Melty Movie Make-Up

For HOUSEBOUND, I used a combination of butterscotch pudding, pinkish lotion from the dollar store and fake blood (corn syrup, red food coloring and a little chocolate syrup to darken it up) to make mushy gushy melting FX for several characters who get bitten by an little monster. If not for the lotion, it would've smelled delicious and probably tasted pretty good. Simple stuff, but it's grossed out more than a few folks.

Above, we see Shannon - what a trooper!!!

By the way, there's going to be a screening of HOUSEBOUND and THE SEEKERS on Friday, October 17, 9 p.m. at the Northern Lights Theater Pub in Salem, Oregon. If you are in the area, come on down, drink some beer and watch some horror flicks!

Mad Scientist!

Here I am as a mad scientist for my 2001 Halloween party/Odd Noggins Premiere Party.



I kind of look diabolical making my secret formula punch!

Let's Do The Timewarp

Here I am with my wife at our 1990 Halloween party. She's Magenta from The Rocky Horror Picture Show and I'm some sort of random scary bloody hooded mutant guy.

Halloween 1970

I love this picture. Look at that clock! Look at that lamp! Look at that table! And there is a lava lamp on top of the piano! I was almost 3 and a half. 1970 New Jersey goodness.

Make-Up Monsters

I have had this book by Marcia Lynn Cox since I was in elementary school in the 70s - I think I got it through the scholastic book club. Love this book. I have to admit, I have only tried the skull face make-up on myself (on my last trick or treat - more on that in a later post). It's great because it is very kid-friendly, has lots of step by step photos of young kids getting made up, and very easy to understand instructions. One of these days I want to try doing the bug-eyed frog guy one...

Evil Clown

Here I am at my Halloween party in 1989 - I'm Alice Cooper and Rob is the devil. But what is really scary is the evil clown with the mustache sitting in the corner....

Polonia Day 2008

Today is Polonia Day, named after the prolific indie twins from Pennsylvania, the men behind such video b-movie efforts as FEEDERS and BLOOD RED PLANET. Sadly, John passed away suddenly back in February. Mark continues on at www.cinegraphicprod.com. In the past Polonia Days, my son and I have watched a Polonia Brothers movie or drawn some FEEDERS-inspired artwork. Stay tuned for what we did this year....

It Haunts Casting News!

Look who is in IT HAUNTS! It's Ariauna Albright!

You may have seen Ariauna in a bunch of movies like POLYMORPH, BLOODLETTING, WITCHOUSE 2, and you can check her out in next year's PLATOON OF THE DEAD!

Eric Spudic shot some footage of Ariauna playing Rachel, Kelsey's best friend. Big thanks to Ariauna's boyfriend for all of his help!

I'm working on capturing the footage right now. I also picked up the ghosthunting footage that Darla Doom and her husband shot. Hope to get all of this new footage cut in over the weekend.

Shot some more footage for EATER over the weekend and hope to get a few more pick-ups this week.

Wordle

Hey this is cool! I went to http://wordle.net/ and put in the address of this blog and it spit out this snazzy "wordle" based on the popularity of words on my blog.

Happy Birthday Tom Stedham!

Hey all you movie makers out there: hire this guy! He'll do topless scenes!

Eater Shots

Good times!

Welcome Twisted Haunted Eater's Sister

Waiting for the used miniDV cam to arrive...

IT HAUNTS scenes were shot in California over the weekend. Anxiously awaiting the footage!

Still working on getting the ghost hunting footage for IT HAUNTS...

Made a last-minute cast change due to scheduling conflicts and shot some great (and bloody) EATER footage on Saturday with Rob Merickel and Michelle "Ame" Mahoney. Hope to post some screen caps soon. When getting everything ready that morning, I discovered that the hooded sweatshirt my son wears as part of the alien outfit was in his locker at school! We ran out and managed to buy a replacement and make it back to the house to meet everyone.

I made the mistake of NOT waiting until the last shot for Michelle to scream, so shortly thereafter an alarmed woman on her bicycle came down the trail. She was stunned and relieved to see my son standing there in his full alien outfit and me holding a camera.

Much better than when we shot in an el cheapo hotel several years back for HOUSEBOUND. Kylene screamed at the top of her lungs and we fully expected the cops or at least the manager to come see what was going on. No one ever came. The hotel has since been torn down.

Plan to shoot a couple more EATER scenes this coming Saturday morning...

Met up with Mike Hegg and got a couple of DVD-Rs of DEADLY PREMONITIONS to check the filmlook on. Working to get up there first weekend of October and finish it all up!

Managed to get some 4-track recordings of my son and his friends into GarageBand to add some tracks and tweak some levels. Cool!

E-mailed Bob Olin about the WELCOME SISTER segment of TWISTED FATES - hoping he can shoot it in the next few weeks before the weather turns really bad...

Checking out the groovy 1970's pop culture stuff at the Plaid Stallions blog (at http://www.plaidstallions.blogspot.com) recently lead me to Jon's Random Acts of Geekery (at http://waffyjon.blogspot.com), where I discovered Halloween Countdown 2008 - basically a thing where you agree to do at least one blog post a day from October 1-31st. And I thought it would be cool to do it! So I am. So here is the snazzy banner. So keep watching every dang day in October for some Dr. Squid Halloween weirdness!

Moving Ahead...

Ordered a used MiniDV camera from Amazon - price was not much more than trying to get mine repaired and it's the same make and model so at least I'll know what I am doing. Should be here in a week or two...

IT HAUNTS package sent off to California....

Hoping to get the ghosthunting footage for IT HAUNTS soon....

Had to push the EATER shoot out a bit due to conflicting schedules - just concerned about the leaves turning colors and not matching the other summer footage....

Have been scanning a bunch of old photos for a project for October. More news on that at the end of September...

Step by step

Have confirmed the actress to play the final small part in the IT HAUNTS segment of TWISTED FATES. Have a cameraman lined up as well. Sending a package off to them this week. Will post some screen caps when I get the footage back.

Have been on vacation for a bit. Getting back to the grind at work this week and planning to get the TRULY DREADFUL TALES package mailed off to the director for the BEETLE MANIAC short.

Meeting with Mike Hegg on next Thursday to get a DVD-r proof of the latest pass at DEADLY PREMONITIONS.

Hope to finish shooting EATER this weekend. We'll see...

Sasquatch Dumpling Gang

I stumbled across this movie a while back, when it was still making the rounds at film festivals. It was shot here in Oregon so there was some local press for it.

It was written and directed by Tim Skousen, who was the first assistant director on Napoleon Dynamite, and the movie shares some similarity in tone to that movie.

imdb's synopsis sums it up well: "Young, fantasy/sci-fi aficionado Gavin Gore and his friends stumble onto some huge footprints in the woods. A local cop, reporter and a renowned Sasquatch authority investigate, while two of Gavin's dim-witted neighbors hatch a scheme to profit from the situation."

I laughed and laughed at this thing and have seen it 4 times already, laughing each time.

In fact, one viewing inspired the Morning Dumplings song.

Dr. Squid sez: Check it out!