All language subtitles for Re.Resonator.Looking.Back.At.From.Beyond.2022.1080p.BluRay.x265-RARBG

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.

- Yes, the greatest
sensual pleasure there is

is to know the desires of another mind.

- I know your desires, you impotent pig.

- 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.

- 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.

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...

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.

- 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.

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."

- 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.

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.

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.

- 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.

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
And he streaked

as his arm or something hit the wall.

So there's a streak coming
right behind him.

- 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,"
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,"

"Crawford, what are you doing?"

And I say my line..

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?"

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.

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,
'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.

- 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

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 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.

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

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.

- 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.