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nightmareonfilmstreet · 6 years

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The Fraught and Remarkable Production of James Cameron’s ALIENS

In 1979, director Ridley Scott took the genres of horror and science fiction by storm with his groundbreaking film Alien. As is often the case with runaway successes such as this, a sequel followed. However, unlike Alien – Aliens was to be an altogether different kind of beast.

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Aliens Conception

After the success of Alien, producer David Giler declared in 1979 that production house Brandywine were intent on making a sequel. Initially having the full support of 20th Century Fox’s president Alan Ladd Jr, that year Ladd left amid Fox’s transition to new owners. The new management at Fox had no interest in the sequel. In the meantime, Giler and partners Walter Hill and Gordon Carroll sued Fox regarding the disbursement of the Alien profits after reneging on Ladd’s promise. The subsequent lawsuit would not be settled until 1983. By this time, Fox had once again acquired new executives that were more interested in continuing Alien as a franchise. Giler pitched the project to the new management as a cross between Hill’s Southern Comfort and The Magnificent Seven.

Enter James Cameron

While the producers sought a writer for the proposed sequel, Development executive Larry Wilson came across James Cameron’s screenplay for The Terminator. The screenplay was passed on to Giler, the general feeling was that Cameron was the man for the job. Giler approached Cameron, who was completing pre-production of The Terminator at this time. A fan of Alien, Cameron was interested in helming the proposed sequel and began work on a concept for Aliens. Cameron produced a 45-page treatment in just 4 days. Fox management once again put the film on hiatus. The pitch was met with mixed feelings and cold feet that Alien had not generated enough profit to warrant a sequel.

Filming of Cameron’s The Terminator was also delayed by nine months at this time. Due to its star, Arnold Schwarzenegger filming Conan the Destroyer, production was delayed. This was a serendipitous turn of events allowing Cameron additional time to write a script for Aliens. While still filming The Terminator, Cameron wrote 90 pages for Aliens. Even in its unfinished state, the work piqued the interest of Fox’s new president Larry Gordon. Cameron was told that if The Terminator was a success, he would be able to direct Aliens. Bringing aboard Gale Ann Hurd to produce, The rest, as they say, is history.

Express Elevator To Hell: A Change Of Approach

Where as the original Alien is oft quoted as being a “haunted house in space”, Cameron’s approach for the sequel was to be something entirely different. The extra time Cameron had been afforded to work on his treatment for Aliens had been well utilised. The story he came up with took the series in a brave new direction.

Ellen Ripley has been drifting in space for some time after the events of the first movie. To be more precise, Ripley has drifted through space for 57 years. Picked up in her EEV by Wayland-Yutani, the ever-present, shadowy “Company”, Ripley’s tasked with returning to LV-426, now a terraformed colony. All communication with LV-426 and its inhabitants has been lost. Accompanying a squad of kick-ass colonial marines, they need to establish why contact has broken down.

Aliens is Bigger, bolder, and much more action oriented than its predecessor. Where as the original was more a traditional thriller, Aliens was to be all out war. Perfectly pacing exposition, slow building suspense and intense action, Cameron certainly knew what he wanted to deliver. From its bombastic James Horner score, to its groundbreaking Stan Winston effects, This is how a sequel is done right.

Hard Times

Cameron now had his film and a $18 million budget, he now needed to secure his leading lady. Sigourney Weaver was reticent about the project. Weaver met Cameron who explained his ideas, piquing the actors interest in revisiting her character. Fox, however, refused to sign Weaver over a payment dispute and asked Cameron to write a story excluding her character. Cameron refused on the grounds that Fox had indicated that Weaver’s involvement when he began writing his treatment for Aliens. Cameron doggedly insisted in Weaver’s involvement and Fox signed the contract. Weaver obtained a salary of $1 million, a sum 30 times what she was paid for Alien.

Bringing together the likes of Michael Biehn, Lance Henriksen and Bill Paxton, who had all worked with Cameron on The Terminator. They were joined by Paul Reiser, Janette Goldstein, William Hope and newcomer, Carrie Henn to round off the principal cast.

Us & Them

Filmed over the best part of a year at Pinewood studios in the U.K., the production was notoriously fraught. The U.S & U.K crews would frequently butt heads. Notoriously tensions strained over, of all things, was the Great British ‘tea break’ frequently bringing production to a halt. A very much ‘us & them’ attitude punctuated the production. Many of the experienced crew had worked under Ridley Scott on the original film and believed Cameron to be too young and inexperienced to carry so large a film. Tensions reached their peak when Cameron fired D.O.P Dick Bush over negative approaches to schedule and difference of opinion, causing the crew to walk out on the production. Hurd, working her production magic, managed to coax the crew back. With such a pervasive atmosphere, it is a wonder the film turned out as well as it did.

Praise has to be given on the magnificent sets that were built. Production converted part of a disused power station in Acton to become the alien nest. An interesting piece of trivia, the set that was used for the atmosphere processor was reused a few years later as The Axis chemical factory in Tim Burton’s Batman. I was never aware of this until recently and must confess to geeking out a little.

Building A Better Movie

Robert and Dennis Skotak were hired to supervise the visual effects for Aliens. Two stages were utilised to construct the colony on LV-426. Cameron used these miniatures and several effects to make scenes look larger than they really were. Namely through methods including forced perspective, rear projection, mirrors and foreground miniatures. Practical effects supervisor John Richardson (who earned the Oscar for Best Visual Effects for the film in 1987) declared his biggest challenge was creating the power loader. Requiring three months work, The model could not stand on its own, requiring either wires dangling from the shoulders or a pole through the back attached to a crane. While Sigourney Weaver was stood inside the loader, a stunt man standing behind it would move the arms and legs.

Aliens Reborn

Stan Winston designed alien suits were made more flexible and durable than the ones used in Alien to allow more freedom of movement. This new suit allowed the Xeno’s to crawl and jump. Dancers, gymnasts, and stunt men were hired to portray the aliens. 8-foot-tall mannequins we’re constructed to make aliens that stood could have charges detonated to simulate gunshot wounds. Winston’s team also created fully articulated facehuggers that could move their fingers; these were moved by wires hidden on the scenery or the actors’ clothing. This was a remarkably simple trick that allowed the facehuggers to appear more real than ever.

The Queen Lives!

The alien queen provided one of the most difficult challenges to film. A life-sized mockup was created by Winston in the U.S. to act as a dry run to see how it would operate on set. Once the testing was complete, the crew working on the queen flew to England and began work creating the final version.

Standing at 14 feet tall, it was a phenomenal physical creation. The Queen was operated using a mixture of puppeteers, control rods, hydraulics, cables, and a crane above to support it. Two puppeteers inside the suit operated its arms, and 16 additional were required to move it. All sequences involving the full-size queen were filmed in-camera with no post-production manipulation. Let’s just consider that for a moment. The majority of the queens shots, excluding some minimal miniature work, all happened on set. Even by today’s standards, that is remarkable.

Now That Sounds Like A Franchise: The Success Of Aliens

Aliens was released in North America on July 18, 1986. In North America, the film opened in 1,437 theaters with an opening weekend gross of $10,052,042. It was #1 at the North American box office for four consecutive weeks, grossing $85.1 million. The film’s worldwide total gross has been stated as high as $180 million, making Aliens one of the highest-grossing R-rated films at the time. Due to its resounding success, the Xenomorphs would return to our screens again in 1992 for Alien3, helmed by first time director David Fincher. In the subsequent years that followed their would be another 3 Alien movies and a further 2 Alien vs. Predator spin-offs.

The Alien series has proved to be a franchise that refuses to lay down and die. Arguably its real turning point came with the leap of faith taken by James Cameron in taking the series in a bold new direction and expanding upon the mythos of the Xenomorph race in such an inventive and breathlessly engaging way.

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restinpicturespod · 4 years

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Gene Warren Jr. (1941 -2019) was the Oscar-Winning effects artist who contributed to nearly 40 years of work on screen. The special effects trade was in the Warren blood as his father would earn an Oscar for his own work in 1960's THE TIME MACHINE. Gene would become part of the inner-circle of James Cameron's old-school effects wizards who had a knack for creating amazing work on a limited budget. In 1980, Gene co-founded Fantasy II Film Effects and began producing iconic effects for movies like THE TERMINATOR, RETURN OF THE LIVING DEAD, KILLER KLOWNS FROM OUTER SPACE, THE ABYSS, BRAM STOKER'S DRACULA, TREMORS, TRUE LIES, and the UNDERWORLD series. But, Gene's biggest claim to fame was his iconic work on James Cameron's TERMINATOR 2: JUDGEMENT DAY that would earn him an Oscar right alongside Dennis Muren, Stan Winston, and Robert Skotak. #RestInPictures #RIP #GeneWarrenJr https://www.instagram.com/p/B5lE-LRlRN1/?igshid=1d0jegzxzznqe

#restinpictures #rip #genewarrenjr

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mcbastardsmausoleum · 5 years

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SCREAM FACTORY PRESENTS THE CLASSIC SCI-FI FLICK THIS ISLAND EARTH ON BLU-RAY JULY 9th, 2019 Special Features: NEW 4K scan of the inter-positive – Two aspect ratios: 1.85:1 and 1.37:1NEW The Original Perspecta Stereophonic Sound restored by 3-D Film Archive - NEW Audio Commentary with author and Academy Award winning visual effects artist Robert Skotak - NEW Audio Interview with film historian David Schecter on the music of THIS ISLAND EARTH - NEW Alien Ideas - an interview with filmmaker Luigi Cozzi (Starcrash) - NEW Facts about Perspecta Stereophonic Sound by Bob Furmanek - THIS ISLAND EARTH - Two and A Half Years in the Making: The Extended Documentary – a look at the making of - THIS ISLAND EARTHWAR OF THE PLANETS: 1958 Castle Films release for the home market including both the 50-foot silent Headline edition and the 200-foot sound Complete edition - Trailers from Hell – This Island Earth with commentary by filmmaker Joe DanteTheatrical Trailer - Still Galleries – poster and lobby cards, publicity stills and behind-the-scenes photos https://www.instagram.com/p/ByF9FXBFGyD/?igshid=v99n4tao2tlw

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themastercylinder · 5 years

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SUMMARY

In the film’s prologue, two geological researchers for the American multinational corporation NTI encounter an ancient alien laboratory on Titan, the largest moon of Saturn. In the lab is an egg-like container which is keeping an alien creature alive. The creature emerges and kills the researchers. Two months later, the geologists’ spaceship crashes into the space station Concorde in orbit around Earth’s moon, its pilot having died in his seat.

CREATURE, 1985

NTI dispatches a new ship, the Shenandoah, to Titan. Its crew, consisting of Captain Mike Davison (Stan Ivar), Susan Delambre (Marie Laurin), Jon Fennel (Robert Jaffe), Dr. Wendy H. Oliver (Annette McCarthy), David Perkins (Lyman Ward) and Beth Sladen (Wendy Schaal), is accompanied by the taciturn security officer Melanie Bryce (Diane Salinger). While in orbit, the crew locate a signal coming from the moon—the distress call of a ship from the rival German multinational Richter Dynamics. Their own landing turns disastrous when the ground collapses beneath their landing site, dropping the ship into a cavern and wrecking it. When radio communication fails, a search party is sent out to contact the Germans.

In the German ship, they find one of the containers from the prologue breached, as well as the dead bodies of the crew. The creature appears and kills Delambre when she lags behind the escaping group. Fennel enters a state of shock at the sight and Bryce sedates him. When they return to their own ship, the Americans find that one of the Germans, Hans Rudy Hofner (Klaus Kinski), has snuck aboard. He tells them how his crew was slain by the creature, which was buried with other organisms as part of a galactic menagerie. He proposes returning to his ship to get explosives, but the crew are unwilling to risk it.

It becomes apparent that the creature’s undead victims are controlled by the creature through parasites. Unsupervised in the medbay, Fennel sees the undead Delambre through a porthole and follows her outside. She strips naked, and he stands transfixed while she removes his helmet. He asphyxiates, and then she attaches an alien parasite to his head. Now under alien control, Fennel sends a transmission to his crew mates, inviting them over to the German ship. Hofner and Bryce are sent to get some air tanks for the Shenandoah and stand guard over it, while the rest of the crew go over to the Richter ship.

Hofner and Bryce stop over at the menagerie on their way, and are attacked by Delambre, who has had a parasite attached earlier. The rest of the crew go over to the Richter ship, and find Fennel with a bandage on his head to conceal his parasite. Davison insists that medical officer Oliver examine his head, so Fennel has her accompany him to the engineering quarters to feed her to the creature. Davison and Perkins notice Fennel doesn’t sweat and go check on them. They are too late to rescue Oliver, who is decapitated by the creature, but Perkins blows up Fennel’s head with his pistol.

Soon afterwards, Sladen runs into an infected Hofner. She escapes the ship, and in her haste, only puts on her helmet after exiting. Perkins spots her outside and opens the airlock. Now unconscious, Sladen is carried in by Hofner to lure the others. They fight, and Davison manages to defeat Hofner by ripping off his parasite. The three survivors formulate a plan to electrocute the creature with the ship’s fusion modules, which can only be accessed by going through the engineering quarters.

Alarms suddenly sound as a creature makes its way through the ship, committing sabotage. Sladen and Davison go through engineering to construct an electrocution trap, while Perkins goes to the computer room to monitor the creature. Sladen finishes rigging the trap just in time for the creature’s arrival, and they apparently electrocute it to death. However, when Davison leaves, it captures Sladen.

CREATURE, Robert Jaffe, Klaus Kinski, 1985

Davison and Perkins follow her screaming and find her locked inside engineering. Studying the ship’s blueprints, they find another entrance to engineering and sends Perkins to lure away the creature while Davison retrieves Sladen. On the way, Perkins locates one of the bombs Hofner had mentioned, just before the creature jumps him. Dying, Perkins manages to attach the bomb to the creature and set off the countdown so Davison can jettison it through the airlock.

It climbs back aboard, however, so Davison tackles it, throwing himself out the airlock in the process. When the bomb fails to explode, Bryce appears and shoots it, which sets it off and kills the creature. She recovers Davison and dresses his wounds, then they reunite with Sladen and finally launch the ship.

Director William Malone

BEHIND THE SCENES/ PRODUCTION

Even though in space, nobody can hear you scream Bill Malone still wants you to try. The 37 year old director of SCARED TO DEATH is getting ready to try and scare audiences again with his second feature, THE TITAN FIND. The $4.2 million production is set to open this spring, and Malone is cautiously optimistic about its chances.

The film is set in the near future, when the commercialization of space is well under way. On the surface of Titan, a research ship has discovered the remains of an ancient alien laboratory and its collection of specimens. One specimen, however, turns out to be much livelier than originally thought, and kills all but one of the crew. The survivor lives long enough to make it back to Earth, setting off a race between two competing multinational firms for whatever is there, both unaware of just how deadly the alien is.

Despite its small budget, the film boasts good production values, with set design by Robert Skotak and effects by the L.A. Effects Group, and stars international weirdo Klaus Kinski as a German space commander.

Malone, a baby-faced man who resembles DREAMSCAPE’s villain David Patrick Kelley, explained the roundabout way THE TITAN FIND got off the ground. “After I did SCARED TO DEATH, I was trying to get another project going.” said Malone. “One of the people my producer Bill Dunn and I went to see said they’d really like to make a picture like SCARED TO DEATH. They signed us up to do one of our projects, MURDER IN THE 21ST CENTURY, a detective story. After we did the screenplay, they didn’t think it had enough exploitation value. ‘What else do you have,’ they asked, and can you have it to us by tomorrow morning?’ This was in January, 1984.

“On that short a notice, all I could do was go through my files and see what I had kicking around. I found a two page story synopsis of THE TITAN FIND which I had written six or seven years earlier, and I took that in to them. It was basically just the beginning of the picture as it is now. I read it to them with some background tapes of classical music and they loved it. I said to myself, ‘Great…, now how do I make a film out of this?”

Not only was how a problem, but where as well. With a tight budget and little lead time given the company, it would have been nearly impossible to get studio space to shoot the film. The production’s answer was to create its own studio, setting up shop in an abandoned industrial plant in Burbank. The small warehouse became a tight maze of different bits of spaceship interiors and planet exteriors, with Malone’s crew shooting on one set, while another was torn down behind them and another built just ahead of them. Filming began June 25th.

Construction of the bridge of the NTI spaceship ‘Shenandoah

“We’ve been on it now for 8′ weeks, and I’m tired,” said Malone. “This has been a particularly tough picture because everything’s got smoke and dust and lava rock, which not only creates a lot of noise when you step on it, but makes this gritty dust and gets into everything. We’re forever wearing filter masks. Initially it sounded like a good idea doing everything in one location where you wouldn’t have to be moving people around, but after a while, all you want to do is go outside and see some sun.”

Malone is taking a lot of liberties with the Titan setting. “Well, I figure it will be a long time before anybody gets there to find out what it is actually like,” he said. “Everything’s got this sort of Dante’s Inferno look to it. There are these tremendous lightning storms going on all the time. The picture almost winds up looking like gothic horror. In fact, when we designed the miniatures, that was the instruction, make them look like Dracula’s castle. From the dailies, someone said they thought it looked like a Mario Bava picture, which I take as a compliment.”

To get the most out of the sets and special effects, Malone decided to shoot in widescreen Panavision. “A space picture practically demands that kind of format,” said Malone. “I had to do some fast talking because most of the people involved didn’t want to go anamorphic. Initially it’s a pain in the ass to deal with the Panavision company. If you’re not a major company, they tend to want all their money up front, and that’s very hard to deal with, but once we had set the deal with them, they were easier to get along with. Using Panavision really paid off in the long run, because it gives the picture a bigger look. With Panavision, you gain about 40 percent in image area, and it tremendously improves the image and clarity. This is only my first Panavision picture, but after working with it, you get kind of spoiled.”

Robert Skotak on the set of the Richter Dynamics spaceship from ‘Titan Find

One group that found it a little harder to work up enthusiasm for the widescreen format were the people involved in physically producing the special effects for the film, the year old L.A. Effects Group headed by Larry Benson. The company includes Alan Markowitz, director of animation and optical effects, and Corman effects graduates Robert and Dennis Skotak. Robert serves as director of visual effects while brother Dennis is director of photography.

“The single biggest problem we had was the anamorphic format,” said Dennis Skotak. “Bill Malone likes widescreen, and I like widescreen, but for a limited budget, it’s a problem. It’s real hard to force depth of-field because you have to have a great deal of light to close the camera aperture down.

“Because the budget was so low on this picture, we had a limit on how much time could be spent building the models. The ships are not large enough for a lot of the things that are necessary. One of the producers wanted a shot of the Shenandoah much closer than what we had planned it to be. I had to pull out the bag of tricks to get it done. We had to have the ship so close to the camera that it was grazing the film magazine.”

“I storyboarded the film, designed all of the miniatures (except for the American ship, The Shenandoah, which Bill Malone designed himself), and worked closely with Bill on the planning and staging of each shot,” Skotak explains. “He pretty much left me with a free hand to design the look and layout of each scene. His input was heavily along the lines of what the mood and coloration of something should be, the things that were important to convey a building feeling of suspense. For example, when the ships are approaching Titan, they’re not zooming by. They’re moving very slowly, almost serenely. Then as they enter Titan’s atmosphere, there is all of this lightning going on around them and huge dust storms everywhere. “In the same way, we wanted the interior of the Richter Dynamics ship, where a lot of the action takes place, to look very German Gray, functional, much like a battleship. We wanted it to look like a weird place without getting ludicrous. I made it a little expressionistic, gave it buttresses and bulkheads to shoot from behind. There is also a geographic quality to the bridge; the area is broken up into planes by several different shapes.”

An Early Concept

Robert Skotak’s Creature Design

Skotak also designed the look of the alien, which Malone finally approved after choosing elements from dozens of different sketches that Bob drew. Mike McCracken and Don Pennington were among several people who contributed molds and mechanics to the snakish suit, but it was Doug Beswick, who was called upon, under a heavy deadline, to pull the whole suit together.

“I was real skeptical about it being finished on time,” Beswick recalls. “Bill could only push the shooting schedule back 13 days. The neck and jaw had to be rebuilt to give the creature a larger bite radius, the fingers had to be extended and given long claws, legs and arms had to be built, we had to get a truly vicious look into the face.

This is the small scale maquette, which estabilished the look for the Monster — which would have only minor modifications. It was built by Michael McCracken’s team.

“We would have liked to have done more, but it was a very limited schedule. Considering that, I’m very happy with the way the thing turned out. I haven’t seen many dailies, but what I’ve seen looks good. They are shooting it right, taking their time to light it correctly. I hesitated at first to take on this job, because of the time limit, but I was able to do it and I’ve learned quite a lot, so now I’m glad that I took it on.”

Beswick also built a mock up version and a one-third scale gelatin replica of the rubber suit, both of which will be used in surprise special effect scenes. But monsters from other planets aren’t all you’ll be cringing at. Besides your basic assortment of gouged necks, chewed limbs and decapitated skulls, Titan Find will grace screens with the spectacle of ripped faces, exploding heads and flying cow bellies.

Special effects makeup was originally designed by Bruce Zahlava, who left the production due to creative differences halfway through the shooting. Jill Rockow, a makeup veteran of The Howling, Frightmare, Deadly Eyes, Conan the Destroyer and Friday the 13th-The Final Chapter, among numerous others, is responsible for the daily applications. One of her primary tasks was to destroy parasite victims Robert Jaffe and Klaus Kinski from the inside out.

“Robert Jaffe has the most makeup of anybody.” Rockow explains. “He attacks people and spits blood at them. His face deteriorates and pulls off. In fact, it’s my hand that rips his face off! The actress he’s fighting with in the scene had to go home, and the actual ripping was done with a fake head. I just reached into the frame and pulled off a section of it to expose the underneath, which was a duplicate of the makeup Robert had on.

Jill Rockow Applies Prosthetics

“His face peels off more later on, to reveal this whole bloody and slimy underface. Eventually, his head explodes completely. That was done with another fake head and pyrotechnics. The head was filled with cow bellies, cow brains; it was a real party there. It was made out of gelatin and we planted pieces of primacord inside it. Primacord’s an explosive that is so powerful that a piece of it wrapped around your neck will shoot your head right off. It cuts things off clean. People who do blasts for oil wells use it.

“Robert Jaffe really gets destroyed in this. He’s a producer as well as actor; he produced Motel Hell and Demon Seed. He was wonderful to work with, very cooperative. We went through five hours of makeup application every day and two hours of taking it off. He never moaned once.”

Three overlapping appliances are used to create Klaus Kinski’s makeup. The chin goes on first, then the nose, and the forehead and cheek pieces last. As his character starts to deteriorate, plugs on his cheeks and chin are pulled out to uncover the monstrous mutation going on underneath. Rockow and her crew, which included Jerry Quist and Paul Rinehard, have their work cut out for them with these designs; because of the limited budget (estimated at $4 million), Kinski does not appear in all of his scenes, and two doubles, neither of whom resemble the Polish actor, or each other for that matter, have to stand in for him in a number of action scenes. Luckily, Rockow’s foam rubber appliances cover the entire face, so the differences in actors is impossible to detect.

“The alien itself and all the parasites were covered in K-Y,” Rockow explains, “and everyone’s face was K-Y’d too. We tinted it a yellowish-brown for all of the decomposing human stuff. The neat thing about K-Y is that it dries about an hour or so after you apply it, to a point where it’s not slippery. A lot of makeup people use Methocel for creating slime, but that dries hard and you’ve got to peel it off before you can put a new batch on. This stuff just keeps dripping until it dries.

“About the gore, I tend to sort of pull back in that area,” says Malone. “There are some dramatic scenes that have some gore in them, but I think that if you do it all the way through, then it loses its punch. My basic approach is that I really like suspense more than gore, but the problem is that you have to remember that we also have to try and sell the movie overseas. There are countries that won’t buy your picture without a certain amount of gore in it. Look at the Italian zombie movies, and Japanese kid shows, they have people getting hacked to pieces and arrows that go through eyes … that sort of stuff, so you have to have some pretty heavyweight material in your picture for them to be interested in it.”

Regarding Klaus Kinski

Surprises and difficulties were in store for the live action crew as well. No sooner had Malone worked out the story line for the film and started work on the script when his backers threw him a curve. To help give the film a stronger selling point, his investors had gotten a “name” actor, Klaus Kinski. The problem was that they only had Kinski for a week, and there wasn’t a part in the film that would suit him.

“Previously, we had clues in the original story as to what happened in the German ship, and the audience was supposed to draw its own conclusions,” Malone said. “But once we had Klaus, it seemed the best thing to do was make him the commander of the German ship and work from there. I think he enjoyed working on the film, but it was very hard to tell. He’s got an unusual personality. He worked with me on his part in the script, and actually, I think he would make a very good story editor. He was very helpful with suggestions and with working with the other actors.

I think it helped everyone else too because they really seemed to be working harder because they were working with him.

“Klaus was crazier off camera than the part I wrote for him, and I wrote him as a total looney. The first day of shooting he shows up, and the first thing out of his mouth was, ‘I raped my 12-year-old daughter, you know.’ I thought, oh great, this is going to be fun. “Halfway through the first day of shooting, the crew came up to me en masse and said, ‘Billy, we want you to know we’re all going to take Klaus out back and beat the shit out of him.’ I said, ‘Look guys, you have to wait until the end of the week, and then you can do everything you want.’ He was a madman, really, but I will say this, when he’s on screen, he just lights up the screen. He’s definitely one of the best things in the picture. He really added a lot to it. When we write a script, a lot of times the actors don’t give you what you heard in your head. Klaus was one of the few people who gave me exactly what I was writing, the intonation and delivery that I heard for this stuff.”

A running gag on the set occurred after Kinski tried to make a pass at the female makeup artist who was applying his makeup by sticking his knee between her legs and telling her, “That is not my knee, that is my cock.” From then on, whenever anyone on the set bumped into someone else, it became de rigueur to say, “That is not my knee, that is my cock,” regardless of the circumstances.

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ALIEN rip off?

“You have to understand that this movie has turned out to be a lot bigger picture than we set out to make. We started out small, but after the second week of shooting, the investors looked at the footage and said they loved it and wanted us to make it bigger and better, so they kept throwing money at us, which is really a filmmaker’s dream. We’re using a Dolby stereo soundtrack, which isn’t something we were originally designed for. When we put together a rough cut of the movie, we decided it would add a lot to the film, even though it was going to cost another $80,000.”

Aside from the technical aspects of the film, Malone knows he’s going to run into objections about the film: is it an ALIEN rip off?

“I don’t know what to say about the ALIEN question,” Malone continued. “I guess it depends on whether you consider ALIEN an original story. I don’t look at that many films as real originals. I know ALIEN had elements of several films in it that I could name, but beyond that, most genre films are pretty derivative. I think that THE TITAN FIND has got some unusual and interesting things in it. Certainly the film is going to be compared to other films, but I don’t think you can help that. I actually think there’s a lot more of 1950’s science fiction in it than anything else, and that it resembles ALIEN because Dan O’Bannon and myself were probably inspired by the same pictures. I like Spielberg’s JAWS also. I think it’s probably one of the best monster movies ever made; when I was writing Klaus Kinski’s part, I wanted to try and capture more of the feel of Robert Shaw’s part in that, than ALIEN.”

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Cast

Stan Ivar as Captain Mike Davison

Wendy Schaal as Beth Sladen

Lyman Ward as David Perkins

Robert Jaffe as Jon Fennel

Diane Salinger as Melanie Bryce

Annette McCarthy as Dr. Wendy H. Oliver

Marie Laurin as Susan Delambre

Klaus Kinski as Hans Rudy Hofner

Directed by William Malone

Produced by William G. Dunn

Screenplay by William Malone Alan Reed

Produced by

Moshe Diamant … executive producer

William G. Dunn … producer (as William G. Dunn Jr.)

Ronnie Hadar … executive producer

William Malone … producer

Don Stern … associate producer

Art Direction by Michael Novotny

Stephen Glassman … scenic artist

Special Effects by

Wayne Beauchamp … pyrotechnician

Doug Beswick … creature coordinator / miniature construction

John Eggett … pyrotechnician

Michael McCracken … creator: “Titan Find” creature

Gerald Quist … special effects makeup assistant

Paul Rinehard … special effects makeup assistant

Jill Rockow … special effects makeup assistant

Robert Short … weapons creator

Bruce Zahlava … special effects makeup supervisor

Visual Effects by

Larry Benson … visual effects executive producer: The L.A. Effects Group Inc.

Suzanne M. Benson … visual effects production associate: The L.A. Effects Group Inc.

Bob Burns … effects technician: The L.A. Effects Group Inc.

Steve Caldwell … effects technician: The L.A. Effects Group Inc.

George D. Dodge … effects cinematographer: The L.A. Effects Group Inc. (as George Dodge)

Judith Evans … effects technician: The L.A. Effects Group Inc.

Alec Gillis … special thanks: The L.A. Effects Group Inc.

Sanford Kennedy … model maker: The L.A. Effects Group Inc.

John Lambert … optical consultant: The L.A. Effects Group Inc.

Alan G. Markowitz … animation supervisor: The L.A. Effects Group Inc. (as Alan Markowitz) / director optical effects: The L.A. Effects Group Inc. (as Alan Markowitz)

Pat McClung … special thanks: The L.A. Effects Group Inc.

Jake Monroy … mechanical engineer: The L.A. Effects Group Inc.

Jay Roth … model maker: The L.A. Effects Group Inc.

Dennis Skotak … director of photography: The L.A. Effects Group Inc. / stage supervisor: The L.A. Effects Group Inc.

Robert Skotak … special designer: The L.A. Effects Group Inc. / visual effects director: The L.A. Effects Group Inc.

Kathleen Spurney … effects technician: The L.A. Effects Group Inc.

George Turner … effects animator: The L.A. Effects Group Inc.

Steve Benson … visual effects supervisor (uncredited)

REFERENCES and SOURCES

Cinefantastique v 15 n02

Fangoria 041

Creature (1985) Retrospective SUMMARY In the film's prologue, two geological researchers for the American multinational corporation NTI encounter an ancient alien laboratory on Titan, the largest moon of Saturn.

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rhetthammersmithhorror · 6 months

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Invasion Earth: The Aliens Are Here | 1988

#Invasion Earth: The Aliens Are Here #Robert Skotak #halloween mask #boo #practical effects #trick of treat #monster suit #80s horror #hammersmith horror #horror comedy #nixon mask

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brokehorrorfan · 5 years

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Galaxy of Terror and Forbidden World will be released on Blu-ray with new SteelBook packaging on August 13 via Scream Factory. From producer Roger Corman, both sci-fi/horror films were inspired by the success of Alien.

Each SteelBook is limited to 5,000 units. Laz Marquez designed the new artwork. Orders placed directly from Shout Factory for $24.99 each will receive an 28.5x16.5 lithograph print of the art, limited to 1,500.

1981's Galaxy of Terror (also known as Mindwarp: An Infinity of Terror) is directed by Bruce D. Clark (Hammer). Edward Albert, Erin Moran, Ray Walston, Taaffe O'Connell, Robert Englund, and Sid Haig star.

1982's Forbidden World (also known as Mutant) is directed by Allan Holzman (Programmed to Kill). Jesse Vint, Dawn Dunlap, June Chadwick, Linden Chiles, Fox Harris, and Michael Bowen star.

Galaxy of Terror and Forbidden World have each received new 4K scans of original film elements. The director’s cut of Forbidden World's is also included with a new 2K scan of its only existing film print. Extras are listed below.

Galaxy of Terror special features:

Audio commentary with cast and crew

Tales From The Lumber Yard: The Making of Galaxy of Terror – Interviews with producer Roger Corman, director/co-writer Bruce D. Clark, co-writer Marc Siegler, actors Robert Englund, Sid Haig, Taaffe O’Connell, and more

Alternate credits with Mindwarp: An Infinity of Terror title

Theatrical trailers

TV Spots

Photo galleries

The mind's innermost fears become reality for the crew members of the Quest when they land on a barren planet to rescue survivors from the starship Remus. The crew investigates a giant pyramid on the planet, hoping to find the missing crew members ... only to find something deadly waiting for them instead. Each crew member must come face to face with their darkest fears or perish.

Forbidden World special features:

Theatrical & director’s cuts of the film

Audio commentary by director/editor Allan Holzman (on director's cut)

The Making of Forbidden World – Interviews with director/editor Allan Holzman, special visual effects artist/production designer Robert Skotak, actor Jesse Vint, composer Susan Justin, and more

Interview with producer Roger Corman

Interview with special effects artist John Carl Buechler

Theatrical trailer

Photo galleries

On planet Xarbia, an experimental life form known as "Subject 20" has been created by an elite group of scientists in hopes of preventing a major galactic food crisis. However, instead of prolonging life, Subject 20 is destroying it, and the organism poses a double threat because it constantly changes its genetic structure. Mike Colby, a bounty hunter, is called in to investigate. Suspecting that the scientists are keeping something from him, Colby soon discovers why ...

#galaxy of terror #forbidden world #roger corman #robert englund #sid haig #scream factory #laz marquez #steelbook #dvd #gift #erin moran #june chadwick #john carl buechler #ray walston #michael bowen

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jerrylentz · 7 years

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While balls deep editing video a nice surprise came in the post! Filmfax no. #16 with an article about PRC and those poverty row studios. We've been watching films by PRC quite a bit lately. Here's the odd thing; no return address or anything saying who sent it. I can only guess it's from either Robert Lippert or Robert Skotak. As both of them are old movie gift-givers and we all have talked about the poverty row studios movies before. I like a good mystery. I love gifts! #jerrylentz #filmfax #magazine #povertyrow #hollywood #studios #prc #producersreleasingcorporation

#magazine #16 #povertyrow #hollywood #producersreleasingcorporation #studios #prc #filmfax #jerrylentz

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byroncraft · 7 years

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Early concept sketch for my scrennplay SHOGGOTH by Robert Skotak now a novel @ Amazon. https://www.amazon.com/Shoggoth-Byron-Craft-ebook/dp/B01GPD1J32/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1489420509&sr=8-4&keywords=byron+craft

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mrmichaelchadler · 6 years

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Home Entertainment Consumer Guide: October 25, 2018

9 NEW TO BLU-RAY/DVD

"Ant-Man and the Wasp"

Quick, what's the most recent Marvel movie? It feels like a lot of people would say "Avengers: Infinity War" or maybe even "Black Panther," forgetting that there was a sequel to "Ant-Man" released this Summer. Marvel has become so dominant that even one of their successful, well-liked tentpole movies can be considered relatively minor. Having said that, "Ant-Man and the Wasp" mostly works. It's under two hours (unlike a lot of MCU movies) and provides a fun diversion. In fact, it's got an element that I wish more Marvel would copy in that it's practically a one-off, tied into the rest of the MCU for sure but also working with its own mythology and characters to satisfy viewers THIS TIME instead of merely planting seeds for the future. It also has one of the best ensembles in the standalone MCU, all the way down to scene-stealers like Michael Pena and David Dastmalchian.

Buy it here

Special Features Director's Intro by Peyton Reed Making-of Featurettes: Back in the Ant Suit: Scott Lang A Suit of Her Own: The Wasp Subatomic Super Heroes: Hank & Janet Quantum Perspective: The VFX and Production Design of "Ant-Man and The Wasp" Gag Reel and Outtakes Deleted Scenes

"Creepshow"

It's that wonderful time of year when Shout Factory's genre banner known as Scream Factory releases special editions of horror classics, complete with new transfers and special features. There are three such releases in this edition of the HECG, and, believe it or not, two of them are anthologies. One of the most famous such films of all time is this George A. Romero and Stephen King classic, which comes in a gorgeous box set with a booklet and a quote from Roger's review on the back. It's also LOADED with special features, including a new audio commentary, interviews, and a round table discussion, along with all of the imported archival features. "Creepshow" is an inconsistent but really fun movie. It's nice to see it get such a lavish treatment.

Buy it here

Special Features BRAND NEW 4K REMASTER SOURCED FROM THE ORIGINAL CAMERA NEGATIVE, with color correction supervised and approved by director of photography Michael Gornick NEW Audio Commentary with director of photography Michael Gornick NEW Audio Commentary with composer/first assistant director John Harrison and construction co-ordinator Ed Fountain NEW Terror and the Three Rivers – a round table discussion on the making of CREEPSHOW with John Amplas, Tom Atkins, Tom Savini and Marty Schiff NEW The Comic Book Look – an interview with costume designer Barbara Anderson NEW Ripped From The Pages – an interview with animator Rick Catizone NEW The Colors of Creepshow – a look at the restoration of CREEPSHOW with director of photography Michael Gornick NEW Into The Mix – an interview with sound re-recordist Chris Jenkins NEW Mondo Macabre – A look at Mondo's various CREEPSHOW posters with Mondo Co-Founder Rob Jones and Mondo Gallery Events Planner Josh Curry NEW Collecting Creepshow – a look at some of the original props and collectibles from the film with collector Dave Burian Audio Commentary with Director George A. Romero and Special Make-Up Effects Creator Tom Savini Audio Interviews with director of photography Michael Gornick, actor John Amplas, property master Bruce Alan Miller, and make-up effects assistant Darryl Ferrucci Tom Savini's Behind-the-Scenes Footage Horror's Hallowed Grounds – a look at the original film locations hosted by Sean Clark Deleted Scenes Theatrical Trailers TV Spot Radio Spots Still Galleries – Posters, Lobby Cards and Movie Stills Still Galleries – Behind the Scenes photos Optional English SDH subtitles for the main feature

"Eighth Grade"

Bo Burnham's directorial debut is one of the most quietly beloved films of 2018, often appearing on lists of films from this year that you really should see before you do any year-end consideration. It really is something special, capturing what it's like to be an 8th grader in the '10s better than any film to date. Not only is Burnham's writing and directing surprisingly sensitive, he found something incredibly special in Elsie Fisher, who gives what is quite simply one of the best performances of the year. So many young actresses in movies "about teenage life" feel like they're making a statement instead of embodying a character but Fisher is always real, and inevitably heartbreaking. This is a wonderful movie.

Buy it here

Special Features Audio Commentary with Director Bo Burnham and Actress Elsie Fisher "You're Not Alone: Life in Eighth Grade" Featurette Music Video Deleted Scenes

"Hotel Transylvania 3"

I'm including this one for my kids and because the market is kind of dry right now for family films. Could you do worse than the latest Adam Sandler riff on the Universal monsters? Sure, but these movies started on low ground in terms of quality and have only sunk into the muck. Trust me, I've seen this one a bunch as my boys are somehow obsessed enough with this franchise for repeat viewing. Kudos, I guess, to Sony for timing this release for Halloween marathons for the little ones who can't quite do actual horror movies yet and before the superior "Teen Titans" and "Incredibles 2" hit the home market.

Buy it here

Special Features Three All New Scary-Oke Sing Alongs: Sing along to three Hotel Transylvania 3 inspired songs with your favorite characters! "Dennis Had a Giant Dog" – Sung by Dennis & Winnie "Monsters Like to Party Down" – Sung by Johnny "Oh These Wolf Pups" – Sung by Wanda Werewolf Plan Your Own Spook-tacular Sleepover: This feature will give you all details on how to make your own sleepover spook-tacular! From snacks to crafts to games and more, follow these steps to create a Hotel T sleep-over with your friends and family, the perfect setting to binge watch all 3 Hotel Transylvania movies. Vampire Make Over: Mavis and Drac Tutorial: Learn how to turn yourself into your favorite Hotel Transylvania 3 characters. Behind the Screams – The Voices of Hotel Transylvania 3: Step behind the "screams" with the returning stars and hilarious new cast to see how these characters are brought to life in the recording booth. Johnny's Home Movies (Franchise Recap): Johnny brings viewers up to speed on what's happened in the Hotel Transylvania franchise so far. "I See Love" Monster Dance Party Dance Along: Get up and get moving to this haunting monster mash. Drac's Zing-tastic Read Along: It's storytime with your favorite characters have a silly tale about Drac's search for a Zing! Read along or sit back and enjoy! Two Mini Movies (rated G): Two mini-features that will have you howling. Puppy Goodnight Mr. Foot

"House on Haunted Hill"

William Malone's remake of the Vincent Price classic is a mixed bag, to be kind. The 1999 launching pad for Joel Silver's Dark Castle production banner, this gory flick has some great moments, including a brilliant set-up that allows Geoffrey Rush and Famke Janssen to wonderfully chew some scenery. For about an hour, this twisted tale actually kind of works. They just forgot to write a coherent ending. Just fall asleep or turn it off before that point and you'll be happier.

Buy it here

Special Features BRAND NEW 2K REMASTER from the original film elements NEW interview with director William Malone NEW interview with composer Don Davis NEW Interview with visual effects supervisor Robert Skotak Never-Before-Seen storyboards, concept art and behind-the-scenes photos courtesy of visual effects producer Paul Taglianetti Audio Commentary with director William Malone A Tale of Two Houses – vintage featurette Behind the Visual FX – vintage featurette Deleted Scenes Theatrical Trailer TV Spots Movie Stills and Poster Gallery Optional English SDH subtitles for the main feature

"Shampoo" (Criterion)

The best Criterion release of the month is this classic that always crosses my mind when I think about films that caught performers at their most charismatic. You know what I mean. Some movies find stars at exactly the moment it needed to find them. There's an element of this in the current success of "A Star is Born," which wouldn't work the same without Bradley Cooper and Lady Gaga being exactly where they are in their careers in 2018. Same goes for Warren Beatty and Goldie Hawn in 1975's "Shampoo" (along with Julie Christie and Lee Grant, for that matter.) One of Hal Ashby's best films comes with a great 4K transfer but a relatively, for Criterion, slight collection of special features. The new conversation between Mark Harris and Frank Rich is excellent, however.

Buy it here

Special Features New 4K digital restoration, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack on the Blu-ray Alternate 5.1 surround soundtrack, presented in DTS-HD Master Audio on the Blu-ray New conversation between critics Mark Harris and Frank Rich Excerpt from a 1998 appearance by producer, cowriter, and actor Warren Beatty on The South Bank Show PLUS: An essay by Rich

"Skyscraper"

Did we get a bit too much of The Rock in too short a period of time? For a period of time there, it looked like Dwayne Johnson may be the biggest star in the world. (And he may still be). With the success of the "Furious" movies and the phenomenon that was "Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle," he entered 2018 on a high, but both of his films this year, "Rampage" and "Skyscraper," were domestic disappointments. (Both did much better overseas.) Perhaps worse than their box office fates, they just weren't very good. This one is particularly dispiriting, coming off like the bland "Die Hard" retreads we got so often in the '90s. Come on, Dwayne. If you're gonna be our #1 star than we need you to pass on junk like this.

Buy it here

Special Features Deleted Scenes with Commentary by Director Rawson Marshall Thurber – Go behind the scenes with Dwayne Johnson and the rest of the cast of Skyscraper. Extended Scenes with Commentary by Director Rawson Marshall Thurber Dwayne Johnson: Embodying a Hero – Go behind the scenes to see what it took for Dwayne Johnson to bring the intense character of Will Sawyer to life. Inspiration – Meet real life amputee and motivational speaker Jeff Glasbrenner, the inspiration for Dwayne Johnson's role of Will Sawyer. See how Jeff's consultations helped inform Dwayne's character from day one. Opposing Forces – There's no holding back as the women of Skyscraper get in on the action. Now, see first-hand what it took for Neve Campbell and Hannah Quinlivan to be fight ready. Friends No More – When Dwayne Johnson and Pablo Schreiber met face to face, they immediately knew what they were up against. Witness first-hand the making of the intense apartment fight between two former on-screen friends, Will and Ben. Kids in Action – In Skyscraper everyone gets in on the action, even the Sawyer children. Go on set with Noah Cottrell and McKenna Roberts to discover the moves behind their stunts. Pineapple Pitch – Hear first-hand from Dwayne Johnson how writer/director Rawson Marshall Thurber pitched him the idea of Skyscraper. It may be a little fruitier than you think. Feature Commentary by Director Rawson Marshall Thurber

"Sorry to Bother You"

The closer we get to the end of the year, the more I think Boots Riley's debut is one of its best films. It's certainly one of its most unforgettable. I've already written about the film twice (Sundance and theatrical) so I don't have much more to say, but let me throw in with my other Gotham Awards committee members who nominated Lakeith Stanfield for his fantastic work here, giving an incredibly physical and committed performance. So much of "Sorry to Bother You" feels like "Boots Movie" but it wouldn't work at all without someone so completely on the same page as the film's creator as Stanfield, who has quietly become one of the most interesting actors of his generation. I hope he continues to do challenging, fascinating work such as what he delivers here.

Buy it here

Special Features Beautiful Clutter with Director Boots Riley Audio Commentary with Director Boots Riley Gallery The Cast of Sorry to Bother You The Art of the White Voice

"Trick 'r Treat"

Horror is still the only genre that can truly produce word-of-mouth, home market hits, such as this anthology flick that never even played in movie theaters. Anywhere. And yet it became an instant hit when it was released on DVD in late 2009. So much so that Scream Factory has given it one of their most lavish Halloween season Collector's Edition treatments. It's a fantastic release for what's a really solid flick, a clear child of "Creepshow" with smart writing and direction. Hopefully it will spur enough interest to get the long-delayed sequel finally off the ground.

Buy it here

Special Features BRAND NEW 2K REMASTER OF THE FILM supervised and approved by director Michael Dougherty NEW Tales of Folklore & Fright: Creating Trick 'r Treat – including interviews with writer/director Michael Dougherty, conceptual artist Breehn Burns, and storyboard artist Simeon Wilkins. NEW Tales of Mischief & Mayhem: Filming Trick 'r Treat – in-depth interview with Michael Dougherty on the making of the film NEW Sounds of Shock & Superstition: Scoring Trick 'r Treat – including interviews with Michael Dougherty and composer Douglas Pipes NEW Tales of Dread and Despair: Releasing Trick 'r Treat – a look at the release and fandom with Michael Dougherty and writer Rob Galluzzo Season's Greetings – NEW 2K scan of the original 16mm elements – a short film by Michael Dougherty with optional commentary by Dougherty NEW Storyboard and Conceptual Artwork Gallery NEW Behind the Scenes Still Gallery NEW Monster Mash – a story from the TRICK 'R TREAT graphic novel NEW FEARnet.com Shorts Audio Commentary with director Michael Dougherty Trick 'R Treat: The Lore and Legends of Halloween featurette Deleted and Alternate Scenes with optional commentary by director Michael Dougherty School Bus FX Comparison Theatrical Trailer Optional English SDH subtitles for the main feature

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