Editorials
[Set Visit] The Gore and Ghosts of Nicolas Pesce’s Practical Effects-Heavy ‘The Grudge’
On set of the police precinct where some of supernatural happenings of The Grudge plague the unlucky detectives who stepped foot in the cursed home, we observed a scene featuring actress Andrea Riseborough’s encounter with a male ghost. Only, he doesn’t look like a typical ghost, and nothing like the kabuki style ghosts of Shimizu’s original films. Sickly, pale, with purple veins spidering out throughout his face and skull, the man stands there in the doorway, shaking as he pulls his finger up to his lips and hoarsely whispers, “Shhhhh.” If it wasn’t clear before that this reimagining would be a very different beast, this seals it.
Between takes, we sit down with the ghost himself, actor Dave Brown, who reveals his character’s name is Sam. Of his character’s background, he shares, “So Sam is the original owner of a house that has a Grudge. But what happened to here, to get him to this point, is he died. And we’re not quite sure how yet. Or at least he disappeared. He seems to be haunting anybody that comes in contact with the house.” Of his internal conflict he adds, “For me, the emotional bit is trying to play this ghost as if he’s fighting it. So for Sam, the two emotions are extreme rage and extreme sadness.” In other words, Sam is a ghost of barely contained rage, threatening to spill over any moment.
From there, it means that the iconic croaking sound that Kayako made in Shimizu’s original films will be replaced by something entirely new and different. Brown adds, “I’m trying to play it a little bit differently, almost like it comes from a sense of asphyxiation. And so it’s more of a breathing in, versus an exhale. And a struggle, and I think that’s what happens with the character of Sam, is he’s constantly struggling to breathe in this new thing. And at the same time, trying to suppress everything else. So you’ll see what that sound is in the film.”
The actor is in full makeup for his scenes, and when asked how long he spent in the makeup chair he reveals an intriguing detail, “This is stage two. Stage two takes somewhere between two and three hours.” That’s correct. As the effect of the Grudge wears on, the ghosts’ appearances will become more grotesque. Specific stages that initially start out as calm yet eerie before increasing. Brown explains, “There’s three different stages that play within each stage. Well especially stage two and three. There’s playing around a little bit with the progression of it. So, stage three is a very different beast.” As for stage three? That involves an impressive, fully articulated animatronic mask.
The special makeup effects design and puppeteering for The Grudge was created by artist Toby Lindala (Final Destination 5, Death Note, Seventh Son) and his company Lindala Schminken LSFX. Lindala and his team are having a blast working on The Grudge, showing off the various lifelike prosthetics, masks, and blood that will be used in the film. Lindala and his team have essentially been let loose to create shockingly horrific gore and ghost effects, and that excitement isn’t just contained within the special effects team.
Executive producer Schuyler Weiss elaborates on the decision to go practical, “We’ve tried to do a lot of practical work in this movie, and that’s something we’ve been really excited about, connecting it not just with Grudge and that world but connecting it with the whole legacy of horror movies and genre movies. Tony Lindala is our key effects designer, and he’s created all the ghosts, all of the gore. We’ve done it all in-camera, and it’s been ambitious in a totally different way than a big effects movie. It’s almost a much more delicate ambition to try and get all those things to work on the day. It’s exciting, we think, for the process and for the audience but it’s also great for the scene, too. Instead of the actor running around green screen chasing a pink X on a stick, we have really hideous, shocking, gruesome things happening in the scene with the other actors on the screen, everybody from the cast members to the production, also maybe the audience, are going to get why we made that such a priority.”
Practical effects were a big part of director Nicolas Pesce’s vision from the outset. A huge, long-time fan of the genre, Pesce elaborates on his excitement to go practical, “It’s not the ’80’s anymore with wax, bad prosthetics; we can do things that look incredibly realistic and I think that it is just a more guttural reaction for the audience. In terms of the ghosts, I think that so much of our conception of the ghosts and the designing of the ghosts went into thinking about how do we do something practically that’s just as frightening as something you would do that you would normally be like, ‘Okay, it’s just easier to do in the effects, but let’s go there practically and see how far we can push it.’ When we get into our full-on ghost modes, we’re dealing with really elaborate animatronic prosthetics that is something that people don’t really do anymore and to me, my taste in horror lies in the more vintage stuff. There are bits and pieces that pay homage to the bigger, slightly more campy stuff of the yesteryear of horror but also stuff that’s brutally realistic. Getting to play in that world is much more my taste and things that I want to do as a director. It’s fun for me to get to play with masks and like this stuff and figure out how to shoot it and make it look as scary as possible rather than, ‘Yeah, I’ll fix it in post, I’ll make it scary don’t worry.’ I think that the end result is hopefully going to be far scarier.”
This meant Lindala had a lot of creative freedom when designing the new ghosts. “We shot really wide and we tried out some wacky ideas. What’s that little movie, The Hidden. Right? And there was some stuff that was almost reminiscent of that, right? With these crazy creatures. So, it’s this thing embodying inside and kind of like, Alien, an addition to the person. It’s latched on and these things. Tentacles coming out and wrapping heads and crazy stuff,” Lindala shares of the more eccentric design ideas, though ultimately the designs drew inspiration from the classic drama masks more representative of the strong emotions these ghosts embody, “A really strong, super sorrowful, super angry … We just did these really extreme expressions almost like Renaissance art.”
Each of the ghosts represents a different emotion, and Lindala explains of the ghosts and Sam in particular, “But, I love the fact that it’s really about capturing the emotion, right? And the fact that they’re victims as well, right? They’re tortured. So, there’s a synthetic quality to it, which is more scary. He’s kind of rage and there’s a wonderful out of control, unpredictability about him that is so frightening.” With the actor who portrays Sam on set, his makeup and masks are the focus of today’s show and tell, but Lindala makes sure that we know that’s not even the crowning glory of his designs. He shares a sneak peek of two more, one of which is monstrous, “Her abdomen is ripped open. She’s got her fetus hanging there…”
It’s not just the ghosts that team is excited about, but the really gruesome deaths as well. These ghosts don’t just whisk their victims away from beneath the bedsheets; the victims suffer violent ends. Lindala discusses one of the character’s deaths, a gnarly fall down a stairwell, “[Redacted] goes down four flights of stairs, just gets bashed to hell. And then the amount of blood and gore, we just painted walls, man.” When asked just how much blood has been involved in the process so far, Lindala grins, “I think we’re probably looking at something around 30 gallons now.”
We’re now just as excited to see what Pesce, Lindala and the crew have created for The Grudge.
College kids, strippers and vampires—those were Donald P. Borchers’ only requirements when he approached Richard Wenk about writing and directing a movie for New World Pictures. As requested, Wenk cooked up Vamp (1986), a tailor-made blend of the decade’s teen movie craze as well as its horror boom.
Grim and earnest stories were still very much a part of the ’80s horror landscape, yet Vamp is something of a comedy. One difference between it and, say, Saturday the 14th, though, is the former avoids using schtick. Wenk’s movie proves that horror comedies also don’t have to subtract thrills from their recipes. Of course, it takes a minute before reaching that point; college antics and culture shocks preface this one macabre misadventure.
Vamp‘s initial setup is apt for a typical college-set, sex-driven comedy; to bribe their way into a fraternity house, two pledges (Chris Makepeace, Robert Rusler) go looking for some adult entertainment. Without wasting time on any further exposition, the characters embark on an all-in-one-night trip that quickly detours into terror.
To procure their elusive MacGuffin—a stripper willing to gyrate for some frat boys—Keith (Makepeace) and AJ (Rusler), plus a third wheel named Duncan (Gedee Watanabe), trade the safety of their remote college campus for the seediness of some unnamed city. The setting is recognizably L.A. by day, but as soon as night falls, downtown, along with the characters, slips into a kind of surreal universe. Director of photography Elliot Davis gave this early entry on his prolific résumé an unusual yet distinctive look; that Mario Bava-esque, magenta-green lighting is omnipresent, so much so that it’s almost its own character.
Chris Makepeace and Robert Rusler in Vamp
The faint comparisons to Martin Scorsese’s After Hours are merited, although not just because of Vamp’s distinguishing nighttime aesthetic. Save for the primary characters, the supporting roles in Wenk’s movie are also quite colorful and transactional in their behavior. The difference here, though, is the additional urge to ruin Keith and his friends at every turn. Some of that harm is humorous and tolerable enough, whereas the moment Vamp dishes out its first fatality, it’s abundantly clear how this movie qualifies as horror.
Vamp falls into that category of horror movie that reveals its genre with a scream rather than a series of whispers. The opening scene can function as a hint of what lies ahead—things are not at all what they appear to be—but otherwise, Wenk is more than happy to hold off on the horror. When that time does come, though, it catches the viewer off guard. In addition to the pure shock value is that sudden decision to upend the movie’s foremost feature. Or so it would seem.
If afraid of major spoilage, those new to Vamp would be wise to stop reading here. There’s just no skirting around the fact that the central fellowship in this buddy movie hits a serious snag when AJ is killed. That development causes the story to become more of a “long, bad night” journey for Keith and his romantic interest. So while Wenk scores points for subverting expectations, there is also a touch of sadness in his decision. Because if Vamp does anything well, it’s making the characters likable.
Something that comes easily to Vamp—and other teen horror movies from this same era—is its ability to invent young characters worth caring about, or at the very least, are interesting and not so immediately off-putting. More impressive is how Wenk did all this without actually fleshing out those characters. Still and all, Keith and his kind are a grade above cookie-cutter, and in some cases, aren’t completely devoid of growth.
Grace Jones in Vamp
Vamp appeals with an assorted cast of characters. No two are the same, nor are they operating on the same wavelength. The cinematically extroverted AJ, whose actor conveyed charm and vulnerability in near equal amounts, comes alive when he’s at his most undead. Makepeace then makes the chronically cautious Keith a sympathetic fellow, even as he’s more and more affected by the night’s bizarre events. Meanwhile, Duncan is indeed the designated loser of the whole bunch, but Watanabe still manages to humanize him. As a bonus, the role didn’t require him to pull a Long Duk Dong.
As for Dedee Pfeiffer, she is plain adorable as the mysterious After Dark server nicknamed “Amaretto”. She spends all night fixing her dress strap while at the same time trying to get Keith to remember how he knows her. As their offbeat romance grows, it becomes another highlight of this movie. Whether or not Pfeiffer’s character is really a vampire also creates some welcome tension in the story.
Like a lot of its contemporaries, Vamp went on to become a bit of a cult classic. That current status is determined by several factors, but without a doubt, the casting of Grace Jones is the most considerable. The image of her writhing on that unique-looking chair, a Keith Haring original, springs to mind whenever this movie is brought up.
Chris Makepeace, Billy Drago and Paunita Nichols in Vamp
Prior to that first display of unequivocal horror, local vampire queen Katrina (Jones) took to the stage and delivered a strip show like no other. One would expect nothing less from that renowned model and performance artist. By now reports of Jones’ tardiness on set are no secret, yet it’s also hard to deny her commitment to the part of Katrina. It was, in fact, Jones who took charge of her character’s appearance—on top of Haring painting her body and that now-iconic chair, she had Andy Warhol handle her costuming. And not too many actors could seize a room’s attention without saying a single line of dialogue.
In 2022, Vamp received a retrospective novelization from Encyclopocalypse. This literary union of preexisting source material—Wenk’s original screenplay—and new ideas from author Christian Francis amounts to a more comprehensive visit to the After Dark Club. The basic story there is no different than what’s shown on screen; however, Francis gets creative with the characters’ origins and designs, and he enhances a number of key scenes.
The novelization expands on the urban and social decay of the main setting, and supplies a background for the After Dark Club. Sandy Baron’s character, Katrina’s emcee and familiar, is given ample motivation for sticking around; up until the fiery end, he is loyal to his friend and former business partner “Squeak”, who looks like he was “fed through a combine harvester, and left as nothing more than a heap of mangled remains”. Then there is Billy Drago’s character Snow, the leader of a street gang called The Dragons. His reason for menacing Keith and AJ is more altruistic than in the movie; he and his peers act tough to scare off any potential food for the vampires.
Lisa Lyon in Vamp
If not for all the backstories, Francis’ Vamp would be a hell of a lot shorter. Instead, this tie-in read dives into how AJ met Keith—the orphaned Anthony Joseph hailed from a broken home back in Brooklyn—and how their friendship flourished over the years. Keith’s archership is no longer just an assumed part of his entire being; it’s a confidence-building extracurricular for a boy who got picked on before coming into the protection of the new kid in town. These supplemental, in-depth looks at the protagonists, plus their close connection, are maybe unnecessary. The movie already did a fair and concise job of addressing their platonic intimacy without the need for flashbacks and insights, specifically in that scene where AJ lays it all out as he sacrifices himself.
Where the novelization gets off course is its approach to the minor characters. Intermittently backstorying the likes of Katrina’s indentured servants, Seko (Leila Hee Olsen) and Vlad (Brad Logan), ends up disturbing the flow of the writing. Was it absolutely essential that readers know Vlad was the Grand Duke of the House of Romanov, or how Snow’s accomplice Maven (Paunita Nichols) became so dentally challenged? No, not really. However, one’s mileage with these random biographies may vary.
The novelization is a more substantial experience, but for a movie like Vamp, less is more. And as plentiful as they are, it never simply coasts on its campy charms, either. The character work sits comfortably in that realm between cursory and meticulous, the script is sharper than first realized, and Greg Cannom’s vampire makeup is straightforward yet effective. Most of all, the movie didn’t squander its out-of-the-box concept. Richard Wenk made his vision of a “comic nightmare in which just about anything that can go wrong does” come true, and it is very enjoyable.
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