Author Archive
Posted by Steve in Books, Events, Latest News, The Magic Lantern - Steve Weintz on February 25th, 2010
Once again, the Mystery & Imagination Bookshop in Glendale, CA, was the place to be for genre gold, this time for the launch party and signing for the new horror anthology, The Bleeding Edge. Published by Cycatrix Press, this collection of 19 tales by modern masters of the macabre, edited by Jason V Brock and William F. Nolan, received a lavish send-off by a host of its contributors. The book itself is a handsomely mounted volume, printed in a limited edition of 400 and an extremely limited deluxe signed edition of 75.
As usual, hosts and proprietors Malcolm and Christine Bell managed the moiling mobs of fans with courtesy and aplomb, showing how one should run the last standing brick-and-mortar genre bookstore in America’s second-largest city.
Jason Brock took a moment from the busy event to speak with FM.
Earl Hamner, Jr., Jason Brock and William Nolan
“I was annoyed with the current crop of horror authors and magazines and thought them too cliquish. James Beach and I publish Dark Discoveries magazine, and I told James I wanted to do a real book; James is a brand-new father and with that on his mind, pointed out that a book would be a BIG project. That didn’t deter me; I’ve worked on many graphic novels and my wife Sunni and I have already made two documentary films. One’s about the great Twilight Zone writer Charles Beaumont and the other is about Forry Ackerman. That’s how I met many of these people.
Ray Bradbury, William Nolan, Norman Corwin
“Now, William Nolan and I had worked together on the new graphic novel adaptation of Logan’s Run, and he’s been a mentor to me in so many ways. We agreed to collaborate on an anthology of short stories and between us we assembled a stellar group of contributors. Bill had lots of connections with other writers, and I had many contacts as a result of the documentaries. We worked out what material was available, and insisted that all stories be new or unpublished, and editable.
Ray Bradbury, Norman Corwin, George Clayton Johnson, John Shirley, Jason Brock
“Out of 70 stories we accepted only 22, and the open call for submissions placed only 2 stories in the final collection. We started getting the shape of the book as the stories came in, and its shape was dark and edgy. The first story we bought was that of James Robert Smith; we said to each other, ‘If every story is as good as this one, we’re gold!’ It was a very short development cycle — we sent out our first feelers in December 2008, and it was sent to the printers December 2009. We didn’t let anyone see the thing until publication.
Ray Bradbury and Norman Corwin
“We knew right away we wanted the book to be a hardcover edition, artistically striking and full of remarkable fonts (I admit it — I’m a fonthound). We worked hard to lay out the material in ways that evoked their original contexts: pulp-magazine columns, screenplay formatting, quick drafts. We also wanted to break up the layout with sketches, photos and border artwork. The very talented Kris Kuksi did the cover art and it turned out really well. Each individual story also received its own signature page for the author. That’s a printing feature that’s rarely been done.”
Norman Corwin, George Clayton Johnson, John Shirley
Paul Salamoff and Bill Nolan
The Bleeding Edge
Edited by William F. Nolan and Jason V Brock.
Signed by 23 contributors. Separate signature page for each author.
Handcrafted Deluxe Hardcover with dust jacket; cover and interior art by Kris Kuksi.
Foreword by S. T. Joshi.
A landmark anthology; contains original, never before published works by:
Ray Bradbury, Gary A. Braunbeck, Jason V Brock, Christopher Conlon, Norman Corwin, Cody Goodfellow, Earl Hamner, George Clayton Johnson, Nancy Kilpatrick, Joe R. Lansdale, Richard Matheson, Richard Christian Matheson, Lisa Morton, Kurt Newton, William F. Nolan, Dan O’Bannon, Frank M. Robinson, John Shirley, James Robert Smith, Steve Rasnic Tem, and John Tomerlin.
Both editions feature opaque vellum pages, printed with 100% vegetable inks using windpower; printed and bound in the USA.
Trade Hardcover: 400 copies
Deluxe Hardcover: 75 numbered copies
Posted by Steve in Events, Latest News, The Magic Lantern - Steve Weintz on February 18th, 2010
Like Stanley G. Weinbaum, Henry Kuttner, Stan Winston and Dave Allen, Dan O’Bannon left our planet much too soon, leaving behind a world of saddened friends and fans. The sadness doesn’t linger, though, for Dan was a very funny man, and much beloved by those who knew him.
On February 9th, 2010, the New Beverly Cinema hosted the Grindhouse Film Fest’s tribute to Dan 
O’Bannon, with a double feature screening of “Lifeforce” and “Return of the Living Dead.” To experience Dan’s authentic adaptation of Colin Wilson’s seminal novel “The Space Vampires”, and his loopy, dead-on riff on zombie movies, in a Hollywood revival theater full of rabid fans, is to know what imaginative entertainment is all about.
In addition to such on-screen delights as an unveiled Matilda May, and demented lines such as “Send more cops!”, an informal RotLD cast reunion occurred.
Clu Galagher, James Karen, Don Calfa, Thom Matthews, Beverly Randolph and others shared stories and reminiscences.
Artist William Stout, whose first credit as Production Designer came on RotLD, made a last-minute appearance and explained Dan’s key place in film and comic history.
Kudos to Grindhouse Film Fest and Dan’s many friends for putting on this event! Dan’s memory will also be part of the book launch party for “The Bleeding Edge Anthology” at Mystery & Imagination Bookshop in Glendale, CA, this Saturday, Feb. 20, starting at 3:00pm.
Posted by Steve in Movies, The Magic Lantern - Steve Weintz on February 17th, 2010
Once again our witty friends over at www.io9.com have blistered our minds with verbal love. This time Charlie Jane Anders skewers that ripe old chestnut, The Portentous Explanatory Voiceover At The Beginning Of The Film.
Our fangs to Annalee Newitz and Charlie Jane Anders for permission to reprint this hoot. Additional reporting by Alexis Brown.
50 Glorious Scifi Movie Intro Voiceovers
Any movie that starts with Morgan Freeman’s cask-aged voice, telling us we’re screwed, is off to a great start. Many science-fiction movies open with voiceovers, which prepare you for greatness… or bombard you with backstory. Here are 50 of our favorites.
Too bad War Of The Worlds goes downhill a bit after that amazingly portentous opening. No movie could live up to the promise of Morgan Freeman reading H.G. Wells, more or less verbatim, but it’s still a sad thing.
The greatest voiceovers tell you what kind of movie you’re in for, and also give you the information you need to hit the ground running. Take Sean Connery’s iconic voiceover from Highlander, which is so awesome, you need it written out for you to appreciate its greatness:
Sadly, most voiceovers that launch movies either try to pack in way, way too much backstory (“And then there was a man named 92ZorkX, who built a mega-cube in his pants”) or go way, way overboard with the cheese. Here are 48 more voiceovers that mostly go way over the top, sorted by type:
In The Year 2727, Some Messed Up Shit Happened!
Perhaps my favorite kind of opening voiceover is the kind where the narrator starts out by intoning, “In the year 2027, we realized we had gone out of the house without any lower garments, and the Earth was reduced to rubble as a result. The survivors lived in caves, eating scraps of jerky. Until one day, a new hope appeared.” Here are ten of the most awesome voiceovers that begin with a date and end with a sad recitation.
Anything Sounds Cool If You Say It In A Creamy English Accent
It’s really true. You can narrate anything in a smooth English accent, and it sounds awesome. It’s like spreading brie all over your frontal cortex, eliminating all of your B.S.-detectors. Someone with an English accent is saying it, so it must be brilliant. Right?
What The Hell Are You Talking About, Crazy Announcer Guy?
You know a science fiction movie is going to be totally absurd when it starts off with a voiceover that just throws a giant ball of crazy at your head. Someone who is trying not to giggle gives a little speech about how there was a guy named Zaark 795, and he rose up against his brother, the Bishop of Pluto, because they both wanted the power of the Dodecahedron-o-gram. Yeah. Anyway, here are the nonsensical opening voiceovers that make us happy to be alive.
You Can’t Have An Apocalypse Without A Gloomy Speech
It’s just the law of apocalypses: You can’t feature the destruction of all (or most) life on Earth, without throwing in a gloomy monologue explaining exactly how we blew it all to hell. It’s the way things work around here. Typically, these monologues include scenes of devastation as well as a droning voice talking about viruses or bombs or people not washing their hands. Here are some of the greatest.
Science Fiction Movies That Start With Deep Personal Monologues
Some science fiction movies start out with a more personal touch — one character giving an internal monologue about their feelings. Either it’s a character being introspective, or it’s some kind of noir deal, where the person talks about their pain in a hardcore, tough-guy way. Here are some of our faves.
Voiceovers That Turn Into Conversations, And Weird Voiceover Spoofs
This is sort of a catch-all for two categories that didn’t quite deserve their own pages: monologues that start out as a voiceover, and then turn into someone talking to the camera; and voiceovers that are just sort of demented, silly or satirical. They’re both a bit different from your standard science fiction voiceover, in any case.
So, was that monstrous fun, or what? More where that came from @ www.io9.com.
Posted by Steve in Movies, Television & Web Series, The Magic Lantern - Steve Weintz on February 17th, 2010
“The Near Future…As It Used To Be”
What if the world of today, the early 21st Century, looked the way our predecessors thought it would, back in 1949?
What if Mars were the world imagined by Edgar Rice Burroughs, Ray Bradbury and Robert Heinlein? And what if America’s most fun and famous couple flew to Mars in search of a missing brother and became embroiled in interplanetary intrigue, local wars, desert dangers and lost Martian civilizations?
This was the concept for The Lost Hieroglyph, the first of several “Brackett & Burroughs Adventures” set in an imaginary retro-future Solar System inspired by the great pulp science fiction stories and art of yore.
A lifetime’s affection for 20th-Century pop culture (of the sort now made huge by Comic-Con) eventually percolated into a sudden document in the late 1990’s. The concept lay dormant, with occasional proddings to see if it still breathed, until the fall of 2008.
The trials of that heady year brought the realization that life is fleeting and finite, and that glorious dreams must be attended to immediately. With that existential urgency in mind, I resurrected The Lost Hieroglyph and discovered the old art of stop-motion animation; its disciplines and traditions, its involvement with so many other crafts, and most especially, the wonderful community of its fans and practitioners.
“Adventure Never Looked This Good”
I set out to create a cute couple modeled on the great screwball couples of the 20th Century: Dashiell Hammett’s “Nick and Nora Charles;” Howard Hawks’ screwball comedies and his Bogie/Bacall pairings; Indiana Jones and his female sidekicks; even the TV silliness of Hart to Hart. I wanted to give them classic American back-stories — farm kid made good and debutante tomboy, baseball player and mystery writer.
Pretty soon, Ray and Ceel began speaking to me in their own voices. Like any good pair of heroes, they have complementary powers: Ray’s a crack shot and throws the fastest pitch on the planet, while Ceel is an Olympic medalist in fencing and horsemanship. Expect gunfights, swordplay and daredevil riding, and of course, plenty of snappy dialogue!
“Rocket” Ray Brackett made history with his legendary no-hitter in the last game of the 1999 World Series between the Giants and the Cubs (hey, this is alternate history) His 110-mile-an-hour fastball is still the fastest pitch on record. His sports prowess led to a brief career in Hollywood, first in The Longest Inning, then in Biff Blaster, Ace of the Spaceways. The first soared, the last flopped, and Ray soon tired of the Business. He met Ceel Burroughs during the MidPacifica caper and they married soon after. Since then Ray has found himself in one adventure after another, often involving his and Ceel’s extensive circle of friends. Ray’s younger brother Mike is a distinguished archaeologist. Their late father was also a Major League ballplayer. Ray often taps his friend Stanley G. Weinbaum’s engineering skills for custom gear and weapons.
Catherine Louise “Ceel” Burroughs has never cared for her first name; it’s hard to live up to her amazing grandmother Kate. She publishes her best-selling “Kit Kipling” mystery novels under the name “C. L. Burroughs”, but everyone calls her “Ceel” (rhymes with “seal”). At her debut she made waves by honoring both her late father “Hap” Burroughs, the legendary rocket pilot, and her stepfather Fritz Leiber*, the famous author and literary agent. (She danced with an android version of “Hap” as well as with Fritz!) Her mother Margaux, the celebrated movie star, saw that Ceel was educated at private schools and Stanford; she excelled in fencing and horsemanship as well as literature, leading to Olympic medals in epeé and steeplechase.
Exotic Places, Familiar Faces
Heroes require suitable stages upon which to act, and the settings and characters of The Lost Hieroglyph are as rich and resonant as I can make them.
Earth and Mars are depicted as exotic worlds of mystery and adventure, and the technology and style of 1949 shape this fictional 2009. There are an awful lot of inside jokes in The Lost Hieroglyph, ranging from cameo appearances by famous sci-fi authors and Hollywood actors, to entire shots that echo classic films, comics and literature.
Notes
Like the first cut made for Comic-Con 2009 (not screened but shown around), this cut has missing shots. A complete version of Episode One is forthcoming. Meanwhile, if you like this sort of thing, check out D.B. Grady’s Red Planet Noir, and read news about Disney/Pixar’s forthcoming John Carter of Mars!
*Fritz Leiber appears courtesy Dr. Justin Leiber & Richard Curtiss.
Ceel Burroughs’ likeness features components © Integrity Toys, and are used with permission.
The Lost Hieroglyph and “The Brackett & Burroughs Adventures” are ™ & © Steve Weintz.
Posted by Steve in The Magic Lantern - Steve Weintz on February 17th, 2010
Top: animating The Great God Porno ("Flesh Gordon" 1972) Bottom: Jim within the "Planet of Dinosaurs" (1978)
Jim Aupperle (pronounced “Aw-pearl”) is one of the most respected technical artists of his generation; he’s made the crucial task of lighting visual-effects shots his specialty. Jim has worked with the best, and he successfully made the transition from traditional techniques to CGI some years back. He regularly contributes to online forums about the field and is a historian of the craft. FM was delighted to have a chance to speak with Jim.
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FM: Please tell us about your connections to Forrest J Ackerman and “Famous Monsters of Filmland.”
JA: My first connection, and what got me started, was Issue #24.
I saw it on the newsstand in 1963 when I was 11 years old. I was already a fan of horror films but I had no idea how they were made, and I was incredibly excited. That issue was a great one to be introduced to FM, because it was the first of a four-part series on “King Kong.” It had lots of armatures, puppets, Obie’s scrapbook and more. It showed how it was done.
In 1969 or 1970 word got out that Uncle Ray was coming to L.A. Forry had an open house for him, and Jon Berg got me an invitation. I lined up with another thirty or so fans to meet Ray, and there I met Steven Czerkas. Steve’s another visual-effects guy and is responsible for the great “Cine-Saurus” traveling dinosaur exhibition.
Forry in effect introduced me to science fiction and my chosen career.. I visited him many times over the years; he was an incredibly generous fellow. I’m not good about taking photos, but somewhere I have a photo of Forry and a T. rex from “Planet of the Dinosaurs.”
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FM: What were and are the greatest artistic influences upon you? 
JA: Well, it started with my interest in films and stop-motion movies when I was young. And I would say that the artist Gustave Doré had the greatest impact on me, and I’m not alone in that. Most lighting people, CGI or traditional, refer to his work. I collect his books and illustrations.
John Singer Sargeant is a master of light; I love the way he reflects colors into the shadows, and the play of light upon his subjects. It inspires my CGI lighting work and makes it more ‘alive.’ 
Auguste Rodin’s sculptures almost move; he’s a master at evoking dynamic motion from a still figure. There is a great collection of Rodin sculptures in San Francisco’s Legion of Honor museum, and I sometimes go there and study the play of light across their surfaces.
I was also greatly inspired by reading Eugene Delacroix’ journal, and by his paintings. And certainly Vermeer, his command of light. I can’t paint, but I “paint with light” when I’m lighting a shot.
FM: That reminds me of a painting class I once took; the thing I’ve used most from it was the concept of “under-painting” to set the picture’s tone. For a warm image you first washed the canvas with a golden tint; for a cool one you washed it with pale blue. Then everything built up from that base was bent one way or the other.
JA: Yes, indeed. With CGI it’s sometimes too easy to let the technology take over, to just let the software make the adjustments. The old masters had to think through the whole image from the very first brushstroke.
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FM: What interests you today in visual effects and fantasy filmmaking?
Left: animating "Jason of Star Command" Top: Terror Dog ("Ghostbusters" 1984) Right: animating the Snake-Man ("Dreamscape" 1986) Bottom: the Blair-Monster's lair ("The Thing" 1987)
JA: To be honest, I have to say that, as far as films go today, the market is over-saturated. There’s no longer the same sense of excitement. I don’t wish to dismiss the fine work that’s being done, but I’m not as interested in today’s fantasy films. I like good characters and stories as well as great effects. And fantasy films used to be so rare; maybe one or two films a year. We felt lucky when we got to see the occasional Ray Harryhausen or George Pal film. Today, it’s one or two such films a week!
Lighting a spooky serpent ("Beetlejuice" 1988)
In a way Forry was way ahead of his time, and so were my friends and co-workers. More recently I’ve been attending older films and theater screenings. I like them better than today’s films. The Stanford Theater in Palo Alto is the nearest great revival theater to me, and I often go there to see classic films.
Even though I’ve been working in CGI for fourteen years now (hard to believe!), I couldn’t do what I’m doing from scratch. You need huge support systems for all the computers and software and administration. Like other old-timers, I doubt I’d have the same passion for the field today without my exposure to those old-school techniques. When I worked on the first “Hellboy” movie at Tippett Studios, it was great to combine old techniques with digital techniques. A full-scale creature was built and rigged on the set, and was intercut with a CGI version of it in the final cut.. Mixing up different tricks keeps it from getting stale, or giving it away.
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FM: If you could resurrect a lost or unmade film, what would it be?
JA: I would love to see Marion C. Cooper’s film “War Eagles” actually made. It could work today if it were shot in an anachronistic, “retro” way. As you probably know, it was to be a film about a lost land of Vikings who ride gigantic eagles, and who join the Allies to fight the Nazis. Obie was working on it when Uncle Ray met him for the first time; then came World War II and Cooper joined the Army, and the project died.
I’d also love to see Dave Allen’s “The Primevals” finished. Dave was such a great guy, and “The Primevals” is such a cool project. His friends are trying to finish it, I understand.
I feel incredibly lucky that things turned out for me. “Famous Monsters” was key to discovering my career and a great circle of friends. It was a starting point for so much that I value today.
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FM: Jim, thank you so much for speaking with us today.
JA: Thank you, and I’m so glad to see “Famous Monsters” back amongst us!
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Posted by Steve in Arts, Latest News, Reviews, The Magic Lantern - Steve Weintz on January 28th, 2010
“Ray Bradbury’s Wisdom 2116″ at the Fremont Center Theater
In bardic lore the hazelnut symbolized the quintessence of wisdom – a perdurable packet of superior nourishment, sweet and richly flavored, which requires perseverance to enjoy but is much worth the effort. In several Celtic teaching tales immortal salmon swim in sacred pools, above which lean the boughs of hazel trees; the salmon, who symbolize the bards and druids, grow wise and ancient on the hazelnuts of wisdom that fall into the waters.
Ray Bradbury, America’s senior bard of imaginative fiction, has brought forth such a hazelnut from his deep pools and director/choreographer Steve Josephson has presented it perfectly. “Ray Bradbury’s Wisdom 2116″ is a sweet nutmeat of a performance piece, a chamber musical with a formidable pedigree and an unconquerable zest. Originally written half a century ago at the personal request of Charles Laughton and his wife Elsa Lanchester, and to have been directed by the legendary James Whale, the musical then titled “Happy Anniversary 2116″ was laid aside upon the deaths of Laughton and Whale.
Mrs. Wycherly (Lisa Morrice) mourns her lost youth and worries for Mr. Wycherly when she goes. - photo: Luann Pirillo
Recently director and choreographer Steve Josephson, of Laguna Beach’s Gallimaufry Performing Arts, approached Bradbury and his Pandemonium Theater Company about staging the piece. The two men collaborated with musical director John Hoke and producer Raquel Lehrman to create a vital, charming presentation, one that blends traditional art forms, modern visuals and pure Bradbury logomancy.
Here in this studiedly low-tech but vividly Expressionist staging, you’ll find the aesthetics of Tim Burton in J.W. Layne’s sets and the fine odd line art of Joe Magniani in Darlene Krantz’ facial makeup; skilled dancers wearing riveted leotards create vivid interpretations of Bradbury’s clockwork robots, “marionettes” rather than replicants. The refreshed-retro production design nicely contains the perennial themes and tropes of “Wisdom 2116″.
Mr. Marionette (David Stoneman) and his Robots (Christine Reese, Jessie McLean, and Samantha Marcella) - photo: Luann Pirillo
The musical tells the Christmas tale of the Wycherlys, an elderly couple of the future who mourn their lost youth and worry for their spouses as the dark approaches. The ambiguous Mr. Marionette (David Stoneman) arrives in town with his robot emporium and dazzles the Wycherlys, and the audience, with his wondrous androids. In an echo of O. Henry’s “The Gift of the Magi,” Mr. Wycherly (Rob Harryman) and Mrs. Wycherly (Lisa Morrice) separately approach Mr. Marionette in secret, and order robot replacements of themselves as “ideal” companions for each other. The youthful android versions of themselves will be the best Christmas presents ever!
Or not. 
Thus a delightful farce ensues exploring the comic and rueful ramifications of our ideals and our loves, and what happens when technology (or magic?) allows us to make our dreams concrete. Separately Mr. and Mrs. Wycherly confront Bride-bot and Groom-bot, played with zany athleticism by Jessie McLean and Mr. Josephson himself. The contradictory qualities requested in these puppets set up delicious slapstick, made funny and poignant by the reactions of Harryman and Morrice, and McLean and Josephson throw themselves into their roles with relish.
The Wycherlys’ core sweetness and aged worries recall Pixar’s recent gem “Up”, especially when their years together are charmingly dramatized with actual marionettes. The emporium robots, who sell the essentially creepy concept of the machine clone, are skillfully danced by Christine Reese, Shanti Harter, Anthony Scarano, Sarah Mann, Samantha Marcella and Monica Thibodeaux.
If the Wycherlys are the humane couple of our hearts, Mr. Marionette is the Prince of the Air, the dark psychopomp who swims out of the unconscious to tutor us uncomfortably in the deep ways of the world. Mr. Marionette remains truly ambiguous, his murkiness set against the Wycherlys’ specific desires and earned insights.
- Opening Night Montage – 1.) Steve Josephson 2.) David Stoneman 3.) Ray Bradbury 4.) Christine Reese & Jessie McLean 5.) Jessie & Rob Harryman 6.) Samantha Marcella
Mr. Bradbury attended Opening Night in person, and told the audience the tale of the musical’s origins and revival. He pronounced himself delighted and tearstruck by the production, and by the authority vested in him as a Commander of the Order of Arts and Letters, France’s highest cultural award, he “commanded us to love the play!”
It’s worth remembering that “Wisdom 2116″ took shape in an outwardly more gentle era, before Sputnik, the Hula Hoop and Detroit’s biggest tailfins. Like the best Christmas tales, including “How The Grinch Stole Christmas” by his friends Dr. Seuss and Chuck Jones, Ray Bradbury’s “Wisdom 2116″ has a timeless quality that may well earn it a place in the holiday canon. Mr. Josephson thinks about larger audiences and would like to expand the production; in the meantime do see the show if you can, for this nutmeg of consolation will not tarry long.
“Ray Bradbury’s Wisdom 2116″ is now playing until February 27th, 2010, at the Fremont Center Theater in Pasadena, California. Tickets and further information are available at the Fremont Center Theater’s website, or at Plays411.net.
Posted by Steve in Arts, Latest News, The Magic Lantern - Steve Weintz on December 22nd, 2009
We here at Famous Monsters really dig www.io9.com, and we think you should, too. If you’re wondering where all the good writers and journalists went, io9.com is a good place to start. Lauren Davis’ recent essay. “Why Great Horror Is Heartbreaking“, approaches Lovecraft’s “Supernatural Horror in Literature” and Chandler’s “The Simple Art Of Murder” as a key reflection on a pop genre. This is strong praise, but we think she’s on to something. See if you agree.
Many thanks to Lauren Davis and Annalee Newitz for permission; reprinted from io9.com.
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Why Great Horror Is Heartbreaking
We’ve spent this week [Halloween 2009 - ed.] talking about horror in all its myriad forms: scary sex scenes, terrible monsters, and mental horrors. But some of the most haunting and terrifying horror stories aren’t merely terrifying; they’re also terribly sad.
I have to confess, it’s very hard for me to watch horror movies. It’s not that I don’t enjoy the occasional scare, and it’s not that I’m worried about ghosts and monsters following home (although I will confess to a mild fear of zombies). No, it’s just that when the body count starts rising, I start feeling, well, sad. I don’t come out of the theater pumping with adrenaline; I’m too distracted thinking about the people who died and the loved ones they’ve left behind.
The plots of several pieces of horror are discussed below, so be warned there may be spoilers.
The movie that really hit this home for me is not a science fiction movie, but Wes Craven’s Scream. In the movie’s opening sequence, Drew Barrymore is terrorized by a knife-wielding serial killer one night while she’s home alone. As the killer is chasing her down, her parents pull up in the driveway. For a brief moment, it looks like she’s saved, but in the next shot, we see the parents, happy from a pleasant evening out, and their daughter pulled down by the killer before she has the chance to cry out for help.
How horrible. It’s a suspenseful moment to be sure, but one that evokes horror more than terror. Horrifying that she was so close to salvation only to meet a brutal end, and horrifying that her parents will find their daughter mutilated on their lawn and spend the rest of their lives wondering what would have happened if they have come home just a little sooner. It’s a scene tinged with more tragedy than terror.
Horror is a genre that picks and pokes at our deepest anxieties. It’s a reminder that we live in an unstable world, and that no matter how careful or good we are, we could at any time be struck with death, disfigurement, or madness. A lot of horror movies appeal to our limbic systems, to that part of our brain that wonders what lurks in the shadows and triggers a happy release of hormone every time someone shouts “Boo!” And there is undeniably an artistry to that, to the sort of jumps and thrills so frightening that, weeks later, you’re still checking under the bed for demons from Hell. But often the horror that still lingers for years afterwards are the ones that play on the less primal — but still very human — fears of losing the ones you love and being left alone in the world.
When Heartbreak Drives the Horror
Horror protagonists don’t always make the best choices. They insult powerful witches, run up the stairs when they should run out the door, and try to capture the man-eating alien instead of killing it. And when Louis Creed buries his son Gage in the Micmac burial ground in Stephen King’s Pet Sematary, we know it’s a bad idea. He knows it’s a bad idea. But he so desperately hopes that he can repair his wounded family that he is willing to make a terrible and utterly wrong decision. And when Gage comes back only to murder his mother, Louis too easily manages to talk himself into burying his wife in the same graveyard.
It should be a forehead-slapping moment, but it’s depressingly relatable. That Gage comes back as an undead monster is pretty horrifying (he did make our list of scariest characters in film), but what’s more horrifying is what grief can drive Louis to do. His grief is so potent, so unbearable that he’s willing to make monsters out of his loved ones in the hope that seeing them again will mend his heart.
It’s an idea that harkens back to WW Jacobs’ “The Monkey’s Paw,” that famed exercise in truly depressing horror. After the Whites receive a wish-granting monkey paw, they wish for money, only to lose their son in an accident and receive compensation for his death. In that moment, they understand the nature of the monkey paw: it grants wishes, but in a perverse way. Still, the husband defers to his wife’s terrible, maddening grief and wishes their son back to life. But, like Louis Creed, Mr. White must make his son dead again — knowing what comes back couldn’t possibly be right — doubling his guilt and grief.
There are reasons why stories like “The Monkey’s Paw” endure, and why its ideas find its way into so many other works of horror. They force us to access our fears of losing those closest to us, asking us how far we would go to keep them with us. Perhaps the most frightening thing about these stories that many of us will face terrible grief in our lives — and perhaps even guilt at the deaths of our loved ones — and we could be capable of making the same terrible decisions as the people in these stories, even if we don’t get the opportunity to act on them.
When Losing Someone Makes Things That Much Worse
Even when grief and loss aren’t the focus of a horror story, a moment of terrible loss can have more impact than even the most terrifying monster. 28 Days Later adds a frightening bit of realism to the zombie apocalypse, but it never forgets that the fear of losing your life is little match for the sadness that comes in a world suffused with death. When Jim discovers that his parents committed suicide in the face of violent death (leaving a note begging him not to wake from his coma), it’s a bright spot of pain in a movie already filled with terror. But when our merry band of survivors becomes something of a family, with Frank playing the wise and protective father, the apocalypse seems survivable, almost manageable. Then Frank becomes infected with the Rage virus, and it’s not just another zombie movie death. It puts a lump in your throat and reminds you that the zombie outbreak isn’t all fun and killing the Infected — it’s actually horribly sad.
This threat of loss adds dimension to other horror movies as well. Take The Ring, a film already terrifying in its J-horror weirdness. That The Ring turns a VHS cassette into an object of terror is incredibly impressive, but it’s when Rachel’s son Aidan watches the tape that the clock really starts ticking. Faced with the death of her son, Rachel must not only save herself, but survive long enough to keep Samara from killing her son as well. It adds a deeper, driving motivation to an already scary movie.
Joss Whedon is perhaps the master of this particular brand of horror. Though the series was filled with man-eating monsters, death in Buffy the Vampire Slayer is often random, senseless, and poignant. Few moments in the show stand out as clearly as Joyce’s death from an aneurysm, or Tara’s from a stray bullet. The central theme in Buffy is that family and friends make life grand, even when your life is filled with mayhem and violence. In such a world, few things are as horrifying as losing part of your family, and such deaths always left the characters unbalanced, even psychotic with grief. Even the show’s most calculated death, Angelus’ slaying of Jenny Calendar, is designed to maximize heartbreak. It’s not enough that Angelus kills her; he also has to place her in Giles’ bed with a trail of roses leading up to it, in a mockery of romantic seduction. And that heartache, far more than fear, drives Giles to hate and try to destroy Angelus.
When Your Loved One Turns Monstrous
This is a staple of vampire and zombie movies, when you find you must destroy the creature wearing your loved one’s face. Buffy tried this in the very first episode, turning Willow and Xander’s friend Jesse bloodsucker and forcing Xander to kill him an episode later. It’s not the strongest instance of this particular trope (I’m not sure if Jesse is even mentioned later in the series), but it’s a solid introduction to the horrible nature of vampires. Zombie movies are stronger in this regard. Even Shaun of the Dead, a movie mostly devoted to the funny side of the undead, goes suddenly tearjerker when we learn Shaun’s mother has been bitten by a zombie. This bit of sadness is then compounded by the ensuing debate over shooting Shaun’s dead mother in the head. Even though everyone knows it has to happen, Shaun can’t bring himself to let it happen, and even the normally logical Liz argues against it. And when his mother inevitably rises from the dead, Shaun is the one who must shoot her body, a shockingly tearful moment from the zombie romantic comedy.
It’s another work from Stephen King, The Shining, that offers a more realistic view on why this concept is so horrifying. Jack Torrance is a man so driven to drink that he gives his soul over to the hotel for alcohol. In the movie, it’s played more as slasher horror, with Jack Nicholson gleefully hunting down his wife and child, but it’s a grim reminder that the people we love could become the people we fear, or that we ourselves might be capable of inflicting terrible harms on our loved ones.
When Hope Is Your Worst Enemy
Few genres are as relentlessly obsessed with death as post-apocalyptic fiction. In Cormac McCarthy’s The Road, death abounds; most of the world is dead, bands of rapists and murderers prowl the road, and the protagonist’s wife has killed herself. The protagonist is not concerned for his own survival — he’s already dying — but for his son’s. He’s confronted with the wrenching knowledge that he might have to kill his son to save him from an even worse fate. But he hopes for something better, hopes that he will find good people with whom his son could make a future. The whole book is a dirge for civilization, but the father’s hope might only leave his son open to future horrors — and tragically, the father dies without knowing his son will fall in with good people after all.
In The Walking Dead, zombies are less agents of fear than they are death incarnate, and the comic often plays on themes of hope and how we cope with loss. Hope is tragic as much as it is necessary for survival. A farmer keeps his undead family in a barn by his house, hoping there will someday be a cure. The survivors hope to rebuild some semblance of civilization, but lose some of their number every time they think they’ve found peace. And as brutal and horrible as death is for the ones who die, the grief of the survivors is far more powerful and frightening.
The Fear of Dying Alone
It’s telling that the very first episode of The Twilight Zone , “Where Is Everybody?” deals with loneliness, and the human need for companionship. It’s a theme that inspired one of the more unnerving episodes of Star Trek: The Next Generation. In “Remember Me,” Dr. Crusher sees the her son and everyone else aboard the Enterprise disappear, until she’s the only one left (of course, it turns out that she’s the one who has actually disappeared, in this case into a static warp bubble). The episode has a Twilight Zone quality to it, but it’s especially bleak that Crusher is at the center of it. Here is a woman who has already lost a husband to the hazards of Starfleet, whose closest friends routinely put their own lives in danger, and whose son is joining the very military organization that took her husband. “Remember Me” is, more than anything, a metaphor for the very real possibility that she could end up alone. Even Garfield, of all things, played with this idea in its surprisingly depressing 1989 Halloween run, where the orange fat cat wakes to a future where his house is abandoned and he never exists.
Even the episode of The Twilight Zone that was most optimistic about the apocalypse, “Time Enough at Last,” deals with loneliness. After a nuclear attack wipes out everyone around him, Burgess Meredith is about to commit suicide until he realizes there’s a library full of books to keep him company. It’s only when he breaks his glasses that he feels truly alone, and that loneliness is more frightening than anything that goes bump in the night.
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Posted by Steve in Interviews, Latest News, The Magic Lantern - Steve Weintz on December 16th, 2009
When we contacted Harry Walton and requested an interview, his reply was simple and immediate: “Sure! I grew up on Famous Monsters. When do you want to talk?” Nothing keeps us more enthused about our mission than speaking with the fanboys and –girls who grew up to become the modern mages of today’s visual effects.
Harry's buddy Rick Baker in his Frankenstein mask, West Covina, CA, 1968
Harry’s enthusiasm goes way back and deep; during our interview we spent a long time lost amongst his many scrapbooks of personal photos. A few of these may be seen on Harry’s own website. (All photos in this interview are from the Harry Walton Collection, (c) VFXmasters.)
Top Row: Davey & Goliath, Harry running an optical printer, "Honey, I Shrunk The Kids". Middle Row: the Pillsbury Doughboy, "The Golden Child," "The Nightmare Before Christmas." Bottom Row: "Land of the Lost", "RoboCop2", "James & The Giant Peach".
From a start at Gumby’s home, Clokey Productions, Harry moved on to Excelsior!, Cascade Pictures, CPC, Coast Effects, Tippett Studios, and his own effects firm. Over the last 40 years he’s worked on a tremendous variety of films and commercials, bringing to life everything from the Purina chuck wagon to the original Land of the Lost, from the Pillsbury Doughboy to The Golden Child and RoboCop. The Nightmare Before Christmas called on his traditional animation skills; later, after making the jump to digital effects, he oversaw the digital animation for the shark attack sequence for James And The Giant Peach and several videogame animations and characters.
FM: Please talk about your connections to Famous Monsters and Forrest J Ackerman.
HW: Well, I had no personal connections to Forrest, but I met him a few times. I have a hat from his 60th birthday party – that was a blast. However, Famous Monsters was a huge influence. Around 1958, when I was eight or nine years old, I walked in to a downtown drugstore in Hicksville, Long Island [seriously] , where I bought my comics, and Famous Monsters #1 was there on the rack.
I flipped on it – it was the first of its kind — and I finally had something to look at that told me what stuff was done and how it was done. It gave me a shot in the arm to my ambitions and imagination. I eventually collected the first forty or fifty issues; they got pretty ratty-looking after years of reading and storage, and I finally gave them to Bob Burns.
Funny thing, at Sony Imageworks one day I happened to look over the shoulder of a young effects artist, and saw him buying an original Famous Monsters magazine on eBay. It was the first I heard of the company, and the first thing I bought on eBay was an old FM issue!
FM: What were and are your major artistic influences?
HW: In filmmaking? Well, Willis O’Brien and Ray Harryhausen, of course, but Gene Warren and Jim Danforth were really my mentors, in stop-motion, matte painting and filmmaking. I got to work with Tex Avery at CPC and he was a wonder; I worked on George Pal’s last Puppetoon, a cute story about animated tools, at Gene Warren’s studio Excelsior!.
Pete Ellenshaw and other matte artists were big influences, and from them I grew to appreciate the Impressionists. They were the first to grasp the importance of how light is perceived, and to show how quick and rough brushwork could evoke a place and time so clearly. Traditional matte painting was very loose; I once examined one of Pete Ellenshaw’s mattes and was stunned by how loose and sketchy it was, yet when you stood back and squinted it suddenly popped with realism. The film resolution back then didn’t capture as much detail as today’s photography, and added to the leeway the great matte painters enjoyed.
FM: What are you into these days?
HW: I’m getting back into fine art; again, Jim Danforth was my inspiration. Jim has two storage sheds full of his paintings, and another two rooms in his house full of more. I’m not nearly that prolific!
I paint mostly landscapes and seascapes but I have painted several portraits of dogs, including one of Vin Diesel’s dog Roman. One recent painting is of Paradise Falls, a favorite hiking spot of ours in Thousand Oaks, California. Since 1978 I’ve worked mostly as an animation supervisor, but I still get to animate occasionally. I switched to CGI some years ago and use Maya for animation and Photoshop for matte painting. Until recently I was the animation director at Brain Zoo Studios, and now I’m involved with a small start-up company called DOE (Day Of Evil Productions).
FM: What interests you today in VFX and sci-fi/fantasy/horror filmmaking?
HW: You may not like my answer, but I don’t like most of today’s digital effects; they’re too clean, too calculated, too much, and they’re no longer amazing. The only things I really care about are good characters and a good story, and the visual effects have to move the story.
Even with the traditional pre-digital effects, some techniques worked better than others. “Dynamation”, the rear-projection/front-projection/matte process that Ray Harryhausen developed and Jim Danforth and others perfected, could beat the best blue-screen compositing in speed and quality, if handled correctly.
Stop-Motion and Rear Projection on "Willow" (1985)
On Willow ILM used blue-screen compositing for scenes where Val Kilmer’s character fights a two-headed dragon. Dennis Muren allowed a small team of us to try to get some of those shots using the Dynamation method. It worked – we got each of our shots done in five days, versus four weeks for each composite in the optical department — and George Lucas was happy. We used 35mm VistaVision plates and composited down to 4 perf 35mm format using anamorphic lenses, and the finished comps looked great.
FM: If you could resurrect or finish a lost film or TV project, which one would it be?
HW: It would probably be Tom Scherman’s Discovery Bay Chronicles. Tom was an incredible miniature maker, sadly no longer among us, who dreamed up a TV concept based upon Jules Verne’s Captain Nemo. Discovery Bay was to be Nemo’s home base, from where he and his submarine would sail off to various “steampunk” adventures. He tried to interest Disney in the idea, and worked with the legendary Harper Goff, who designed the “Nautilus” for Disney’s 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea, in developing the Discovery Bay version. Tom even got access to Goff’s original blueprints!
Tom Scherman, Harry Walton and the "Nautilus" (1983)
I was at Coast Effects when Tom asked me to assist him, and we wound up shooting some really good demo footage. The story was great and the production design was fantastic. There was a high-speed slow-motion shot in a water tank of the submarine surfacing, and three or four matte shots of a cityscape, a boathouse and some airships. Yeah, it would be cool to see Discovery Bay made.
FM: Thank you so much, Harry, it’s been a joy to speak with you!
HW: Thank you and good luck! I’m so pleased to see Famous Monsters back again!
Posted by Steve in Interviews, Latest News, The Magic Lantern - Steve Weintz on November 27th, 2009
Famous Monsters is immensely pleased to launch The Magic Lantern’s “Modern Mages” interview series with a conversation with Phil Tippett.
Phil Tippett, a full-in man
We met at Tippett Studios’ Main Building in a active, funky mixed-use neighborhood in Berkeley, where PR rep Lori Petrini gave me a quick but thorough tour of the various departments. What struck me while studying the many sculptures, puppets, models and sketches adorning the lobby, and later when screening the house demo reel, was the quiet ubiquity of Tippett Studio’s work.
Most of us will remember Phil’s tour-de-force from days gone by, the tauntauns and the Hoth ice battle from 1980’s “The Empire Strikes Back”. A strong heritage of character animation has led the firm to deliver monsters, talking animals and zoomorphic machines in quantity to the major studios, and yet I was surprised at how rarely I connected the studio to its memorably impressive work. This is no slight but rather a testament to the old-school competence and delivery of the company, much like the “Invisible Art” practiced by the great effects people of yore.
Talking Animals, Big Bugs, Squid Sentinels, Colossal Monsters - Tippett Studio delivers
Killer drones before they were cool (or even existed) on “RoboCop?” Check. Talking pets in “Cats & Dogs?” Check. Squid robots in “The Matrix?” Check. Bugs in “Starship Troopers?” Check. Biggest. Movie. Monster. Ever. “Cloverfield.” Check. And then there’s the werewolves of “Twilight: New Moon” and the horror of “Drag Me To Hell”, just to note some current work. When we sat down to talk in a screening room, Phil Tippett seemed satisfied with his work and his team, and happy to talk shop.
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The Ackermonster in the Ackermansion
FM: Please talk about your connections to Forrest J Ackerman and “Famous Monsters of Filmland.”
PT: Well, Uncle Forry was the man, such a sweet, generous guy.
I grew up down in San Diego, where the only other guy I knew who was into sci-fi and stuff was a friend of mine named Greg Bear, who’s now a successful science-fiction author. After I graduated from art school I went to work at a little studio called Cascade Pictures, where I worked with Jim Danforth, Dennis Muren, Dave Allen and Harry Walton and others.
Cascade Pictures, 1975 - courtesy Harry Walton
We all loved Ray Harryhausen’s movies, and somehow we wound up getting invited up to the Ackermansion to meet Ray H. when he was in town, and to hang out and gawk at Forry’s amazing houseful of cool stuff. There were film fests there, and I remember meeting Richard Corben at one in the late 60’s. He showed us a tracing-paper animatic of what would become his “Den” comic.
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FM: What were and are the greatest artistic influences upon you?
PT: Stop-motion? Ray Harryhausen.
Ray Harryhausen working - courtesy "Sergio Leone & the Infield Fly Rule"
It all began with Ray and his work, and he was the most accessible of the “old masters,” well, I mean, Obie was no longer with us by then.
I’m an omnivorous consumer of culture. William R. Stromberg, an independent filmmaker, was my mentor (I helped Bill on his 16mm production of Ray Bradbury’s Sound of Thunder) and through him I met Jon Morgan, who now works with Bill’s son reconstructing motion picture scores for some of the classic Steiner & Korngold pictures. It was through John that I became interested in classical music as introduced through motion picture scores.
Reading? H. G. Wells, Jack London, Edgar Rice Burroughs, H. P. Lovecraft…standard boilerplate stuff. (grins)
Jon Morgan, Anita Bonn & William T. Stromberg - courtesy "Monster Kid Online"
I collect lots and lots of periodicals — “Forensic Pathology,” “New Scientist,”"National Geographic,” “Newsweek,” “Art Forum” and so forth. At the end of the year I plow through this pile and make clippings – mostly pictures, some articles. It fills my “unconscious sandbox.” It’s a way of staying in touch. I have tons of files, and I can go back to the old ones and look across all the media. If I have time I start organizing them into collages and finding images in them; sometimes they go into scrapbooks. I also go to movies, and to art shows, but I don’t track pop trends all that much. The major studios do that.
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FM: What interests you today in SFX and sci-fi/fantasy/horror filmmaking?
PT: Well, what’s NOT being done, really. Most of the stuff being done today is pedantic and uninteresting. Like late-19th Century symphonic music; a Bruckner symphony never ends…
The potential is really terrific. The problem is, it’s no longer one guy in a dark little room. It’s huge barns full of people and millions of dollars. To justify the costs the product must have the broadest appeal, hence the most homogenized results. We’re in franchise mode for a while, I’m afraid.
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Hell Hath No Fury...from "Drag Me To Hell" (2009) - courtesy Tippett Studio
FM: I wanted to ask about a shot in Sam Raimi’s “Drag Me To Hell.” A young woman is dragged down into a hellish hole between some railroad tracks. I understand that was a miniature shot rather than CGI.
PT: Yeah, I suggested that they might just as easily do the shot with a miniature as with CGI, and the old-school effects worked great. But what I thought was interesting is that they shot each element separately, rather than all at once in one take like we had to do back in the day. That seemed weird, except that now you have to shoot that way, in order for the shot to remain malleable. Nothing is locked down now; the studios, producers and directors want to be able to change everything later. And that requires lots of separate elements, barns full of people and lots of money.
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FM: If you could resurrect a lost, abandoned, never-made film project, what would it be?
PT: I’ve got drawers full of stuff that I want to make! I don’t need to go looking for any.
Werewolf Against a Hazy Sky - "Twilight: New Moon" (2009)
I love irony and black humor, but when it comes to putting up money no one knows how to sell those qualities. These days there isn’t demand for ‘just some’ effects — it’s either pedal-to-the-metal or none at all. It’s great to get an occasional “Cloverfield” job, where we can apply ourselves without blowing out the screen. In “New Moon“ we’re doing some 60 special-effects shots, mostly only the werewolves. In “Jurassic Park” 60 shots was the sum total of ALL the dinosaur effects shots, and it left the audience wanting more.
Once I’m finally forced into retirement I have some things I want to try. When I left ILM in the 1980’s I made a little film called “Prehistoric Beast” in my garage, for the educational and fan markets. The staff here are scanning and printing the old film now. In the late 80’s – early 90’s I shot some material I called “Mad God.” I’d been reading a lot of surrealist literature and this was an attempt to animate some primal myths in the odd, almost infantile mode of expression I found in those books. I abandoned the project when CGI came along, but again we’re now restoring and rescanning the original.
Concept sketches for Phil Tippett's "Mad God" - courtesy Tippett Studio
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FM: Thanks, Phil, for your time and enthusiasm.
PT: Thank you guys for bringing “Famous Monsters” back! Keep up the good work!
Posted by Steve in Latest News, Movies, The Magic Lantern - Steve Weintz on October 30th, 2009
Greetings Fellow Famous Monsters Fans!
Monsters in the night, in the flickering light of the silver screen…creatures and places and moments fantastic, grotesque, thrilling…manifested out of a high and steady craft by long-anonymous men and women.
For over a hundred years motion pictures have provided a medium capable of extending a storyteller’s vision far beyond what even the grandest opera houses could achieve. The development of special effects fed the audiences’ appetite for ever richer eye-candy. Over the course of decades Hollywood and other film industries built a body of astounding techniques to realize these visions.
For much of that era there was precious little information available to the eager and curious about the craft of special effects. In some ways this was the result of a professional philosophy descended from the priests and shamans of antiquity, and the stage magicians who inherited and expanded their stagecraft. This philosophy might be stated thusly: “To reveal the technique is to break the spell of the illusion.”
To learn the manifold skills required to put a monster or mysterious place on film was once a steep road to hoe; luck, a connection into the film industry and an iron resolve were prerequisites. But as more films were made and more special effects seen and wondered at, the numbers of the eager and curious grew and one famous fan took note and took action. The resulting publication launched the careers of many effects professionals, and kept awake a few boys named Steven and Peter and James.
Famous Monsters was for many years one of the only sources of information about stop-motion animation, matte painting, make-up, and the other tools of the SFX trade. The many artists it influenced have enriched our lives for the past 30 years; and their willingness to share has launched new waves of special-effects craftspeople.
My goal here is to revive the sort of SFX coverage FM was famous for, with a strong emphasis on stop-motion, matte paintings, miniatures, and optical tricks. It’s not merely an editor’s whim or a nostalgic exercise, although to get anywhere as an editor I must have a point of view, and the conservation of artistic and technical history is a Good Thing.
I believe there’s a quiet groundswell of Making afoot, an echo of William Morris’ thoughts about the nobility of craft. Because the filmmaking pipeline is now so democratized, a great many people can put their vision onscreen, if only their imaginations and determination be great enough. Digital technology has liberated filmmakers and helped put the most amazing spectacles on screen, and adds a powerful toolkit to the effects artist’s workshop. Yet the old-school techniques are in many ways more within reach than the complex CGI packages and skills needed to create complex imagery. FM is collaborating with other websites and publications to gather up and spread before you the lively and fascinating work going on today, and to celebrate a century’s worth of skill and wonder.
I look forward to joining you for the ride!
