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Some of my favorite directors
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- Writer
- Producer
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Guillermo del Toro was born October 9, 1964 in Guadalajara, Jalisco, Mexico. Raised by his Catholic grandmother, del Toro developed an interest in filmmaking in his early teens. Later, he learned about makeup and effects from the legendary Dick Smith (The Exorcist (1973)) and worked on making his own short films. At the age of 21, del Toro executive produced his first feature, Dona Herlinda and Her Son (1985). Del Toro spent almost 10 years as a makeup supervisor, and formed his own company, Necropia in the early 1980s. He also produced and directed Mexican television programs at this time, and taught film.
Del Toro got his first big break when Cronos (1992) won nine Ariel Awards (the Mexican equivalent of the Oscars), then went on to win the International Critics Week Prize at Cannes. Following this success, del Toro made his first Hollywood film, Mimic (1997), starring Mira Sorvino.
Del Toro had some unfortunate experiences working with a demanding Hollywood studio on Mimic (1997), and returned to Mexico to form his own production company, The Tequila Gang.
Next for del Toro, was The Devil's Backbone (2001), a Spanish Civil War ghost story. The film was hailed by critics and audiences alike, and del Toro decided to give Hollywood another try. In 2002, he directed the Wesley Snipes vampire sequel, Blade II (2002).
On a roll, Del Toro followed up Blade II (2002) with another successful comic-book inspired film, Hellboy (2004), starring one of Del Toro's favorite actors, Ron Perlman.
Del Toro is divorced, has a daughter and a son and lives in Los Angeles and Toronto.- Writer
- Director
- Actor
Lucio Fulci, born in Rome in 1927, remains as controversial in death as he was in life. A gifted craftsman with a sharp tongue and a wicked sense of dark humor, Fulci achieved some measure of notoriety for his gore epics of the late 1970s and early 1980s, but respect was long in coming.
Abandoning his early career as a med student, Fulci entered the film industry as a screenwriter and assistant director, working alongside such directors as Steno and Riccardo Freda. Granted his debut feature in 1959, with a seldom seen comedy called I ladri (1959) (The Thieves), Fulci quickly established himself as a prolific craftsman adept at musicals, comedies and westerns.
In 1968, Fulci made his first mystery thriller, One on Top of the Other (1969), and its success was sufficient to garner the backing for his pet project The Conspiracy of Torture (1969). Based on a true story, the film details the trial of a young woman accused of murdering her sexually abusive father amid fear and superstition in 16th Century Italy. A scathing commentary on church and state, the film was the first to give voice to its director's passionate hatred of the Catholic Church. Predictably, the film was misunderstood, and Fulci's career was thrown into jeopardy. Deciding it would be best to leave his political feelings on the back burner, Fulci pressed on with a series of slickly commercial ventures.
In 1971 and 1972, Fulci re-established himself in the thriller arena, directing two excellent giallos: the haunting A Lizard in a Woman's Skin (1971) and the disturbing Don't Torture a Duckling (1972). The former, with its vivid hallucinations involving murderous hippies and vivisected canines, and the latter, with its psychotic religious zealots and brutal child killings, were -- to say the least -- controversial. In particular, Don't Torture a Duckling (1972), despite a huge box-office success, painted too graphic a portrait of perverted Catholicism, and Fulci's career was derailed... some would say, permanently. Blacklisted (albeit briefly) and despised in his homeland, Fulci at least found work in television and with the adventure genre with two financially successful Jack London 'White Fang' adventure movies in 1973 and 1974 which were Zanna Bianca, and Il ritorno di Zanna Bianca. Also during the mid and late 1970s, Fulci also directed two 'Spaghetti Westerns'; The Four of the Apocalypse... (1975) and Silver Saddle (1978), (Silver Saddle) and another 'giallo'; The Psychic (1977), as well as a few sex-comedies which include the political spoof The Eroticist (1972) (aka: The Eroticist), and the vampire spoof Dracula in the Provinces (1975) (aka: Young Dracula), and the violent Mafia crime-drama Contraband (1980).
In 1979, Fulci's film making career hit another high point with him breaking into the international market with Zombie (1979), an in-name-only sequel to George A. Romero's Dawn of the Dead (1978), which had been released in Italy as 'Zombi'. With its flamboyant imagery, graphic gore and moody atmospherics, the film established Fulci as a gore director par excellence. It was a role he accepted, but with some reservations.
Over the next three years, Fulci plied his trade with finesse and flair, rivaling even the popularity of his "opponent" Dario Argento, with such sanguine classics as City of the Living Dead (1980) and The Beyond (1981). Frequently derided as sheer sensationalism, these films, as well as the reviled The New York Ripper (1982) are actually intelligently crafted, with sound commentaries on everything from American life to religion. High on vivid imagery and pure cinematic style, Fulci's films from this period of the early 1980s represent some of his most popular work in America and abroad, even if they do pale in comparison to his 1972 masterpiece and personal favorite Don't Torture a Duckling (1972) (an impossible act to follow, as it happens).
In the mid-1980s, at the peak of his most prolific period, Fulci became beset with personal problems and worsening health. Much of his work from the mid-1980s onward is disappointing, to say the least, but flashes of his brilliance can be seen in works like Murder-Rock: Dancing Death (1984) and The Devil's Honey (1986). A Cat in the Brain (1990), one of Fulci's last works, remains one of his most original. Though strapped by budgetary restraints and marred by mediocre photography, the film is wickedly subversive and comical. With Fulci playing the lead role (as more or less himself, no less -- a harried horror director who fears that his obsession with sex and violence is a sign of mental disease), Fulci also proves to be an endearing and competent actor (he also has cameos in many of his films, frequently as a detective or doctor figure).
By the 1990s, Fulci went on a hiatus with film making for further health and personal reasons as the Italian cinema market went into a further decline. While in pre-production for the Dario Argento-produced The Wax Mask (1997), Lucio Fulci passed away at his home on March 13, 1996 at the age of 68. A serious diabetic most of his adult life, he inexplicably forgot to take his insulin before retiring to bed; some consider his death a suicide, others consider it an accident, but his many fans all consider it to be a tragedy. Whether one considers him to be a hack or a genius, there's no denying that he was unique.- Writer
- Director
- Producer
Dario Argento was born on September 7, 1940, in Rome, Italy, the first-born son of famed Italian producer Salvatore Argento and Brazilian fashion model Elda Luxardo. Argento recalls getting his ideas for filmmaking from his close-knit family from Italian folk tales told by his parents and other family members, including an aunt who told him frighting bedtime stories. Argento based most of his thriller movies on childhood trauma, yet his own--according to him--was a normal one. Along with tales spun by his aunt, Argento was impressed by stories from The Grimm Brothers, Hans Christian Andersen and Edgar Allan Poe. Argento started his career writing for various film journal magazines while still in his teens attending a Catholic high school. After graduation, instead of going to college, Argento took a job as a columnist for the Rome daily newspaper "Paese Sera". Inspired by the movies, he later found work as a screenwriter and wrote several screenplays for a number of films, but the most important were his western collaborations, which included Cemetery Without Crosses (1969) and the Sergio Leone masterpiece Once Upon a Time in the West (1968). After its release Argento wrote and directed his first movie, The Bird with the Crystal Plumage (1970), which starred Tony Musante and and British actress Suzy Kendall. It's a loose adoption on Fredric Brown's novel "The Screaming Mimi", which was made for his father's film company. Argento wanted to direct the movie himself because he did not want any other director messing up the production and his screenplay.
After "The Bird With the Crystal Plumage" became an international hit, Argento followed up with two more thrillers, The Cat o' Nine Tails (1971), starring 'Karl Madlen' (qv" and 'James Fransiscus', and Four Flies on Grey Velvet (1971) ("Four Flies On Black Velvet"), both backed by his father Salvatore. Argento then directed the TV drama Testimone oculare (1973) and the historical TV drama The Five Days (1973). He then went back to directing so-called "giallo" thrillers, starting with Deep Red (1975), a violent mystery-thriller starring David Hemmings that inspired a number of international directors in the thriller-horror genre. His next work was Suspiria (1977), a surreal horror film about a witch's coven that was inspired by the Gothic fairy tales of the Grimm Brothers and Hans Christian Anderson, which he also wrote in collaboration with his girlfriend, screenwriter/actress Daria Nicolodi, who acted in "Profondo Rosso" ("Deep Red") and most of Argento's films from then to the late 1980s. Argento advanced the unfinished trilogy with Inferno (1980), before returning to the "giallo" genre with the gory Tenebrae (1982), and then with the haunting Phenomena (1985).
The lukewarm reviews for his films, however, caused Argento to slip away from directing to producing and co-writing two Lamberto Bava horror flicks, Demons (1985) and Demons 2 (1986). Argento returned to directing with the "giallo" thriller Opera (1987), which according to him was "a very unpleasant experience", and no wonder: a rash of technical problems delayed production, the lead actress Vanessa Redgrave dropped out before filming was to begin, Argento's father Salvatore died during filming and his long-term girlfriend Daria broke off their relationship. After the commercial box-office failure of "Opera", Argento temporarily settled in the US, where he collaborated with director George A. Romero on the two-part horror-thriller Two Evil Eyes (1990) (he had previously collaborated with Romero on the horror action thriller Dawn of the Dead (1978)). While still living in America, Argento appeared in small roles in several films and directed another violent mystery thriller, Trauma (1993), which starred his youngest daughter Asia Argento from his long-term relationship with Nicolodi.
Argento returned to Italy in 1995, where he made a comeback in the horror genre with The Stendhal Syndrome (1996) and then with another version of "The Phantom of the Opera", The Phantom of the Opera (1998), both of which starred Asia. Most recently, Argento directed a number of "giallo" mystery thrillers such as Sleepless (2001), The Card Player (2003) and Do You Like Hitchcock? (2005), as well as two gory, supernatural-themed episodes of the USA TV cable anthology series Masters of Horror (2005).
Having always wanted to make a third chapter to his "Three Mothers" horror films, Argento finally completed the trilogy in 2007 with the release of Mother of Tears (2007), which starred Asia Argento as a young woman trying to identify and stop the last surviving evil witch from taking over the world. In addition to his Gothic and violent style of storytelling, "La terza madre" has many references to two of his previous films, "Suspiria" (1997) and "Inferno" (1980), which is a must for fans of the trilogy.
His movies may be regarded by some critics and opponents as cheap and overly violent, but second or third viewings show him to be a talented writer/director with a penchant for original ideas and creative directing.- Producer
- Writer
- Actor
Highly inventive U.S. film director/producer/writer/actor Sam Raimi first came to the attention of film fans with the savage, yet darkly humorous, low-budget horror film, The Evil Dead (1981). From his childhood, Raimi was a fan of the cinema and, before he was ten-years-old, he was out making movies with an 8mm camera. He was a devoted fan of The Three Stooges, so much of Raimi's film work in his teens, with good friends Bruce Campbell and Rob Tapert, was slapstick comedy based around what they had observed from "Stooges" movies.
Among the three of them, they wrote, directed, produced and edited a short horror movie titled Within the Woods (1978), which was then shown to prospective investors to raise the money necessary to film The Evil Dead (1981). It met with lukewarm interest in the U.S. with local distributors, so Raimi took the film to Europe, where it was much more warmly received. After it started gaining positive reviews and, more importantly, ticket sales upon its release in Europe, U.S. distributors showed renewed interest, and "Evil Dead" was eventually released stateside to strong box office returns. His next directorial effort was Crimewave (1985), a quirky, cartoon-like effort that failed to catch fire with audiences. However, he bounced back with Evil Dead II (1987), a racier and more humorous remake/sequel to the original "Dead" that did even better at the box office. Raimi was then given his biggest budget to date to shoot Darkman (1990), a comic book-style fantasy about a scarred avenger. The film did moderate business, but Raimi's strong visual style was evident throughout the film via inventive and startling camera work that caught the attention of numerous critics.
The third chapter in the Evil Dead story beckoned, and Raimi once again directed buddy Campbell as the gritty hero "Ash", in the Gothic horror Army of Darkness (1992). Raimi surprised fans when he took a turn away from the fantasy genre and directed Gene Hackman and Sharon Stone in the sexy western, The Quick and the Dead (1995); four years later, he took the directorial reins on A Simple Plan (1998), a crime thriller about stolen money, starring Bill Paxton and Bridget Fonda. In early 1999, he directed the baseball film, For Love of the Game (1999), and, in 2000, returned to the fantasy genre with a top-flight cast in The Gift (2000). In 2002, Raimi was given a real opportunity to demonstrate his dynamic visual style with the big-budget film adaptation of the Stan Lee comic book superhero, Spider-Man (2002), and fans were not disappointed. The movie was strong in both script and effects, and was a runaway success at the box office. Of course, Raimi returned for the sequel, Spider-Man 2 (2004), which surpassed the original in box-office takings.- Director
- Writer
- Production Manager
Talented, prolific and versatile writer/director Sergio Martino has made a vast array of often solid and enjoyable films in such diverse genres as horror, comedy, Western and science-fiction in a career that spans over 40 years.
Martino was born on July 19, 1938, in Rome, Italy. His grandfather was noted director Gennaro Righelli. Sergio began his cinematic career in his early 20s as an assistant to his writer/producer brother Luciano Martino and handled second unit director chores on Mario Bava's The Whip and the Body (1963), and made his directorial debut in 1969 with the mondo documentary Wages of Sin (1969). He really hit his stride in the early 1970s with several superior giallo murder mystery thrillers that usually starred popular actress Edwige Fenech (who was married to Martino's brother Luciano at the time): The Strange Vice of Mrs. Wardh (1971), They're Coming to Get You! (1972), The Case of the Scorpion's Tail (1971) and Your Vice Is a Locked Room and Only I Have the Key (1972). Martino subsequently collaborated with Fenech on a handful of other projects, including the bubbly sex comedies Sex with a Smile (1976) and Cream Horn (1981). Other people Sergio has frequently worked with are actors George Hilton, Ivan Rassimov and Claudio Cassinelli and screenwriter Ernesto Gastaldi. Sergio's other worthwhile movies are the gritty spaghetti western Arizona Colt, Hired Gun (1970), the terrifically trashy Torso (1973), the rousing crime thriller The Violent Professionals (1973), the entertaining action/adventure romp Slave of the Cannibal God (1978), the fun "The Island of Dr. Moreau" rip-off The Island of the Fishmen (1979) and the funky post-nuke sci-fi/action opus 2019: After the Fall of New York (1983). He has also directed various made-for-TV features and episodes of TV shows for Italian television.- Cinematographer
- Special Effects
- Director
Italian director Mario Bava was born on July 31, 1914 in the coastal northern Italian town of Sanremo. His father, Eugenio Bava (1886-1966), was a cinematographer in the early days of the Italian film industry. Bava was trained as a painter, and when he eventually followed his father into film photography his artistic background led him to a strong belief in the importance of visual composition in filmmaking.
Other than a series of short films in the 1940s which he directed, Bava was a cinematographer until 1960. He developed a reputation as a special effects genius, and was able to use optical trickery to great success. Among the directors for whom Bava photographed films were Paolo Heusch, Riccardo Freda, Jacques Tourneur and Raoul Walsh. While working with Freda on Lust of the Vampire (1957) in 1956, the director left the project after an argument with the producers and the film mostly unfinished. Bava stepped in and directed the majority of the movie, finishing it on schedule. This film, also known as "The Devil's Commandment", inspired a wave of gothic Italian horror films. After a similar incident occurred on Freda's Caltiki, the Immortal Monster (1959), and Bava's having been credited with "saving" Tourneur's The Giant of Marathon (1959), Galatea urged Bava to direct any film he wanted with their financing.
The film that emerged, Black Sunday (1960), is one his most well known as well as one of his best. This widely influential movie also started the horror career of a beautiful but then unknown British actress named Barbara Steele. While Black Sunday is a black and white film, it was in the color milieu that the director excelled. The projects which followed began to develop stunning photography, making great use of lighting, set design, and camera positioning to compliment mise-en-scenes bathed in deep primaries. Through works such as Hercules in the Haunted World (1961), The Whip and the Body (1963), and Planet of the Vampires (1965), Bava's films took on the look of works of art. In the films The Evil Eye (1963) and Blood and Black Lace (1964), he created the style and substance of the giallo, a genre which would be perfected in the later films of Dario Argento.
Bava worked in many popular genres, including viking films, peplum, spaghetti westerns, action, and even softcore, but it is his horror films and giallo mystery films which stand out and for which he is best remembered. Recommended are Black Sunday (1960), The Whip and the Body (1963), Blood and Black Lace (1964), Kill, Baby... Kill! (1966), A Bay of Blood (1971), and Lisa and the Devil (1973). Bava's son Lamberto served as his assistant on most of his films since 1965, and since 1980 has been a director himself. Lamberto Bava's films include Macabre (1980), Demons (1985) and Body Puzzle (1992).
But after the commercial failure of his later films, as well as the unreleased works of Rabid Dogs (1974), Bava went into a decline and by 1975, retired from filmmaking all together. He was persuaded to come out of retirement at the request of his son, Lamberto, to direct Shock, as well as a made-for-Italian television movie. Mario Bava died from a sudden heart attack on April 27, 1980 at age 65. With his death, an era in Italian filmmaking had come to a close.- Director
- Second Unit Director or Assistant Director
- Producer
Lamberto Bava was born in Rome, Italy, and was the first of a third generation of Italian filmmakers. His grandfather, Eugenio Bava (1886-1966), was a cameraman and optics effects artist during the early days of Italian silent cinema. His father, Mario Bava (1914-1980), was a legendary cinematographer, special effects designer and director. Lamberto entered the cinema as his father's personal assistant, starting with Planet of the Vampires (1965). Bit by bit he gained experience from his father, who made him the assistant director for most of the rest of his films. He even co-wrote the screenplay for Shock (1977) ("Shock"), Mario's last theatrical film where. In poor health during the shoot, Mario often feigned illness so Lamberto could direct a few scenes, uncredited, to gain further experience.
Both Lamberto and Mario directed the made-for-TV drama La Venere d'Ille (1979). Both worked on the Dario Argento horror flick Inferno (1980), for which Mario designed some of the color set pieces, including the underwater ballroom, and created all the visual special effects, while Lamberto worked as Argento's assistant director. Late in 1979 Lamberto made his solo directorial debut with Macabre (1980), a tense drama-horror flick loosely based on a 1977 incident in New Orleans about a woman who keeps her lover's severed head in her freezer. According to Lamberto, the project started by chance when producer Pupi Avati approached him to direct as well as write the screenplay, which took just six weeks to write and direct. "Macabro" was released in Italy in February 1980 to mixed reviews, but won him recognition by his father Mario. Just two months later Mario Bava died, and an era in Italian film making came to a close.
'Macabro" was not the box-office hit and, as a result, Lamberto went back to assistant directing. He worked with Dario Argento again in 1982 with Tenebrae (1982). In 1983 Lamberto was offered to direct another film, titled A Blade in the Dark (1983), which was a violent mystery thriller shot in only three weeks on a tight budget and filmed almost entirely in a producer friend's house. Next he directed the action-flick Blastfighter (1984), which was filmed in the state of Georgia, and immediately afterwards directed the Jaws (1975)-like thriller Devil Fish (1984), which was shot in Florida. On both films Lamberto was purely a director for hire and had nothing to do with the script or production end. He used the pseudonym of "John Old Jr." for this film, which was a tribute to his father Mario, who often used the pseudonym "John M. Old".
He enjoyed his best commercial success to date with Demons (1985) ("Demons"), produced by Dario Argento, co-written by Dardano Sacchetti and filmed in West Berlin, Germany. This films international success allowed him to co-write, produce and direct a sequel, Demons 2 (1986). Lamberto returned to "giallo" thrillers with Delirium (1987).
In the late 1980s the Italian cinema turned moribund. Lamberto, like most of his colleagues, turned to making films for Italian television. He also directed a remake of his father's Black Sunday (1960), which was titled The Mask of Satan (1989).
Nowadays Lamberto Bava continues to divide his time between TV work and a few movies, acknowledging his inspiration from his late father, Mario.- Writer
- Director
- Actor
Born in Massa Marittima, Italy on August 6, 1931, Umberto Lenzi was a movie enthusiast since his early grade school years. During those years, he founded various film fan clubs while studying law. Lenzi started out as a journalist for various local newspapers and magazines. Lenzi put off his law studies to pursue the technical arts of filmmaking at the Centro Sperimentale de Cinematografia.
After graduation from the school, Lenzi continued working as a writer and film critic. He found employment as an assistant director before making his directorial debut with Queen of the Seas (1961). Other pirate/sword flicks followed, starting with I pirati della Malesia (1964) (Pirates of Malaysia), which was part of the height of the career of fictitious tales of historic legendary characters including Robin Hood, Catherine the Great, Zorro, Sandokan and Maciste. For the movie Kriminal (1966), Lenzi turned to the new wave of adult-oriented comic books (known as fumetti) for fresh inspiration and initiated a popular trend.
After directing a war film and two "spaghetti westerns," Lenzi turned to the giallo gene with Paranoia (1969) (originally called "Orgasmo"), starring Carroll Baker and Lou Castel, which was the first of his thrillers and one of his personal favorites. Retitled Paranoia for its USA release, Orgasmo caused some confusion since Lenzi directed a movie with the same name, Paranoia, in 1970 also with Carroll Baker. During the 1970s, Lenzi directed a number of giallo thrillers among them So Sweet... So Perverse (1969), Seven Blood-Stained Orchids (1972) and Eyeball (1975). None of them were particularly successful since Lenzi blamed his tight budgets and poor scripts, which he believed no director could do well with.
In the late 1970s, Lenzi turned to the police thrillers (polizieschi), which rejuvenated his confidence and his popularity. Titles like Almost Human (1974), Tough Cop (1976) (Free Hand For a Tough Cop), and Brothers Till We Die (1978) (Brothers Till We Die) were the most popular and brutal of the thrillers. Prior to the polizieschi, Lenzi directed Sacrifice! (1972) (Man from Deep River), which was the start of the Italian cannibal sub-genre. A re-telling of the western A Man Called Horse (1970), with a south Asia setting, set the stage for a later group of extremely gory cannibal sub-genre movies most noteworthy being Ruggero Deodato's Last Cannibal World (1977) which featured a potent combination of extreme violence in a documentary realism. Lenzi responded with two very gory jungle cannibal features, Eaten Alive! (1980) and Cannibal Ferox (1981) (Make Them Die Slowly), which attempted to outdo Deodato's thrillers. The excess of Cannibal Ferox, which was banned in 31 countries, made Lenzi distance himself from the cannibal genre.
In between Eaten Alive and Cannibal Ferox, Lenzi directed Nightmare City (1980), a zombie flick, with Lenzi rejected the slow-moving zombies of the Romero and Fulci movies for a more type of fast-moving, weapons toting, super zombies with action and an anti-nuclear message.
During the 1980s and early 1990s, Lenzi turned his attention to other genres: action-adventure, war films and even made-for-TV dramas, although he directed the occasional thriller most notable in that time was Ghosthouse (1988). His movie Le porte dell'inferno (1989) is a seldom-seen horror film, which makes the most of its low budget. Lenzi claimed to have shot it in three weeks at a cost of 300 million lire, whereas low-budget Italian horror films shot in Italy or abroad cost an average of a billion lire or more. It represented a personal challenge for Lenzi since the entire movie takes place in a cave and the suspense is maintained for the entire 90 minutes.
As his budgets and financing for his films dwindled, so did his output. The 1990s saw Lenzi directing a number of TV productions that were never broadcast, causing him lament upon the change in Italian film industry. After 40 years and directing over 60 films, Lenzi more or less retired from film directing and left his mark as one of the most creative and inexhaustible cult film directors of Italy.
Umberto Lenzi died on October 19, 2017 at a hospital in the Ostia district of Rome, Italy at age 86.- Writer
- Director
Alexandre Bustillo was born on 10 August 1975 in France. He is a writer and director, known for Inside (2007), The Deep House (2021) and Among the Living (2014).- Producer
- Director
- Writer
Alexandre Aja was born on 7 August 1978 in Paris, France. He is a producer and director, known for High Tension (2003), The Hills Have Eyes (2006) and Piranha 3D (2010). He is married to Laïla Marrakchi.- Writer
- Producer
- Director
Wes Craven has become synonymous with genre bending and innovative horror, challenging audiences with his bold vision.
Wesley Earl Craven was born in Cleveland, Ohio, to Caroline (Miller) and Paul Eugene Craven. He had a midwestern suburban upbringing. His first feature film was The Last House on the Left (1972), which he wrote, directed, and edited. Craven reinvented the youth horror genre again in 1984 with the classic A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984), a film he wrote and directed. And though he did not direct any of its five sequels, he deconstructed the genre a decade later, writing and directing the audacious New Nightmare (1994), which was nominated as Best Feature at the 1995 Independent Spirit Awards, and introduced the concept of self-reflexive genre films to the world.
In 1996 Craven reached a new level of success with the release of Scream (1996). The film, which sparked the phenomenal trilogy, was the winner of MTV's 1996 Best Movie Award and grossed more than $100 million domestically, as did Scream 2 (1997). Between Scream 2 and Scream 3 (2000), Craven, offered the opportunity to direct a non-genre film for Miramax, helmed Music of the Heart (1999), a film that earned Meryl Streep an Academy Award nomination for Best Actress. That same year, in the midst of directing, Craven completed his first novel, "The Fountain Society," published by Simon & Shuster. Recent works include the 2005 psychological thriller Red Eye (2005), and a short rom-com segment for the ensemble product, Paris, I Love You (2006).
In later years, Craven also produced remakes of two of his earlier films for his genre fans, The Hills Have Eyes (2006) and The Last House on the Left (2009). Craven has always had an eye for discovering fresh talent, something that contributes to the success of his films. While casting A Nightmare on Elm Street, Craven discovered the then unknown Johnny Depp. Craven later cast Sharon Stone in her first starring role for his film Deadly Blessing. He even gave Bruce Willis his first featured role in an episode of TV's mid-80's edition of The Twilight Zone. In My Soul to Take (2010), Craven once again brought together a cast of up-and-coming young teens, including Max Thieriot, in whom he saw the spark of stardom. The film marked Craven's first collaboration with wife and producer Iya Labunka, who also produced with him the highly anticipated production of Scream 4.
Craven's Scream 4 (2011) reunited the director with Dimension Films and Kevin Williamson, as well as with stars Neve Campbell, Courteney Cox and David Arquette, to re-boot the beloved franchise. Craven again exhibited his knack for spotting important talent, with a cast of young actors bringing us a totally new breed of Woodsboro high schoolers, including Emma Robert and Hayden Pannetierre.- Producer
- Writer
- Director
George A. Romero never set out to become a Hollywood figure; by all indications, though, he was very successful. The director of the groundbreaking "Living Dead" films was born February 4, 1940 ,in New York City to Ann (Dvorsky) and Jorge Romero. His father was born in Spain and raised in Cuba, and his mother was Lithuanian. He grew up in New York until attending the renowned Carnegie-Mellon University in Pittsburgh, PA.
After graduation he began shooting mostly short films and commercials. He and his friends formed Image Ten Productions in the late 1960s and they all chipped in roughly $10,000 apiece to produce what became one of the most celebrated American horror films of all time: Night of the Living Dead (1968). Shot in black-and-white on a budget of just over $100,000, Romero's vision, combined with a solid script written by him and his "Image" co-founder John A. Russo (along with what was then considered an excess of gore), enabled the film to earn back far more than what it cost; it became a cult classic by the early 1970s and was inducted into the National Film Registry of the Library of Congress of the United States in 1999. Romero's next films were a little more low-key but less successful, including The Affair (1971), The Crazies (1973), Season of the Witch (1972) (where he met future wife Christine Forrest) and Martin (1977). Though not as acclaimed as "Night of the Living Dead" or some of his later work, these films had his signature social commentary while dealing with issues--usually horror-related--at the microscopic level. Like almost all of his films, they were shot in, or around, Romero's favorite city of Pittsburgh.
In 1978 he returned to the zombie genre with the one film of his that would top the success of "Night of the Living Dead"--Dawn of the Dead (1978). He managed to divorce the franchise from Image Ten, which screwed up the copyright on the original and allowed the film to enter into public domain, with the result that Romero and his original investors were not entitled to any profits from the film's video releases. Shot in the Monroeville (PA) Mall during late-night hours, the film told the tale of four people who escape a zombie outbreak and lock themselves up inside what they think is paradise before the solitude makes them victims of their own, and a biker gang's, greed. Made on a budget of just $1.5 million, the film earned over $40 million worldwide and was named one of the top cult films by Entertainment Weekly magazine in 2003. It also marked Romero's first work with brilliant make-up and effects artist Tom Savini. After 1978, Romero and Savini teamed up many times. The success of "Dawn of the Dead" led to bigger budgets and better casts for the filmmaker. First was Knightriders (1981), where he first worked with an up-and-coming Ed Harris. Then came perhaps his most Hollywood-like film, Creepshow (1982), which marked the first--but not the last--time Romero adapted a work by famed horror novelist Stephen King. With many major stars and big-studio distribution, it was a moderate success and spawned a sequel, which was also written by Romero.
The decline of Romero's career came in the late 1980s. His last widely-released film was the next "Dead" film, Day of the Dead (1985). Derided by critics, it did not take in much at the box office, either. His latest two efforts were The Dark Half (1993) (another Stephen King adaptation) and Bruiser (2000). Even the Romero-penned/Tom Savini-directed remake of Romero's first film, Night of the Living Dead (1990), was a box-office failure. Pigeon-holed solely as a horror director and with his latest films no longer achieving the success of his earlier "Dead" films, Romero has not worked much since, much to the chagrin of his following. In 2005, 19 years after "Day of the Dead", with major-studio distribution he returned to his most famous series and horror sub-genre it created with Land of the Dead (2005), a further exploration of the destruction of modern society by the undead, that received generally positive reviews. He directed two more "Dead" films, Diary of the Dead (2007) and Survival of the Dead (2009).
George died on July 16, 2017, in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. He was 77.- Producer
- Director
- Production Designer
Described by film producer Michael Deeley as "the very best eye in the business", director Ridley Scott was born on November 30, 1937 in South Shields, Tyne and Wear. His father was an officer in the Royal Engineers and the family followed him as his career posted him throughout the United Kingdom and Europe before they eventually returned to Teesside. Scott wanted to join the British Army (his elder brother Frank had already joined the Merchant Navy) but his father encouraged him to develop his artistic talents instead and so he went to West Hartlepool College of Art and then London's Royal College of Art where he helped found the film department.
In 1962, he joined the BBC as a trainee set designer working on several high profile series. He attended a trainee director's course while he was there and his first directing job was on an episode of the popular BBC police series Z Cars (1962), Error of Judgement (1965). More TV work followed until, frustrated by the poor financial rewards at the BBC, he went into advertising. With his younger brother, Tony Scott, he formed the advertising production company RSA (Ridley Scott Associates) in 1967 and spent the next 10 years making some of the best known and best loved TV adverts ever shown on British television, including a series of ads for Hovis bread set to the music of Dvorak's New World Symphony which are still talked about today ("'e were a great baker were our dad.")
He began working with producer David Puttnam in the 1970s developing ideas for feature films. Their first joint endeavor, The Duellists (1977) won the Jury Prize for Best First Work at Cannes in 1977 and was nominated for the Palm d'Or, more than successfully launching Scott's feature film career. The success of Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope (1977) inspired Scott's interest in making science fiction and he accepted the offer to direct Dan O'Bannon's low budget science fiction horror movie Alien (1979), a critical and commercial success that firmly established his worldwide reputation as a movie director.
Blade Runner (1982) followed in 1982 to, at best, a lukewarm reception from public and critics but in the years that followed, its reputation grew - and Scott's with it - as one of the most important sci-fi movies ever made. Scott's next major project was back in the advertising world where he created another of the most talked-about advertising spots in broadcast history when his "1984"-inspired ad for the new Apple Macintosh computer was aired during the Super Bowl on January 22, 1984. Scott's movie career has seen a few flops (notably Legend (1985) and 1492: Conquest of Paradise (1992)), but with successes like Thelma & Louise (1991), Gladiator (2000) and Black Hawk Down (2001) to offset them, his reputation remains solidly intact.
Ridley Scott was awarded Knight Bachelor of the Order of the British Empire at the 2003 Queen's New Year Honours for his "substantial contribution to the British film industry". On July 3, 2015, he was awarded an honorary doctorate by the Royal College of Art in a ceremony at the Royal Albert Hall in London. He was awarded the BAFTA Fellowship in 2018. BAFTA described him as "a visionary director, one of the great British film-makers whose work has made an indelible mark on the history of cinema. Forty years since his directorial debut, his films continue to cross the boundaries of style and genre, engaging audiences and inspiring the next generation of film talent."- Writer
- Producer
- Director
George Walton Lucas, Jr. was raised on a walnut ranch in Modesto, California. His father was a stationery store owner and he had three siblings. During his late teen years, he went to Thomas Downey High School and was very much interested in drag racing. He planned to become a professional racecar driver. However, a terrible car accident just after his high school graduation ended that dream permanently. The accident changed his views on life.
He decided to attend Modesto Junior College before enrolling in the University of Southern California film school. As a film student, he made several short films including Electronic Labyrinth THX 1138 4EB (1967) which won first prize at the 1967-68 National Student Film Festival. In 1967, he was awarded a scholarship by Warner Brothers to observe the making of Finian's Rainbow (1968) which was being directed by Francis Ford Coppola. Lucas and Coppola became good friends and formed American Zoetrope in 1969. The company's first project was Lucas' full-length version of THX 1138 (1971). In 1971, Coppola went into production for The Godfather (1972), and Lucas formed his own company, Lucasfilm Ltd.
In 1973, he wrote and directed the semiautobiographical American Graffiti (1973) which won the Golden Globe and garnered five Academy Award nominations. This gave him the clout he needed for his next daring venture. From 1973 to 1974, he began writing the screenplay which became Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope (1977). He was inspired to make this movie from Flash Gordon and the Planet of the Apes films. In 1975, he established ILM. (Industrial Light & Magic) to produce the visual effects needed for the movie. Another company called Sprocket Systems was established to edit and mix Star Wars and later becomes known as Skywalker Sound. His movie was turned down by several studios until 20th Century Fox gave him a chance. Lucas agreed to forego his directing salary in exchange for 40% of the film's box-office take and all merchandising rights. The movie went on to break all box office records and earned seven Academy Awards. It redefined the term "blockbuster" and the rest is history.
Lucas made the other Star Wars films and along with Steven Spielberg created the Indiana Jones series which made box office records of their own. From 1980 to 1985, Lucas was busy with the construction of Skywalker Ranch, built to accommodate the creative, technical, and administrative needs of Lucasfilm. Lucas also revolutionized movie theaters with the THX system which was created to maintain the highest quality standards in motion picture viewing.
He went on to produce several more movies that have introduced major innovations in filmmaking technology. He is chairman of the board of the George Lucas Educational Foundation. In 1992, George Lucas was honored with the Irving G. Thalberg Award by the Board of Governors of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences for his lifetime achievement.
He reentered the directing chair with the production of the highly-anticipated Star Wars prequel trilogy beginning with Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace (1999) . The films have been polarizing for fans and critics alike, but were commercially successful and have become a part of culture. The animated spin-off series Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) was supervised by Lucas. He sold Lucasfilm to Disney in 2012, making co-chair Kathleen Kennedy president. He has attended the premieres of new Star Wars films and been generally supportive of them.- Director
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- Actor
Eli Raphael Roth was born in Newton, Massachusetts, to Cora (Bialis), a painter, and Sheldon H. Roth, a psychoanalyst, psychiatrist, and clinical professor. His family is Jewish (from Austria, Hungary, Russia, and Poland). He began shooting Super 8 films at the age of eight; after watching Ridley Scott's Alien (1979) and vomiting, and deciding he wanted to be a producer/director. With his brothers and friends, ketchup for blood, and his father's power tools, he made over 50 short films before attending film school at NYU, where he won a student Academy Award and graduated summa cum laude in 1994.
Eli worked in film and theater production in New York City for many years, doing every job from production assistant to assistant editor to assistant to the director. At the age of 20, Roth was development head for producer Fred Zollo, a position he soon left to write full time. To earn a living, Roth did budgets and schedules for the films A Price Above Rubies (1998) and Illuminata (1998), and often worked as a stand-in, where he could watch directors work with the actors. In 1995, Roth co-wrote the script that would eventually become Cabin Fever (2002) with friend Randy Pearlstein, and the two spent many years unsuccessfully trying to get the film financed. Roth left New York in 1999 to live in Los Angeles, and within four months got funding for his animation series Chowdaheads (1999). Roth and friend Noah Belson (Cabin Fever (2002)'s Guitar Man) wrote and voiced the episodes, which Roth produced, directed, and designed. The episodes were due to run on WCW's #1 rated series WCW Monday Nitro (1995) but the CEO was fired a day before they were scheduled to air, and the episodes never ran. Roth used the episodes to set up a stop motion series called The Rotten Fruit (2003) which he produced, directed, and animated, as well as co-wrote and voiced with friend Belson. Between the two animated series, Roth worked closely with director David Lynch, producing content for the website davidlynch.com.
In 2001, Roth filmed Cabin Fever (2002) on a shoestring budget of $1.5 million, with private equity he and his producers raised from friends and their family. The film was the subject of a bidding war at the 2002 Toronto Film Festival, eventually won by Lion's Gate, instantly doubling their investors' money. It went on to not only be the highest-grossing film for Lion's Gate in 2003, but the most profitable horror film released that year, garnering critical acclaim from The New York Times, Rolling Stone, Empire Magazine, and such filmmakers as Peter Jackson, Quentin Tarantino, and Tobe Hooper. Roth used the film's success to launch a slew of projects, including The Box (2009), a horror thriller he co-wrote with Richard Kelly. In May 2003, Roth joined forces with filmmakers Boaz Yakin, Scott Spiegel, and Greenestreet Films in New York to form Raw Nerve, LLC, a horror film production company.
In 2014, Eli married Chilean model and actress Lorenza Izzo.- Director
- Writer
- Actor
Adam Green is an American screenwriter, director, producer, and actor known for his success within the horror genre with films like the "Hatchet" franchise, "Frozen," and "Digging Up The Marrow." He is also the creator, writer, director, star, and show runner of the television comedy series "Holliston" and the singer for the metal band "Haddonfield."
Born and raised in the small town of Holliston, Massachusetts, Green grew up performing leading roles in school plays and hosting his own morning radio program "Coffee & Donuts" on the town's local radio station. He graduated from Holliston High School in 1993. Upon graduating from Hofstra University in New York with a Bachelor of Science in film and television production in 1997, Green landed a job producing and directing local and regional cable television commercials at Time Warner Cable Advertising back in his hometown of Boston. While working at Time Warner he met cinematographer Will Barratt and in 1998 the two formed their own production company ArieScope Pictures and began making short films together under the ArieScope banner. During this time period Green was also the lead singer for the hard rock/metal band "Haddonfield" which amassed a large and loyal following as they headlined weekly club shows in Salam, MA and other large venues around Boston's north shore in the late 90's. In 1999 at the age of 24, Green wrote, directed, and starred in his first feature film "Coffee & Donuts" which was based on his own life and his experiences chasing his career dreams while trying to get over the break-up with his first girlfriend/childhood love. The autobiographical comedy was made for only $400 by "borrowing" Time Warner's commercial production equipment after hours and ultimately gained the attention of United Talent Agency (UTA) in Los Angeles when it won "Best Picture" in (what was then called) The Smoky Mountain Film Festival. Signed by UTA as an official client, Green moved to Los Angeles in February of 2000 with the intention of turning "C&D" into a sit-com.
Though reactions were positive and interest in "Coffee & Donuts" was strong within the industry, Green's first three years in Los Angeles were a major struggle and he survived by doing any odd job that would pay or feed him. Though he was able to find occasional paid work as everything from an on-set production assistant, to performing as a stand-up comic, to working as a writer's/show runner's assistant, to performing as an extra/background, to writing, shooting, and editing local cable commercials, to ghost writing jokes for other stand-up comics, Green's main occupation from 2000 to 2003 was working as the DJ in the upstairs nightclub at the world famous Rainbow Bar and Grill where he survived off of the left-over food off of customer's plates or by eating out of the restaurant's trash at the end of each night. He performed stand-up comedy at various Hollywood night clubs including monthly comedy shows at the Rainbow with his regular troupe of comedians/friends that included comics Andy Sandberg, Chris Romano, and Eric Falconer whom had also all yet to be discovered at that time. In 2003 Green sold "Coffee & Donuts" as a sit-com to Touchstone/UPN with Tom Shadyac producing. However, the week after Green delivered the final draft of his pilot script for "Coffee & Donuts", UPN announced a merger with the WB (creating the CW network) and all of UPN's pilot development was scrapped, tying up the rights to Green's dream project and life story for a further 5 years. ("C&D" would wind up going through thirteen years of development and false starts due to random corporate mergers at various networks and studios before eventually coming to fruition as the television series "Holliston" in 2012.)
Green first gained worldwide recognition with his independent slasher comedy "Hatchet", a story and character ("Victor Crowley") that he had first come up with while at summer sleep away camp in 1983 when he was just 8 years old in an effort to scare the other children in his cabin. Written in 2003 while Green was spinning heavy metal records in the DJ booth at the Rainbow, "Hatchet" was filmed independently in May/June of 2005 and had its world premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival on April 27, 2006. Green spent the next 18 months traveling the world with his gruesome slasher/comedy as it played dozens of film festivals, winning a multitude of awards and accumulating incredibly positive reviews from critics and fans along the way. "Hatchet" received a US theatrical release through Anchor Bay on September 7, 2007 and introduced the world to the iconic villain "Victor Crowley." A worldwide success, "Hatchet" has spawned three sequels to date. Green wrote and directed "Hatchet 2" which arrived in US theaters on October 1, 2010 and he also wrote and produced "Hatchet 3" (2013) which opened in US theaters on June 14, 2013.
After the first "Hatchet" film was massively censored by the Motion Picture Association of America for its 2007 theatrical release, Green made international headlines in 2010 by standing up to the MPAA's archaic and secretive ratings system and refusing to accept the organization's arbitrary NC-17 rating for "Hatchet 2" which the filmmaker stated was completely unfair given the comedic tone of his film and in comparison to the serious torture porn style films of the time, many of which featured sequences of rape and mean spirited, realistic violence but which also happened to be distributed by major studios. After offering cuts and re-submitting "Hatchet 2" to the MPAA numerous times to no avail in an effort to try and find a compromise for an "R" rating, Green and distributor Dark Sky ultimately opted to release the "Hatchet 2" uncut through an arrangement with AMC cinemas, making it the first genre film in almost 30 years to be released in mainstream multiplexes without an MPAA rating. Though the unrated release of "Hatchet 2" was endorsed and conducted exclusively through AMC theaters, the chain immediately began pulling the film from all screens upon its midnight opening and within just 48 hours of its release the film had mysteriously disappeared from all AMC screens nationwide. Though journalists in the media pointed to outside pressure from the MPAA on AMC to pull the film, no explanation was ever given on official record by a proper representative of AMC and the MPAA refused to comment on the matter. With "Hatchet 3" being green-lit almost immediately after "Hatchet 2" arrived on home video, "Victor Crowley" still succeeded despite the AMC/MPAA debacle.
Though "Hatchet" was always intended to be a trilogy, on August 22, 2017 Green took the entire genre world by surprise when he suddenly showed a 4th "Hatchet" film (titled "Victor Crowley") to a sold-out audience of fans that thought they had gathered at the Arclight Cinema in Hollywood, CA to watch a 10th anniversary screening of the original film. Written and directed by Green, "Victor Crowley" was made in complete secrecy over a two year period as the filmmaker's surprise to the fans (known as the "Hatchet Army") on the 10th anniversary of the original "Hatchet." The stunt worked famously and "Victor Crowley" was trending #5 in the world on social media on the night of its surprise premiere in Hollywood, CA - two spots above Marvel's star-studded A-list celebrity attended "Stan Lee Celebration" that was taking place that same night. Green immediately began a worldwide tour with the film that started just three nights later in London, England and carried on through cities in Germany, Canada, and all across the United States (where the tour was dubbed the "Dismember America Tour") until the middle of November. By the end of the tour "Victor Crowley" had played nightly in 57 cities and 4 countries with Green personally appearing and speaking at most of the screenings. To date "Victor Crowley" is the best reviewed of the four "Hatchet" films and the most financially successful film in the franchise since the original. Three months after the theatrical release, the film was released on home video on February 6, 2018. In the weeks leading up to the home video release "Victor Crowley" was the #3 best seller on Amazon.com and among the top 10 most pre-ordered Blu-Rays worldwide ranking above wide release studio films like "Justice League," "Blade Runner," "Jigsaw," and "Get Out" further solidifying the "Hatchet" franchise's villain "Victor Crowley" as a modern day horror icon.
"Hatchet" also earned Green his place in the "Splat Pack", a term coined by esteemed UK film critic Alan Jones to describe a core group of new genre filmmakers who brought practical effects and extreme violence/gore back to the horror genre in the mid 2000's. Heralded by Jones as "the next wave of genre filmmakers," his original article about the "Splat Pack" ran in Total Film magazine in April of 2006 and by October both Time Magazine and the New York Post had also published stories about the "Splat Pack." Green appeared in the 2010 documentary "The Splat Pack" that also featured extensive interviews with his fellow "Splat Pack" members Eli Roth, Neil Marshall, Darren Bousman, Alex Aja, and Greg McLean. (Missing from the documentary were "Splat Pack" members James Wan and Rob Zombie.) Various merchandise based on "Hatchet" and its iconic villain "Victor Crowley" continues to sell more and more each year and in August of 2015 the first widely distributed "Victor Crowley" Halloween mask hit retail shelves across America, selling out of stock nationwide long before the Halloween holiday had arrived. In 2011 "Victor Crowley" first appeared in comic book form in "Hatchet/Slash", a crossover comic between Green's "Hatchet" films and Tim Seeley's long-running "Hack/Slash" comic series. In October of 2016 the first issue of the official "Hatchet" comic hit retail stores and the series has continued on strong with a new issue being released every 3-4 months. Green's first novel, the "Hatchet" tie-in "I, Survivor" will be released in May of 2018. "I, Survivor" first appeared in "Victor Crowley" as a fictitious autobiography written by the film's main character "Andrew Yong," however Green and author Joe Knetter co-wrote the actual book so that fans could delve even further into the "Hatchet" universe and fill in the ten years that had passed in the storyline between "Hatchet 3" and "Victor Crowley."
Aside from "Hatchet" (2007) and its three sequels (2010, 2013, 2017), Green continued and diversified his filmmaking legacy by directing the award winning Hitchcockian psycho-drama "Spiral" (2008), by producing the Sundance shocker and critically acclaimed "Grace" (2009), by writing and directing another Sundance darling and global success the very next year with his snowy suspense thriller "Frozen" (2010), by producing, writing, and directing the comedy "The Diary of Anne Frankenstein" which was included as part of the drive-in anthology film "Chillerama" (2011), and by writing, directing, and starring in the genre bending and highly praised successful pseudo-documentary "Digging Up The Marrow" (2015). In between his feature films Green also continued to write and direct various short films for his ArieScope website just for fun, several of which went on to become full blown viral hits with millions of views on-line including "Jack Chop," "Fairy Tale Police," and "Saber." Written, directed, and edited by Green, "Saber" received two awards in Lucasfilm's annual Star Wars Fan Film Awards at San Diego Comic-Con in 2009 ("Best Action" and "Audience Choice") and also spawned two sequels that were released to huge success in 2012 and 2014.
Meanwhile, after thirteen years of development and setbacks due to network mergers, in 2011 Green's ultimate passion project "Coffee & Donuts" was finally brought to fruition as the sit-com "Holliston." In its new form, Green was not only "Holliston's" creator but also the series' show-runner, writer, director, and main star. Licensed for broadcast by the FEARnet cable network, "Holliston" had its world television premiere on April 3, 2012 and quickly found a loyal audience. A second season was announced the morning after only the second episode had aired. An hour-long "Holliston Christmas Special" premiered later that same year on December 18th and is still considered by most fans to be their favorite episode of the series with its unexpected amount of emotion including a tear-jerking final scene between "Adam" and "Corri" that was revealed on the Blu-ray commentary track to have been completely improvised by actors Adam Green and Corri English. Season 2 of "Holliston" premiered on June 4, 2013 and further solidified the series as a hit despite FEARnet's extremely limited broadcast accessibility. However, just as Green was beginning to write Season 3, "Holliston" suffered the tragic death of main ensemble cast member Dave Brockie who passed away in what was eventually reported to be a drug overdose. Brockie not only played "Oderus Urungus" on "Holliston" (Green's character's imaginary alien friend and ulterior conscience), he had also performed as the lead singer for the heavy metal band GWAR for 30 years and was one of Green's closest friends in real life. To make matters even worse, just three weeks after Brockie's death, the FEARnet television network was suddenly dissolved in yet another unforeseen corporate merger between Comcast and Time Warner. In August of 2014 Green delivered a eulogy for Brockie at a public memorial in Virginia attended by several thousand GWAR and "Holliston" fans. During his speech, Green's played back the final voice mail Brockie had left for him and concluded by asking the thousands of fans that were present to all hold their hands together in the air. "This is your metal family," Green reminded the grieving fans. "And your metal family will always be here for you." The memorial concluded with a traditional viking style burning of Brockie's "Oderus Urungus" costume in Richmond's Haddad Lake. Overcome with grief, Green stepped away from "Holliston" for several years without any word if he would ever return to his show again.
During Green's indefinite hiatus from "Holliston," he continued to do a weekly podcast with fellow director, co-star, and real-life best friend Joe Lynch called "The Movie Crypt" on the GeekNation digital network. Named after the fictitious cable access program that Green and Lynch's character's host on "Holliston", "The Movie Crypt" was originally designed to merely be a spin-off and companion piece to the sit-com and the two filmmakers only planned to do the podcast for the ten weeks that Season 2 was airing. However, their weekly program began pulling in extraordinarily high numbers and quickly became one of the most popular entertainment industry behind the scenes podcasts on the internet due to Green and Lynch's enjoyable on-air chemistry and the duos unfiltered honesty about their real-life experiences as working artists in the Hollywood system. Focusing on a different guest artist's entire career journey each week, "The Movie Crypt" showcases all sides of the industry from filmmakers to actors to costumers to agents to studio executives to musicians and beyond. Guests have included Chris Columbus, Slash, Joe Dante, Jordan Peele, James Gunn, Penelope Spheeris, Bobcat Goldthwait, and Rob Cohen. By January of 2015 "The Movie Crypt" was averaging over 500,000 worldwide listeners a week and the podcast was listed in Entertainment Weekly's January 9th issue as one of "The Top 20 Podcasts You Should Be Listening To" out of over 285,000 podcasts in existence. In addition to their candid and compelling weekly artist interviews, Green and Lynch have also produced special stand out episodes of "The Movie Crypt" such as the November 2015 "Addiction" episode that tackled substance abuse and addiction within the industry, the December 2014 "Holliston Reunion" episode where the cast performed a new original "Holliston" episode designed as a radio play, and their December 2015 "Christmas Special" which featured a sincere and moving 2-hour interview with Santa Claus that remains the podcast's most popular episode to date. Green and Lynch have never missed a single week since the podcast first launched on May 6, 2013. It was "The Movie Crypt's" unplanned and unexpected success that would ultimately set the stage for the return of "Holliston."
In August of 2015 Entertainment Weekly made the announcement that Green and his cast had decided that they would indeed continue on with "Holliston" and do a 3rd season. In February of 2016 the "Holliston" cast appeared together on Facebook live where they answered questions from fans after completing their first ever read through of two of Green's new scripts for Season 3. During the Q&A with fans Green stated that "Oderus" would not be recast or replaced and that when "Holliston" returns he would acknowledge the loss of Brockie and then move on with the show, keeping his character's closet door permanently closed for as long as the series may continue. As of the time of this writing, Season 3 of "Holliston" is expected to begin shooting once the cast's individual production schedules can line-up together. With series stars Adam Green and Joe Lynch both consistently directing feature films and other television shows and with series co-star Dee Snider so busy with his various music projects and tours it is very difficult to get the entire cast together at the same time to shoot. The first official "Holliston" graphic novel (titled "Friendship Is Tragic") was announced and previewed on March 17, 2016 at Chicago's C2E2 comic book expo and pop culture convention. The comic book hit retail shelves in the Fall of 2016 and a sequel was green-lit just four days later. The second graphic novel (titled "Carnival of Carnage") hits shelves in May of 2018.
In 2015 Green turned ArieScope.com into an on-line network by offering weekly original programming. With over 100 free short films and original series' episodes to watch, Green's personal blog, and an on-line merchandise store, ArieScope.com has become a destination site for original content to millions of fans worldwide. Original series such as "Adam Green's Scary Sleepover" and "Horrified" proved to be extremely popular with fans and ArieScope.com also released the award winning series "20 Seconds To Live" which was helmed by filmmaker Ben Rock, an artist that Green personally believes in and wanted to expose his own audience to. Green's original on-line series and various short films are also carried on ArieScope's YouTube channel which has received over 4.6 million individual views to date.
In 2017 Green once again turned his attention back to his longtime band "Haddonfield" and the group released the album "Ghosts of Salem" on vinyl, CD, and digital through EMP Label Group and Green's own sub-label ArieScope Records. On October 14, 2017 "Haddonfield" celebrated the release of "Ghosts of Salem" with a live performance at the Palladium in Worcester, MA during the annual Rock And Shock horror and music festival. "Ministry," "Devil Driver," and "Motionless In White" also performed at the festival with "Haddonfield" in 2017.
A celebrated leader and inspirational personality in the horror genre, Adam Green has amassed an enormous following worldwide through his down to earth and extraordinarily kind demeanor at personal appearances, by his accessibility to his fans on social networking, by performing improv comedy and original live "Holliston" episodes for fans on the convention circuit, by never charging his fans for his autograph or photo, by consistently putting out new entertainment for his audience on such a frequent schedule, and by inspiring and encouraging his own fans that they too can achieve their dreams so long as they don't let the world's negativity change or disenchant their spirit. Green has personally organized and lead many charity events over the years. In May of 2013 he raised over $15,000.00 to help the victims of the Boston Marathon bombing by putting on a three-night fundraiser in his home town of Boston where he held theatrical screenings of the "Hatchet" films, a preview screening of select Season 2 episodes of "Holliston", and a silent auction of celebrity donated genre memorabilia. In April of 2015 Green also helped raise $7,000.00 for "Save A Yorkie Rescue" at the Monstermania convention in New Jersey by auctioning himself off for a date with a fan and auctioning off a screen-used prop hatchet. While on stage during the auction event, Green stated that it was the companionship of his own Yorkie "Arwen" that got him through the various personal tragedies he underwent in 2014. "You're not just saving the lives of these wonderful dogs, you're also very likely saving the lives of the people who will adopt them." Adam Green and Joe Lynch also put on an annual 48-hour live marathon of their Movie Crypt podcast to benefit "Save A Yorkie Rescue." The two filmmakers and "Holliston" co-stars stay on the air live for an entire weekend with celebrity guests joining them around the clock providing live comedy, film commentaries, script readings, and interviews to raise money for the dog rescue through donations from their audience. The Movie Crypt marathon raised $14,000.00 in 2016 and $24,000.00 in 2017, saving hundreds of abused and abandoned dogs that were in dire need of medical care and foster homes.
At the time of this posting Adam Green is developing Season 3 of "Holliston," working on a new TV series called "Killer Pizza" which is being produced by Chris Columbus, working on his next feature film project, and writing his next record with "Haddonfield" as well as working on many other projects. He lives in Los Angeles with his dog "Arwen" and his cat "Tyler." An avid music fan he has been known to follow bands on tour such as "Aerosmith," "Metallica," and "Guns N Roses." "Twisted Sister" is his favorite band of all time and 1982's "E.T. The Extra Terrestrial" remains his most favorite film. He is active on Twitter and Instagram at @Adam_Fn_Green and he also personally responds to his fans on his public Facebook page: Facebook.com/AdamFnGreen.
Biography submitted to IMDB in May 2016. Updated in March 2018.- Director
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Ti West is most notable for directing horror films, as well as being an actor, writer, producer, and editor. Ti broke out, after directing various projects, in 2009, when he directed two feature films - 2009's The House Of The Devil and Cabin Fever 2: Spring Fever. Ti later directed, with his production company Glass Eye Pix, the widely popular 2011 horror film The Innkeepers, which starred actors Sara Paxton, Pat Healy and Kelly McGillis. Ti also starred as "Tariq" in Adam Wingard and Simon Barrett's horror film, You're Next (2011). More recently he has been a director for MTV's Scream and Fox's The Exorcist. His acting roles include him portraying "Dave" in Joe Swanberg's rom-com, Drinking Buddies (2013) and a cameo as "Favorite Teacher" in The House Of The Devil.- Producer
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Quentin Jerome Tarantino was born in Knoxville, Tennessee. His father, Tony Tarantino, is an Italian-American actor and musician from New York, and his mother, Connie (McHugh), is a nurse from Tennessee. Quentin moved with his mother to Torrance, California, when he was four years old.
In January of 1992, first-time writer-director Tarantino's Reservoir Dogs (1992) appeared at the Sundance Film Festival. The film garnered critical acclaim and the director became a legend immediately. Two years later, he followed up Dogs success with Pulp Fiction (1994) which premiered at the Cannes film festival, winning the coveted Palme D'Or Award. At the 1995 Academy Awards, it was nominated for the best picture, best director and best original screenplay. Tarantino and writing partner Roger Avary came away with the award only for best original screenplay. In 1995, Tarantino directed one fourth of the anthology Four Rooms (1995) with friends and fellow auteurs Alexandre Rockwell, Robert Rodriguez and Allison Anders. The film opened December 25 in the United States to very weak reviews. Tarantino's next film was From Dusk Till Dawn (1996), a vampire/crime story which he wrote and co-starred with George Clooney. The film did fairly well theatrically.
Since then, Tarantino has helmed several critically and financially successful films, including Jackie Brown (1997), Kill Bill: Vol. 1 (2003), Kill Bill: Vol. 2 (2004), Inglourious Basterds (2009), Django Unchained (2012) and The Hateful Eight (2015).- Producer
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Robert Anthony Rodriguez was born and raised in San Antonio, Texas, USA, to Rebecca (Villegas), a nurse, and Cecilio G. Rodríguez, a salesman. His family is of Mexican descent.
Of all the people to be amazed by the images of John Carpenter's 1981 sci-fi parable, Escape from New York (1981), none were as captivated as the 12-year-old Rodriguez, who sat with his friends in a crowded cinema. Many people watch films and arrogantly proclaim "I can do that." This young man said something different: "I WILL do that. I'm gonna make movies." That day was the catalyst of his dream career. Born and raised in Texas, Robert was the middle child of a family that would include 10 children. While many a child would easily succumb to a Jan Brady sense of being lost in the shuffle, Robert always stood out as a very creative and very active young man. An artist by nature, he was very rarely seen sans pencil-in-hand doodling some abstract (yet astounding) dramatic feature on a piece of paper. His mother, not a fan of the "dreary" cinema of the 1970s, instills a sense of cinema in her children by taking them on weekly trips to San Antonio's famed Olmos Theatre movie house and treats them to a healthy dose of Hollywood's "Golden Age" wonders, from Sergio Leone to the silent classic of Charles Chaplin and Buster Keaton.
In a short amount of time, young Robert finds the family's old Super-8 film camera and makes his first films. The genres are unlimited: action, sci-fi, horror, drama, stop-motion animation. He uses props from around the house, settings from around town, and makes use of the largest cast and crew at his disposal: his family. At the end of the decade, his father, a salesman, brings home the latest home-made technological wonder: a VCR, and with it (as a gift from the manufacturer) a video camera. With this new equipment at his disposal, he makes movies his entire life. He screens the movies for friends, all of whom desperately want to star in the next one. He gains a reputation in the neighborhood as "the kid who makes movies". Rather than handing in term papers, he is allowed to hand in "term movies" because, as he himself explains, "[the teachers] knew I'd put more effort into a movie than I ever would into an essay." He starts his own comic strip, "Los Hooligans". His movies win every local film competition and festival. When low academic grades threaten to keep him out of UT Austin's renowned film department, he proves his worth the only way he knows how: he makes a movie. Three, in fact: trilogy of short movies called "Austin Stories" starring his siblings. It beats the entries of the school's top students and allows Robert to enter the program. After being accepted into the film department, Robert takes $400 of his own money to make his "biggest" film yet: a 16mm short comedy/fantasy called Bedhead (1991).
Pouring every idea and camera trick he knew into the short, it went on to win multiple awards. After meeting and marrying fellow Austin resident Elizabeth Avellan, Robert comes up with a crazy idea: he will sell his body to science in order to finance his first feature-length picture (a Mexican action adventure about a guitarist with no name looking for work but getting caught up in a shoot-'em-up adventure) that he will sell to the Spanish video market and use as an entry point to a lucrative Hollywood career. With his "guinea pig" money he raises a mere $7,000 and creates El Mariachi (1992). But rather than lingering in obscurity, the film finds its way to the Sundance film festival where it becomes an instant favorite, wins Robert a distribution deal with Columbia Pictures and turns him into an icon among would-be film-makers the world over. Not one to rest on his laurels, he immediately helms the straight-to-cable movie Roadracers (1994) and contributes a segment to the anthology comedy Four Rooms (1995) (his will be the most lauded segment).
His first "genuine" studio effort would soon have people referring to him as "John Woo from south-of-the-border". It is the "Mariachi" remake/sequel Desperado (1995). More lavish and action-packed than its own predecessor, the movie--while not a blockbuster hit--does decent business and launches the American film careers of Antonio Banderas as the guitarist-turned-gunslinger and Salma Hayek as his love interest (the two would star in several of his movies from then on). It also furthers the director's reputation of working on low budgets to create big results. In the year when movies like Batman Forever (1995) and GoldenEye (1995) were pushing budgets past the $100 million mark, Rodriguez brought in "Desperado" for just under $7 million. The film also featured a cameo by fellow indie film wunderkind, Quentin Tarantino. It would be the beginning of a long friendship between the two sprinkled with numerous collaborations. Most notable the Tarantino-penned vampire schlock-fest From Dusk Till Dawn (1996). The kitschy flick (about a pair of criminal brothers on the run from the Texas Rangers, only to find themselves in a vamp-infested Mexican bar) became an instant cult favorite and launched the lucrative film career of ER (1994) star George Clooney.
After a two-year break from directing (primarily to spend with his family, but also developing story ideas and declining Hollywood offers) he returned to "Dusk till Dawn" territory with the teen sci-fi/horror movie The Faculty (1998), written by Scream (1996) writer, Kevin Williamson. Although it's developed a small following of its own, it would prove to be Robert's least-successful film. Critics and fans alike took issue with the pedestrian script, the off-kilter casting and the flick's blatant over-commercialization (due to a marketing deal with clothing designer Tommy Hilfiger). After another three-year break, Rodriguez returned to make his most successful (and most unexpected) movie yet, based on his own segment from Four Rooms (1995). After a string of bloody, adult-oriented action fare, no one anticipated him to write and direct the colorful and creative Spy Kids (2001), a movie about a pair of prepubescent Latino sibs who discover that their lame parents (Antonio Banderas and Carla Gugino) are actually two of the world's greatest secret agents. The film was hit among both audiences and critics alike.
After quitting the Writers' Guild of America and being introduced to digital filmmaking by George Lucas, Robert immediately applied the creative, flexible (and cost-effective) technology to every one of his movies from then on, starting with an immediate sequel to his family friendly hit: Spy Kids 2: Island of Lost Dreams (2002) which was THEN immediately followed by the trilogy-capper Spy Kids 3: Game Over (2003). The latter would prove to be the most financially-lucrative of the series and employ the long-banished movie gimmick of 3-D with eye-popping results. Later the same year Rodriguez career came full circle when he completed the final entry of the story that made brought him to prominence: "El Mariachi". The last chapter, Once Upon a Time in Mexico (2003), would be his most direct homage to the Sergio Leone westerns he grew up on. With a cast boasting Antonio Banderas (returning as the gunslinging guitarist), Johnny Depp (as a corrupt CIA agent attempting to manipulate him), Salma Hayek, Mickey Rourke, Willem Dafoe and Eva Mendes, the film delivered even more of the Mexican shoot-'em-up spectacle than both of the previous films combined.
Now given his choice of movies to do next, Robert sought out famed comic book writer/artist Frank Miller, a man who had been very vocal of never letting his works be adapted for the screen. Even so, he was wholeheartedly convinced and elated when Rodriguez presented him with a plan to turn Miller's signature work into the film Sin City (2005). A collection of noir-ish tales set in a fictional, crime-ridden slum, the movie boasted the largest cast Rodriguez had worked with to that date. Saying he didn't want to mere "adapt" Miller's comics but "translate" them, Rodriguez' insistence that Miller co-direct the movie lead to Robert's resignation from the Director's Guild of America (and his subsequent dismissal from the film John Carter (2012) as a result). Many critics cited that Sin City was created as a pure film noir piece to adapt Miller's comics onto the screen. Co-directing with Frank Miller and bringing in Quentin Tarantino to guest-direct a scene allowed Rodriguez to again shock Hollywood with his talent.
In late 2007, Rodriguez again teamed up with his friend Tarantino to create the double feature Grindhouse (2007). Rodriguez's offering, Planet Terror (2007), was a film made to be "hardcore, extreme, sex-fueled, action-packed." Rodriguez flirts with his passion to make a showy film exploiting all of his experience to make an extremely entertaining thrill ride. The film is encompassed around Cherry (Rose McGowan), a reluctant go-go dancer who is found wanting when she meets her ex-lover El Wray (played by Freddy Rodríguez) who turns up at a local BBQ grill. They then, after a turn of events, find themselves fending off brain-eating zombies whilst trying to flee to Mexico (here we go off to Mexico again). Apart from directing, Rodriguez also involves himself in camera work, editing and composing music for his movies' sound tracks (he composed Planet Terror's main theme). He also shoots a lot of his own action scenes to get a direct idea from his eye as the director into the film. In El Mariachi (1992), Rodriguez spent hours in front of a pay-to-use, computer editing his film. This allowed him to capture the ideal footage exactly as he wanted it. Away from the filming aspect of Hollywood, Rodriguez is an expert chef who cooks gourmet meals for the cast and crew. Rodriguez is also known for his ability to turn a low-budgeted film with a small crew into an example of film mastery. El mariachi was "the movie made on seven grand" and still managed to rank as one of Rodriguez' best films (receiving a rating of 92% on the Rotten Tomatoes film review site).
Because Rodriguez is involved so deeply in his films, he is able to capture what he wants first time, which saves both time and money. Rodriguez's films share some similar threads and ideas, whilst also having differences. In El Mariachi (1992), he uses a hand-held camera. He made this decision for several reasons. First, he couldn't afford a tripod and secondly, he wanted to make the audience more aware of the action. In the action sequences he is given more mobility with a hand-held camera and also allows for distortion of the unprofessional action sequences (because the cost of all special effects in the film totaled $600). However, in Sin City (2005) and Planet Terror (2007), the budget was much greater, and Rodriguez could afford to spend more on special affects (especially since both films were filmed predominately with green screen) and, thus, there was no need to cover for error.
Playing by his own rules or not at all, Robert Rodriguez has redefined what a filmmaker can or cannot do. Shunning Hollywood's ridiculously high budgets, multi-picture deals and the two most powerful unions for the sake of maintaining creative freedom are decisions that would (and have) cost many directors their careers. Rodriguez has turned these into his strengths, creating some of the most imaginative works the big-screen has ever seen.