites s laughter a ward full of inmates. The attitude seems to say, "If you want blood, you got itl" As the day comes to a close , we are left with one of those bizarre images that you only get t o see during the making of a horror movie. Their day's work over, the actors playing the now dead inmates stagger off to their dressing rooms. One older woman. who looks like a splattered bag lady, turns to the Butterball Cenobite (Simon Bamford) and inquires, "Where's the tea trolly, love?" "On the other side of the stage; replies the hellspawn in a soft, carefully enunciated English accent. "Thank you, love," chirps the dead woman as she changes direction, trying not to drip blood on the floor. Sadomasochism. gore, cups of tea and cream cakes . Only on a Clive Barker movie. iI
(continued from page 47)
feeding of Fright Night-Part 2. "My biggest surprise on this film has been how long rubber takes," chuckles the native Kentuckian between bites. "Prosthetics are unpredictable and hard to deal with, but given the time and the circumstances, 1 can see that we're getting some real quality." Wallace, returning to the theater of the fantastic after a radical departure directing Aloha Summer. does not see any obstacles in creating a sequel to something with a definite pedigree. "I don't think shooting a sequel is substantially different from s hooting anything else," he reasons. "There are no particular advantages to making a sequel. There's some history and conventions you have to follow: in that sense, this is a classic example of a sequel. But Fright Night 2 owes its story to itself. We knew going in that the characters from the first film would be back and that they would once again be involved with vampires. Beyond that. however, this story stands on its own." Since signing on, Wallace bas reacquainted himself with the inevitable script rewrites (which succeeded, among other things, in weeding out the characters Amy and Evil Ed) and the expected rumors of sour grapes from people associated with the first Fright Night. "Yeah," frowns Wallace, " I've heard all about how Tom Holland was supposedly running around town telling anybody who would listen that our film was a rip-off. Well, I had lunch with Tom last week, and I can tell you that he's been real enthus iastic and s upportive about this project." Wallace explains that directing Fright Night h as given him the opportunity to relearn some tricks of the trade. " Like patience, and ways to get what I want out of a sequence. The art of compromise is always there," he lists. "And a sense of humor sure helps." Wallace rattles on, alternating bits of cinem a narrative with kicks at the open trailer door, until he eventually hints that he could sure use 40 winks. OK, we'll let him snooze, Over at the dinner break. Jeff Sudzin sneezes into his hanky. Around the comer at a pay phone, Julie Carmen tells her child she's going to get home a little late. Back at the trailer, Tommy Lee Wallace's eyes begin to close. To sleep, and on the Fright Night-Part 2 set, perchance to dream. D
By MARC SHAPIRO
T
alk about feeling like a kid in a
candy store. Bart Mixon had a
mouthful of Milky Ways the day he opened the script for Fright Night-Part 2. "I turned to a page
and it said, 'Regine suddenly turns
into a monster from hell: " recalls Mixon. "I thought to myself. 'A monster from hell? This is going to be fun.' .,
Mixon remembers t h at introduction to the FX-Jaden F r ight Night sequel from the comfortably clu ttered office of Make-up FX Unlimited. The
fledgling company. whose F r ight Night-Parl 2 chores were its first
Bart Mixon assembles a virtual Murderers' Row of FX talent to take on the stylish sequel.
gig as the creature/prosthetics right arm of Fantasy II , is putting the finiShing touch es on t h e film, The odd insert and miniature is being shot or fine-tuned, but Mixon, studying an FX breakdown for an upcomin g production, is already primed for n ew proj ects, Mixon, a contributor to Terminalor and RoboCop, had worked with Fantasy II 's Gene Warren Jr . on many occasions. Talk between the two had gotten serious about a makeup adjunct to Fantasy II's visual magiC. His first official effort under the Make-up FX Unlimited banner was a dumm y head for Drac ula's W ido w . Wh en Wa r ren offered Mixon 's shOp as a bonus in bidding for the Fright Nighl- Part 2 job, Mixon suddenly found himself keying one monster of a monster movie. ""There's definitely more monstertype things in this film than in the first Fright Night. .. compares Mix· on. ""The stuff in the original was nice. but we've definitely got much more of it. .. So much. in fact. that Mixon ran into difficulty assembling a crew for what would ultimately be two groups of makeup people working on the movie ... At one point, a lot of people were available,"" relates Mixon, " But by the time I found out we would be doing prosth etics, too, many of the people I wanted were working elsewhere. I started with a core group and was able to get other people for short periods of tim e." Anchoring the core group was key sculptor Brian (Jason Lives) Wade. key painter Aaron Sims, key moldmaker Jim McLou ghlin and a moonlighting (from Rick Baker'S studio) Norman Cabrera. Also on board for various periods of time were Gabe (Brain Damage) Bartalos, Barney Burman, Brent Baker, Matt Rose, Bill Sturgeon, Joey Orosco,
T h e F X gang'. all b e r e: (top left) Jim McLou.gb1in. Bre nt Bake r , Bart Mi.Ko n. Grelor Punc hats, Aaron Sims, (bottom) Barne y Burman. G abe Bartalos and Brian Wade.
EDITOR'S NOTE: At presstime, New Ce ntury / Vista bumped Fright Night-Part 2 to aJaU release.
A HARD DAY'S
... RIGHT NIGH
28 FANGORIA
#
77
provided some major design challenges, to which everybody on the crew arose. Aaron Sims contributed some early sketches. Mixon threw in some ideas centered around his penchant for long skinny fingers. Bartalos and Cabrera began mental preparation for monstrous legs and detailing. McLoughlin had a nifty tongue in mind. "Our initial r eaction was to go with something wild with yard-long ears and spines coming out of the arms," claims Wade, who's now assisting Steve Johnson on Nightmare 4. "The teeth were going The Regine Monster bands sported mechanical finger eztensions by BID
the other side-where Regine, r eturned to the original form and (Note: skip the next six preparing to destroy Charley, is sud' paragraphs if you don'l want the d e nly hit by sunlight reflected off a mirror by Peter Vincent. Original movie's ending revealed.) As the sequence unfolds, Regine makeup suggestions for the death completes her transformation into makeup were rejected by Wallace on the big bat, crash es through the the grounds that they were too elevator floor and swoops down to gross, a problem that was ultimately the bottom of the shaft. Two bat overcome with a r e latively puppets, a stop-motion miniature standard-issue gelatin bum makeup sculpted by Brian Wade over a Mike applied by McLoughlin and Mixon. " We made a series of dummy Joyce armature and a full-size puppet molded by McLoughlin and heads," McLoughlin explains. "The Baker and sculpted by Rose, Wade first dummy head had mechanics, and Sims were used in the scene. jaw move ment. fangs growing and "O riginally, the sequence was brow movement. which I built into designed with only the stop-motion it. A series of tubes were also attach puppet in mind," Mixon remembers. ed, which allowed us to pump "Little by little, it evolved into a trichloroethane to swell the head'S giant wing tip and then a fuli-sized latex skin . Gelatin bum makeup bat seen craShing through the was applied to a double's hands to h elp bring the scene to life." floor." With these elements in place, the The stop-motion shots, animated by Fantasy l1's Justin Kohn, com- boys lit the dummy head on fire to bined rear-projection live action and simulate the sequence's beginning in-camera split screens for insertion in which Regine's flesh begins to of the miniature bat. The huge pup- bum away. The fiery scene was pet was placed on a rod and pushed completed as the skins we re stripthrough the elevator floor and out ped off the first dummy head, a new corpse mask slipped over the exDinah Cancer doubled actress isting mechanics and a gelatin bum Julie Cannen (or her DamJ.ng appliance attached over the mask. death scene. The entire The head was once again set on fire, makeup took three hours expos ing the Regine corpse puppet rumored final edit, mayor may not be seen).
to apply.
to be really monstrous. But director's input, and the fact that the creature had to bear some resemblance to the finished giant bat puppet. resulted in reduction of the ears and teeth. What we came up with is good, but we could have come up with something totally wild." Bartalos reveals that the monster claw hands were sculpted in clay and epoxy with a spandex support and finger caps attached. " I also painted the nails and punched in the hair," he says. "It was an easygoing situation. Everybody worked on different things and had a lot of fun ." Bill Sturgeon sculpted the creature's neck-to-crotch body suit. Cabrera contributed booty-style monster feet. a cross between a lady and a monster with exaggerated muscles and veins (which, depending on the 28 FANGORJA #77
The finished first ·stage Richie makeup. appUed by NOrn)an Cabrera. Fangs. contacts. and a good coating of K-Y JeUy and pus were added prior to filming. Stage two consisted of a throat piece and a lip/chin piece by Bart Mb:on.
head underneath. For the fiery finale, a Regine body suit. sculpted by MiXon. McLoughlin. Sims and Punchatz and worked on at various stages by the rest of the c rew. is torched in various places to simulate the effect of fire damage. A beam of sunlight and flames over the body were add· ed in postproduction by Fantasy II. "We tried for a droopy. melty look when we were sculpting the corpse body." interjects Sims. a former Eui! Dead II assistant. "At one point we even s howed a nipple melting away. but for whatever reason. that shot did not make the final edit. " The death-by-holy-water of Charley's roommate-turned-vampire Richie offered the FX crew an opportunity to get away from the nowfamiliar acid burn look . "We decided to go for a more puffy swollen look. kind of like what Dick Smith did in Spasms." asserts Summer School vet Cabrera. who applied the firststage Richie makeup. ., Facial appliances were created to reflect what the head would look like after tubes were attached, and trichloroethane was pumped through the foam latex appliances. which resulted in that swollen bloated look. " The effect, which incorporated a dummy head and facial mechanics, was shot in postproduction by Fantasy II,
Next up on the FX parade was the infamous Newberry. the bowling emporium proprietor who is decapitated and whose head winds up in an alley's ball return, McLoughlin sculpted and added the gore FX from a standard life cast. Bartalos painted it and punched in the hair. For the scene in which Belle accidentally slices open the chest of Bozworth, plastic hands and sculpted nails were created. "To give the puncture effect that extra push, we fit real X-acto blades into the nails, " grins Mixon. "We knew they were going to work when Tommy Wallace cut himself one day while inspecting the hands." The glowing, melting death of Belle in the holy cloth was accomplished through the use of two skulls. "We used two gelatin heads on that effect." informs Mixon. "One had a fiberglass skull, which we ba c klighted to begin the meltdown process. Then we cut to a gelatin head with a wax skull to complete the process. The entire efBrian Wade's rough sculpture of the fect was done through time-lapse Regine Monster incorporated Bart melting in an oven," Mixon's elrtended teeth deSign, Mixon reports that a number of elements or an Aaron Sims sketch, vampire teeth sets were constructed and many or Wade's own ideas, such by Snell for the various actors. The as the oversized ears. Is that teamshop created an additional large wOf"k Of" what? hollow canine, which was raked across an actor's neck in the scene film. and he probably felt h e had to where Charley is bitten by Regine. keep an extra eye on me. Tommy " There were also a lot of Charley- also didn't want this to be all all-out related molds and sculptures, effects movie. which was p&rt of the primarily neck and hand wounds, reason why he constantly suggested that were indicated at an early point changes. None of that bothered me. in the filming but ultimately not us- It was his movie, and I was more ed," he sighs. than willing to give him what h e wanted to make him happy." But making Wallace happy did not get in the way of making Mixon h appy with what he and his crew accomplished, "We've done a couple of things on this film that haven·t been done berore. especially with o ur approach to the Richie effects. ,. he in beams. "To a large extent. however. what we've done is traditional. It's Fright Night." primarily a lot or dummy heads and appliances, stuff that·s been done before. We knew going in what would work, given the time and money we had , and we went with those things." Bart To a man. the Make-up FX Unlimited c rew views the Fright Night-Parl 2 experience as an enjoyable one. For supervisor Bart Mixon is candid about director Mixon, it was a chance to show his Wallace's presence at his shop dur- prowess at the head of a major film; ing production. The director asked for Aaron Sims, who concedes he for num erous changes and was the raw rookie in this all-s tar FX displayed much more interest in his lineup, it was a chance to learn from creature makers than u s ual. some established craftsmen, And "To a certain extent, it wasn't sur- for everyone in between? "Man. it was fun," Bartalos -grins. prising." Mixon judges. "This was m y first time keying a m ajor effect " Just a whole lot or run." 0
"There's definitely more monster-type things than the first -makeupFX supervisor Mixon
FANGORIA
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Regine's Final Transformation
