The How NOT To Make A Movie Podcast

Bill Malone fell in love with Robby The Robot the moment Robby entered the classic sci fi movie “Forbidden Planet“. Characters like Robby and the Creature From The Black Lagoon completely captivated Bill. They piqued something deep inside him. Like a lot of burgeoning movie-makers, Bill spent time with a super 8 movie camera as a kid. In Bill’s case, that love led him into a career making movies. It also gave him the chance to actually own the character that helped inspire that love: Robby The Robot!

Bill’s one of those great storytellers whose own story is pretty damned compelling. He’s been to some very cool places at some very cool times. He was backstage with a press pass at the Monterey Pop Festival, appeared as Beatle George Harrison in a feature film, designed the face mask that became THE original Michael Meyers mask, and he directed feature films and TV shows including one of the very best episodes of Tales From The Crypt ever!

We will do a deep dive into “Only Skin Deep”. It might just be Bill’s masterpiece!

Ah, but Hollywood’s fickle. Bill’s also experienced more than a few setbacks, too. Bad luck has found Bill directing several examples of how NOT to make a movie. That includes a TV movie we all did together for Fox – W.E.I.R.D World. Bill feels it’s the weakest thing he ever did. We’ll discuss!

We’ll also discuss Freddy’s Nightmares (the “Nightmare On Elm Street” TV series – we all worked on it), Masters of Horror, The House On Haunted Hill and everything else on Bill’s mind. Hell, because he worked for Joel Silver (Bill directed “The House On Haunted Hill” for Joel and Bob Zemeckis’ Cark Castle Pictures), Bill’s got Joel stories, too!

In our case, nothing’s forbidden!

Like happy endings. We’ll talk about how Bill’s passion for movies paid off in the end (to the tune of 5.38 million bucks!).

We “met” Francisco Lacerda – a very, very talented Portuguese-American moviemaker – at this year’s Chattanooga Film Festival. That is, we met a short Francisco made called “They call it... Red Cemetery“. Red Cemetery is both an homage to Sergio Leone and his brand of exploitation moviemaking and a statement of moviemaking talent all by itself. We’d even call what Francisco’s got “killer talent”.

He’s got a very real talent for killing people. On film/video.

Like a lot of young film makers (from outside Hollywood), Francisco has had to find his own way (and find the money to make his movies). He’s struggled with crowd-sourcing (and he’ll talk about his troubles) and even with his own (Portuguese) government. The establishment film community in Portugal is pretty staid, reserved and unimaginative.

At least, they were. Francisco sees hopeful signs of change. Self-described horror movies are starting to find acceptance (and officially-sanctioned financing). Francisco has also found a home in the Troma-verse (some of his work can be found on Troma’s YouTube channel.

We’ll also pick at the early horror movie “wounds” – the ones that inspired Francisco’s own movie-making dreams and ambitions. Especially important to Francisco’s creative evolution: “Alien”. We will do a deep dive into how “Alien” helped shape Francisco’s vision and aspirations.

We compare Francisco to early Sam Raimi or early John Waters. Their early work pushed the envelope repeatedly but always with a big dose of irony. It’s what helped make them both the killer talents they became.

We really enjoyed meeting Francisco and we think you will, too. We’re dead certain that you’ll enjoy Francisco’s work, too.

You can find some at of Francisco’s work at the Troma YouTube Channel.

Odds are you’re here, reading this because you love “Tales From The Crypt” and its iconic Crypt Keeper character. We don’t blame you.; we love both of them, too!

We started this season (some 48 episodes ago) with a conversation that had never been had before about how exactly The Crypt Keeper came to be. He didn’t just drop from the sky “as is”.

Actually, it took the work of four different people to create him.

How To Make A Crypt Keeper

First, there was Kevin Yagher – the guy who created the puppet and all its animatronic bits and pieces.

Then actor John Kassir gave the Crypt Keeper its amazing voice. And that laugh. Wanna know where it came from? John will tell that story!

But, if you watch or listen to a Crypt Keeper segment from any season one episode and then any season three episode, you’ll notice a huge difference.

From Puppet To “Playah”

Lots of huge differences. That’s when Gil and I stepped in and took over writing and producing Crypt.

Among the changes we made to the show – in addition to getting the budget back under control and going after the biggest stars we could get – like Michael J. Fox and Kirk Douglas – we took the show back to its EC Comics roots as ironic, gleefully warped morality tales.

We also reimagined the Crypt Keeper and gave him a rich, interior life. We turned him from a scary puppet into a franchise. While I handled all the writing chores, Gil produced all the Crypt Keeper segments and directed a lot of them – including the Crypt Keeper segments in both Crypt feature films.

The truth is, if you take any of those four people out of this equation? There’s no equation – and we’re not having this conversation.

How do you make an iconic character that will stand the test of time? Well, there’s no book telling you how to do it. But, there is this episode.

In keeping with this episode’s “confidential” nature, we strip off the bandages and reveal plenty of secrets. How the Crypt Keeper’s whole existence is entirely accidental... how John Kassir created the CK’s iconic laugh... how writing the segments was like being tortured – by the Crypt Keeper... why there’ll probably never be another new episode of Tales From The Crypt.

What surprised all four of us (when we spoke) is how despite knowing that the CK was, is, always will be a puppet, each of us succumbed to his “magic”. That’s the strange thing about iconic characters like the Crypt Keeper.

They really do transcend their world and find a comfy place in ours.

Experience the fun as TALES FROM THE CRYPT takes over HORRORCON LA. We brought some friends along with us: one of our favorite actors SHERRIE ROSE, makeup special effects maestro TODD MASTERS and TV producer extraordinaire ED TAPIA (back then, Ed was the best assistant any producer ever had!). And meet THE CHIODO BROTHERS! I moderated their panel celebrating the 35th anniversary of their B movie classic KILLER KLOWNS FROM OUTER SPACE.

We had a monstrously good time meeting fans, signing autographs, taking pictures and just plain hanging out!

Panels, Panels, Panels!

We also did a couple of panels where – How NOT To Make A Movie Podcast-style – we talked about how we soared making Tales From The Crypt and then crashed and burned making Bordello Of Blood.

I also had the pleasure of moderating a panel for the Chiodo Brothers who are celebrating the 35^th anniversary of their cult classic KILLER KLOWNS FROM OUTER SPACE which MGM is about to publish as a computer game.

Bravo, Chiodos – Charles, Steven and Edward!

Way, way, way back in the day, Gil and I had a couple of meetings with the boys where we explored the possibility of working together. We all love blending comedy into our horror.

If you’ve never been to a horror convention, you should! They’re a scary good time!

The Horror Community

There’s a great vibe to them because the horror community is made up of the sweetest people on planet earth.

But there IS something weird about it all.

As you look around, you notice everyone’s dressed up as Freddy Krueger or Jason or Leatherface for instance, but no one EVER dresses up as any of their victims.

Weird, huh? Except it makes total sense! The monsters are the empowered ones. They have all the fun. Just my opinion, but, I think that’s why horror fans embrace horror so passionately: because it empowers them.

This whole phenomenon began with Star Trek fans – Trekkies – which we talked about right here on the “How NOT To Make a Movie Podcast” with our guest Roger Nygard!

But, back to HORRORCON LA!

Our Crypt Panel

Our Crypt panel consisted of ED TAPIA – NOW a super successful producer in his own right – Ed produces Everyone’s All American for the CW – BUT, BACK THEN the greatest assistant a movie or TV producer could ever have... there was TODD MASTERS – Crypt’s makeup special effects maestro, and SHERRIE ROSE – our most favorite actor. We hired Sherrie three times fer Chrissakes!

While we were waiting to go on, we hung out with Tales From The Crypt alumni and fellow HORRORCON participant, actor KEVIN DILLON!

Finally, it was showtime. Here’s a bit of that first panel. We talked about “Getting naked”...

As Sunday – day two – of the convention dawned, Gil awoke feeling ill and prudently decided to stay home.

That left just me, my son Tristan and Ed Tapia to hold down the fort. I think we did a pretty good job!

Sunday, (Not So) Bloody Sunday

Sunday’s visitors were even nicer than Saturday’s!

I loved getting to have quality face time with everyone!

And – among the people I bumped into and connected with was SEAN CASSIDY – Lurch’s Son”. I’m not a starfucker in any way, shape or form. I’m not. But Sean’s dad Ted Cassidy – aside from playing Lurch in the original 1960’s ADAMS FAMILY – appears in one of my favorite scenes from one of my favorite films.

He’s Harvey Logan in Butch Cassidy And The Sundance Kid.

He speaks an iconic line when Butch insist they go over the rules before they start their knife fight: “Rules, in a knife fight?” says Logan, “No rules!”

And then – oh-so-ironically (since there are no rules) – Butch Cassidy kicks Ted Cassidy in the nuts.

Stay tuned, kiddees – Sean Cassidy will be a guest on this very podcast in the very near future!

Sunday Panel

For our Sunday panel – since it was just me and Ed – we moved the chairs from the stage to the floor and we drew the audience in closer. We wanted them to feel like we were shooting the shit with em. Which was exactly what we were doing...

It was a great weekend – would have been even better of course if Gil hadn’t gotten sick – but in life as in movie productions, you zig when you have to and zag when you must and hope like hell that everything works out.

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