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OF MAKING A LOW-BUDGET HORROR MOVIE The Personal Nightmare of 'Nightmare in Blood' |
 Actor Jerry Walter as Malakai the Vampire, eye to eye with a bird-of-prey coffin, built by John Stanley's dad, Myron G. Stanley. |
Want to direct a movie?
Then read this and cry!
By JOHN STANLEY
of TheColumnists.com
Many dream of becoming filmmakers and turning their
visions into 50-foot-high realities. It is a profession that
beckons to current generations like no other. I tried to follow
that dream but my story is not one of complete triumph. It is
about frustration and failure, even though it ultimately ended
with some degree of "success." Let this story, then,
serve as a learning lesson.
In the beginning was an idea. That idea came easy, but it was
hard to fulfill: to make a full-length movie about the world
of fandom, that oddball place in the Universe where fans and
enthusiasts come together with professionals to share the fun
of science-fiction, fantasy and horror, in whatever incantation
these genres might be presented. Whether it is an oil painting
of Saturn and its rings, a woman’s design fashioned to enhance
and reveal the curvaceous body of an Xena or Sheena, a Spiderman
comic book or a metaphysical novel by Philip K. Dick, so let
it please us.
Fandom by 1972 had exploded into an international phenomenon
with conventions and assorted gatherings taking place all over
our planet. So why not a movie that takes place at a horror convention?
We were just a couple of guys working for a living, grunts in
the world of journalism, when Kenn Davis and I decided to write
"Nightmare in Blood." Kenn, who painted surrealistic
oils on the side, was working as a photo retoucher and illustrator
at the San Francisco Chronicle, the same place where I labored
(though harmoniously, in tune with a world I was fascinated with)
as an entertainment writer, covering movies and television.
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from his luxurious coffin in "Nightmare in Blood." |
By the late 1960s I had
come to specialize in interviews with such luminaries as Jimmy
Stewart, Lucille Ball and Jackie Gleason. Yes, I had always leaned
a bit in favor of science-fiction: such as my 1966 interview
with Leonard Nimoy, months before "Star Trek" came
to NBC, or my talks with Ray Bradbury and producer Irwin Allen
and some guy named Gene Roddenberry.
Since we rode home together a couple of nights a week, Kenn and
I had discovered we shared a common love of movies. I realized,
after knowing Kenn a couple of years, that he knew a lot more
about movies and he was responsible for pointing me toward some
films I had never seen. If anyone opened up my eyes to the richness
of movies, it was Kenn. We also shared a love for soundtrack
music and were always rattling on about Max Steiner, Miklos Rosza
and Bernard Herrmann.
One other thing we shared in common was an interest in science-fiction
and horror. We also liked mysteries and in early 1970 had begun
working on a private-eye screenplay, "The Dark Side of the
Hunt."
It was Kenn’s idea to write a story about a black San Francisco detective named Carver Bascombe. (This was before anyone had ever heard of John Shaft or Richard Roundtree.) We had even found a San Francisco-based stage actor, John Cochran, to play the Bascombe role.
And then came a big mistake: American-International offered to buy the script from us, but because we had promised John Cochran that the three of us would make the film come hell or high water, we turned it down. (Primarily because they wanted the script without us attached as would-be film wreckers.) We should have taken the offer but we were young and idealistic–and very idiotic.
("Dark Side of the
Hunt" didn’t completely die. A few years later it would
be novelized by Kenn as "The Dark Side"–my name
was on it but I really didn’t write it– and published
by Avon. Kenn would go on to write an entire series about Carver
and his San Francisco adventures.)
So, putting aside "Dark Side" for the time being, in
the spring of ‘72 Kenn and I set out to write a horror script
revolving around fandom. First came the characters: We decided
our "leading man" would be a Hollywood actor named
Malakai who specialized in genre vampire movies, and who was
a top box-office star.
Malakai would play the role of the vampire when making personal appearances (always at night, always with a coffin in close proximity, always garbed in a Dracula-style cloak) and he would be surrounded by two eccentric (sinister?) public relations men, B.B. and Harris. What the public never knew was that Malakai was a real vampire and his P.R. men . . . well, their true identity would be one of the surprise twists we had in store for the film’s climax. So much for villainy.
Now to the good guys. Each of our protagonists would represent some area of the fandom world and be part of the committee putting on a horror convention in a large movie palace. Head chairman would be Professor Winslow Seabrook, who wrote mysteries on the side and who would reflect the intelligentsia of the book/fandom world. Cindy, Seabrook’s assistant and love interest, would be a good-looking fashion designer who created costumes for women characters. Scotty would be a Sherlock Holmes enthusiast who would use his own esoteric ratiocination to unravel the more complex clues scattered throughout the screenplay (sort of a twisted-up version of Carver Bascombe). Gary Arlington, named after the real-life owner of a San Francisco comic book store and an important contributor to early underground comix, would be garbed in a pseudo-religious robe and serve as a guru-like character who symbolized the great love of comic books in America. This foursome would learn Malakai’s secrets and enter into a supernatural world even though they knew they were risking their lives.
Two other characters would also reflect the fandom world. George Wilson would be the host of a local Saturday night series called "Fright Flicks"– patterned after Bob Wilkins, who was hosting "Creature Features" at KTVU, Channel 2, in Oakland. (I didn’t know it then, but in a few years I would be taking his place at KTVU and hosting the same show for six years.) Dr. Carl Unworth–named after real-life psychiatrist Dr. Frederic Wertham, who had written the infamous anti-comic book diatribe "Seduction of the Innocent"--would serve as the counterpoint to Professor Seabrook’s liberal attitudes.
And symbolizing the horrors of the real world, as opposed to those of fantasy and horror fiction, would be Tobias Ben-Halik, a man in black who would emerge from the shadows appearing to be a sinister menace but who in reality was a pure-of-heart Israeli Avenger, coming forth to kill Malaki for war crimes he helped Hitler to commit during World War II.
Whew, it was a lot of stuff to get into one movie, and maybe it was more than one movie could stand, but we naively and energetically proceeded. We were young and enthusiastic and, yes, we would have much to learn from the experience. But we believed in our concept.
With screenplay completed, we proceeded to raise money for the project. We barely found enough family members and friends who believed in us to put together a "budget." About $51,000. Although we knew it would never be enough to take a film to its completion, we saw no reason why we shouldn’t proceed to the next stage: choosing cast and crew. One step at a time is a good way to proceed, and never but never take off your blinders or get too smart.
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| At left, Jerry Walter poses by a tongue-in-cheeky sign at the horror convention locale of 'Nightmare in Blood.' At right, Kerwin Mathews ("7th Voyage of Sinbad," etc.) plays a cameo role in an opening sequence of 'Nightmare in Blood.' |
Our first decision: We would go union and take what we needed
from the professional ranks of movie-makers. None of this cheapskate
business of shooting non-union, taking what you bump into and
using people who might be less than the professionals that movie-making
demands. We knew this would make the project costlier, but it
was a wise choice.
For actors we made a deal
with the San Francisco branch of the Screen Actors Guild (SAG)
and for our crew we signed with the Association of Broadcast
Employees and Technicians (NABET). The Ann Brebner Agency of
San Francisco was at the forefront of casting in those days and
Ms Brebner welcomed us with the same enthusiastic attitude with
which she welcomed pros from Hollywood. SAG required one "open
audition"–a casting call that allows union and non-union
performers to try out for a part–but once we had fulfilled
that obligation, we realized Brebner was the most helpful in
narrowing down our choices to the very best acting talent in
the San Francisco-Bay Area.
To portray Malakai, we chose Jerry Walter, a well-known local
actor who had distinguished himself as a boy radio actor playing
"Jack Armstrong," the All-American Boy. Developing
a dislike for Hollywood and its environs, Jerry had chosen to
live in Marin County and work in TV and movies. He had distinguished
himself in several episodes of "The Streets of San Francisco,"
and had a role in the movie "Freebie and the Bean."
Walter really made his money from wise real-estate investments but always kept his hand in acting. We discovered he had a boisterous style of acting and could bring the over-the-top histronics we wanted in Malakai: a man well-versed in playing various roles after living for many centuries. Jerry did good accents and pseudo-voices and would give the performance of his life as Malakai.
(Years later George Lucas
would hire him to do the voices of the Storm Troopers in "Star
Wars" and he would appear in the "Dirty Harry"
sequel, "The Enforcer." He would also have a memorable
cameo role as a chef in Phil Kaufman’s "Invasion of
the Body Snatchers.")
To portray Malakai’s henchmen we had good fortune. I had
known Ray K. Goman for years for his stand-up comedy work at
Goman’s Gay Nineties, a San Francisco club that had been
at the forefront of San Francisco night life for decades (I had
even profiled Ray in a Chronicle feature.) After the restaurant
closed because of the predominant topless movement of the 1960s,
Ray had turned to acting, taking supporting parts in movies and
TV shows. Among them: "Harold and Maude," "The
People" and TV’s "The Streets of San Francisco."
He was pleased to play B.B. and provided strong moral support,
knowing our lack of experience.
To play Harris, we decided on Hy Pyke, a Hollywood-based actor
who had just started his acting career with the B-feature, "Lemora,
the Lady Dracula." Hy was a demanding and difficult personality
to deal with on a daily basis, but when the camera rolled, he
suddenly became everything you wanted in a villain. He and Ray
together were evil personified.
For Cindy, we auditioned many actresses. Suzanne Somers was introduced
to us (she had just appeared as the girl in the Thunderbird in
George Lucas’ "American Graffiti"), but we felt
she was a comedienne and would evoke laughter, not the viewer
sympathy we were hoping for. (Casting Suzanne would, of course,
have given the film a greater identity, but who knew in 1973?)
Finally we discovered that
Barrie Youngfellow, the receptionist working for Ann Brebner,
was really a good actress, and had taken the job in the hope
of getting an acting role. She had a fresh complexion and a bubbly
attitude that made her perfect for the part. As a receptionist,
however, we hadn’t seen what we were looking for, so Barrie
asked for an audition. She came with her hair fixed differently
and projected exactly what we had been looking for. (Barrie would
go on to play Jan Hoffmeyer in the sitcom "It’s a Living."
I think that personally she hated "Nightmare in Blood"
but was kind enough not to tell us that.)
Naturally, we chose John Cochran, our unsold Carver Bascombe,
to play Scotty the would-be detective, as we had written the
part exclusively for John. ( I suspect John was disappointed
over the failure of "The Dark Side of the Hunt" and
was never really happy playing a supporting role. Kenn and I
both felt John never fully rose to the occasion, harboring some
deep-rooted disappointments.)
Drew Eshelman, who had
appeared at the cattle call, instantly got the Gary Arlington
role. Tall and lean, he was wonderfully ethereal when he read
Gary’s lines. For Professor Seabrook, we discovered an excellent
stage actor from Marin, Dan Caldwell, who was perfect as the
university professor-novelist type, especially when he auditioned
with pipe in mouth. (Dan also had hidden desires to be a director
and would eventually direct "Sip the Wine," a pornographic
love story.)
The Ben-Halik part had been destined from the beginning for Irving
Israel, a local stage actor Kenn and I had previously met and
struck up a friendship with. Irving drove a cab for a living
but really was better suited to play offbeat, rich characters.
Again, Ann Brebner stepped
in to help us cast the Dr. Unworth role, which had proven difficult
for us. We needed someone with authority who could still project
a sense of arrogance and conceit. The day Ann introduced us to
a total unknown, Justin Bishop, he oozed a kind of malevolence
that we couldn’t resist. And finally, to play the Bob Wilkins
role, we chose Morgan Upton, a popular city-based actor who had
appeared in such films as "The Candidate" and "Steelyard
Blues."
While I finalized the casting for the smaller roles, Kenn was
busy picking his crew: cameraman Charles Rudnick, assorted electricians
and make-up specialist James Catania. (One of our on-location
soundmen, Mark Berger, would go on to become one of the Bay Area's
leading post-production sound experts. He served as Francis Ford
Coppola's sound montage associate on "The Godfather, Part
II" and was also Coppola's post--production sound director
on "Apocalpyse Now." In fact, Berger just finished
as the re-recording mixer on the yet-to-be-released "Zapata.")
Together Kenn and I started
looking for a location for the horror convention, and immediately
realized that the well-maintained Fox Theater, built in downtown
Oakland in 1928 as part of the theater chain once owned by 20th
Century-Fox, would be perfect. We quickly signed a lease with
the owner.
We shot for five weeks to achieve what is called "principal
photography," and spent every penny of our meager $51,000.
It proved to be a difficult job, as Kenn and I had to act as
our own producers as well as maintain our day-to-day jobs: Kenn
as director of photography, myself as director. We collaborated
on many other things and we worked alongside the crew, often
carrying equipment to and fro.
Our grandiose concept was
overburdening, but we kept going. We had conceived ambitious
crowd sequences, and ultimately turned to everyone we knew. One
of the participants of a night sequence shot in front of the
theater to depict Malakai’s arrival was a member of a "Planet
of the Apes" fan club who talked his buddies into showing
up in their costumes and make-up. The leader of this band of
chimps and gorillas was later to become a movie director himself:
Fred Dekker, who would make "Night of the Creeps,"
"The Monster Squad" and "RoboCop 3."
Make-up man James Catania proved to be capable of doing much
with very little. Among special effects required were a severed
head, an eyeball lying on a golfing green, a severed throat,
body slashes, and "aging" make-up required for our
two PR-men villains.
Bob Wilkins, bless his benevolent heart, allowed us to photograph
our "Fright Flicks" scenes on his own "Creature
Features" set, thereby saving us the time and expense of
creating a set ourselves. Our re-enactment of a TV broadcast
was definitely a challenge, with Makalai appearing to put down
the host for his tongue-in-cheek attitude toward horror films,
and to lay waste verbally (the physical attack would come later)
to Dr. Unworth, who was appearing as one of the guests on the
show.
It would take six months to a year to edit what we had shot.
Kenn and I had to return to our daily jobs to support the continuation
of the film project. We worked out of my home with an old-fashioned
Moviola film editing machine and a makeshift light table. After
screening our workprint with the dialogue tracks several times,
we decided to see if we could find an interested Hollywood distributor.
(These were the days before the VHS revolution and producers
still depended on theatrical distribution, usually followed by
a TV sale.)
We showed our film to major studios, such as Universal and Warner
Bros, and were repeatedly turned down. Nary a nibble, let alone
a half-hearted bite. Several times we rented the Joe Shore Screening
Room on Sunset Boulevard and invited distributors to attend.
During one such screening, we showed the workprint to executives
from a distribution company. When the lights came up, Kenn and
I realized that they had all left during the screening. We had
been watching the last reel alone. It was one of the most heartbreaking
moments in my life.
The weight of making "Nightmare in Blood" into a success
weighed on us in many ways. One afternoon we couldn’t find
a parking place close to the screening site and had to jackass
our 20 cans of film, stuffed into two dufflebags, along Sunset
Boulevard. Kenn carried the 10 film reels, I carried the 10 soundtracks.
I was beginning to feel defeated, that we had lost, when . .
.
. . . A company called World Wide called to tell us they wanted
to distribute our film. It got even better when the company,
based in Burbank, agreed to put up the money to finish the film.
The company was new and had just enjoyed box-office success with
"Tunnel Vision." Kenn and I had decided we needed a
new opening as well as some other "pick up shots,"
and World Wide further agreed to foot the bill. Plus, they would
pay for the final sound mix and answer print.
A couple of months later we were shooting again, with a minuscle
crew and a handful of returning actors who were more than pleased
to help us out. We shot only four days. The main sequence was
a new opening with Kerwin Mathews portraying a swashbuckling
hero–a parody of the kind of characters he had played in
his screen adventures. We filmed at the old gun emplacements
located next to the toll plaza of the Golden Gate Bridge. Once
these positions had been manned by gun crews to protect the Bay
from invasion, but now they were abandoned and forgotten. Mathews’
friend and fellow actor Mel Ferrer, best remembered today for
his villain in "Scaramouche" and for being married
to Audrey Hepburn, showed up at the end of the day and drove
Kerwin away. We never saw him again. But he added box-office
appeal to our opening.
We went back to Lincoln Municipal Golf Course to redo a death
sequence involving George Wilson’s cameraman, played by
Stan Ritchie, a good-natured local actor. (Once re-edited, I
felt it was one of the better murder sequences in the film.)
Done with the reshoot, we quickly edited in the new scenes. We
found a film editing/sound service not far from San Francisco
General Hospital and made a deal to work there at night and on
weekends to prepare our final soundtracks.
Finding a composer proved to be one of the most difficult experiences.
Kenn had a friend he had approached about doing the music and
he had agreed to do it. Meanwhile, I had discovered a Marin County
composer, David Litwin. But Kenn reminded me about his friend
and so I told Litwin we had chosen someone else. The very next
morning Kenn awoke me early to say his friend had reneged on
the deal. Now we had no composer at all.
Swallowing my pride and crossing my fingers I got on the phone
to David, apologizing and explaining what had happened. Despite
the fact we had rejected him, he was still willing to take the
job. But I felt terrible about it for weeks afterward. I finally
got over it when I heard his music. Given his limited budget,
David’s music track ended up being remarkably resourceful
and even included a parody of Dimitri Tiomkin’s theme for
"The Thing," something we had suggested since the characters
talk about the 1951 film during the sequence.
With the final mix finished, we shipped off everything to Consolidated
Film Industries, a laboratory in Hollywood. We had filmed our
movie in Techniscope, a CinemaScope-like widescreen anamorphic
process that had been used to make hundreds of movies during
the 1960s. Instead of pulling down a complete four-perforation
frame, the Techniscope camera pulled a two-perf frame, thereby
giving 2,000 running feet to a 1,000-foot film magazine. This
was a great money-saving device in the early stages, when every
penny of our $51,000 counted.
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In the summer of 1976, almost three years since principal photography, Kenn and I sat in a screening room at CFI one Friday afternoon and saw our film in its finished stages. I felt exhilarated and disappointed in the same breath. I saw many things I didn’t like–in the story-telling, in the editing, in the sound mix, in the acting, in the directing. I knew we hadn’t made a classic, nor come anywhere near making a so-called "cult" movie. Our ambitions had been honorable, but our lack of experience and money had in many ways done us in. Nevertheless, we had a finished movie. That in itself seemed like a miracle. We still had a fighting chance to see our work in theaters.
And then . . . disaster. World Wide decided they didn’t want to release the movie after all. It was a marketing problem. The PR guys were disturbed about the film’s tongue-in-cheek humor and didn’t have a clue how to sell it. We would have to find another distributor.
But what about the monies
we now owed World Wide for completing the project? We couldn’t
believe our ears: World Wide would forgive the debt. We were
free to look for another outlet. And if we found someone, World
Wide would give permission to have more prints made and distributed.
Payback could come after that.
We finally did find our ultimate distributor in San Francisco.
He dealt in low-budget features that had fallen through several
different kinds of cracks. And since we were falling through
a crack ourselves, this new distributor gladly agreed to send
15 prints into theatrical release–first to "hard tops"
and then to "soft tops" or drive-ins
And so for five years (1978-82),
"Nightmare in Blood" played theatrically, from first-run
to fifth-run, maybe 10th-run. I lost count after awhile. A little
money came in dribbles and drabs, but we could see that we would
be lucky just to get our $51,000 back.
A VHS deal was consummated in 1985 and the film was released
in a pan-and-scan version by a reputable Oakland-based company,
Video City. Owner Bob Brown was well intended, although neither
Kenn nor I was happy about the inferior pan-and-scan version.)
Another company that picked up the ancillary rights (TV, pay-per-view,
foreign markets, etc.) totally ripped us off and disappeared
into the woodwork, never paying us a cent and never contacting
us again, even though we later heard that "Nightmare in
Blood" was distributed in England under the title "Horror
Convention" and had become something of a "cult"
film in South Korea, of all places.
Kenn and I had visions and dreams about other movies, but it
wasn’t to be. Perhaps the sheer fatigue of making "Nightmare
in Blood" had taken some of the joy out of the process.
We stayed together to write a thriller, "Bogart ‘48,"
published by Dell paperback books in 1980, and Kenn stayed busy
with several Carver Bascombe adventures published by Avon.
Other jobs beckoned to me: I hosted "Creature Features"
from 1979-84 at KTVU, Channel 2, in Oakland. It was a great experience
that kept me busy doing countless interviews with sci-fi and
horror celebrities and making short films I called "minimovies,"
sometimes with Kenn as cameraman.
But this collaboration was a comedown, nowhere approaching our
original dream.
I completed a 33-year writing career at the Chronicle in 1993.
Along the way I wrote six "Creature Features Movie Guides"
and have now made more than 1,500 crossword puzzles for TV Guide
Crosswords and other crossword magazines. I am now planning to
write "The Career That Dripped with Gore," a recounting
of my personal experiences as a TV host and journalist.
I thought that the nightmare of "Nightmare in Blood"
was over, but no . . . about a year ago I was contacted by Image
Entertainment of Chatsworth, CA. The company had spearheaded
the Laser Disc market back in the 1980s and now released DVD
versions of old TV shows, feature films and documentaries. Image
wanted to release our film on DVD in its widescreen format.
"Nightmare in Blood" has always been problematic, and
so now I had a new problem: The only print we had any knowledge
of existed in the Library of Congress, which we had wisely placed
there in 1980, being we were the copyright holders. Would it
provide a decent enough copy to consummate the deal with Image?
After many months of red tape, the Library of Congress archivists
were kind enough to release the print so a new digi-beta tape
could be struck. We were lucky: the print was missing no more
than a few frames of footage. And although it had undergone some
color shifts, modern film laboratory technology was able to restore
it to life.
Once again, it looks exactly as I remember it that first time
I saw the film in 1976.
"Nightmare in Blood" is a once-in-a-lifetime project
that I do not regret, although I have to grit my teeth when I
think about its many flaws and imperfections. But there are pleasant
memories, too. Recently, when Kenn and I got together to do a
commentary track for the DVD version, he reminded me of the ghost
in the Fox Theater.
One night as we carried equipment into the dressing room area
in the theater’s basement, I saw a white, cloudy mist drifting
away from me, vanishing when it reached the end of the corridor
where I was standing. Maybe, I thought at the time, it was just
some dust I stirred up that evaporated away. But . . . as many
times as I walked through that area during the five-week shoot,
I never again saw a white, cloudy mist, no matter how much dust
I was stirring up.
Kenn has his ghost story, too: One night he slept in the lobby
of the Fox Theater, his sleeping bag spread out in front of the
candy counter. In the basement beneath, he could hear a sliding
door being pushed open. . . a pause . . . then he heard the door
close itself with the counterweight system that automatically
controlled it.
When Kenn told me the story the next morning, I blurted, "But
Kenn, you were the only person here last night. We locked all
the doors, everyone was gone, remember?"
He stared at me a moment, then asked, "Yeah, I know. So,
who the hell was that down there?"
We still don’t have
an answer.
©2004 by John Stanley. The photos are courtesy of the author.
All rights reserved.
If you want to visit John Stanley's own website, where you can purchase copies of his new "Creature Features" DVD and other Stanley items, click here: CREATURE!
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