Re-Resonator: Looking Back at from Beyond (2023) - full transcript

(Lever clanking)

(Electricity whooshing)

(Eerie, somber music)

(Pretorius laughing)

- [Katherine] Crawford, what did you see?

- Bit off his head.

- I just love you've what

you've done with this room.

- You may be a scientist, but right now,

you're acting like a junkie.

- Just take him and leave.

- What the hell is that?

- Dr. Edward pretorious.

- Well, we learned what we came for.

He ain't crazy and that...

It... ate pretorious' head.

They're gonna think we're crazy.

- All right, come and get me, eunuch!

This time, I'm not running away.

(Creature shrieking)

- Yes, the greatest

sensual pleasure there is

is to know the desires of another mind.

- I know your desires, you impotent pig.

(Katherine laughing)

(Eerie music)

- When I met Stuart Gordon,

I was introduced by a friend of mine,

of ours, back in the

day, named Bob Greenberg.

- Bring a friend to me.

- Bob Greenberg told me I

should go meet Stuart Gordon,

who, for 10 years, had

been the artistic director

of the organic theater in Chicago.

We got along real well and

I really, I saw his plays,

and saw how he took

questions from the audience,

and I thought, "wow, this

guy, I have confidence here."

'Cause I didn't know what I was doing.

And I said, "well, let's make a movie,

and I wanna make a horror movie."

And he said he had a couple ideas,

and one of them was re-animator.

Now, I'd read some lovecraft

and I knew the name lovecraft,

but I was never a fan of the stories.

He doesn't write in images like

us modern people like to

read images, he wrote words.

And it seemed like at the end,

when the real horror was coming,

the protagonist would like... pass out.

- Well, like tolkien,

lovecraft created a mythos,

a backstory if you will, of this place.

Or maybe not so much a backstory,

that they're there, they're still there.

And I think it was kind of a

manifestation, in a vague way,

of his own fear of germs.

- He was writing at a time when germs

were kind of a new concept.

You know, biotics and antibiotics

and all of this sort of stuff.

The fact that something we

couldn't see could kill you.

- You know, he had this

idea that there were things

in the air in a paralleled universe,

like germophobia,

kind of like... he didn't like fish.

He didn't like fish,

fish were creepy to him.

So he made it kind of, you know,

these half fish, weird, gooey people.

Cthulhu, this whole idea

of this subterranean,

ancient old ones that were

still rumbling down there,

and there were certain places on earth

where they could come

up and still get you.

You know, that's a mythos that's created

and everybody goes, "yeah."

And they've stolen from

him right and left.

- But then Stuart mentioned re-animator,

and they already... he and

Dennis, and William Norris,

had already written a script

for a pilot for a TV show.

It was half the length

of a feature film script

and it was for broadcast television.

I read the story, the re-animator

was actually six stories,

and they're not really lovecraftian.

They are more like

"monkey's paw" type stories,

people crawling out of the grave,

those sort of ec comics type of thing,

and that appealed to me.

- October of '85, re-animator comes out.

It makes a bit of a splash,

not the thing that

everybody seems to remember.

- Pauline Kale had a very

nice writeup about the movie

and she said some very

nice things about me,

and I thought, "okay, I've arrived.

My career is finally gonna take off."

And then I was talking

to my agent, saying,

"ooh, all these roles

are gonna come my way."

And he said, "yeah, but

it was a horror movie,

and it was really over the top,

and it was kind of really out there,

and really gory and silly."

- Everything was kind of

a mixed bag, actually.

You loved it or you hated it.

Then I think it came out on vhs

and it was a full-fledged phenom there

in this vhs new world.

Charlie band made a three-picture deal,

I think with Stuart and

Brian, to make some movies.

Charlie had started empire

studios in Rome, outside of Rome.

So let's do a follow up,

another lovecraft project

follow up, and using the same team.

I was always sorry that Bruce abbott

was never a part of any of that.

So Barbara and I, and Brian

and Stuart, of course,

and of course, Mac ahlberg,

who was the cinematographer

and a dear friend, and such a talent.

I honestly think Stuart was surprised

at the humor in re-animator

and he wanted to do his follow

up and not have that flavor.

He wanted to do a straight-ahead,

serious lovecraft piece.

I have to say that I think

of any lovecraft movie

that has been made, that

from beyond comes the closest

to the mythos, the vibe, the otherworldly

kind of parallel universe

that lovecraft tried to convey.

The color scheme that

Mac ahlberg came up with,

the palette, it was fantastic.

Nothing like re-animator.

Re-animator had none of

that lovecraft mythos in it.

It's not a story that lovecraft himself

even thought was worthy of him.

It was a gig that he did for

money, whereas from beyond

was probably something much closer to...

His imagination.

(Glass shattering)

- They're at it again

with the colored lights

and the weird sounds.

- From beyond, the pre-credit sequence

is almost the entire story,

almost the entirety of

the lovecraft story.

After that, it's all of our work.

It's... Stuart gets story

credit and he helped develop

the story itself, the story elements,

and then I did the screenplay.

In lovecraft, you are getting

the dread of the unknown.

You see the terrible

in the story you see

the terrible consequences of

having built the resonator,

and having delved into the

unseen dimensions

of creatures that are

around us all the time.

However, you see the consequences of it,

but you are left to

dread the reality of it.

We, especially Stuart and

Brian, were very dedicated

to putting as much of that

reality onto screen as possible.

- It was said to us,

"this movie is not funny,

so don't play it funny."

So yes, it was a conscious

choice from Stuart

not to make it funny, but I

also think, to Stuart's credit,

he didn't want to do something

that he had done before.

He wanted to do something different.

He wanted to show that he

could do different tones

and make different kinds of movies,

and a lot of his stuff is very different.

- We loved all kinds of stories.

We especially loved making people laugh.

It's the first stuff we did.

We had a satire comedy

group in high school

and we actually played

the coffee house circuit

in Chicago back in the

day, back in the '60s.

- And we talked about doing

other lovecraft movies,

and that's what I thought

a sequel would be,

because I was basing my ideas

on the Roger corman Edgar

Allen poe movies from the '60s,

where the sequel was a new

story by Edgar Allen poe.

You went from "house of Usher"

to "pit and the pendulum,"

to "premature burial,"

to "tales of terror,"

and that, to me, was what a sequel was.

But I didn't understand

then what I do now,

which is that a sequel is really just

a celebration of the original movie,

and people want to see those characters.

They really don't want a new thing.

They want to elongate

what they enjoyed before.

Back then, everybody's

doing a three picture-deal

on a napkin at cannes, so

we did a three-picture deal

on a napkin, three pictures

that we would decide.

And so the first one was dolls,

which was a script that already existed

by ed naja.

We did that, we were

gonna do that one first,

and then we were gonna do a lovecraft one.

And so I looked at all the lovecraft stuff

that was available to

us and came up with two

that I thought would be good.

One was "dreams in the witch house,"

and the other was "from beyond."

And so we discussed it and we decided

that from beyond had that metal machine,

so it added a kind of

a Sci-Fi element to it,

which seemed maybe safer

in the marketplace.

And so then, the third one

was gonna be robot jox,

and for dolls and from beyond,

we went to Rome, Italy, to shoot it.

So in September of 1985,

I moved my family to Rome

and we shot dolls up

to the Christmas break,

and then after the break,

we transformed the set.

We built one big house set,

we redid it to shoot from beyond,

and then we edited them both after.

So dolls was actually shot first,

although it was released second.

- It's running itself!

- I think for Stuart, I think

what really attracted him

about from beyond...

I mean, he liked to do

the crazy scenes and stuff,

but I think there was...

I think he always liked

this idea that you could

go into another dimension,

like you're an adventurer,

and maybe you've gotta be careful

that you can't get out.

And I think that was what Stuart really,

what had appealed to him,

at least when we would talk about it.

He really liked that idea

of the intrepid explorers.

- When Stuart was first

talking to me and Dennis

about Katherine mcmichaels

and playing her,

what I heard, maybe it

was from Charlie band,

was that, "Barbara's not really old enough

to play a psychiatrist

and somebody who has

gone to school and maybe had a phd.

She just played this college

co-ed in re-animator,

who's gonna believe this?"

And Stuart was adamant that

I play the part, and he said,

"no, however she plays it,

it's gonna become iconic,

because she's playing it,"

and it would've been this true of anybody.

Like, if he didn't pick me,

if it was somebody else,

that you buy into that,

because that person

cements that role for you

and then you can't imagine

anybody else playing it.

But there was a leap and

I did think to myself,

"okay, I've gotta deepen my

voice and be very serious,"

because I did play a college

co-ed in re-animator.

But the thing that I liked about working

in the Stuart Gordon

universe in my early career

is that both roles were smart women.

However I looked, young

or old, or whatever,

I just infused my character with who

I thought she was as a woman.

And yes, of course, wearing a suit

and wearing Pearl earrings,

and putting my hair back

and wearing glasses.

Part of the reason they

wanted me to wear glasses

is they thought that would

make me look smarter,

and maybe older, and then I

would get to take them off

later on in the story

when I put the leather on,

and it would be a little

bit of a dichotomy.

- What the hell are you doing'?

- Stuart took me to trashy

lingerie on la cienaga

and I tried on a few outfits for him.

I don't think you could

get away with that today.

It would be the costume designer

that would be having me try a few on,

maybe take some pictures.

But we were just there at the store,

maybe for a couple of hours,

and I tried on different

outfits and he would say,

"huh, I like that one.

Yeah, that one's all right.

No, I don't like that one, try this one."

So that's what we did, but you know,

it was all perfectly safe

and normal and whatever.

I was completely fine with that, too.

And I think we came up

with a great outfit.

- Honestly, it's not one of

my favorite works of mine,

simply because I feel like I'm pathetic.

I'm just constantly, "what's happening?"

And, "wait," and "I can't."

And you know, even the scene

with Barbara in her gear,

I'm like, "why am I comatose in this?

Why am I not participating in this?"

I don't even know this

happened, apparently.

Barbara was the driving

force in that movie.

If you wanna think

about it, I was Dan Kane

and she was Herbert west,

and pretorius was Dr. Hill.

- From beyond was shot in Italy,

so all the effects crews

basically built all their effects

in Los Angeles, and then everything

had to be shipped over to Italy,

and then that's where we

all finally got together.

We had a big warehouse

set up for ourselves,

for the effects crew.

All the crates came in, all

of Tony's physical effects

stuff came in, and we all

worked out of it together.

So we kind of kept sharing and,

"oh, I forgot to bring

this from the states,"

'cause this is back in the '80s

and not everything was

readily available in Italy.

- [Mark] Once I read the screenplay

and saw what type of

effects were involved,

I had a meeting with Stuart

to try and decide what I would be doing.

And it was either he or Brian that said,

"you know, we realize this

is a very ambitious project,

so we're gonna have to

divide the special effects

into two or three different teams."

I think it ended up being my team,

John buechler's team for makeup effects,

Tony doublin for all

the resonator effects,

along with the prop

guy, and Michael muscal

was the special effects coordinator.

He was the guy that hopped around

between all of our workshops.

Oh, and John naulin for

the pineal gland-involved

ball cap on Jeffrey combs.

So you had three makeup effects groups,

mechanical effects

group, and Michael muscal

was jumping around from shop to shop

to make sure everybody's on track.

You know, my team was

responsible for doing

kind of the Mr. Bubbly

pretorious makeup on Ted sorel,

and the pretorious monster,

which was very nebulous

up until quite late

into the pre-production,

where Stuart was about to leave for Rome,

and we hadn't nailed

down the design he liked.

I'd done a lot of sketches and sculptures,

and finally, one night

I had him and his wife

come out to my studio, it was very late,

and I had sculpted this little

kind of pretzel-like creature.

I did it very quickly

as kind of a last ditch,

"maybe he'll like this, it's kinda cool."

And he came out, took

one look at it and said,

"I love it, let's do it."

So finally, we nailed him

down on something he liked

right before he took off.

I had Bob kurtzman as

my lead artistic guy.

So Bob and I did most of the sculpting,

had Greg punchatz sculpting,

Aaron sims, sculpture and painting,

John Blake did all the beautiful hair work

for the bubbly Ted sorel,

the wig and the chest hair.

And David kindlon was essential,

he did the mechanical stuff for it.

And Steve patino and Tom

floutz did the fiberglass mold.

Steve was in charge, that was his baby.

- When they told me that

we were going to shoot

from beyond in Italy, I said,

"let me get my passport."

I didn't have one, I'd never

been out of the country.

So I had to get one of

those expediated passports

and fly overnight to Italy, by

myself, and show up in Rome.

And it was like magic,

getting off the plane

and coming to the old city.

And we stayed this really nice

place off of viale parioli,

and it was just, you

know, the coolest thing.

The keys had big balls attached to them

and you had to give it to the...

Like you never took your key with you.

They didn't want you to lose your key,

so you had to leave the

key at the front desk.

"Okay, I hope they don't steal my stuff."

- Well, my memories... and this

is true for a lot of movies,

my memories of from beyond

are much more on a personal

basis in terms of being in Rome,

having days off in Rome, meals

in Rome, walking the streets,

being there for a longer period of time

in order to kind of have it wash over you,

instead of a five-day

tourist vacation, you know?

I was kind of living there, going to the

real Italian deli across the street,

or the people that knew me

at the little local cafe

that I would eat at, or...

And my companion for

all of that was perfect,

it was Mac ahlberg.

Mac ahlberg is Swedish

and spoke fluent Italian.

We would just go on walking

tours on our days off,

have lunch at piazza

navona, walk over here.

"This is that, the history

of this statue is this,"

and they're just right there,

fading away, but in public.

You know, not behind glass or protected,

they're just decaying slowly,

right where they existed always.

But Mac was a fount of knowledge that way,

and a great companion.

So I do remember just enjoying...

Well, who wouldn't? Rome like that.

- Being in Rome, that's my

first time overseas, too.

Being in Rome and on the set,

there were so many things going on

on and off the set, you know?

So there was a story a minute, really.

- I think we had really good

chemistry, the three of us,

Ken and Jeffrey and myself in from beyond.

And I think that was

due, in part, to the fact

that we were in Italy

and we were so happy.

We were making a movie, making

great money, feeling good.

And on the weekends, we

always would have a brunch,

and I would host everybody

to come up to my little apartment.

I had a spiral staircase up to the roof

and I would make biscuits for everybody.

Remember, Ken foree made

biscuits in the movie,

and it was some sort of like dumpling

beef stew or something?

Well, it was the same

concoction, it was bisquick.

And I had brought over some

bisquick, or bought bisquick,

I don't know if they sold it there.

But I would make biscuits every weekend,

and I would mash up butter and pistachios,

and we would have pistachio butter on it

and then put honey on it.

It was like this thing I invented.

- It was like a family

environment because we...

It was Brian and his wife, I believe.

Yeah, his wife, and then Stuart and his,

she was in the film as well.

And then it was Barbara,

Jeffrey, myself, Ted,

and I think we kind of hung out together.

- We were all crazy.

- Charlie band had made movies

with his father, Albert band,

in Italy, and Charlie always loved Italy.

And so he bought some property there,

and continued to work there a little bit.

- When I was a teenager,

the high school I was at

was offering a four-week trip to Europe

and it was really inexpensive,

and my folks said,

"you know what? When is he

ever gonna get the opportunity

to go to Europe or anything like that?"

So they did that and it was like,

you know, it was nice thinking.

And we went to Italy, France,

Switzerland and england.

And I remember coming from

Naples, on the tour bus

from Naples to Rome, and we

were driving on the freeway

and I see this weird

complex over to my side.

And I even took out my 110

instamatic camera at that point,

and snapped a picture, going,

"what's that? What's that?"

Nobody knew what the hell it was.

Go up ahead 10 years later,

I get hired to go on from beyond

and we were staying at a hotel that was

down south of Rome, in

pomezia, or in torvaianica,

and they had a bus and they

picked up all the effects crew.

The first day, we're coming up the highway

and I'm sitting there in the

bus, and I look out the window

and I see that same

complex of buildings again.

And I started telling bill Butler,

"oh my god, I remember

that from 10 years ago.

When I was a kid, I saw that

and I didn't know what the hell it was.

Does anybody know what that was?"

Well, before I knew it, the bus turned in

and it was the dino de laurentiis studios,

and I ended up working there

next three years of my life.

- Charlie had bought

the de laurentis studio

and it was just out... it

was kind of in between Rome

and where we were staying,

which was this small town,

I'm not sure I pronounce it right,

porta vionica or something like that.

And they had us staying

at a hotel there on the beach,

which was the off season,

so it was just film crew

in there, which was nice.

And then the studio was, I don't know,

maybe half an hour away,

and it was a real studio.

I mean, they had sound stages and offices,

and everything set up

there for production.

Plus, they had a cappuccino bar,

so we were downing cappuccinos like crazy.

- The back lot had red Sonja

sets still standing there,

the spaceship from barbarella

still standing there.

Film history was just

sitting there in junk heaps

and I tried to save as much

of it as I could, you know.

It was amazing, because

you think about all the stuff

that was done at this studio.

- They're trying to sell

off things within the studio

and one of the things they sold

off was the heating element.

So we got there in April

of whatever year it was,

and there was a snowstorm

and it was freezing,

and there was no heat

in the entire building,

because they'd sold off the

components or something.

So they got these big, big,

huge size portable heaters

for all of the rooms

and they were very loud,

and it was always very

cold, because we couldn't

have them on during filming

and the room was really big.

So I just remember it being...

I was scantily clad in my leather

and I remember just being

freezing all the time.

- Oh, the coolest part was that they had

an old-style plaster shop

where these old, you know,

classically-trained

technicians were making molding

and things for the sets

that were made out of molds,

plaster molds and silicone

molds and everything like that.

But they were doing it like an old style

of how they did it, you

know, and approached it.

And they were all kinda

old-timers, and it was cool.

We'd just go over there to watch

what they were doing in the plaster shop.

- I think when a film

is prepped in one place,

let's say Los Angeles, and

especially if it's an overseas,

there's always... I mean, it's tricky,

any kind of big shipping,

and you have a specialty item

that needs to be handled carefully,

you also have all the

time that is taken away

from your prep time, because

there's crating, the shipping,

usually production doesn't

wanna do it too fast.

So it's slow, that cuts

into your prep time.

So there's a lot of considerations

that are a little tricky.

You just keep that in

the back of your mind

when you're building

it, you kind of build it

more bulletproof than even

it has to be for shooting.

You're actually building it

to withstand the shipping.

Where on shooting, you know

it's gonna be six frames of film

and you're gonna be shooting it

one of 60 shots being done that day.

So it's strange to

consider stuff that way,

but it's kinda the way it is.

- One of the funniest

things that happened,

the shipping for this project was insane.

We had to measure each monster

and then we had to have a

crate made for each monster.

And the biggest monster in the project

was what we all called

the giant shrimp chicken,

which comes boinging in.

So we had this crate made for

this giant shrimp chicken.

It was as big as this room,

it was a huge crate

full of packing peanuts,

and the shrimp chicken was in there.

And it must have been...

The monster was probably

10 and a half feet long.

So things would arrive

to us on a daily basis.

It wasn't just like, one day

all the puppets were there.

Because Italy has so much red tape

for anything like that, and you know,

I'm sure that they would

want to see what the hell

was inside of a giant

shrimp chicken, if anything.

So one day, we see Manuelo,

our assistant, our driver,

pacing around and rubbing his forehead,

and speaking on the

phone, and he's nervous.

And I was like, "what's wrong, Manuelo?"

And he's like, "oh,

there's a very big problem

with the shrimp chicken."

I'm like, "what's wrong with him?"

He's like, "oh, he fell,

he fell off the airplane

onto the runway and there's

millions of packing peanuts

blowing all over DaVinci airport,

and the shrimp chicken

is laying on the runway."

So they had to have our

guys go with a truck

and get clearance to go to

the DaVinci airport runway,

and load this giant shrimp

chicken in the back of a truck

and drive it, it must have

been the funniest thing ever.

I can't imagine. I can't

imagine what the Italians

were thinking as that thing

went careening down the

highway, headed back.

- Due to some of my

less favorite memories,

my wife and my child, Daniel,

who's now a two-time academy

award winner on his own,

got to come over there for a

lot longer than we had planned.

And Daniel was embraced

by both cast and crew,

both American and Italian.

And I don't don't know if you've ever,

if the people here have ever seen

a European hare, a European rabbit.

You know, I mean, they're

completely different

than the bunnies we have

out here and they're bigger.

And we had water tanks at the studio,

and we came in one Monday morning,

and a hare had been

jumping along and obviously

fell into a water tank,

drowned, and bloated.

So there's basically, I mean, this looked

almost like a little person in a suit.

This thing is this big, floating

in the water tank, face up,

and this about three weeks before easter.

And Daniel's like, "what is that?"

And one of the Italian guys,

thinking it was a joke, said,

"oh, that's the easter bunny,

I guess no easter this year."

And Daniel freaks out,

starts crying, runs away,

and the crew is like... his name was bony.

And they're all like, "what

did you do?" You know?

And I will have to tell

you that the Monday morning

we came in after easter,

we had a 5,000-square foot

shop over there to be able to do

all the stuff we were still building.

And that Monday morning,

it looked like easter

had regurgitated into that room.

They had these... the eggs

that they have over in Europe,

they have toys and stuff in them this big.

I mean, over here, that's a hundred bucks.

I have no idea what they...

I mean, they must have spent,

even in the '80s, they had to have spent

hundreds of dollars to

maybe a thousand dollars

on doing this room like a

department store easter display.

And, "look, look, the bunny's okay,

bunny's fine," you know?

And it was just so sweet.

- I really thought that

I could control it.

- One of our biggest

problems on from beyond,

the biggest, biggest problem, was sound.

Sound, because the Italians,

at least at that time,

had a long, long history of

not worrying about sound.

Not just because of silence,

but because they were

so used to having movies

come in and dub them.

They even dubbed their

own fricking movies.

I remember going to the theater

to see an Italian movie,

in a movie theater, and

their mouths are not doing

what they're saying in Italian,

and these are Italian actors.

So that was... they just don't

have... at the time, anyway,

they didn't have a tradition of it.

So we would be doing a quiet scene

and all of a sudden, we'd hear...

(Mimics crew speaking in Italian)

Or a construction guy would

start banging a hammer,

and you'd go, "what's

going on? Cut, cut, cut."

And then you'd go to these guys

and they would have an attitude of like,

"what's your problem? Americans, whoo."

- I remember that drove Stuart crazy,

like, "why can't they be quiet?"

And the first ad was like, "I

can't do anything about it.

That's just the way it is."

- Well, the other thing

that the Italians would do

is that they kinda went on

strike, because the first day

when we were shooting,

they had box lunches

and the box lunches did not have

little bottles of wine in them.

And this was revolt time, where,

"we're not continuing until

we get what we're used to

and that is wine with our lunch."

- Lunch was very important

and having a glass of wine

at lunch was very important.

- And then at about 4:00,

they either go have a whiskey

or a lemon vodka, and the American team,

we took to this tradition wholeheartedly.

And then we would get drunk,

and then we would wrap

and we would get in the rental cars,

and we would figure-8

race around the back lot

through the red Sonja set, until Mike deak

drove the rental car off the bridge

and into the red Sonja moat.

But Charlie doesn't know that,

because we all climbed in the moat

and we pushed the car out. Sorry, Charlie.

- But they were incredible artists

and the crew was just great.

It was just, they're just

different, just different.

They're more chill, more relaxed.

- There is a working class

feel to it, and you know,

specifically speaking to the

Italian culture, it's like,

"yeah, oh there's big shot, great.

Well, it's 5:00. See ya.

We'll see ya tomorrow."

Like, it's not that romanticized.

It's taken very seriously,

but I think maybe

there's a different understanding

that there's a life after 5:00,

and there are wine breaks.

You know, wine is on the table at lunch,

and make sure that bread is crunchy,

and life is okay and a film will get done.

A little different,

sometimes, to the intensity

and the passion you see in la,

and depending on the day,

I can make an argument for

either one. (Chuckling)

- The cool thing was, the long shots

of the outside of the house

was all forced perspective.

In other words, it was

a very small miniature,

and then with lines coming away,

so that when we're at the

gate and looking at it,

it looks like it's way far away.

But really, it's just

a forced perspective.

That house didn't really

exist. (Chuckling)

It didn't exist.

Everything was done on that

sound stage, or on the grounds

of the production company of

the studio, empire studio.

For instance, us coming

out in the hospital

and getting in the ambulance and driving,

that was all just out

in front of the studio

using those buildings.

It wasn't anything... I don't recall us

going anywhere for a location.

Movies are illusion.

If the eye believes it,

it doesn't matter if it's true or not.

- I remember towards the end of the film

when the house goes crazy,

Stewart asked us could he...

There was a banister or something

on a stairway, and said,

"I want it to come to live

and be a three-fingered

tentacle thing," and stuff like that.

And he says, "can you guys do that?"

'Cause it wasn't anything

that was budgeted for.

And we were like, "yeah, we'll try."

And I literally think it

was like a day or two later,

criswell had an old

mechanism of a tentacle.

We sculpted this thing out of Clay,

we made a quick mold on it,

did it in simple red latex.

Anything that... it was done so fast,

and we had on the set like

within the next day or two

for Stuart, and he was

just like blown away.

And it's like anything he

wanted we wanted to try and do,

because we were caught up in this film.

Stuart, everything, this was

like one of the first ones,

or this was the first

one I was involved with

that was a multi crew effects picture,

where you're trying to do

ridiculous, over-the-top stuff

that was not anything that

was ever really done before.

And it took five makeup

effects crews to do it,

and you had to work together and try to do

every trick in the book to pull this off,

'cause it was way before cgi.

If it didn't happen on

camera, it didn't happen.

- One of the projects I was working on

was history of the world: Part I,

with a person by the

name of Bob Greenberg,

who became a good friend

of mine, and he's how

I connected with Brian

yuzna and Stewart Gordon.

Robert was from Chicago

and Stuart was from Chicago as well.

He brought the two of them together

and then when they were

looking for special effects,

he brought me into the picture.

So that was on re-animator

and I brought John naulin in

to help me with the makeup effects.

And we also brought in John buechler

to help with the makeup effects.

I'd known John before then, buechler,

and then so we did re-animator,

and they were happy with our work.

So when they were starting from beyond,

there was a lot of creature

effects and visual effects,

and special effects

that needed to be done.

So they brought John naulin back in,

John buechler back in, myself in.

They also brought in Mark shostrum

to help with the pretorious monsters.

We had quite a bit of makeup

and creature effects, so we

all had quite a full plate.

- There were four teams that broke up,

honestly, I believe it must

have been a hundred gags,

with buechler, I think, doing

the majority of the puppet-y ones.

And it was just nonstop from

the minute you got there.

- Going through it, you know,

we had a couple of production meetings,

we read the script, made

notes, and then we had

a couple of meetings

beforehand, and with all of us,

the people I just mentioned,

we sat around a table,

went through it all,

solved their questions,

answered questions, solving

some of the problems

and that kinda thing.

And then Brian kinda looks at

us, "what's the next step?"

We looked at him and all of us

in union went, "writing

checks." (Laughing)

- Oftentimes, the most

difficult effects to do

are the ones that have three

or four drops of blood,

not blood shooting all over the place.

And in re-animator,

we'd gone through over

30 some gallons of blood,

and in from beyond, not so

much blood. A lot more slime.

So much slime that we, by

the way, made it in Italy.

We brought it over dry,

because it was gonna cost

thousands of dollars to ship two drums,

'cause we went through over

a hundred gallons of slime.

- I was just so excited.

I didn't really know

much about the script,

but I did know there was

like 150 makeup effects gags.

And part of my job,

aside from helping ship

all of these puppets

overseas, was to stand on set

with the bucket, with the paintbrush,

and paint slime on all the

monsters in between every shot.

That was really one of my main jobs.

- It was a very slimy show, lots of slime.

And I remember there was times

when we were under the set...

There was a lot of

effects that we basically

had to pull out of our

ass, 'cause, you know,

all the money went into certain things,

and it wasn't a huge budget show.

You know, it was relatively small budget,

but there was times that...

The end sequence where

they're dueling each other

in a mass of flesh and goo.

The attic set was on a raised

floor for various reasons.

One was the Ken foree thing

where they eat his body

and he's just a skeleton,

so Ken had to be through

a slant board thing in the floor,

but also just to operate certain

things through the floor.

And so we're under there

and there's gallons of slime

just leaking through the holes

that we had cut in the floor,

and we were covered with it.

And I remember, because I

was down under the floor

with bill and Mike, puppeteering,

and we were so covered with it.

And then I remember the slime covering us,

and then a few hours later,

that slime kinda is like starch.

So when it dries, it's suddenly hard,

and you could hear your blue

jeans cracking as you walk.

- By the end of the film, that stuff

started getting very rotten,

and there was the big finale

in the scene where Jeffrey

combs and Ted sorel's head

are coming out of a

slime pile on the floor,

and Jeffrey's getting

pulled outta this thing.

And then the skulls of

each other are fighting.

And this stuff stunk so bad,

and bill and I were underneath the stage,

and we were under this stuff,

and it's dripping on us,

and it really smelled awful,

and the entire stage smelled awful.

And we did days of that stuff.

- And apparently, someone

told me at the time,

they put this in McDonald's shakes

to give it a nice... mm-mm.

- At the time, the slime was

made out of a food thickener

called methyl cellulose,

which was a thickener for

McDonald's milkshakes.

So when we went to the

studio, we were told

that we were gonna go through 12

50 gallon barrels of this slime.

So we'd never worked on a project

where there was that much slime before,

so we foolishly said, "well,

once we start working,

we are not gonna have time."

It took like a half a

day to make a barrel.

You have to heat it up,

literally heat the water up,

put the powder in there, stir it,

color it, tint it, store it.

So we made all 12

gallons at the same time.

What we didn't take into

consideration is that it gets sour.

So these barrels of slime, I

cannot even begin to tell you

or describe the smell of this slime.

Every day that would pass,

it would get more and more rancid.

So a lot of times, you have to understand,

in particular, the scene

where Jeffrey's skull

and pretorious' skull are biting back.

That's us underneath a platform

with this sort of poly foam webbing,

you know, melted body, and they're biting,

we're puppeteering each other,

and they were pouring five

gallon barrels of this slime.

Well, unfortunately for us,

those puppet platforms are not airtight.

So spoiled slime was just pouring down,

the worst smell that

you could ever imagine,

just pouring and covering all over us.

But I wouldn't change it for the world.

It was actually quite fun,

but it didn't smell too good.

- It's one of the things

that they do to bend wood,

you know, to make elaborate

shapes outta wood and stuff,

is they soak it in methyl

cellulose, which is a wood fiber,

and it gets in there and

it makes wood flexible.

And so they got these

big paddles that they use

over in Italy for pasta.

And they got these big, giant containers,

and they'd have these guys over there.

And after a while, the handles

are starting to do this,

and they're like, "ah!" You know?

- To this day, as anyone will tell you,

when I direct something that has slime,

I say, "slime it up," and then they run in

with a paintbrush and I

can just see Stuart Gordon,

"no, pour it with a bucket."

So I'm carrying on Stuart's tradition

of making sure that everything is slimy.

Even if it's a family drama,

I slime all the actors up.

- I do find you distracting.

- Stuart is one of a fairly... he was one

of a fairly short list

of directors, for me,

that I've worked with,

that knew what he wanted,

but that vision always

came into final focus

once you were on set.

And so I had learned on re-animator

that if it was storyboarded

to be this big,

what Stuart really wanted was this big.

And by the time he explained

it all to Mac ahlberg,

and it had to be lit

and it had to be done,

'cause you know, Stuart

came out of theater.

He came out of live, out of theater,

and it really needed to be this big.

- My first memory of

some solid talk about it

was a lunch I had with Brian and Stuart,

bringing forth this idea

of from beyond, Rome,

and, "by the way, would you be

willing to shave your head?"

As it turned out, that was premature,

because they didn't have

the idea that I had

this thing coming outta my

head and wiggling around,

that required a whole

apparatus that, you know,

me shaving my head ain't gonna help.

That's not gonna help with that.

So they quickly realized that I didn't

necessarily have to do that.

I mean, they did put, for

one scene, a bald cap on me

for when the monster drops

me. That big worm thing.

But then, pretty much after

that, it was the bigger

head apparatus with the hidden headband

that allowed the dog dick to move around.

- I knew that like in re-animator,

it wasn't gonna all happen on one gag.

It's going to be moments here,

moments there, put them together.

I made the stalk that it sat on.

I wanted it to be as thin as possible.

As a matter of fact, when

I tasked the machinists

to make the ball and socket

armature that it worked off of,

I said to them, I said, "I

want it to be literally,

when this piece fits over it,

I want it to be smaller

than a number two pencil."

So these were tiny little

pieces and we made it

so that they didn't snap together

or anything like that,

they fit front to back

and were held on by pressure,

and by the actual sleeve.

And they were operated

using swage surgical cable,

and John criswell made the controller.

And so we had a version of that

that was literally a pistol grip,

with the controller for the shots of it

just kinda doing that sort of thing.

And we had a head of Jeffrey

with the little opening in it

that we could put that

through and make it,

you know, do those closeups.

We could also poke it

through at different levels.

We could also put... I could

put eight of those pieces

together and make it so

it was only that long.

I could put all 50 of

those pieces together

and make it that long.

And when it was that long,

it was actually so flexible

it would cross back over itself.

I wanted it to be elegant,

partially because when Barbara

takes it in her mouth and bites it off,

I wanted it to look like, you know,

her taking a Rose, the stem of a Rose

in her mouth, and biting it off.

I didn't want it to look

like she's, you know,

she's trying to chomp through

a banana or something.

You know I wanted it to be kind of

elegant and gross at the same time.

- Later, in other projects,

I've had apparatuses

and they've had a joystick,

and they're maneuverable,

but they're radio operated.

You know, there's a

signal that goes to a bug.

Well, not in those days, man.

It was practical, hardwired clamps, and...

So yeah, you had a joystick,

but it was connected to literal wires.

So everywhere I went,

when I had that shit on,

someone's following me with

their joystick. (Groaning)

It's fun to do it for a period of time.

It becomes less and less fun

the more and more you do it.

That's what I can say.

It was kind of novel at first,

"this is gonna be really cool,"

and then you're tired of the really cool,

and you just want this crap to be off.

- Some of the effects that

stand out in my memory

are for sure the makeup that

Bob kurtzman did on Ted sorel,

where half of his body is fused.

And that took... you know,

you hear these stories

about makeups taking like

five hours to put on,

and a lot of times, it's exaggerated.

But that really did take forever.

I think they showed up at

like 3:00 in the morning.

It was beautifully sculpted

and applied makeup,

where Ted had to lay on a slant board

and Bob just carefully glued it on him.

And I just remember

thinking, "oh my gosh."

The guy had to kinda keep

his arm in this position

and he was so patient.

The actor was so, so

patient with the makeup.

And I remember having to go there

and just slop that slime on him,

and paint that slime in every shot.

- Everything had to be

shot by a certain day,

'cause all these extra people,

all this extra cost was going away.

They were getting in airplanes,

coming back to the states.

So we shot and we shot all

of this stuff, and you know,

David kindlon had made this

really, really nice head.

So we've got this pretorious head

and that's a major sequence

with a major speech

that is given by that

character in closeup.

And they shot it, and then

they sent the crew home

before they looked at the dailies.

And what they ended up

with is they ended up

with a great looking head kinda doing,

you know, this sort of thing

all over it, and it's moving,

but they can't get it to

line up with the dialogue.

And they got the actor

trying to do adr work on it,

and trying to... additional

dialogue recording,

and trying to get it all to sync up,

and it's just not working.

And that was the second

time, when John and I

both got called in, and we said,

"well, ithinkthey're

about landing in New York

if you wanna get on the phone."

You know, it's like, "what?"

And they said, "well, what

can you do with what's left?"

And I said, "well, have

they picked up the trash?"

Because everything was thrown

into a dumpster in Italy.

And we went out and we dug it all out.

They had taken the animatronic

head and just cut it off.

It was not there. But we had a lot

of the other elements of it

and we had the rest of the creature,

but the neck was truncated,

it was shortened.

So in order to make it fit

around the back of his head,

I was gonna have to truncate it even more

by cutting a notch into it.

And that led us to what I

affectionately have called

for the rest of my career, hell day.

- It's the greatest

sensual pleasure there is.

- And we started doing the prosthetics,

and attaching the actual actor's head

with a dark, black piece down here,

so we could do a black,

you know, a contrast matte,

kinda like what some of the

stuff we did in re-animator.

And so we've got the

actor forward like that,

with the black down here

and the pieces up here,

and you raise the camera a little bit

and you don't see the neck.

So that's what the gag was.

And we did that whole speech,

and all of that was re-shot,

so that was a major day.

It was also a day when we had

Jeffrey in the full prosthetic

with the... everything's going,

and you know, it was

the day that bubba dies,

and that was all done in the same day,

and I've never done that much

makeup in one day in my life.

John criswell got a

whole lot of experience

putting prosthetics on with me that day,

kinda literally being the extra hands.

It was a great day.

- I do remember the

pretorious transformations

was one of the things that

deak was out there for that.

And we did the derma wax,

when Jeffrey comes up

and he sees pretorious for the first time

coming back from the

dead, and he puts his hand

on the shoulder, and the

fingers sink into his skin.

That was all built up

with medical derma wax,

so that it literally was just wax,

his fingers could sink into him.

And then buechler had this gag where...

He supposedly ripped off his face,

and it was like the

musculature underneath...

And he had this gag where it was

simply like bakery twine,

like in the appliance.

And he said, "it's gonna make the muscles

start popping out."

And I was thinking, "that'll never work."

And we did it, and that's

when I gave buechler

a lot of benefit of the doubt for stuff,

because he did this thing

and it worked perfectly,

and I never thought it would work.

- [Mark] I think shortly

before we left for Rome,

Stewart said, "oh, I've got another idea."

I'm like, "oh, jeez, we've

got enough work already,

what is it?"

And he said he wanted to have

Ted as the bubbly creature

holding Barbara crampton, you

know, tearing at her dress.

He wanted his fingers to grow really long

and kind of caress her breasts.

I'm like, "oh god, Stuart,

we don't, you know,

we don't have enough time or money

to create more effects, and..."

- Your boss had some scruples.

- He was a genius.

It's just that the five senses

weren't enough for him and he wanted more.

- We didn't have time

to bring back Ted sorel

and do more iifecasting and

make his arm and all that.

And I had a finger extension

arm from Mark patton,

who was much younger than Ted sorel,

but he was from elm street 2...

But I had this wonderful full arm mold

of him with fingers extended.

And I thought, you know, I can take that

and use that mold and make a hand,

and make the fingers grow.

(Bubba screaming)

- The way we did that was

we took styrofoam pellets

and we soaked them in gray

dye, and then we let them dry,

and then we scraped them all up

and we put them in these barrels.

And then when we would film,

we would put the styrofoam

pellets in front of leaf blowers

and blow them all around the room,

and then sweep them up off the floor,

put them back in and do it.

Well, poor Ken foree, who I'm still

to this day friends with,

got one of the pellets

in his ear canal, all the way inside.

And you'd never seen somebody

so patient in all of your life.

He just kind of raised

his hand and was like,

"excuse me, but one of

these pellets is in my ear."

So I think it was about 45

minutes of digging around

with one of those long medical o-tips.

I wanna say they put maple syrup,

or something really

sticky on the end of it,

and they finally got it out.

But my gosh, he was such a team player.

He didn't say a word.

- They put me in a wetsuit,

okay? Underneath it,

'cause they had to pour karo syrup

all over my head and my body, you know,

so that those little bugs,

little bees, would stick.

They were little styrofoam,

you know, that was what they were.

And so, they start pouring the syrup,

and I'm gonna be stuck

there for quite a few hours,

and the syrup started

going down under the suit.

Cold karo syrup just

dripping down your chest,

and then your back, you

know, almost to your butt.

(Laughing) I won't go any further,

but you get that idea.

- It's just exhausting is what it can be.

- One of the scenes when

I jump on Jeffrey's back

and we fall down into the basement,

if you are careful and you

look on the wall, you'll see,

it's a white wall, you see a brown streak.

They had to get a Italian man to play me

and they had to paint him.

So they painted him brown

(Laughing) And he streaked

as his arm or something hit the wall.

So there's a streak coming

right behind him. (Laughing)

- I know this behavior,

I've seen it in the streets.

- We had this shot where we

had to have this cutoff head

lifted off this torso, and

Mike deak and I thought,

"oh, this is gonna be so

good, let's pull a trick."

So we took a styrofoam head

and we just painted it

the worst way possible.

We put acetone on it

and made it all melt-y,

and then we put two crazy

cockeyed ping pong balls for eyes,

and we put long packing hemp for hair,

and put lipstick on it and

it just, it looked like

the stupidest thing you'd

ever seen in your life.

So we're thinking we're gonna be funny,

because Stuart's loving

us, everyone's loving us.

And like they, you know,

some of these effects,

there's so many of them,

the first time that Stuart

and the dp, Mac ahlberg,

would get to set would be the

first time they'd see them.

So Mike and I take this

hemp-covered styrofoam head

with lipstick and crossed eyes,

and we put a garbage bag

over it and we go on set.

And then Mac ahlberg is this

Swedish, very proper man

who literally looked

through a monocle, was like,

"okay, can we please

bring in the cutoff head?"

And we go, "all right, we're coming in,"

and we have have this...

We come in and we have this head in a bag.

And then we're looking at each

other, nudging each other,

and we pull the bag off this cutoff head.

And Mac ahlberg blew

his stack and was like,

"what is this shit storm?

I can't fucking shoot this.

What are you... what is going

through your fucking..."

Just having a fucking tantrum.

We didn't know what to say.

We're like, "(Babbling)

We're kidding, we're kidding,

we're kidding, here's the real head,"

you know, which really looked

a million times better.

But I still think our head

looked really good, but anyway.

- There's a scene where

I'm eating the brain

and Carolyn purdy-Gordon, Stuart's wife,

plays a doctor who comes in and catches me

before I suck her eyeball out, you know?

I'm eating a brain and

I say it's delicious.

And so they gave me a brain,

it was a rubber brain,

and it had some like

corn syrup blood on it,

and it had been molded with a

bite taken out of it. Smart.

And so, you know, I'm eating the brain,

so I use this little

hole, but I'm biting it.

And she, "what are you doing?"

And I say, "it's delicious."

And Stuart goes, "cut, cut, cut, cut.

What are you, what are you eating?"

I said, "I'm not eating anything, Stuart.

There's nothing to eat, this is rubber,

and see that, so I'm pretending."

And he said, "well, there

should be something in there,

that we should really

see you eat something."

And I went... and he said,

"anybody got anything

pink around here that

we could put in there?"

You know, not many foods,

that would match brain, apparently.

And someone said, "well,

I got some polygrip,

I got some dentures adhesive."

And he said, "yeah, put that in there."

It was pink, so they filled

this hole with the thing.

"Action," (mimics chewing)

"Crawford, what are you doing?"

And I say my line. (Mimics

talking with mouth full).

I can't open my mouth,

it's so dry in there,

because that's what that stuff does,

takes all the moisture outta your mouth.

And he, "cut, cut, what are you doing?"

(Mimics talking with mouth full)

And I said, "it takes

all the moisture away."

And I said, "you try it."

And he goes, "you know what?

I never have an actor do

anything that I won't do myself.

So yeah, fill that up,

I'll show you what I mean."

They filled it up, he took a bite and like

tried to spit it out, but it had already

cemented in and took every bit of moisture

that it would take to propel

something outta your mouth.

(Babbling) Took it and he goes,

"okay, fine. Just mime it."

So we wasted about half an hour on that.

- Delicious.

- So we were shooting and

everything was going great.

We were all very, very busy.

And like I said, these stages were...

I don't know how high the ceilings were,

I wanna say 35 feet up in

the air, they were massive.

And on each stage, there

was like a 25 foot door

that was about, oh, I have to

say two or three feet thick,

that was concrete and steel.

And on each door, at the end of the night

when you close the door, there was a ring

that was like this, and a

ring that was like this,

that would come together like that.

And they would put a big pin

in it and put a lock on it,

so nobody could get in the sound stage.

- We were getting ready to

do the lamprey eel sequence

and I needed to go in and ask

a couple questions of Stuart,

and I walked in a side entrance

to the stage over there.

And when I reached back,

I thought I was grabbing

a real, honest-to-god handle.

- So he probably pulled, you know,

three or four tons of concrete.

- And my finger went down

through one of those bolts,

and then the bolts

crossed over each other.

And iwent (shouting),

'cause that's what you do

when when you feel a shot

of pain, and you hear

what sounds like a box

of pencils crunching

and it's your hand.

And I went like that, and

when I ran out into one

and I put my fingers... I'm an ex EMT.

I put my finger right here

and went right into my pressure point,

and I went out to one of the work lights,

which over in Italy was

just a great, big light bulb

with a cage around it.

And I held up and I could not see...

I could see this finger,

I could see this finger,

but I couldn't see these two at all,

'cause they were hanging down here.

And the hospital the first

night cut pieces off,

threw them away, and we

never got those back.

And then they just kinda set things back,

and bound it up with a bunch of gauze,

and then two days later, I went back

to quote/unquote check on it,

and when they took the gauze

off, it stuck a little,

and one of my fingers fell back off.

And the doctor's going, you

know, like, "chop chop."

And I'm like, "no chop chop, no."

And Tony doublin's wife at the time,

she had driven me, and

I said to the nurse...

That's the only one

there that spoke English.

I said, "give me that file."

And we grabbed the file and

we went out the fire escape,

and down the fire escape, and that's when

I went back to Albert band,

held that in front of his face

and said, "find me a real

doctor in this country."

And he did.

- I have the same

feeling on every last day

of every single movie.

And that is, "let's start again,

because now I know how

to play the character."

There's always a little bit of

remorse at the end of a film,

because you think, "oh,

did I do it? Did I nail it?

Could I have done something different?

Oh, maybe I should have played

that scene a little bit differently,

and could I have done

something more or less?"

Or, "was I good enough?"

I mean, you always hope that you're gonna

fulfill the job required,

and I always feel

a sense of loss, loneliness,

and sadness at the very end.

And I remember the last

day of from beyond,

having those same feelings,

just hoping and wishing

that it was going to turn out okay.

(Explosion booming)

(Katherine groaning)

- It's a little bit slight of hand.

So you know, again, this was before

computer generated effects,

so there was no visual effects shot,

there were only special effect shots,

and those were largely created on the set.

Occasionally, some things would

go into the optical camera

for optical effects, but

especially with Stuart,

almost everything was practical.

They all were pretty

much effects on the set.

And again, that's from

his theater background.

It goes back to the plays like "warp,"

where the effects were on

stage, live at the time,

and that's how Stuart worked.

I can't remember exactly the scene,

but there was a moment when something

was supposed to be an effect

and we didn't have the effect.

And the actor kind of did something

that made it look like it had happened.

And Stuart grinned and said,

"see, acting is the best special effect."

There's a great deal of latitude

in what happens in editing.

And every director is different,

but certainly by from beyond,

I had a very, very strong

and trusting relationship

with Stuart, and in his mind,

was completely given the

permission and the charge

to edit the film as I saw fit.

Once he was done shooting

in Italy, he came back.

In the case of from beyond,

he was able to be in la

through most of the production,

post production process.

So he and Brian both came back

and we were all working

together, I think along somewhat

with Albert band, who was

Charlie band's father,

and kind of the godfather

of empire films at that point.

So the three of us were

there, and you know,

it wasn't like we were

working together every day.

I would take the film and work things out

and put scenes together,

and Stuart would come in

and we'd look at things and change things,

and maybe find a way to

make something work better,

or find a way to make it more exciting.

On a daily basis, we were

reworking the scenes.

It takes months to edit a

movie and in those days,

we were editing on film, not computers.

So you're actually cutting and taping

pieces of film together.

And then from time to

time, Brian would come in,

and he would... not quite

dad coming in the room,

but he would be another

viewpoint that maybe

was a little bit more... a

little less of an enthusiast

than Stuart and a little

bit more of a realist.

So it was a nice balance getting the input

from the two of them,

and I think I brought

very much an actor's perspective,

a sense of drama, a sense of performance,

a sense of storytelling

that I had picked up

in all my years of acting.

So I think it was really a nice

combination of personalities

and skills and intellects

that came together

in the editing room making from beyond.

- I had been a foley artist, let me see,

for six years by then,

'cause I started in 1980

working on the shows

Dallas and knots landing,

and from beyond was

some of the feature work

I'd been doing, 'cause I'd transitioned

pretty much into features

completely by then.

And this was one of the

independent films I worked on.

It was during a time when I

was doing both big features

and then independent features,

and this was an independent

that I did where I was the

only foley artist on it,

which is unusual, because

normally, two foley artists

work on a film, but on some of the smaller

independent films, they

will often have just one.

And this was one of those

times when it was just me.

And so the way the process was,

was we had what we would call reels,

and the reels are only 10

minutes of film at a time.

And they were on black

and white vegetable dupes,

they're all black and white,

they're kind of fuzzy,

muddy-looking things.

So I didn't see any of the special effects

and I didn't get to hear any of the music.

I'm basically working with

a black and white dupe

that's kind of muddy

looking, where I'm seeing

the performances and

I'm getting a basic idea

of what it looks like, and

that's all I have to work with.

I don't have a digital color

print like anybody has now.

So if there are any film

students watching this,

it wasn't like that back then.

What we were basically doing is looking

at a very dirty black and white film,

and we're only looking

at 10 minutes at a time.

So you have to really kind of imagine,

I'm working on 10 minutes of film,

and I'm not looking at the whole film.

I don't know what's happening next,

because back then, it's low budget,

I don't get to see the whole film first.

So I'm only seeing 10 minutes at a time

and I've got to assume I know

what's gonna be happening next

and I have to keep track

of what shoes was I wearing

for her before, and what

shoes is she wearing now

when she changes clothes and she gets

into the sexy night thing,

and they do this s&m stuff.

And sometimes, when you have a lotta time,

you can write down what you're using,

but when you're working

this fast, you can't,

so you have to remember.

One of the things that's

important to understand...

And in my book, the foley

grail, idiscuss this

a little bit... about mixing

what I call hybrid sounds,

where some of the editorial sound effects

are mixed with what we do in foley.

That was what happened with

some of the creature sounds.

The creature sounds are a

combination of designed effects

by editorial, so the sound editors

are putting in some designed

and library effects,

and then what I was doing

in foley was supplementing

or enhancing what they're also doing.

So some of the goopier sounds

and some of the strange things like that,

anything that sounded really mechanical,

or the (mimics electricity crackling)

And the stuff like that,

was completely sound effect designed.

I had nothing to do with any of that,

there would've been no

way to do that in foley.

But the goopier things and

the weird stuff like that,

I would've done on the foley stage,

using things like

dippity-do and hand lotion.

And I do mouth noises, too, you know,

like (makes squishing

sound) Stuff like that.

A year later, when I worked on predator,

I also did stuff like that

for the monster for predator.

So I did some similar things like that.

When you're working on

a really big feature,

you have time and you can think

about what you're gonna do.

But what's really fun about

working on an independent film,

where you don't have

as much money or time,

is you have to think fast.

So this one was only, I think,

a two or three day thing.

This wasn't two, to three,

to four weeks like you have

for a big feature, where

there's a lot of money.

Well, the nice thing

about having limited funds

is you have to think fast and be creative,

so you grab or think really

fast whatever is there,

and you have to be really inventive.

And I think that's really kind

of a challenge and more fun.

- The first time I met Stuart,

it was kind of, in a way, assumed

that I would do the score,

but nothing was really set

in stone at that point.

And I remember I went over to his house,

we were gonna have dinner,

and so we're having dinner,

everything's going well,

and we're discussing music

and film, and theater,

and all these things.

And then it somehow came up

in the conversation that I was a big fan

of frank zappa and the

mothers of invention,

and Stuart's eyes lit up,

and that was the point

that I knew something

was really connecting.

And we spent the better part

of the rest of the evening

singing frank zappa songs

from the album freak out,

to lumpy gravy, to all these albums

from the early mothers of invention.

And we hit it off, our sense of humor

and the sort of

snarkiness of zappa,

and the brilliance and all this.

So like I said, we sang a

bunch of songs from the albums,

and we just connected

in a major, major way.

What was obvious from the

outset with from beyond

is that it did not have

the sort of humorous aspect

that re-animator did.

It had a lot of the lovecraft quirkiness

and weirdness to it, which is great,

but it was in no way that

sort of comedic horror

type of feel that I had

created for re-animator.

Now, what definitely came out

that was extremely

important in from beyond,

was the element of

sexuality and/or sensuality,

which was the entire domain of the film.

The whole idea that this other dimension

was related to this pineal gland,

a sexual thing that got

people's juices flowing,

or however you want to interpret it.

What I had to think of from

a musical standpoint is,

how do I make the music feel both

sensual and sexy,

and at the same time, scary and horrific?

So, how do you marry all those things

was the first question

that came to my mind,

and that was my jumping-off point.

When you're in that dimension

and the resonator is on,

there had to be this... you had to feel

like you were in this other dimension.

And that's where I brought

in a few electronics

or synthesizer, let's say.

Mostly bell-type things and all that,

which helped create that atmosphere.

Behind that, those few

bell-like synthesizer things,

I had strings, real strings in this case.

And rather than use like

a typical whole orchestra,

it was really mostly

strings and some percussion,

and along with the synthesizers,

to help create that dimension.

So really, those were the

ingredients that that I used.

So you had the atmosphere when

you were in the dimension.

That atmosphere could be

somewhat easily blended

into being in that from beyond dimension,

so sonically, it was more

of an atmospheric thing.

But what was equally important was,

how do you get the sexuality

and sensuality aspect of it?

And that was the secondary part.

I think the sequence in the

film that most demonstrates that

is when Barbara crampton is, you know,

she's in this like dominatrix,

you know, outfit and all this,

she's feeling her sexuality

and all this stuff is going on with her.

Yeah, that was... it had to

have both that atmosphere,

but it had to have this lovecraftian

sexuality, sensuality aspect to it.

So in that case, I played

down the atmospherics,

even though there was some in there,

but played this really sort

of undulating sexuality

and sensuality in the music.

So those were the devices

I used, as opposed to

where it eventually went, when...

The part of the film where

it's this all hell breaks loose type thing

towards the end, right?

That's when, again, the use

of the strings, real strings,

are so important, 'cause there's

a lot of movement in those,

and that's not meant for atmosphere,

that's meant for action

and the the intensity

of what's happening, and the resonator,

and when things are going

haywire, so to speak.

So those are some of the elements

and how I dealt with them.

- And then the next thing you know,

in true Charles band tradition,

I think it came out

about four months later,

and now that one did show in the theaters.

I remember, 'cause I

saw it at the theater,

and it had a full-page ad in the la times,

with the guy, you know, Ted

sorel and his bubblegum,

Mr. Bubblegum makeup.

And it was just so incredible

seeing all of our hard work

and all the beautiful art

direction, the color palette.

- From beyond didn't do great

in theatrical release, either,

and it was almost absolutely

known that, I mean,

Charlie was ready to put

it out on vhs immediately

after it was... it didn't

go straight to video,

but in Charlie's mind, it was straight...

It was in video before it was in it.

- We thought from beyond

was gonna be a smash hit.

But then again, I've always thought that.

Almost every... on a

lot of movies I've done,

I've always thought,

"this is gonna be it."

Because re-animator was

such a surprise hit,

I think if we had... I

mean, certainly empire

was not able to release it theatrically.

If I had taken it to

Paramount or somebody,

and had them put it out for real,

it probably would've done

it still did tremendous,

not theatrically, but it did

tremendous video business.

I mean, fantastic.

If my deals had been

honored, I would've been

a multimillionaire out

of the gate, you know?

As it was, I wasn't.

But I did get to make more movies

and that was sort of the point.

- They knew that if they

took what they liked,

what they had cut

together, they knew that if

they took it to the

ratings board like that,

the movie that you know,

that it wouldn't be that movie anymore.

They would say... once

you... here's the thing.

You can put out any

movie you want unrated,

you can do that, but you

just have limitations.

And those limitations are

usually from private entities,

like movie theaters, say, "we

don't put out unrated movies

in our movie theaters, we just don't."

Some newspapers will say,

"we allow ads for movie releases,

but there can't be any graphics."

So here in la, the la times,

the ad for re-animator was

black and white, words only.

And at the time, the other

competitive newspaper

was the herald examiner.

Remember that thing?

And they didn't care, so

whatever the artwork was,

they printed it.

So you could do it, you

just kinda were forced

to put one hand behind your back, I guess.

But it didn't matter with

re-animator, just didn't matter.

People went, word of

mouth, boom, bang, zoom.

- You know, I'd just be quite frank,

I had a tragic, tragic,

tragic thing happen

in my personal life at this time,

just the day before the skivvies.

There had been crazy things

going on in this film already.

I mean, Ted had his prosthetics

and that kinda thing,

and he was butt-naked

in front of us for half

a day for no reason.

And I wanted to, you know,

just have a little laugh

for the day to get things outta my head,

'cause I was really

suffering at that point.

Something I don't like to talk about,

just some of those things

that happen in your life

that you just don't wanna deal with,

or discuss with anybody.

So I just grabbed it,

somebody showed it to me

and I grabbed it.

I said, "this will be

this will get a laugh

and it'll give me a laugh,

and I need a laugh real bad right now."

And so that's why I put it on.

I was supposed to be shot,

or edited, from the stomach up,

and that didn't happen.

I saw the film for the

first time on television

and I said, "oh, looks great."

Saw it again on ktla,

they played it again.

Saw it, "oh, yeah, great."

I didn't see the cut until 15 years later,

something like that,

almost 20 years later.

When I saw it, when I first saw it,

I said, "my god, what happened?"

It was a great time except

for that. I mean, for me.

I mean, it was a wonderful

time in Rome on the set.

We were doing great stuff.

I felt good about my performance,

I felt good about working

with the other actors.

I thought they were marvelous

and really did a wonderful job, you know?

As I watched it on ktla, you know,

I said, "wow," you know?

I thought it would get

a lot more playing time,

and certainly acknowledgement,

but I don't know, I don't know.

Maybe they should have

cut something. (Laughing)

We might have gotten a lot more

playing time, I don't know.

- You know, years later, Charlie band said

he wanted to do a spinoff TV series

that was inspired by from beyond.

So I was lucky enough to write

eight episodes of something

that he calls "miskatonic u,"

and we used the same color palette,

and paid tribute to Mac ahlberg,

who's a wonderful guy, and to Stuart.

It's certainly not a remake,

it's certainly, it's just a...

You know, we loved Stuart so much.

I was so close to him and he

was a very kind, funny mentor.

Both he and his wife,

Carolyn, who I just loved.

And so, when Charlie mentioned,

"would you like to do this

'miskatonic' program?"

I said yes, knowing

that there was a chance

that it might bite me in

the ass from the fans,

but luckily, they all responded

really well to it, yeah.

And I loved that we were able

to include that color palette,

and the resonator, we built

a new and improved resonator.

It's just such a good feeling.

And the first day that we filmed on set,

I actually asked Mike deak

to come and help us do,

you know, to slime up our monsters.

And there me and Mike

deak are, 35 years later,

with paint brushes,

painting slime on the puppets.

And I remember Mike said to me,

"you know, I feel like Stuart

is in the room with us,"

and I absolutely know that to be true.

- It was really funny,

because a lot of these movies

that I worked on, especially

in the early days,

I never thought of them as being...

Well, definitely at the time,

not anything like cult movies.

But I guess now, looking back, from beyond

has been on Turner classic

movies on the underground.

And I'm sitting there

watching this, going like,

"well, I guess I made it."

I mean, then a couple months ago,

dawn of the dead was

on, or day of the dead

was on, rather, and I go,

"oh, I'm actually on camera,

I'm actually being shown

on Turner classic movies.

Me, on Turner classic movies."

This is like, this doesn't belong.

I mean, but yeah, two of

the first films I worked on

are basically considered

cult films at this point,

and we didn't know it at the time.

I mean, the thing, too, is...

This is another story

that I'll throw out there.

Bill Butler and I, like I said,

were basically the heckle and

jeckle, abbott and costello,

and we were just relentless in

our comedy and saying things,

and we had no right to be,

'cause we were so new to the project.

But there was the thing

of, we'd go to see dailies,

and to make sure that there's

continuity for the creatures,

the makeups and things like that,

so they allowed us to go see dailies.

And we're sitting there with Albert,

and Stuart and Brian yuzna,

and we're watching dailies,

and bill Butler and I

turned into mystery science theater 3000.

We're throwing out all these comments,

we're making all these smart-ass things.

We're making fun of the actors,

we're making fun of our effects,

we're making fun of everything.

And years later, I thought

about it and I ran into Stuart,

and I asked him this twice.

I go, "Stuart, if I was

on any other production

and there were a couple of jackasses

making fun of your

dailies the entire time,

how the hell did you let it...

Why did you let us stay there?"

And he said to me one

thing I'll never forget,

he says, "because you guys were funny."

And I was like, "you can't be serious.

I mean, you're doing... your

life, your career's on the line

and we're sitting there being assholes."

"Yeah, because you're funny."

And it was like, that's

the kind of guy Stuart was.

And I asked him that on two occasions,

and I got the same response,

which is why Stuart has always,

through the years, been just so endearing.

I remember kmb, I was working

there as a shop supervisor,

and Stuart came in and was

doing dreams in a witch house,

or something like that.

And he said to me, he's

like, "oh, Mike, you know,

I really wanna actually

work with you as a monster

in this thing, but they won't allow me

to take anybody up to Canada and stuff."

You know, it's like

from the time we worked

on from beyond, it was

always the same thing.

I mean, bill in his book

writes about it, this is true,

is that we came... we were

goofing around with Stuart

so much on set, writing this

pretend script, called...

Something that bill Butler came up with,

"queen of crisco mountain," about

these women on a prison

spaceship are making TV dinners,

and there's this giant mountain of crisco

that they had to climb up to escape.

And Stuart... and we all

thought it was funny as shit,

and we'd just keep coming up with scenes

in between shooting on from beyond.

I mean, it was like,

what director would allow

that kind of stuff on set?

But that's what I mean.

Maybe I was spoiled,

because that's not the way it works.

I couldn't pull any of that

shit on a Michael bay set,

that's for sure.

But back then... because back then,

when he asked for something

and like I said,

with that tentacle hand,

we tried to deliver.

It was one of those things

where it wasn't like

we were just being jackasses

and not holding up our end of it.

We were being jackasses, but

we are also trying to give him

everything he absolutely wanted to film.

So I guess that's why he maybe

tolerated us a little more.

- You know, it's really...

What makes from beyond magical

is it's imbued with

Stuart's sense of wonder

and his inner child, and his enthusiasm.

- So I remember when I

directed my first film,

I did madhouse for

lakeshore and lionsgate,

and he was the first person

I wanted to show my film to.

And I didn't much really

know what I was doing.

I knew what I liked to

see and I knew as a fan,

and certainly from being

directed, you know,

by him in regards to how to

even put together a film.

I just remember him coming

to the screening room

and the first thing that

he said when he watched it,

I was terrified, was, "well,

you're in the right business,

you know what you're doing."

I was like, "oh my god."

To hear Stuart Gordon say

that, it meant everything.

And you know, the last

time that I saw Stuart

was years later, when, of course,

John buechler passed away.

We had buechler's funeral

at my house in the backyard

and I saw Stuart there,

and I could kinda tell

that he was probably not feeling his best,

and I didn't know that that was gonna be

the last time that I saw him.

So I had heard about a year

later that he had sadly passed.

And I don't think anyone

could miss him more,

other than his own family.

I just really... I just

was really, really...

It was such a huge loss for

me and all of his friends,

certainly his family.

But he left an indelible

Mark on storytelling,

it is gonna take some big...

He's got big shoes to fill.

You know, he just was

such a unique artist,

that the world is really lucky

to have experienced all of his work.

- I think from beyond,

as with re-animator,

and even something like

chopping mall (chuckling)

Which is not a Stuart Gordon film.

But over time, these films

have developed more fans,

and people share them with their

children and their friends,

and they have become cult

classics of '80s horror.

And for me, still working

in the horror genre

all these many years later,

I look back on the legacy

that I have in these beginning films,

and I appreciate them

so much and I'm so happy

that I said yes to these movies,

not knowing if they were going to be good,

who were these directors,

who was HP lovecraft,

what did I know?

And I didn't think that

I was going to have

a career in the horror

genre going forward.

I just wanted to act and

people offered me a role

and I said yes, and I just

happened to be lucky enough

to work for Stuart, and to

have him continually hire me.

And I can't thank him enough,

and all the wonderful

people I've worked with,

I'm getting choked up talking about it.

But it's just, it's true.

They mean so much to me, these films,

and the fact that people still watch them

and they still love

them and that, you know,

I'm able to have a career really built

on the legacy of those early films,

because I really wouldn't be

here today and making new films

if it hadn't been for those.

(Upbeat synth music)

- See, this is where I'm

supposed to say something

disparaging against the editor on camera

and pretend that, "oh, he didn't know it,"

you know, and then I get

cut out of the thing.

That was a joke. (Chuckling)