the making of fright night/fright night part 2

8/10/2019 The Making of Fright Night/Fright Night Part 2

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THE

M KING O



JAPAN'S

FRANKENSTEIN

GAMORA

SAVINI MEETS BUB

D YOFTHE

DEAD

TITAN OFTERROR

KARLOFF

EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW WITH

CHRISTOPHER LEE

ONTHESETOF

HP LOVECRAFT'S

RE·ANIMATOR



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 mon-

ster, 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

MONSTERLAND

How c n Roddy McDowall

m i l d ~ m Q " n ~ r f d

V

hO 1 and B-mou;e

ac

tor. hope to cope

wht ll 0/ his

I'lns grow fanss in

the new

v.mp; ,•• t . Frigh Nigh ?

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. Fa i

ry

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 am

-

bivalence 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 hunch-

back as merely

an

ugly misbegotten

monster , it would miss the point,

which is

that

the

hunchback

was

longi

ng

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 par-

ticular 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 condem

ned

to a

helluva situation

.

Wouldn't that

be

true of any vam-

pire? 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 unti l 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 direc

tor. This is a very complex film. The

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 com

plex. 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 in

volved , 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 wonder

ful.

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 char

acter 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 ki ll 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 un

realistic .

Fright Night is more sexy than most



other vampi

re

f i lms , wouldn t

you

agree? I inquired. There's a real un-

dercurrent of sexual i

ty

...

SEX ND 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 ban-

ned, cons idered vulgar. It was one of

the reasons for his huge success.

Mothers thought

he

was a dreadful in-

fluence 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 Interjec-

ted.

o

you th ink we'

ve

been so inun-

dated 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 Wll t

little lady in tht ptetur, at right

tunu

in'o thlgrutSOmt girly pictured bouD on right

ightl lt s

all fr

wo

rk of

tht new

vampirt

in

Iht neighborhood. Chris

Sarandon opposi t

tt

pagt. upptr right),

work

tllat Iuclemt vam -

pl,,.hunt

lr

Roddy

McDoWQII

must

put Q stop

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

negat ive . But if we see

2 1: 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 i

n-

stance

, 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 con-

cepts of the film. But

tOday we

just ac-

cept all that sort of thing. It 's like, well ,

40

years from now, can you imagine

try ing 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



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

i ty and attraction.

Would you agree with that?

There always has been that kind of

fascination in mankind

,

replied Rod-

dy. 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

FRIGHT NIGH

Lell: Rod y's rea ytos lakc ou r his claim 1 l a m p i r ~ · k i l l i

taml

ABove But is Bloodsuckor Next Door Cltris Sarc ,riotf going to gillr him enough

tim(' to gc t the job on

l ?

innocent to sacrif ice, because they fel t

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 super

stitious, 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.

STALKING THE FRIGHT, AT NIGHT

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 has

been. 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 ant i-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



4 MONSTER L ND

Somf.'

{'Im", lrom Roddy's

owdy NiSI w

,

t

to trat

''

audi"nc('s q V

t nt lg

u' Itl, Frls ,t



Either they trip over their own feet, like

the h o s t u s t ~ r s or they '

re

handicap·

ped by their own coward ice or iack of

ab

i l it

ie

s li

ke

your character in Fright

Night.

I wo

ul

dn't call that a new trend,

especially, if that 's what you mean ,

replied Roddy. li lt seems to me that

every decade,

someth

i ng

happens

where there 's suddenly a new ex·

press ion, or new form, of old themes.

It 's why Montgomery Clift suddenly

became a sta

r,

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

.

. t 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

pe

rform ing, do

you get into the role so deeply that you

lose the consciousness 0 the set and

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 li

ke

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 audience perfectly-espec ially 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

rea

li

ze

, in the movies, the

'room' ends where the lens is. And Just

the opposite 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

;



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 li

ke

the character I play In

Fright Night, who goes around saying

'

ha,

ha

,

'ho, ho ' and posi

ng

.

He

's a

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

atti tude to play (such as I

am a hero'), they don't know what to

do

.

You 've certainly explained your point

of vi

ew

In a fascinat i

ng

way

,

I con-

cluded,

-espec

ially your character In

Fright Night.

Thank you , he replied . Frankly, I'm

v ry

hopeful for the success of the

film, for a number of reasons. Number

one, I love the people I worked with . I

Is this that nl W Demonic Duo-

at

, Mart

[

oddy

th i

nk Tom

Holland Is very talen t

ed

. 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

hav i

ng

been delightfully Illuminated by one of

the screen 's most prol ific and com-

petent actors, I left the Polo Lounge to

get on with

my

day . Roddy was heading

to a studio meeting about

ye

t another,

new, upcoming project.



Tom Holland on

The Screenwriter o

Psycho

2

Prepares For His Directorial Debut

By Abbie Bernstein

L

l's say you're a 7 y e a r ~ l d boywho

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 you

r

gi rl

friend

as

the two of you watch

so

me ou

t-

rageous sc

hloc

k opus

on

your local lY

sta

l ion's Fright Nigh

t prese

n

tatio

n:

Your fam

ily

and

frie

nds a

ll kn

ow about

your

passions,

so

when you start insisting that your charming

an

d devilishly handsome n

ew

next-door

neighbor is really a murderou s vam pi

re

"

everyl:xx:ly

ass

u

mes

the 01 cathode

ray

tu

be

h

as

begu n"

to

fry your Eve

rybody

, th

at

i

s, ex

cept yo

ur

neighbor, who knows you'

re

absolutely rig

ht

and doesn 't appreciate your

int

erest

in him one bit. You know that he

knows that you know,

so you

desperate y tum

for help to :'Fright Night host Pete rVin

cen

t,

a has-been ham actor who's played a lot of

Va

n

He

lsing types in h

is day

. Un

fo rtunately

,

Mr. Vince

nt

doesn't

bel

ieve in vampires and,

worse, has ·nerves of wann cream cheese.

Mean

wh

ile, Your

nocturnal neighbor isdeter

mined tosh

ut

you up before you cancause

him any mo

re

'

tr

oub

le.

So goes die premise of

Fright

Nigh , a new

fea tu re fi lm

curren

tly in prod

u

ction

u

nde

r

the

auspices of Co lumbia

Pict

u

res

. Fright Night

has

th

e di stinction of being the first major

s

tudi

o

th

ea

tri

ca l release to t

reat vamp ires

in a

man

ne

r

h

at is co

nt

em

Po

r

ary

(unl

ike

Un

ive

r

sal's remake of Dracula),_

yet

non-satirical (in

cont

rast

to Love at

First Bite in its

depiction

of

t

rad itional

, s

hape-shifting,

c

ross-l

ea

ring, fang

ed undead

(as ~

to

the

jaded n

on

beasts of The

Hunger .<

Back in Fango #30, T

om

Holland-screeo

writerofPsycho 2,

The

Beast

With inand

Class

o 1984

said of.his craft , "

. . .

un

less you

have a directorwho

kn

owswhat

yo

u're

ta

lk

ingabout, you'

re

dead."Sin

ce

Holl

and

is

oot

wr iterand directorof Fright Night, it m

ay be

safe to a

ssum

e that,

this

t

ime

,

th

e w

rit

erand

the directoreach

know exa

a lywhat the odier

is t

rying

to say.

When I first spoke with Holland, it was at

l

aird

Studios, where

most

of the

film

's in

ter

iors

were to be shot. With the s

tart

of pr

in

cipal photogra

ph

y a few weeks away , Fr

ight

Night's second-story production offices were

humm ing

with

activity. Across

th

e hall,

da

rkly

bearded director of o i o g r Jan Kiesser .

con

fe

r

red

with production designer John

DeCuir

, Jr.

on

thedesign

of

a

set

planned loae

comoclate a major

effects

sequence (the

sen

ior

DeCu ir was des i'gner for Choslbusters and

serves as a p

rod

uction consul

ta

nt on

Fright

Night . Hanging out in Holland 's reception

area is amiable youngactor Willi

am (

Call

me

B

'1

Ragsda

le, who w

ill

play Cha

rley

B

rews

ter,

th

e highschool kid who knows too

much. Pam

Ma

de

ir

os,

assistant to Ho

llan

d,

is

att

e

mp

t

in

g

to

find

th

e young

sta

r

imm ed

iate

and

affo

rd

abl

e hous

ing.

Aft

la .

ht . . . .

y

lato t

h . b .h -t

• -ca

. . .

_d of th . _ ovl . bu l a wit

•

crtp

or

B._t

W th . ad

raVC. o 2

f o r c torTo . HolY.d

eI • •c. to direct

oa F

t N .



Holland

passes

through with Fright Night

director Jackie Burch.

All

the Fright

roles

have been

cast with the exception

Jerry Dandridge, Charley's vampire

start dale looming before

are understandably preoccupied

their

search.

(One week later, they sign

Best

Supporting Oscar

for Dog Day Afternoon and most

seen

opposite Goldie Hawn in

Pro-

to everyone's

joy

and relief.>

In

regard to this casting problem, Holland

arks that many adors are afraid of play

think either the movie

t work and they'l l get laughed

at

or the

does

work and they get typed forever

lee.

Why

does Holland like vampires? I

don't

do

you l ike them?

Pressed

he

I

guess al l

of us

would l

iketo

be

that-sleep

all day, play all night, live

be incredibly attradive to women.

a terrific archetype. I'm in love with

scared

of

them. I love

.

Holland

is in his late 30s

with a

deep

voice,

raggy

good looks and dark hair that's begin

can

bea lit

, not because he's evasive-indeed,

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 tel l

him

I think it's all aquestion

of

how

the fi lm is made. This launches us in

to 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 l

lars of

Ho

l lywood respectabi l ity like

The

Exorcist

with

its truckload

of

Oscar nominations, in

cluding one for

Best

Pidure.

We

ll, I

don't

think we're going to get

an'

Academy Award nomination for Best Pic

ture, Holland

says but

if this

is

perceived

as

a good time, 'an E-ride

at

Disneyland'

as

[Columbia executive] J

ohn

Byers

would say

then I think we have a chance

at

having it

taken seriousl

y.

If it's perceived

as

exploita

tion, 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

people

they were not very encouraging.

Consequently,

Ho

lland put

down

his pen

cil and paper and took up acting instead. I

think I got into acting partial

ly

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

liv

ing

at

it. I think I might have gotten

comp

letely

discouraged if I hadn't done as well as I

did

as

immediately as I did. I

went

to

co

l lege for a

year, came out to l os Angeles during the sum

merwitha

girl who'd been achild

actress. She

had an agent, the agent took me on and sent

me around to twoor three places, and the next

thing I kn

ew

J

was under contract at Warner

Bros. Whe

n that happensto

yo

u, it carries you

along

with

it.

It carried

Hol

land through a 1010ffilm and

television work during the '60s and early

70s,

in

mov

i

es

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, continu

ing to act as he found the scope of his ambi

tions 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 boring'? I never felt that way. I

always loved it. What happened

was

as

an

ac-

tor, I was saying in

my head

as thedirectorwas

FANGORIA 45 2



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 Iwas acting, Igot 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 ac

tor, Iwas thinking about what the other actors

should bedoing.. wherethecamera shou

ld 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 sta

rted

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. Iwas naive enouRh to think that I'd sit

FANGORIA #45

down and write one script, sell

it

for a quarter

of a million and direct the next one.

That

wasn't quite how it worked out.

Screenwriting

was

the hardest thing I'd ever

done. I became obsessed with learning the

craft

of

it,

it

became a challenge

in

and of

itself.

t became so difficult, a mountain that I

wanted toclimb so badly, that I stopped wor

rying

about directing

and

Iwound up

learning

how to write.

In

other words, Ithink I became

a serious writer afterthe

fact.

I

started

out

want

ingtodirect, but when I found out how hard

writing

was and

that Icouldn'tdo

it I

took

it real seriously.

In Holland's view, he finally hit his stride as

a screenwriter with hi s fifth effort, an

as-yet

unproduced

ilm noir

script entitled Border

Crossing, which was admired enough to

start

getting

him

paying writing assignments.

The

first

film

Holland wrote

for

hire

to

see

the light of a projector was an independently

made monster

movie,

The

Beast

Within, a tale

of a hapless teenager afflicted with a curse that

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

pro

ducerthat

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 withoutsaying

a word, Iwalked

past

the director without

say

ing 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 ur

ban high-school -teacher (played

by

Perry

King)

through a baptism of fire and blood with

the sadistic

st

udents 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

hi

s 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 con

ducts class at gunpoint, threatening to shoot

pupilswhogivethewrooganswers).The hero

vented his wrath bydoing things like cutting

off one ofhis tormentor's

arms

with a tabletop

buzzsaw. Holland thinks this was going over

the top .Mark lester is terrific, Ireally l i ~ him.

xcept I

hink

hedidn't need the buzzsaw, but

hedidn't trust the

story

enough. Icould never

answer the question ofhow to

justify

vigi lante

violence, Idon't think I

was

ever comfortable

with it. The script had visual setpieces, but

it

never had a really coherent

story

line

that

dealt

with the vigilante theme. The theme got

submerged and became exploitation. And

that was my

fault,

because Icou ld never deal

with it.

But we

needn't fear

that

Holland,

left to his

own directorial devices, plans to

shy

away

from

violence in Fright

Night-the

script calls

for throat-rtppings, blood-splatterings,

numerous unpleasant transformations, a

tribute to Evil

Dead's

infamous pencil scene

and, of course, lots of staking and biting. For

Holland, the

use

of screen violence

is

dictated

by

context: I love violence.

But

there's

violence that is not reality for me, which is

what Ithink Ido, and what Iconsider a

lot

of

horror movies do, as opposed to reality

psycholog

ical violence

like

Looking

lor

Mr.

Goodbar, which can be

really

horrifying and

disturbing. When you're dealing with that,

then Ithink restraint is catted for. But thiS kind

of stuff, horror movie violence, is meant as a

good time, I think. He grins. I think.

Holland's next job

after

Class

was

the

screenplay for ycho 2, a

film in

which

violence plus clever plot twists

gave

its au

diences a good

time that translated

into box

of·

flce

success. Being one of the creative

forces

behind a financially successful movie helps

propel a lot of people toward their career



Ho

•• P . ' . r Vlac

• • •

(Roddy McDow.

D)

pan . . . . .

old P. ' . r

C. . . . . . .

ro . t ta .

o • • • • • _ • • "

••

0

(oppoeke

• • ) goe. OD .o . ow .. I••

an

proadly.

Holland did one more for

-h

ire project.

and Dagger

(wh

ich reteamed him

with

ycho I

director Rich

ard Franklin), sol

d

an

lscreenplay, Scream for Help

(a

thriller

director

Mic

h

ael

Win ner,

as yet

and finally "knew that my

pos i

in the community was strongenough that

I

could

come upwith a commercial conce

pt

it

we

ll

, could direct. I knew by

'dgained sufficient cred

ib

ility. Sol had

design a script that X number of studios

ld want-which was the original dream

years ago." Thus was Fright Night born.

Holland took his new work to producer

ero

Jaffe,

who

agreed

bo<h that hew;ptwas

mely

commercial and that Holland was

to dir

ect.

Robert

lawrence, who is

Co l-

's senior vice-president

in

charge of

, and John

Byers

,

Col-

As

an

example, he cites a sequence in

which vampiricjerry Dandridge spies through

the wi ndowsofhis own houseon

Cha

rley and

Peter, who are inside seeking theiradversary.

"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

sca

le model of the hou sesitting on hisdesk as

a

vis

ual aide, also referring to

an

enormous

notebook filled with

his

shot l

ists.

"We're go ing to have sta irs 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

di

agonaling crane up

the house through the second floor, looking

through anotherwind

ow as

they come up

to

the landing. When you're do ing that with

t

hr

ee different floors, it gets very, very com

plicated. The sets had to be designed to make

that work."

Holland also waxes enthusiastic for the

scene

in

which Charley comes into h

is

bedroom and the phone rings. He picks

it

up

and

hi

s back is to the window. He

li

sten

s,

and

the vampire says, 'He llo.

Are

you there,

Charley?' Charley doesn't say anything,

figur

ing 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 Cha rley turns around and looksout the

window, and there across theyard standing in

the wind ow of the Da ndrid

ge

house isJerry.

Now the usualway to do that shot

is

you'd do

'svicepresidentofcreativeaffairs(who I r = ~ ~ ~ ~ ; ~ = = } ~ i c H ~ ~ c : i j ~ 1 = = = = = = = = = = ~

probably

the

only Ho

ll

ywood executive

U Q I Q ~

r to screen asket Case for his entire office 1 f \R

, shepherded the project through the FANS ONLVI

in late August.

It

got a green light, JOIN H.A.C.

filming

Dec.

3 and isexpectedto open

(Horror Apprecia tion Corrmitteej.

theatres nationwide th

is

Augu st. Both Designs are SHk·Screened

"Columbia, the studio

itself, has

been ter- on t

op

quality

50

Col1on. 50%

Polyester T·Shins.

in terms

of product

ion.

They've

given

me BOth

oeslQns are available on

ndelful People." What does he want and

Bl

ack or While Shins. Two COlor

from hi

s cast and crew? "I'm more ~ : : ~ just a Smal1ering

01

le

wi th

people who like me and

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ Shirts ale ONLY $tO. each. We

I like, God know

s. You

get a sense of pay Postage (Mid'ligan residents

pretty quickly

.

And

I

ike

people who can

adr' 40e per shirt ordered).

somet

hin

g

to

it, w

ho ca

n

give

me

more

Name

n I need,

so

Idon't have

to

wo

rk

quite

as QUANTITY SHIRT COLOR SI

ZE

(S.M.L.XL)

I've gotten creative contributions from

Address

2

DESIGN

, who have taken my City

shot designs and made them much Sla le Zip - - - - - - -

- - j - - - - -

- - - - ~

I'm thankfu l for a

ll

of

th

at input.

figured

out

ways to

do things that I

u ld never have come up with."

Make Checks and

Mo

ney Orde

rs

payable

10

:

RO

SE PRI

N

TS. Send

with this lorm

or

a

co

py. to :

ROSE

PRINTS. P,O. BOll 819. Birmingham. Mchigan. 48 t2

C

_rs

DEALER INOUIRIES INVITED)

FANGORIA 45 23



a subjective shot and you'd zoom

in

on Jerry

standing

in

the window. Holland makes a

whooshing zoom

noi

se, accompanied by

a vampiric sna rl. Well, I

wa

nted

to

do a shot

where from Charley's subjective point

of view

in his terror, it feels to himasthoughJeny'sen

tire house is moving closerto

him

, swooping

towards

him.

In other words, as though Jerry

wasn't 30 feetaway in

hi

shouse,

but three feet

away

in

his house and was gonna lean

right

out the wind()Vol and [Holland mimes a gesture

of fatal brutal

ity

do

that

to Charley. Five

million tim es I've seen the camera moving;

let'sseethe

house

move. There

's

a weirdness

to it. There are two ways to accomplish what

I'm talking about. One

is

to build the Dan

dridge houseon

rollers,

and lite rally movethe

entire side o he Dandridge house across the

soundstage ove r to Charley'S window.

Un

fortunately, that would be extremely cumber

sone and expensive. The alternative? 'We're

doing

blu

e-screen, we're shooting a plate of

the Dandridge

hou

se and moving that. You 'll

see that image move toward you, which wi ll

seem like the house is

moving.

Theshotwill

be accompanied by shooting Charley'S win

dow looking out on a blue-5creen, lit by

flourescent

lights.

A sepa

rate

shot will be

made of Dandridge looking out his window.

The

room shot of the Dandridge house wi ll

then be matted in to the shotof the stationary

window in Charley'S house.

Jan

Kiesse

rand

John DeCuir

are going

to

4 FANGORIA

#4.5

make

it

work

for

me without moving the

whole

wall

of the house, says Holland, giv

ingcreditwhere it's due. Therearea number

of

shots

like that in this, that Idesigned without

figuring how they'd made to work. The

people around me have been able to come up

with

ways to make them work;

I'm

eternally

grateful, and they're thrilled with me

for giv

ing them the challenge.

Cinematographer Kiesser corroborates this:

The opticals and special effects are

ch

allenges-I've never flown

bats

before.

Mostly we're comb

in

ing different st

uff

tha t's

been done before in new wa

ys.

right Nighi

is more high style than the average film

in

this

genre. The script

is

attradive and

so

is

the

visual conce

pt. It's

wonderful

to

ha

ve

something with this kind of visual concept.

One of the joys of doing a horror movie is

that you can bevisual ly stylish, Holland af

finns. The

sty

le of right

Nig

ht he

says,

was

not imposed on the finished

sc

ript, but was

rather an integral consideration from

th

e

story 's inception. Idon't thin kyou can write

a story unl ess you're visua lizing it

as you

go

along, can you? You see something in your

head, yo u hear people

talk

in your head,

you

.see people co

ming

out of

light

,

you

see the

darkness. Isee all of that when [write.Oneof

the reasons I think that I've done as we

ll as

I

have as

w r i t e r

is that I do visual setpieces,

where the story moves forward

with

minimal

amounts of dialogue.

He does think it's possible to get carried

away with

the

visua

laspects of

filmmaking:

''

If

the shots become

such

show-off s

hot

s that

they pull you out of the story, then it's to the

detriment

of

the film , and I'll cut'em out. He

be

li

eves the sho

w-off

shots

usuall

y occ

ur

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

idea lly should be no shot that doesn't move

the story forward.

If

you're so in

lo

ve with a

shot that doesn't do anything

to

move your

story

forwa

rd, then

so

mething's

wro

ng.

And

if

you

do too many of them, you're

really

in

trouble.

Story

always takes precedence.

Righ t now, pre-prOOUdion takes prece-.

dence I

have

to

clear out

so that

Holl

and

ca

n

meet

with

his cinematographer

and

p

rodu

c

tion

designer. s I

leave

, Kiesser is holding up

th

e scale

model

ofJeny's house, tuming

it

so

that Holland and Co. can enjoya vamp ire's

eye view of the interior as they visu

al

ize the

tiny , terrified people within.

In parting, Holland tells me I'm

we

lcome on

the set whenever I'd like to come. Even ts to

subsequently unfold would surpass my

wildest dreamsof journalistic access-seven

hour makeup sessions, Jive wolves,

bl

ood

splattering

an

entire mob of ex

tra

s

but

these

are stories for another day (and another

issue of Fango). 0



By

David

Hutchison

yrotechnic ian Thaine

Morr i s

r ead ies the g a s

j e t s for a

vampire mel tdown.

2 FANGOR

IA 48

Edito

r

's nole:

Heretofore, Richard

Ed l

und

has been a film craftsman whose

body

of

experience in

S

film has made

him

a

more

suitable interview subject

for

o ur illu st riou s si s te r magazine

STA RlOG. Wit h Poltergeist

and host·

busters

hO\ vever, Edlund has

begu

n

to

wie ld

con siderable

in

fl uence

in the

r

ea

lm of state-of·the-art

horror

effects as

well. Early th is year, STAR lOG s David

Hut

chi son vis ited Edlund

's Boss

Film

Compa ny, chatt ing up seve ral

of

Edl und s key employees, as well as the

Bo

ss

boss himself.

F

ANCO

RI

A:

Did

Columbia

seek

you out for

Fright Night

or did

you

go to

them?

Ri

chard Edlund: They

came

to

us.

It has to be that way, sincewe don t know

what's coo king in the back room of the

studios, you know? We happen

to

have a

ve

ry good relationship with Columbia,

because

we did

Ghostbusters

for them.

And naturally they want to keep that go

ing, as we do.

Fang: right ight isn't the sort of 20

million fantasy spectacular you re

known

for ...

Ed lund: I want us to be able to service

shows that

don t

necessarily have block

buster-level effects. I want to be able to

do

sma

ller sha.vs; that helps us in terms



Th

chill ing aft

rmath of vampire meltdown

Fang: I would h

ave

thought

Poltergeist

had ex hausted your bag of tricks, but

then you

topped

yo

ur

self with Chost-

busters

and again w

ith

2010

Now

you

face topping yourself again with Polter-

geist

2 ..

Edlund: Well,

we did u

se everything t

ha

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 lad

der, you don t

know how

far up it w ill

take you; there are always a few rungs

left, and sometimes you see m to see the

rungs going into the clouds.

I

think

that any

id

ea

that can

be

thought about or sketched can be con

verted intoa ve ry interesting, visual mov-

22

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

say

ing

to

a writer, "You've

written

so many books, and the library is already

full

of really great, inte resting

book

s:'

But we keep getting better at whatwe do,

and at the sa me time the audience gets

more sophi sticated visuall

y,

and it takes

more sleight-of-hand in

order

to trick

them into believing what you

\ \Iant

them

to beli eve.

Th

e res

pon

s

ibilit

y is therefo re

on us to keep

coming

up with new im·

ages.

Dan Ayckroyd, for instance, used Pol-

tergeist as a sort of palel1e when he was

writing

hostbus

ters; he saw Poltergeist

and said, " H

ey,

that's fantasti

I

didn t

know they could

do

that kind

of st

uff "

and he

wrote

hostbusters with those

capabilities in mind. I think that

Polter-

geist \ \IaS the most interesting single pro

jectl worked on

at

I lM, 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 Steve n Spielberg,

because when we were s

hooting

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 fig

uring ho to ba lance the intensity of the

pict

ur

e's various effects, and they were,

in every sequence, the punch-line. The

effects reel for Poltergeist is a very in

tense reel, because it s all

ofthe

climaxes

and sub -cl imilxes

of

the movie; the

scares and

so

on.

We

got a

lot of

ideas

al

ong

the

w y

that we

didn t

get to

use-

so we'll use 'em th is time.



,

The

v jEaPIV

ext o ~ r

hris Sarandon

o

his variation on an undead theme in

Fright Night.

I

n the past, cinematic vampires have

been

portrayed

as

pal e-skinned

ghouls

wandering around

cemete r

ies, draped. in cumbersome black

capes , and threatening to suck the

blood

out of

any victims

who happen

' by

Then in the late 1970

s

Frank

l

ange

lla

ro

manticized Brarn Stoker's Dracula in

the

play and film

of

the same name,

proving

that vampires could

be

, above

all

else,

charming.

1 FANGORIA 49

By Ed

Gros

s

NCI N,

hris Sarandon has contempo-

rized th is incarnation of evil to great ef

fe

ct in Tom Holland's

Fright Night

a film

whic

h has more in

common with

the

Univer

sal horror classics of the 30 s and

40 s

than

the

cur rent crop of slic

e-

and

dice productions which have prolifer

ated in the genr

e.

In th is upd

at

ing

of

The Boy Who

Cried Wolf

;

Sarandon pl

ays

Jerry Dan

dridge, a vampire :-vpo will go to any

PHOTOS

:

() 1965

OOLUMBIA

PICTURES

means to make sure that his sec ret

re

mains safe, including killing Charley

Brewster, his teenaged next door neigh

bor, who has learned the truth.

The thing that appeals to me about

Jerry;' exp

la

ins Sarandon, is that he

s

to- .

tally contemporary. That was something

we

all strived fo r, and something I found

very interestin g

about

the character be

c

au se

he wasn't the Count of legend or

Bram Stoker, but a guy who everybody



knev.' and

could

n't believe.....-a s

being

ac

cused of being a vamp

ire.

He isn 't the

personification of pure ev il that vam

pires are knONn

to

be .

What impressed

th

e actor

mo

st

about

the character,

was

his multi-dimensional

facet

s.

Ju st

think

about thi sguy's problems,

he says s

in

cerely.

On th

e o ne hand

you 've

got

somebody

who

's

got

some

thing which

everybody wou

ld

probably

love to have, which is eternal li f

e.

Also,

he's tremendously powerful, ph

ys

icall y,

and attracti

ve

sexually. 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? ,

Th

at is,

to

spend etern

ity

but to spend ete

rnit

y shunned by any

normal

kind

of society; not being able

to

form any kind of normal human relation

ship.

To

be, in away, damned to eternity.'

(There's a sense of thi s guy 's Iragedy as

well as hi s attracti

ve

ness.

This

obvi

ousenthu s

ia

sm is s

urpri

sing ,

especially when one considers thai the

aClor nearly

turn

ed the role

down

.

I

wa

s sen t the sc ript by my agent and

immediately sort of got sucked in by the

plot because 'S wonderfully co n

stru cted and plotted

:

explains Saran

don. After I read it , I

sai

d 'Gee, this is

going to make agreat movie.

It

sa shame

Ihat I m not really interested in playing

this part: The reasons for that are that

over the past coupl e of

ye

arsI 've played a

f

ew

vil lain sand di

dn

' t want to get locked

into

playing anolher one. I thought the

cha

ra

cter

was

an

int

er

es

ting one,

though

I

didn

' t think it was quite fleshed o

ul.

Despite my re se rvation s, I had some

conversat ions with Tom, we

ca

me

up

with some ideas, and I ended

up

doing

W

I

made a promi

se

to Chris;' adds

Hoi

land, that I would make Jerry sensu

al

and into a leading man; to show that side

of him. Hedidn ' t want to doanotherwild

and crazy charac ter role:'

Sarandon felt that what was mi ss ing

l

S the character 's haunted

quality

, part

of which would come across in the play

in

g,

and that there were a fev.'

thing

s

n

ee

ded in the scri

pt

wh ich wou ld

ex

press thi s.

The charaCer 's not so much

th

e per

sonifi

ca

tion of pu re evil,

as

he isa person

who

became a vamp

ir

e by

circum-

stances, he says. We

did

all that

groundwork for ou r

se

lves

in

terms of

who this guy

was

and what happened;

how it happened. Tom.....-as

ve

ry encour

aging about thai . To co me

up

with that

kind

of li f

e for the character so that he

ultimately ends up more interes ting for

the audience:'

Coming

up with

identifiable charac

ters

ha

s been

an

obj

ec

tive

of

th

e·actor's

sjn

ce

graduat i

ng

from th e University of

West

Vi

rginia, and , besid es

numer

ous

st age role

s,

he 's tried to achieve

thi

s goal

via

hi

s various sc reen personas, from AI

Pacino's gay lover in Dog Day

Afternoon

(which won

him

an Oscar n

om in

a

ti

on)

and the rapi st

of

Lipstick

to

a

tool of

the

devil in The n tinel and, finall

y,

a lead

ing role

with Goldie

Hawn in Protocol.

Bearing thi s in mind , one

\r\

nders

if

he had any aversions to the idea of pl

ay-

ing a vampire, certainly one of the most

bizarre roles he's been offered.

It wasn 't so much that ;' he coun ters,

but that the guy was such abad guy. In a

way he was,

but in away

he wasn't.

I th

i

nk

that

I carrie

d

in

some

of my pr

e

judi

ces

when I fi rst read the sc ript. Rather than

read

in

g it

in

a

ve

ry objective way I read it

,

FANGORIA N 9



in a

much

more 'what's

it

going to do

me?'

way.

Having played a

couple

of vil

lains in the past, I was a little

worr

ied

about it.

I don't want

to

get

locked into

playing

anything;' he

elaborates.

I don't

want to

be kn

own as

a

he

avy,

or as anything

in

particular

but

just a good actor who can

handle anything that comes along. Wish

ful 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 ro les you take. Also, t

thin

k I

underestimated the

fact

that

in

the

movie I

did

ju st before Fright

Nigh/

r -

tocol I was playing Mr. Total Straight Ar

row. As nice a

guy

and

as totally uncon

troversial

a character as you'l l find

-anywhere. Consideri ng that that 's the

a randon in one of

his

in between

lDoods_

one

I d

id

just

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

ses

sions

which enabled

Sarandon to

go

from

being the suave and good looking

Dandridge, to the sna rl ing bat -l ike

spawn

of Satan during choice

mo

ments.

We had certain stages of change;' he

says, which had a

lot

todowith ju

st

how

pi ssed off Jerry is at any particular mo

menl...how

provoked he

is.

I

was stuck in

makeup

so

goddam

ned

much of the

tim

e;'

he

sighs. I had two

weeks

of

eig

ht -hour makeup

ca ll

s,

every

day.

I'd go

in at four in the

morning

and

the makeup people wou ld have to be in

at t

hr

ee·

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 tr

ied 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

nic

he

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 reasonablygood

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 si

tting

in the very,

chair I'm sitti

ng

in as w speak, my wife

Sitting in bed

knitting

and I said, 'Sorry,

honey

, I kn

MI

it's

time to

go in and start

dinn

er,

but

I can' t yet. I have to finish

th is.' I

put

it

down

l ike an

hour

and

10

minutes lat

er

and I figured that it was

going

to

be a

terrif

ic movi

e.

I'm hoping

that my original instincts were c

or r

ec

.

The

horro

r genre is one that h

as

in

trigued him

o-,er the years, though he

isn't really a fan

of

splatter films. Friends

of his really love those reall y

sh

ock ing

horror

movie

s, but

he is much more

of

an afficiando

of

the

olde

r ones, such as

the original Dracula and Ft;ankenstein

And of

practicioners like

Hit

chcock;

he adds,

who

rea lly understood an au

dience. People

who

are much more in

terested in creating

work which

leaves a

lasting impression. I

'm

mu ch mo}e inter

ested in the

re

sonance

or

haunting qual

it y

of

the

rea lly

good

ones, and

it'll

be

in teres ting

to

see if we've got one

of

those.

There are a couple

of

things towards

the end

of

the film where there's your

req ui site sort

of

speci

al

effects, bodies

fl ying around and falling apart, and

things like that;' he cont inues. But that

specifically comes about due to what's

goi ng

on

in the script .

Whe

n I first read the script, there was,

interestingly, ve ry

little

real physical vio

lence in it. What's so startling about

it

is

you are in consta nt anticipa

tion of

a vio

lent

act, and that comes

from good

scr

iptwriting.

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 in

vested a certain amount

of

emotional

baggage

w ith the characters, and if

someth 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 the first 40 minutes or

so

there's

only

one violent act, and that's SQme

body sticking a pencil through some

body's hand. The rest of that time

is

spent leading

up

to something happen

ing. You

knOlN

someth ing's got to

h p

pen, but nothing

does. To me, that's

much more effective, a kind

of Hit

ch

cockian app roach

to

that sort o f mate

rial. What's mu ch

more impor

tant is how ,

you lead

up to

tre act rather th

an

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

Sa

ran

don.

l et's

see

what happens

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 ci

r

cumstances. It's a

little pr

emature to talk

about

that now. D



}

Vumptre s13rew

of

T RROR

Randy

nd

Steve Johnson

on

their

Fright

Night

FX From

demon

bats

nd

werewolves to melt-downs

EDITOR S N

OTE

:

By

now most of you

have

had the chance

to see

Tom HoI

l

and s

Fright Night which means

that we

can feel safe in runn ing a creat ure-ef

fec ts story

witho

ut spoi l ing

the

picture s

well-timed jolts.

As pa ri

of

Ric hard Edlu n

d s

crack En-

tertainment Effects Group, Randy Cook

and

Steve

Jo

hn

son h

ave

been credited

with

the design an d creation of Fright

Night s

many

creatures,

a

job

that also

includes all the various transformations

and mel t downs that th

ese

cr

eatures

are

subjected to. (Stories on Cook and John

so n

's cont

r

ibution

s to Ghoslbusters ca n

be found in Fangos 39 and 41 respec

tively.)

As is

the case

wi

t h any large effects

ass

i

gnment

t he

monster

creations for

Frighl

ighl

req uired the

coordina

t

ed

ef

fort

of

a sizeable crew.

Cook

and

Jo

hn

son w ish to give

due

credit

to their

Crea

ture

FX

Shop crew: Rob

Ca

nt rell Dale

Bra

d y, Craig Caton, Makio

Ki

d

a,

David

Matherly, Richard

Ru

iz,

Ste-..e Nei

ll ,

Ke

n

Diaz and

Ja

ck Bricker. They also have

much

praise

for Mar

k

Wilson

th

eir

shop s first technician; Bob

Cole

and Bill

Sturgeon,

who

vvorked

on

effects mech

an

is

m

s; an

d Thaine M

or

ris, the f ilm s

nd slobber tubes.

By David

Hut

chison



t ~ p h e n

Geoff reys

(Evil Ed) is prepped by Johnson for h b impal ing scene . Right: The effect

on

screen.

• mechanical effects supervisor.

The following interview

was

con

ducted whi leFright Night was st ill in pro

duction.

FANGORIA:

One of the

major eff

ec

t s

se

quences in

Fright Night

is the transfor

mation

of

the

~ r w

back to its origi

nal 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. Everyth ing sinceAmer-

ican Werewolf in ondon

h

as

just been

chango-pieces; they've been s

tr

etching

mechanical pieces on-set. So, I figured

Randy Cook worked

on

des ign ing

bat

features In t

o

the t icked-o

ff

makeup for

Chris

Saran

don .

20

FANGORIA 49

we'd make it asymmetrica l; h

e'd

be

changing 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 g

ot

this long, s

pindl

y arm that's

worked with a rod, while h is real arm is

tied behind him.

Anoth er thing-since ii's asymmetri

cal in its look, and

if

you

're

showing in

se

rt s

of

cha ngi

ng extremities,

why

s

hould

you u

se

the

sa

me technique for

each change? So, if we see a foot chang

ing and then we see a hand changing, we

use different techniques. Besides chang

ing at different rates on different parts

of

the body at

different

times, ii's happen

ing in di ffe rent ways too.

Randy Cook: The way this effect, and

ot

her effect

s,

are integrated in this film is

al

so different.

The

picture-

makers

wh

o

made the original st retcho-piece effects

were really in love w

ith

what these things

could

do. As a consequence, one saw a

se

ri

es

of

fairly cli

ni

ca

l shots

of limb

s

growing,

faces

stretchin

g,

and balloons

bulging under brows. This

Fright Night

transform

at

ion

so

rt

of

takes that all for

granted, and

doesn't

s

top

the show

while this

st uff

is going on. This scene is

not meant to say, Okay, we' re going to

dispense

with

the plot for the next four

minutes while}Ou

watch this really mar

velous special effect:' The special effects

are going on while

th

e story

is

going on,

and they're integrated pretty well

into

the picture.

Johnson: Another different Ihing, too, is

that the

director

is really

good to work

wi th. Tom

Holland

listens to us, he re

spects u

s,

and he's smart enough

to

knqw that he hired experts

to

do a ce

r-

tain job. He's not so insecure that he'd

feel l ike w were stepping on his toes

when

..... e

su

gges

t someth ing. So, a 101 of

our

ideas have really gal ien through.

Al

so

the fact that Holland is

an

actor

ish director-he used to be an actor

makes a

lot of

a f stuff come off a lot

better. He

was

r

ea

lly concerned from the

beginning that

our

creatures act . He

was

on

the

set

when

we

shot the second

unit effects s

tuff

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 we re

wolf transformation was shot?

Johnson: We shot the stuff here in the

shop for the changi ng

of

the wolf. We

altered the set so the actor

ca

n put his

legs through it, out

of

sight , and w

cou ld just deal with the effects legs that

look totally inhuman.

We

made a control board and

we at

tached about 15 bladders to it; bladders

not only in the head, but in the shoul

ders too. And the werev.Q

1f

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 runnin

g

II demanded a l

ot of

intensity.

Fang: A usually laughable effect in just

about every vampire movie is that moth

ea

ten 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-ori

ented than just your standard flapping

mouse-you

know,

as

you

say,

the Uni

versal bat-on· he-line. We decided to do



shaking it and

making

it go crazy.

Fang:

A favorite effect from Hammer's

vampire films was the use of contact

lenses

to

givt Chri s

lee

red eyes. What

sort of len ses did you u

se

in

Fright Night

Johnson: The lenses were made by Doc

tor Greenspan. There s around seven

pairs

of

them in the film. I've painted

them all myself. Th e fi rst idea was that

the vampire's eyes should glow. It turned

out

they

didn t have

the

moneytodothi

s

~ f f e c t

optically with rOloscoping. So I d

e

signed these lenses so they'd kick back

asmuch light

as

possible. I painted them

with day-g lo colors, enamel paint s and

actually laminated iridescent powders

and glitter onto them so they really

do

kick back a lot

of

light.

Fang

:

To mo

st

ac

lors, wearing a contact

lens is like wearing a potato chip under

your eyelid.

Johnson:

It

is, but all these lenses are lam

inated in

si

d

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 d i

si

ntegra

tion of

the vampire's henchman.

John

so

n:

Yea

h, it h

as

a real putrefying

look.

We swabbed it with chemicals and

Two st ges of the spectacular

destruction of the vampire

did

internal things

wilh

cabl

es,

pulling

parts

of

the face away and d",..,n in

diff

er

ent places.

The head has a real sku ll in there.

Th

e

parts

of

the head are operated

y

hand,

the

moulh

movement and tongue move

ment 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

use d

for

that

snake-bit head in Spasms except we did

other things besides just l i n g it;

we

pulled it around and

sc

rewed around

with il in other

way

s. We colored the

chemicals, for instance. If you put

enough coloring in, it looks r

ea

ll y nice

pumping it from behind, because yo u

start getting

lillie

blotchy areas breaking

ou t al lover the face before it starts to

swe l l. It s

real

nice.

That is the one scene in Ihe film where

Ho

lland

wa

nted

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 proba

bly because you're supposed to really

hale thi s guy.

Fang:

How 'MJuld you character ize the

effects

of

Fright ight overall?

John son: 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 Sa randon, is burning is

kind

of

fantastic becau

se

it s o ne face

changing into another.

Cook: Yeah, it

is

more fantastic than reo

pellent,

on

the whole. Which is a ni

ce

change.



Lenaea .

dentu res . f inger

ex tend

e r .

and

. u b t l e

a pp l i a nc e help

S a r a n

dOD . por t r aya l

of

Oan-

dr ldge ' a nlildly

t i cked -off . t ag e .

L

st s

ummer

, Co

lumbi

a Pictures

gave

the go-ahead to Fright Nig

ht

,

a present-d ay va

mp

ire movie con

cerning average teenager Char

ley BreY. ste rw ho di scovers that hi s suave

nex t.cJoor-neig

hbor

Jerry Dandrige is reo

ally one

of

the Undead. Herb Jaffe is the

producer;

Ri

chard Ed

lu

nd s Boss Film

Company fac

il i

ty is handling the effects,

a

nd

sc reenw

ri t

er

Tom

Ho lland

Psycho

II) is making his directorial debut

with

the project, sc hed

ul

ed

to

open August

2.

W hen

I

initially interv iewed Ho lland

during Fright

Night s preprodu

ction (see

Fan

go 45), Holland generously invited

me to

come

visit the

se

t 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 th

e set. It s the mon

soon season

in lo

s Angeles, and a fierce

rainstorm

ba

tter

s

th

e dQ\.-\lnt

ow

n l

ot

where the

Fright Night co

mpany

ve

hi

cles are parked. The

lot

is convenientl y

rig

ht

be

hind

today

s

location , a

former

hardware store converted fo r use as a

soundstage. A

seq

uence for Body

Dou-

ble was shot here, and the nightclub set

ha s been left semi-

inta

ct. The ground

floor is fil led wi th tabl es and chairs;

more tables and chai rs dot the up stairs

balcony that runs along th e upper floor.

At least a hundred extras are on hand

today, dre

ss

ed in studded leather and

Day-Glo NeY.

Wave

chic

to lend

colo

rfu l

background

as

th e va mpire kill sa pair

of

disco bouncers who get in the way of hi s

pursuit

of

Charley and A my, Charley's

gi

rlfri

end, played y Wi

ll i

am

Rag

sda le

and Amanda Bearse.

First assistant director Jerr y Sobul

megaphones instructions

to

the mob

of

ex tra

s:

Everybody take a posi tion on the

32 FANGORIA

47

On

the Set:

Ma c d o wa l l a nd

m on . t e r

b a t in a face- to- fang confrontat ion .

runway, except th e blood people' Thi s

refers to the lucky soul s soon to be

splashed w ith a mixture

of

Karo syrup

and food co lor in

g.

Chris Sarandon enters the set , in cos

tume as Jerry Oandrige. Ea rlier, Saran

dan had admitted to me his hesitance

in

taking th is part; after his Oscar-n

omi

nated performance

as

a nervou s tran

s·

sex ual in Dog Day Afternoon was fo l

IQ\.-\Ied y a turn

as

a vicious ra pist in

Lipstick

he found it hard

to

persuade

the fi lm co mmunity he could play cha

r

acters

other

than

od

d-ball s and villains.

After shakin g the mold. he wasn't anx

ious

to

risk

mor

e typecasting,

but

says he

was won over y Holland s vision

of

the

vampire

as

a very attracti ve, sexy guy.

Th e thing Tom wanted mo st fr

om

this

character was

not

the ev il awfulness of

him, but the fact tha t he was tremen

dously charming. Tom wa nted him to

have a senseof hu mor and also a sense

of

the price he has to pay for being who he

isand what he is. Eternal life is not neces

sa

rily a great

gift;

the re's a kind

of

myt hic. tragic proportion to that :'

Right

nQ\.-\l

,

Sa

randon looks like just an

other handsome leading man-unti l you

not ice the two-i nch fingernail

ex

ten

sions secured

to

hi s right hand by latex

false fin gertips. Someone

ye

ll s for the

makeup artists to get the baby

fangs

slig

ht l

y exaggerated canines o

ur

vam·

pire sportswhen mildly annoyed. (When

Jerry s

rea

lly

upse

t, he grCl NS Doberman



Pinscher-s ized chompers.)

In another area

of

the set,

Ri

ck Strat

ton , John Goodwin and Ken Diaz (the

head of the on-set makeup unit) are ap

plying baldcaps to the

bouncer

s' stun t

doubles: st rips

of

Kleenex are affixed

to

the edges

of

the caps then sprayed

do ..

m

with the surgical

se

alant Aeroplast.

Stratton spends a l

ot of

time

in

the lab,

where he and frequent partner Steve

Neill sc ulpted some

of

the appliances

used in

thi

s shoot.

H()INeVer

, he also en

joys work ing on the se t: " In th e lab,

you're an unsung hero; on the

se

t, you' re

representing your

se

lf. Al

so,

J

li k

e work

ing with ac tor s:'

Special effects worker Darrell Pritchett

walks through the

se

t, fann ing smoke

around ou t

of

a film can containing a

burning compound

of

non-toxic oi ls.

:rhe smoke's purpose is to give visual def

ini tion to the shafts of light streaming

down from the ceiling.

Michaellantieri , the supervisor of on

se

t special effects (as opposed to the

erealures and makeup prepared at Boss

Films), readies a fire-extinguisher-type

con

trap

tion that will s

pra

y " movie

blood" onto the extras, just before stu nt

man Strong'sbody is

hrCMIn

off the stair

w y

landing and into

thecrO\rVd

belO'N by

the vampire (actually, Strong propels

himself off the landing, but on film it will

loo

like the vampire does it). The body

crashes down on a table full of partyers,

knocking a

stunt

woman backward into

the breakaway table

behind

her. At th is

point, the whole di

sc

o cr(MId freaks

out

and stampedes. Dangerous though

il

ap

pears, the

st

unt co

mes

off without

a

hitch.

The next shot calls for Charley and

Amy to push past the

ot

her bouncer,

played by Ernie Ho

lm es

. Before the

bouncer ca n get to the kids, Jerry gets to

him squeezing the li fe out

of

th e poor

guy's

th r

oat, then toss ing the body off

the landing onto the dance floor.

Within an

hour

, ca rpenterserect a plat

form that

ex

tends out from the landing.

To create the illusion that Holmes is

re

ally being lifted

up

and held

hi

gh over

the dance floor, the actor stands on a

wheel-mounted box, manipulated be

low camera range by lantieri and Prit

chett . When he 's supposed

10

be stand

ing on hisown, Holm

es

crol,lch

es

on th e

box so that he's eye- Ieve l w

ith

Sarandon.

As

Sarandon

use

s

hi

s long-nailed hand

to " Iih" the boun

cer,

Holmes (whowind s

up doing hi s (MIn stunt) stra ightens his

knees. The added height of th e box

put

s

his head high

above Sarandon, so that he

really see ms to be held in mid-air. Then

lantieri and Pritchett wheel th e 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 flails

at

hi s attacker, Holland

reminds him , "Hi s claws are two in ches

into

yo

ur neck

You

' re slCMIly dying "

Holmesdives sideways off the box onto a

Sarandon . in more elaborate vampi re s tage p r e p a r e s to

do

some

major damage .

ma

ss

ive airbag, concluding his "death

sce ne:'

At

9:1

p.m., th ey're done

forth

e night.

Sa

randon, "b lood" on his hand

s,

breaks

off his fal

se

fingert ips and

fling

s them

one by on e al the makeup people : "Take

that And that "

Friday, Jan . 4 1985

On

So

und

stage 8

at

laird

S

tudios in

Culver Cit

y,

a large sheet of fake grass

separates

se

ts for

both

Charley 's a

nd

Jer

ry's houses. A C

hampm

an 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 scaffo lding.

Rag

sdal

e,

w

ho

plays Charl

ey, says

" I al

ways

liked

horror as a

kid

- I

li

ved in sort

of a small to\lVn , EI

Dorado

, Arkan sas, so I

guess believing in witch

es

and vampires

and th ings like that sort of zested it up a

little.

HO\IVwould he feel, faced w

ith hi

s char

acter 's predicament? " If I

found

out

there

was

a real vampire living nex t

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

res

ignation

, ange

r tho

se are

stages Charley goes through . It 's inter

esting to

try

and

touch

on those in per

formance, never having been that close

to death:'

He's been

close

to minor disas ter,

though;

a few ..veeks back,

during

a s

hot

in

which

Charley runs

dCMIn

a stairway,

Ragsdale broke his foot. Thanks

to

some

inventive rescheduling and reb

lo

ck ing,

the s

how

and Ragsdale are both

goi

ng

on, but the actor

's

foot is still in a cas t,

which sometimes

po

ses

problem

s even

when

he 's sitting

down

.

l ike nO\rV for instance: the

upc

o

ming

shot has Ragsdale scrambling around

on

his back, having been

thrO\rVn into

Char

ley's closet

by

the

vampire,

and his feet

are

going

to

sh()\r\l.

No

shoes

big eno

ugh

to

fit over

hi

s cast can be f

ound, but

cos

tumer

s Bettylee Balsam and Mort Sch

wartz

hit upon

a so

lution

: they s

lit

Rag s

dale

's

s

ho

e in several plac

es,

slip it

on,

then cover the

portions

of

cast gleaming

whitely

through

the s

lits

with

black

cloth.

Charley's

mood in thi

s scene is, ac

co

rding to

director

Holland , stark balls

out

terror

as

the vampire reaches

dOVv'n

,

seiz

ing

hi s intended vic

tim

by the neck

a

nd

belt. The first take seems alright,

but

Sa randon grabs Ragsdale

's

shirt instead

of

his neck. On

the

second take, Rags

dale reacts

with proper

fear,

but when

cut

is called, Sarandon is the

one look

ing

startled and pained: Ragsdale acci

de

nt

ally stepped

on

his foot. On the

third

take,

Sa

randon grabs his prey so

violently

that he slams

hi

s

own

sho

uld

er

into the ca mera lens.

When

they get a good take, they move

on

to

the

next shot. The ca mera takes

over

Ra

gsdale's

position in

the closet. as

s

uming

Char ley

's

point of

view. The lack

of

a

body where

he

's

reac

hin

g fo r Char

ley

throw

s

Sa

randon off a

little

, so HoI

land

obliging

ly sits

in the close

t next to

the camera. He asks

if Sarand

on

would

like

h

im to offer

resistance

to

bei

ng

'pulled up . Yes , please;'

the

actor

says.

Scare me ta death

:' Holland in

s

tru

ct

s.

S

arandon duly

gets sca ry ;

Holland

is

pl

eased. Rea

ll

y

good,

C

hr i

s:'

Monday, ,an.

7,

1985

U's 6:15 a.m. Diaz and Stratton, along

with

Jeff Kennemore, have already been

worki

ng

on Sa

randon

for

cr..er

and ho

ur

in the makeup trailer. Today sees

the

ac

tor

in

the

third

stage vampire makeup,

which is the most extreme; Jerry is at the

heig

ht of

fury, and

thu

s

at

h

is

most

inhu

man, becau

se

Charley's just stabbed

him

thrpugh the hand with a pencil.

A ba ldcap

with

a

lon

g

fringe

of hair

attached

is

on

Sa

randon

's

head; S

tratton

has

applied latex

thumb tip

s to

Sa

ran

don

's

hands.

N()\r\I

Stratton painstakingly

starts g

luin

g dONn all the latex

fingertip

s

on Sa

ran

don's

left hand, keeping the Hn

gers

se

parated

with littl

e foam wedges;

Kennemore begins

wo

rk on the hand.

4 NGORIA ' 7

Diaz puts

ad

hesive

on

the actor's nose,

then stretches aone-

pi

ece foam latex ap

pliance over Sarandon's e

ntire

face and

begins

applying

adhesive

under

the

un

attached

portions of

the piece.

Kennemore ho lds up a

\o\eird

-

lookin

g

appliance,

like

a latex glove

with

the fin

gers c

ut of f

, and asks what it's fo

r.

This is

the

penci

l-s tab piece (sc

ulpted

by

Steve Neill); Kennemore powders Saran

don

's

ri

ght

hand, then

with St

ratton's

he

lp

stretches th e a

ppli

ance

onto

it.

What a stupid way to make a

living;'

Sa

randon

says.

We

ll

, not s

tup id-

sill y:'

Stratton:

'W

ho, you

or

u

s?

Sarandon:

Me

.

You

guys are having all

the

f

un .

Darrell Pritche

tt co

mes

in

with

the

plate that goes

und

er the hand appl i

ance, consisting

of

th e

po

inted half

of

a

pencil attached to a

ni

ckel-sized ba

se.

Kenne

more

makes an incision

in

the ap

pliance's palm

with

scissor

s,

then fits the

base

into

the s

li t

, along

with

a

pl

as tic

tube

that goes between

Sarand

on's for

e

finger a

nd thumb

, disappears i

nt

o 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

hi

sONn left hand as a palette

on which

he mixes

co lor

s of makeup,

al

ternating

between a paintbrush and a

sponge

as

he adds hues

to

the facial ap

pliance. Talon-like fingernail s have been

attached

to

the latex fingertips ; Stratton

applie

s

liquid

latex around

the

back

of

the nail s to

build

up simulated cuticles.

Randy Cook,

wh

o

with

Steve Johnson

designed and sc

ulpted mo

s

toftheFrigh

l

igh t

appliances and strange creatur

es,

pitches in to help

by

attaching eyebr()\r\l

piece

s-real

hair woven

into

very

fin

e

mes

h to

the appliance brow. The fake

eye

brow

s tangle in Sarandon

's

real eye

lashes;

Coo

k di sentang

le

s

them

and

cautions

Sa

ra

ndon

to close his eyes.

Sarandon, who's being a very good s

port

about

all th is, seems just a

bit

uneasy

at

all the strange th ings poking and prod

ding

near hi s closed eyes.

Cook

reas

s

ur

es

him

,

T

his

is

ju

st my

finger, n

ot

some

impl

ement

of

death.

Diaz and Cook

ad

here a hairpiece to

the

t

op of

Sa

randon's ba

ld

ca

p; the lace

on one si

de buckles. They peel it back

with infinite

care,

but

a ti ny patch

of

makeup comes up

with

the lace. They

readjust and reglue the hairpiece, then

repaint the patch of makeup.

Hairdresse r Marina Pedraza joins the

group,

trimming

and shaping the hair

piece so that the co

ntours of Sa

r

andon

's

head

won't

be obscu red, taking special

care around th e pointed ear appliances.

Diaz steps back

for

a look at the

whol

e

e

nsemb

l

e: fa

ce,

hair

,

ea

r

s,

ha nd

s. it

looks great.

Stratton

quips

: l et

's

go

home

. C

hr i

s,

the contact len

ses

are over

th

e

re

,

th

e

teeth are ~ there,

if

anything

co

mes

loose, they

ca

n fix it in the

cutti

ng

.

At

12:55 p.m.,

almo

st eigh t hours after

they started, the makeup crew is done.

Steve Johnson

put

s

in

the

fin

ish

ing

tOU

Ch

es-fangs

and co

nt

ac t lenses

when they arrive

on

the

se

t.A crew mem

ber who hasn't been near the make

up

trailer thi s morning walks up, takes a

good l

ook at Sa

randon, mutters Jeez;'

and wa

lk

s awdy again.

Thursday,

Jan.

24, 1985

I arrive on Soundstage 9 at 3:30 p.m.

Ho lland

pr

o

mptl

y grabs me

by

the arm

and drags meover to today

's

set, the bed

room

of

Charle

y's

mother, whe re

Stephen Geoffreys is in full makeup

as

Evil Ed Thompson,

who

starts o

ut as

a

weird high-

sc

hool kid and wi nds up as

an eve n weirder vamp

ire.

He looks really

ghastly:

Ed ha

s u

st

had across

burnt

i

nt

o

his forehead and some

of

his flesh

is

melting

off

(thanks to a full-face latex ap

pliance), his eyes are vacant pools

of

darkness

(v

iaopaque contact lenses), hi s

fangs are huge and, due to Ed's sense

of

humor

, he's wearing a

Ragg

edy Ann wig.

Geoffreys wishes he had more

sce

nes

in the heavy makeup: It

's

great, great

fun. At

fi r

st, I was worried ho.v to make it

look real , 'Should I be a human monster,

s

hould

I be

real

sy mpatheti

c?'

But I fig

ured 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 p

uttin

g

on

a sho.v like that, this

is

hi

s

big

chanc

e.

And

he

does a good

job

, I

think

:'

Tu

esday,

Feb.

18,1985

On a sca le of

one

to len, isn't that a

te

rrifi

c baH Holland

is

proudly showing

me the lalest 'NOnder from

Boss

Films, a

spec ial effects

001 with

a body the size of

a greyhound, an eight-foot wingspan

and a rema rkably

mobil

e

ca

bl e-c

on

trolled face.

We're

on

Sound stage 15, which

houses the ornate set for the main en

trance

to

Jerry's house, co

mpl

ete

with

a

staircase from the o riginal Gone With

the Wind

set, leading up to a balcony

to

pp

ed by a breakaway-stained-glass

window.

The bat and its handler

s-Coo

k, J

ohn·

s

on

, J

oh

n Axford, Kevin Brennan, Craig

Caton, Screaming

Mad

George and the

bat's personal makeup

per

son, Ther

esa

Burke

tt

- occupy

on

e corner

of

the floor

at

the fo

ot

of the stair

s.

In the

ot

her cor

ner, C

n

ematographer Jan Kiesser

's

cam

era crew

se

t up a sh

ot of

the bat attacking

Roddy M cDowall as Peter Vincent, an

ag

ing ham

horror actorwhoreluclantly be-

comes Charley's ally. He's such a terri

ble

ac t

or

, M c

Dow

a ll says of hi s

character. He's got such a s

ad li fe,

he's

sort of cowardly and then he finds his

s

tr

eng

th

as a human being:'

Right now, h

e's

fight ing for h

is

life

as

the bat

s......ao

ps

in for Ihe kill, knocking

McDowa

ll

backwards (a stunt man lies

bel

ow

camera range

to

catch the actor

as

he falls

).

Brennan and Wilson u

se

poles

to manipulate the bat's right and left



wings, respectively; Cook crouches un

der its body, holding it aloft as he runs

from tall box to small box to floor, sothat

the bat appears

to

swoop swiftl y

d PtNn

at

McDowall in a graceful, smooth arc.

" I'm seeing

Randy;

" camera operator

Craig

Denault

re

ports

as he peers

through his camera 's viewfinder.

"Do

)<lu

have

any more material

the

bat's made

of

to put on Randy's shirt? "

assistant director Sobul asks, hoping

to

ca

moufl

age Cooke. Unfortunately,

no

one does, but the scene is reblocked so

that Cook no longer shows

up

beneath

his creation.

For the next shot, the last few steps

of

the stairway are replaced with a wooden

platform on which McDowall

li

es for the

co

ntinuation

of

the bat attack. Denault

yells: "Effect

s ~ r e

gonna need some

bones on the stairs " lantieri and Prit

c

hett inspect the "h uman bones

"

they've concocted in the special effects

truck,

se

lect ing the most photogenic

ones

to sc

atter above McDowall's head.

Durin

g rehear

sa

l, McDowall grapples

with

the bat, defending himse

lf by

grab

bing a bone from

the

stairs and thrusting

it between the creature's jerw

s.

At least,

that's what's supposed to happen . First

the bone slides under the bat 's chin,

then bops itonthe

nose,

but keeps mis

s

ing its mouth . Holland tells McDowall

to

let the bat come

to

the bone instead

of

trying

to

put the bone in the bat 's

mouth

.

This works much better.

On th

e last take, there is a mishap: Mc

Dowall pull s too hard on the bone

while

it's in

th

e bat's mouth, causing a

se

para

tion

in the beastie's

sk

ull. The shape

of

the bat 's head changes weirdly as its

right y sinks down into its throat.

Holland is understandably dismayed.

1 love that bat. I want the fucker to

work:'

The bat crew s

tr ives

frantically

to sal

vage th ei

r crea

ture.

Cook

says

the smile

control

is

broken, but the bat

ca

n be

made to work well

eno

ugh for some

shots over its s

hould

er while it's

on

Mc

Dowall's ch

es t.

The bat's closeups will

have to wait for

two

days, when

Cook

and

company will have had sufficient time to

do more thorough repairs.

Finally, they're

as

ready

as

th ey' ll ever

be tonight. Ragsdale kneels at the edge

of

the platform to lean into the shot more

eas

il

y with hi s stake and crucifix as the

bat exposes McDowall's neck. Su nlight

hits the bat and it "sc r

ea

ms" (that i

s,

it

lifts its head into the air and

shakes-the

sound

of

the scream will be added in

post-production), then drops back outof

the frame.

"

Is

the bat in sunl ight yet?" Cook asks.

"No:' says Holland, "can't you tell?"

From h

is

position

und

er the bat, Cooke

ca n barely see anything so

Holl

and talks

him

through the action:

"O

kay, go in ...

s

unlight..

.bat out Bat

out "

Shooting on right Night is officially

completed

at

3 a.m. Saturday

morning

,

Evi l

Ed does

his

Raggedy

Aaa haUaUoa_

Feb.

23. Of cour se, there

will

be pick-up

shots-retakes of bits and pieces that

didn

't

turn

out

right

the first tim

e

nd

work wilt

co

ntinue

at Bo

ss

Films

for

....-eeks on the

opticals a

nd

effects,

but for

most cast and crew,

th i

s 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

la

cks

the

itltense

ca

maraderie

of the

set.

In

o

ther

words,

it 's a good party, but it 's not the

sa

me

as

making a mcwie.

Then

again, what i

s?

FANGORIA '47 35



There are new people In the old Hopkins

place next door They moved In by nlgh

and

wit

good reason

i

t



SPECI L

PREVIEW

d your n xt



R ddy

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 ~ t o r loves playing characters

without

any labels.

H

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 vam

pire killer

is

swept into battle between local

teenager and neighborhood bloodsucker.

And Fright Night becomes something more

than movies. t becomes terrifying reality for

Peter Vincent.

He's an absolutely marvelous charac

ter,

declares the man who portrays

him,

52 STARLOG / December 1985

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

dif-

ficult 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

ex-

tremely 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.

iting satire

When writer/director Tom Holland ap

proached

him

with the Fright Night script,

McDowall's reaction was immediate enthusi

asm. I thought it was fascinating, he notes,

very imaginative and very good. Tom is a

good director and writer, and all those

elements were very conscientious. A great

deal of hard work went into it.

The-mixture of horror and humor in

Fright

Nightmay recall the similar structureof John

Landis'

n

American Werewolf

n

London

but

the comparison agitates McDowall.

As

lucky

Pierre, McDowall took part

in TV s

Tales

o

the Gold Monkey

I never saw tha t film, he begins em

phatically,

but

I absolutely apall the idea

of

comparing one thing to something else No

thing

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 some

thing 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 some

one else.

Additionally, he doesn't appreciate Fright

Night being labeled a horror

fIlm

Some people think

Snow

White

and

the

Seven Dwarfs

is

a horror movie, so I never

quite know how to deal with that kind

of

labeling, McDowall says. When I did the

pilot for Night Gallery I never looked at it as

horror. t was a wonderful script, and my

character was just a lousy son

of

a bitch who

turned people over to get what he wanted. I

don't look at LegendofHell House as horror

either. t was just a story of people trying to

exorcise a spirit from a haunted house.

The

so-called 'slice-and-dice'

fIlms

are

just gratuitous rubbish. I thought The Omen

was a very good fIlm. To me, horror

is

something gothic, strange and peculiar like a

fairy tale. Approaching the premise of Fright

Night realistically, it's very scary. The script



made sense, dealing with a vampire living

next door, just like a

ghost-but I'm

prob

ably 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 au

dience.

I

suppose every territory at various

times has a horror host who introduces late

night shows with rubbishy dialogue, he ex-

plains.

I f

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 close

ness

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

~ o n e r f u l

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 chim

panzee, in

Planet

of

the Apes

and

Escape

From the Planet of he Apes,

and

as

Corneli

us' son Caesar in

Conquest of. . .

and

Battle

for the Planet ofthe pes

(all

of

which he ex

tensively discussed in STARLOG #6). .

Mcpowall makes no secret

of

the fact that he

w6uld

return to the series if somebody

As

Galen

In the

pes 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. t took nine

years to convince people, but

Star Trek

work

ed. 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 n

974 to the small screen in CBS' short-lived

Planet

of

the Apes

series. McDowall por

trayed the primetirne primate Galen, a dilet

tante 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

W RD

GROSS, New York-based

writer,

profiled screenwriter Don Jakoby in

ST RLOG 99.

STARLOGIDecember 1985 53



from page 53)

memory, says McDowall, but the

Apes went

off

the air

it

wasn't good, but because

it

was

in

the

wrong

place at an entirely wrong

Everybody has a reason for why some

is taken off the air, though

Apes

of

directions to go storywise, but the

w wasn't on long enough.

Between his many film assignments,

in

two other genre

Fantastic Journey

( which didn't

t long enough to make an impression, n he

ales o the Gold Monkey.

Gold Monkey

is another series that I ab

loved. Like

Apes, Gold Monkey

off

the air. I loved

StepheI.1 Collins was a



W N

eta s sIde

THE DIRECTOR S

STORY

FRIGHT NIGHT

GEORGE ROMERO UNEARTHS

THE

D YOFTHE DEAD

THE TRAGIC LIFE OF

LUGOSI

HORRORWOOD S NEW

MAKEUP MASTER

JOHN CARL BUECHLER

PLUS: A FANTASTIC

FO

:.;; -...:-.

TO FILMFESTS IN

MADRID AND

BERLIN



BY

MICHAEL MAYO

Yes, friends

&

fiends, I bet you didn 't

know it, but vampi

re

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

wander

ing 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 w

hat

he's got on his storyboa

rds

theatergoers

this

August 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,

MONSTERL NO



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?

T REEL V MPIRE

The only problem Is that a real v

am

pire

does show up and he looks even better

than Christopher

Lee.

He s a swinging,

sexy dude named Jerry Dandridge who

MONSTERL ND

says he restores old homes. Jerry s

nei

ghbors

Include Charley Brewster

(newcomer Bill Ragsdale

),

an everyday

kid who discovers that Dandridge is a

vamp i

re

when he acciden

tally

sees

Dandridge put the bite on his girl fr iend.

Charley st ili can t believe It un

til

a near

fatal encounter w it h Dandridge sends

Cha

r ley

sc

u

rry

ing f

or

some

bo

dy,

anybody who wil l believe him. We ll,

since Vincent has always been blowing

about his ba

tt l

es, what the hark? as in

Jonathan Harke

r).

Charley goes

to

Vin-

cent and tells him his story. Vincent

thinks 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

s

of Dandridge. Vincent now knows

Charley Is right but doesn t feel any

better

lor It .

fter

30 years spent

fighting foam rubber

and

speci

al

effects,

he s now up against the

Real

Thing,

a

supernaturally powerfu

l

creature



's very smart and very deadly . . .

I decided to resuscitate the genre

use I have so many fond childhood

. I want to see them,

film in

10

years. The last Drac

,

at Firat Bit , and a parody is

last gasp of a dying genre.

I wanted to bring them back and be

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 special

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 rigidly against a

wall but a huge, fleshy·plnk, redeyed

l£ft;

oddy

MrDow.tll plQylng If n·horTo. moVlII' sfur.

Aoout

to

J./lU1'

f

howl of

f

lim wllh Q

TN/·I,/II' 1Df 'f'lDolf

i Fright Night.

Top: Til V<lmpirt' nu t door

Abom': Bill R"s5tlall' U ChQ,lry Brnmti" says- IhnP

80ft

thl I1l ishborhood

M

ONsr

ERLANO 31



Nosferatlc nasty that Is the ugl iest

thing you 've seen

In

ages. This oogle is

so ugly It's beautifu l; just the sort of

thing I wish I had sitt ing 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

MON ST R LAND

A

kiD

Uslilll

k lll

. f Xcept

whl lI

, om thi5 toothsome Mi55

cope with. Dandridge also manages to

turn

Heaven Help Us

star Steven Geof-

freys Into a werewolf and Ragsdale 's

girlfriend

Amanda Bearse) i

nto

a

voluptuous

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



. I mean, In Graystoke they

ashamed

to

mention the name

didn't say It once In the

while In Tha Hungar they didn 't

the word vampire once. I th ink

go out and make

of movies If they're going

ashamed

of

the genre."

's

affection for

fantasy

&

growi

ng

up in a small, mld·state

York town gobbling down

, Robert E. Howard, Robert

. He wanted

to

be a

actor when he

stili

pur·

which

almost

sank his

before It got started .

A BEASTLY BUSINESS

was the first script I'd done that got

out of the business for a year. That

Tha Ba Within . I got thrown

off

of

the dailies because I

thought they

of

1984, then Psycho II ,

for Halp that

so badly It

was

never

Night

Is Holland's

first film

as a

. Like

many

writers

who

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 i

nk

this

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

commerc

ial

that nobody

could afford to turn It down , they'd

have

to

let me

direct

It, which Is ex

actly

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 f ilm

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

go

ing 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

movi

e.

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

evo lves from

the situation

,

though

,

that 's OK. I personally think Fright

Night Is a very funny movie. You've got

th is 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

creature of the night ' And the vampire

just cracks up. "

MONSTERLAND 9



Tom Holland s

Photos


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http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/the-making-of-fright-nightfright-night-part-2 47/75 merican obby Cards



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The aki



Compiled

by

ANTHONY

TIMPONE

The

FANGORIA

Fright File

o j 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.

.

. . . . . . . . ,

1 I T ItT 2 ,

bent

on

doing a

number on

Bloodletting is

better the

se - Chorley for offing h

er

big

cond time around, on ideo brother. With

the

aid of Vin-

whose time has finally come cent, Brewster goes into

in the long anticipated sequel

nightmarish

bottle against the

to

Fright

Night . sexy

Regine

and

a

whole ne w

·

Fright Night- Port 2, supporting

cost

of

ghouls

and

directed

by Tommy Hollo -

nostie

s.

ween

III)

le

e

Wallace

, once

Fright Night- Port

2,

shot in

ag a in teams those two

unlike

, 4S days in and

around

los

Iy vampire

fighters, con

fused Angeles, is on FX

.

heavy

film ,

student Charley Brewster courtesy of such latex and

(William

Ragsdale

) and TV optical stalwarts

as Gene

horror show

host

Peter

Vin-

Warren

Jr. ,

Rick Josephson

,

cent

(Roddy McDowall). The Bart Mixon , Brion

Wade, Greg

story picks

up three yeors Cannom and other

s.

after

Fright Night

ended. This

is

definitely a 'now'

Brewster,

now in

college, lives kind of

movie

, enthuses vam

a relatively normal life until piress Carmen. Th ere's a reol

up

pops

the devil in the

guise

new wove,

'80s

feel

to both

of Reg ine (Julie

Carmen), the

my character and

the

produc

undead

sister

of

the

first film's lion values.

Th

is

is

definitely a

Jerry

Dandridge

.

She

is

hell·

horror

film,

and

I feel

the

10 FANGO

RIA

74

horror is

even

more

belie

vable because

of the

mod

ern

setting.

Integral

to the

success

of a

Fright Night seque l was

convincing McDowall

and

Ragsdale to come

bock for

more. McDowall se es na reol

mystery

in

his agree ing

to

reprise

his Vincent role. I

liked the story,

says the

Briti

sh genre veteran.

Ragsdale

agrees

with

those

points. It's

not

like

t

was go

ing

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

predict

s

the

inherent problems of a se·

quel and the

inevitable cam

porisons 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

fr

amework

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, incl

uding the

proposed

sequel,

getting shelved.

Pro

ducer

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

Now

i t .

the

py .

t1lnl to

oCle

as

Fr ight

Nigh t Par t 2

presenu

the

sexy

.amplre

Regine IJalie Cannen).



RI HTNI

H

ollywood

Rule *1: Never

ki l l

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

prov

ed not only a critical success (I.e.

somebody other than FANGORlA

liked

it) but a

box

office

bonanza

(an

PARI 2

Bares

Its

Fangs

:=---.

The

t . . . of Fr lgh t l f fgh t Part 2 40 the i r 4arD.e4Ht to

oatdo

The

Lo t

Boy.

l_bioDable att ire .

(Left

to

ri lbt:

Jonathal l

Onea, Brian

ThOm.PMtD.

Julle

ClU'IIlea and

MUClark.)

By MARC SHAPIRO

estimated

$50

million

worldwide

to

date)

. i t seemed a

safe bet that there

would

be

further adventures

for

Peter Vincent and Charley Brewster.

The Set

Visit: Day ODe

Tommy Lee

Wallace plays footsies

with

shower

steam.

First

take:

U's

too

th i

ck.

Second take:

It's

too thin.

Are you ready. baby bear? Third

take:

Wallace motions the

cramped

camera crew

slowly back.

The steam

snakes

around

an open bathroom

door while the shower

beats

a

background

ra ta t a ta t

Wallace

is

satisfied and yells,

Cut.

The studio where

the

lion's share

of Fright Night-Part 2 is being film

ed is a

little-used relic from the

1940s , The sucker' s also pretty

drafty,

which

explains why. after

exiting

a mock-up

of

Charley

Brewster's

apartment

,

Wallace

puts

on a heavy jacket to snuggle

up

for a

quick

script

read. Jeffrey Sudzin,

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

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 Fr ight Night,

got

the rights back

i

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

s

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



three years after the original

Charley Brewster, now

in col

celebrates the conclusion of

that

has

convinced him

that

happened in the

film

was

all

a dream. Brewster

latest main squeeze

Alex

pay a visit

to

TV

horror

Vincent

(McDowall),

continued on-air

tirades

to

of the unknown have

once

gotten

him

fired.

Charley begins to get that old

feeling

again.

a feeling

that·s

with

the appearance of

excitress Regine

(Julie

and an equally eerie group

cohorts. Regine, as the tale un

turns out to be the sister of

Jerry Dandridge,

to take revenge on Charley by

him into the vampire life.

series of near-misses, which

off

amorous advances of

some

of

ghouls, Charley,

once again

by horror host

Vincent, sets

doing battle with the vam

and her horror

horde.

Fr igh t

N i g h t P a r t

2 s .co

Wallace (who plot

the course of

Halloween

I l l:

oj the Witch and the duo of

and Tim

Met

{of Revenge oj the Nerds in

invested

the

sequel

so

much

'80s hi-tech and glitzy

that

one

is sorely

tempted

compare Part 2 to an episode of

Vice

Sudzin is quick

to laugh

comparison off. but Carmen,

on

makeup

in

preparation

heavy seduction number. feels

Night-Part 2's attitude

is

.

Intellectually,

it's clever in a

very

sort of way, judges

exotic appearance

her the

ideal

candidate to

Charley's

blood..

This

film sits

the cutting

edge

all

the

way

down

line. Regine is definitely a

personality,

kind of like

cross between Tina Turner and

Deneuve.

Carmen, whose talents are on dis

in The Penitent and The

Milag

Bea nfield

War

hasn't

always

so enthusiastic

about the

In fact. she remembers an early

the

script

that sent her look

for a stomach

distress I

afraid

of the part because

character

was

nothing

than an Elvira imitation, the

winces.

The revisions made

a more multidimensional being

happens to like sucking blood..

Subsequent rewrites

so impressed

that she

began

turning

down right and left in order

prep herself for her

Loale

tran.rorm.,

McDo_all ••

ant

double bang. on

r r

dear ute.

Fright

Night-Par t 2 romp.

Carmen

read

everything

concerning vam

pires 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 ~ i s hand.

that 1

use

in

this film, Carmen reveals. But I

stopped

looking

at

the first movie

when I realized I

could

very easily

fal l

into the

trap

of

being a female

clone of

the

Jerry Dandridge

character.

The actress jokingly claims she

will

have

a clause in

future

con

tracts against

any

latex being

poured on

her

body, thanks to the

ordeal by

fire

required

in the crea

tion 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 art

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.

F NGO

RI 6

45



A few

minutes

after I stopped

crying.

the

phone

rang.

she sighs .

There

was a problem with the

mold. and they wanted to know i f I

could

come

in early the

next

morn

ing 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

rim

shots. they

rough

out the

tone of

an

upcoming

scene.

What has being in Fright Night

done for my career? howls

Ragsdale outside

the

soundstage

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

tha t have aD

been

done before.

-v isua l FX

coordinator Gene

Warren Jr

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 f m 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, emotional

ly.

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 na-

tional 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

am-

bitious bit of wizardry in Fright

Night-Part 2 never got off the

draw

ing

board.

In

an early

version

of

the

script,

Evil Ed was still in

the

film, ex-

plains

Warren.

There was this

se-

quence 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



didn't seem

to

fit.

Warren, whose Fantasy II shop did

n estimated 300 bits on Nighif lyers

hitting

the Fright Night

trail,

has

the majority of his stop

mo

rear

projection and

other

visual

work in

front of him

in

what

will

an estimated three months of

work.

But

he proves

good

source of information on the

highlights

other people

on the

have dished

out thus

far.

Greg

Cannom does

a real solid

on a monster

named

Louie,

praises

Warren.

U's a limited, two or three

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

cer

tain points in the

movie,

is

something just that little

bit

dif

ferent.

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 unex

pected things in postproduction

that

may necessitate our

stretching

a lit

tle

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 ..

Day

Three:

Wel'ewolf

Drops,

Roddy

Bites

Fango

Subtitle

this

day

Just

Hanging

Around.

To

wit: Easily

50

cast,

crew

and assorted

visitors, crowded

into the corner of a

soundstage

adja

cent 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

win

dow,

complete

with

cornices,

gen

uine imitation brickwork and all

those things

that make

a place old

looking. A rather

substantial

ir

bag/mattress is

hustled

in and plac

ed 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,

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

be

tween

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.

i f

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

up

side 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

having

rushed.

to the stuntman's

head,

calls for action. There is a mo

ment ' s

hesitation before the

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 can

not 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)

·

up X

UDlimited's aec o

ll4

-tac'e

dummy

he d for

t he DMb·

1DIt1tiDC scene, Tbe Fright Night

aeqael WOD't

skimp OD the FlL



COI'ITRIBUTORS'

______

CRYPT

L

alT,. aarak , .

'reports

on

C H U D n

and

Waxwork in

future issues contrib

uted

to Famous Monsters in its hey·

day

.

Ales

00rd0D

produces Gene

Autry

's Melody

Ranch.

Theater

(Nashville Network).

Peter

JUocIa..

overs The

Kiss in our next

issue. Da'ri4 . . . . . . . . wants to

know

~ b a t

we have against Cleveland.

Da . .

D ..... SweetaaD.'s

A Cotton

candy Autopsy

is due

soon from

Piranha

Press.

stew.

Kewtoa hails f rom British Colum

bia. 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

o

the Dead.

I Iarc _

. . . . . visited

the sets of They Li ve and Elulra

Mistress of

the

Doric

BID

WarreD

reviews

movies

for an LA

newspa

per.To

t S

f irst

book

.

Inter

views

wUlt "B"

Science

Fiction

and

Horror

Movie Makers.

is due

sooo

f rom McFarland.

THINGS

TO COJlllE

____

Y

ou.ve

got to

get

the most out

of summer while

i t 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 Fred

dy?

Yes. A

~ t a a a t e 08 K i a

8treet

tThe

Dream.

•••

er

is

00 its way.

and

this is the place to

get

the full story Hear the words

of director K._. . (Prison) BarUa

and Kob.r t B Dd .

But you

do n

' t want to

mJS8 the

rest

of

the

issue, either, because

you

' d

pass

up

definitive coverage

of

.1 r

• • •

of

lbe Dark .

When one of

the

genre's loveliest

ladies

ever

decided to make her

motion

picture

debut, i t '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

reading

I 'A I I001l lA '771

01 1 SALE:

AUGUST

11

68 FANGORIA 76

H E L L B O U N D -

FRIGHT

continuedfrom page 38)

(co

ntinued from

page

47

promotional tour of Japan.

takes

great pleasure in showing your

correspondent a rough cut of

Ju l ia

' s resur rec t ion 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 self

mutilation;

more than

that ,

it

is

in

credi

bly

gory, despi t e

Christopher

Figgs'

grea t 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

be

comes awash with

blood that sprays the watching

Channard.

Then, from inside the

fabric.

the

skinless

Julia

appears,

caressing ·the st i l l 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

chuc

kles

as he

calm ly puffs away on his Cigar.

This impression is confirmed on

my

return

to

the

soundstage.

where 1

find

the director, gore

splashed

and

happy,

assisting

the

makeup guys

in blOOdying up

several lunatics for a scene in

which the Cenobites s la ughter a

ward full of

inmates. The attitude

seems to say, I f you

want

blood,

you got

i t l

As the day

comes

to a clo se , we

are l

eft

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 s tagger

off to their

dressing

rooms.

One

older

woman.

who looks like a sp

lattered

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

feeding of Fright Night-Part 2.

"My biggest

surprise

on this film

has been how long rubber takes,"

chuckles the

native

Kentuckian be

tween bites.

"Prosthetics are

un

predi

ctab

le and hard

to

deal with,

but given the time

and

the

ci r

cumstances,

1

can see

that we're

ge t

ting

some

real quality

.

Wallace,

returning to the theater

of the fantastic after

a

radical depar

ture

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

shooting anything else," he

reasons. "There are no particular

advantages

to making a

sequel.

There's some history and

conven

tions 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 vam

pi res. Beyond

that.

however, this

story stands on its

own."

Since

signing

on, Wallace bas

reacquainted himself

with

the in

evitable

scrip

t rewrites

(which

suc

ceeded, 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

b

een real

enthus i

astic and

support

iv

e

about this project."

Wallace explains

that directing

Fright

Night has given

him

the op

portunity

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 cinema narrative with kicks

at the open trail

er

door,

until he

eventually

hints that he

could

sure

us

e 40 winks. OK, we ' ll let him

snooze,

Over

at

the dinner break. Jeff

Sud

zin 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-Par t 2

set, perchance

to dream. D



A

HARD

DAY S

RI HT

NI H

Bart

Mixon

assembles

a

vir tual

Murderers

Row

o

FX

talent to

take on the

styl ish sequel.

T h e F X gang'.

al l

b er e: (top left) J im McLou.gb1in.

Br

en t Bake r , Bar t

Mi Ko n. re lor

Pun

chats , Aaron Sims , (bottom) Barne y Burman. G

abe

Bar ta los and

Bri

an Wade .

28 FANGORIA # 77

By MARC

SHAPIRO

T

alk

about

feeling like

a kid in a

candy store. Bart Mixon had a

mouthfu l

of

Milky Ways the

day he

opened

the

sc

r ipt for Fright

Night-Part 2. I turned to a page

and it said,

Regine

suddenly turns

into

a

monste

r from

he ll

: recalls

Mixon.

I thought to myself. 'A

monster from hell?

This

is going to

be

fun.

.

Mixon remembers t hat introduc-

tion

to the FX-Jaden Fr ight Night se

quel

from the comfortably clu ttered

office

of

Make-up

FX Unlimited. The

fledgling company. whose F r ight

Night-Par l

2

chores were its first

gig as

the creature/prosthetics right

arm

of

Fantasy , is putting the

finiShing

touch

es

on the film, The

odd insert and miniature is

being

shot or fine-tuned, but Mixon, stu

dy ing

an FX

breakdown for an up-

co mi

ng production, is already prim-

ed for new

pr o

jects,

Mixon, a contributor to Ter

minalor an

d

RoboCop, had

worked

with Fantasy

II

's

Gene Warren

J r

on many

occasions. Talk between

the

two

had gotten

serious about a

makeup

adjunct to

Fantasy II's

visual magiC.

His

first

official

effort

und er

the Make-up FX Un

limited

banner

was

a dumm y head for

Dracul

a s

Wi

do

w . When Wa r

ren

of-

fered

Mixon

's shOp

as

a bonus in

bidding for

the

Fright Nighl-

Part

2

job,

Mixon

suddenly found himself

key ing one monster of a monster

movie

.

There's definitely more

monster

-

type things

in

this film than in the

first

Fright Night. ..

compares Mix·

on. The stuff in the original was

nice .

but

we've d

efi

nitely got

mu

ch

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 Mix-

on, But by

the

time I found out we

would be doing

prost

h

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

ti me.

Anchoring

the

core group was key

sculptor Brian

(Jason Lives) Wade.

key painter Aaron

Sims,

key

mo

l

dmaker Jim

McLoughlin

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

Sturg

eo

n,

Joey Orosco,

EDITOR S NOTE:

At presstime, New

Ce n tu ry / Vista bumped

Fright

Night-Part

2 to

aJaU

release.



provided some

major

design

challenges, to which everybody on

the

crew arose. Aaron

Sims

con

tributed

some early sketches. Mixon

threw in some ideas centered

around

his

penchant

for lo n

g

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

ass i s t ing

Steve Jo h n so n on

Nightmare

4. The teeth

were

going

The

Regine

Monster bands sported

mechanical finger

eztensions

by

BID

to be really monstrous. But

dir

ec tor'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

co

me 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

attac

hed. I also

painted

the nails

and

punched

in

the

hair, he

says.

It was

an

easygoing

situation. Everybody worked on dif

ferent

things and had a lot

of

fu n

.

Bill Sturgeon sculpted the creat

ure's

neck-to-crotch body

suit. Cabrera

con

tributed

booty

-

style

monster

feet. a cross between a lady and a

monster with

exaggerated muscles

and veins

(which,

depending

on the

28 F NGORJ 77

rumored final

edit, mayor may not

be

seen).

(Note: sk ip

the

n xt s ix

paragraphs if you don l want the

movie s ending revealed.)

As

the sequence unfolds,

Regine

completes he r

transformation

into

the big bat,

cras

hes through the

elevator

floor and swoops down to

the bottom of the

shaft.

Two

bat

puppets, a stop-motion

miniature

sculpted by Brian Wade

over a

Mike

Joyce armature and a full-size pup

pet molded by

McLoughlin

and

Baker and sculpted

by

Rose, Wade

and Sims were used in the scene.

O

riginally, the

sequence

was

designed

with only the

stop-motion

puppet in mind, Mixon remembers.

L

ittle

by little, it evolved into

a

giant wing tip and then

a

fuli-size

d

bat seen craShing through

the

floor.

The

stop-motion

shots, animated

by Fantasy

l1's

Justin Kohn, com

bined rear-projection

live action

and

in-camera split screens

for

insertion

of the miniature

bat.

The

hug

e pup

pet was

plac

ed

on a

rod

and

pushed

through the elevator floor and

out

Dinah

Cancer doubled act ress

Julie Cannen

(or

her DamJ.ng

death

scene. The entire

makeup

took

three hours

to apply.

the other

s ide where Regine,

r e turned

to

the

or iginal form

and

preparing to destroy Charley

,

is sud

'

d e

nly hit by sunlight reflec

ted

off

a

mirror by

Peter

Vincent. Original

makeup

suggestions for

the death

makeup

were

rejected by

Wallace on

the grounds that they were

too

gross, a problem

that

was ultimately

ove r come with a r e la t ively

standard-issue gelatin

bum makeup

applied

by McLoughlin

and Mixon.

We made

a series

of dummy

heads, McLoughlin explains. The

first dummy

head had mechanics,

jaw move ment. fangs growing and

brow

movement.

which I built into

it. A

series of tubes were also attach

ed, which allowed us to pump

trichloroethane to

swell

the head'S

latex sk in . Gelatin

bum

makeup

was applied

to

a double 's

hands to

he lp bring the scene to

life.

With these elements in

place,

the

boys

lit the dumm

y

head on fi r

e

to

simulate the sequence's beginning

in which Regine's flesh begins

to

bum

away. The fiery scene was

completed as the skins were strip

ped off the first dummy head, a new

corpse mask slipped over the

ex

isting

mechanics and a gelatin bum

appliance

attached

over the mask.

The

head was

once

again set on

fire,

expos

in

g the

Regine corpse puppet



The finished

first ·s tage 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

th roa t piece and

a

lip/chin piece

by

ar t Mb:on.

head underneath.

For the fiery finale, a Regine body

sui t .

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

ed

it. "

The

death-by-holy-water of

Charley's roommate-turned-vampir

e

Richie

offered

the FX crew an

oppor

tunity to get away from

the now

familiar acid burn

look .

We decided

to

go

for a more

puffy

sw ollen look.

kind

of

like what

Dick

Smith did in

Spasms.

asserts Summer School

ve t

Cabrera. who

applied

the

first

stage Richie makeup . ., Facial ap

pliances were create

d

to reflect

what

the

head would

l

ook 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 propr ie tor

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 ac

cidentally

slices

open the chest of

Bozworth,

plastic hands and

sc

ulpted nails were created.

To

give the puncture effec

t that

extra

push, we

fit

real

X-ac

to blades into

the

nails,

"

grins

Mixon. We

knew

they

were

going to work when Tom

my Wallace cut himself one

day

while inspecting the hands.

The

glowing,

melting death of

Belle in the

holy cloth was

ac

complished through the use of

two

sku ll

s. 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

ge latin

head with a wax

skull

to

co

mpl

e

te

the

process. The entire

ef

fect was done through time-lapse

melting in an oven,

Mixon reports

that

a number of

vampire

teeth

sets

were

constructed

by Snell for

the

various actors. The

shop

created an

additional large

hollow ca

nine,

which was

raked

ac

ross

an actor's

neck in

the scene

where Charley is

bitten

by

Regine.

"

There were also

a

lot of Charley

related molds and sculptures,

primarily neck

and

hand

wounds,

that

were indicated

at an

early

point

in

the

filming

but

ultimately not

us

e

d, he sighs.

There 's definitely

more

monster-type

things

than in the

first

Fr ight

Night .

makeupFX

supervisor

ar t

Mixon

Mixon is

candid about director

Wallace's presence

at

his shop

dur

in

g production.

The director

asked

for num erous changes and

displayed much more interest in his

creature makers

than

us

ual.

To

a

certai

n e

xtent

,

it wasn't

su r

prising.

Mixon

judges.

T

his was

m y

first time

keying

a m

ajo

r

effect

Brian

Wade's

rough

sculpture of

the

Regine Monster

incorporated

ar t

Mixon's elrtended

teeth deSign,

elements or an Aaron Sims sketch,

and

many

or

Wade's own

ideas,

such

as the oversized ears

. Is

tha t

team

wOf"k Of what?

film. and

he probably

felt h e

had

to

keep

an extra

eye on me. Tommy

al so didn't want this to be

all

all-out

effects movie.

which

was p&rt of the

reason why he constantly suggested

changes.

None

of

that

bothered

me.

It

was

his mo vie, and I

was more

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 hap

py with

what he and

his crew

ac

complished,

We've done a

coup

le of

things

on

this

film that

haven·t been

done berore. especially with

o

ur

ap

proach

to the Richie effects. . he

beams. To a large extent. however.

what we've done is

traditional. It 's

primarily

a

lot or dumm

y

heads and

appliances,

stuff

that·s

been done

before. We kn

ew going

in what

would work, given

the time and

money

we ha d , and we

went with

those things.

To a man. the

Make-up

FX

U

nlimited

c

rew views the Fright

Night-Par l 2 experience as an en

joyable one. For supervisor Bart

Mixon,

it was

a

chance

to

show his

pr

owess at the

head of

a

major

film;

for Aaron

Sims,

who

concedes he

was

the

raw rookie in

this all-s tar FX

lineup, it was

a c

hance to

l

earn from

some

established craftsmen,

And

for everyone in between?

Man. it was fun, Bartalos -grins.

"

Just

a

whole lot or run. 0

F NGORI 29



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the making of fright night/fright night part 2

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