Ahoy, squirts! Quint here. Being the seaman that I am, I blew my conch and summoned up a Titan. He does whatever I tell him to do, so after a little sensual massage and a friendly footrub I made the mistake of mentioning Charles Band was doing a Full Moon show in Austin. I liked Full Moon as a kid and I think their Scary Busey starrer GINGER DEAD MAN looks like the best thing ever put direct to video, but let's just say my nostalgia for the Full Moon flicks hasn't survived puberty as well as Kraken's has. On the day of Charles Band's Road Show there was a screening of ELIZABETHTOWN and my love of Cameron Crowe won out. But Kraken went and now has delivered a novel based on his experiences. For you Full Moon fans of past, present and/or future, I present Kraken's in-depth look at the Charles Band Road Show, which may be coming to a town near you! Enjoy!
So about a month ago Quint mentions to me, while sitting in the Alamo
Drafthouse waiting for one of the QT fest movies to begin, that CHARLES BAND of FULL MOON ENTERTAINMENT was coming
to Austin with some kind of horror show that he was touring with. He was
going to show clips from his old and new movies, have special guests,
auction off some original props, do a live demonstration of how to direct a
low budget horror flick... oh, and if that wasn't cool enough, he was going
to be holding a lottery for a chance to die in his next horror flick. Well,
any green and yellow blooded Full Moon gore hound would be insane to miss
something as groovy as this.
I was born in the late 70's, so I missed all of the great experiences of
going to my local Grind-house as a teenager and consuming some really great
B movies. The closest thing I had was getting my parents to drop me off at
the local video store and stocking up on the latest releases of B horror
movies that week, most of them being from FULL MOON.
There was something magical about the atmosphere and feel of FULL MOON
movies, especially back in the 90's; that logo with the moon and the clouds
coming together, the creepy organ grinder synthesizer music, the stop motion
puppets and dolls going on a rampage cutting a bloody swath through naughty
teenagers with bad hair and padded shoulders. There was heart to these
films, somewhere you knew the filmmakers cared about what they were doing
and didn't pay attention to the fact that they were shooting on a shoe
string budget. It was the fun they must have had making these crazy horror
films that really seeped through to you as a viewer. So I was very excited
about the chance to see Charles Band talk about his history with making
these films.
Charles Band was not only the head of FULL MOON Entertainment... this guy
was involved in one way or another with a lot of movies that I considered
classic horror. Looking up his film history I was amazed at
how many films he has done in his lifetime, over 200 movies!! He helped
bring to life movies like Ghoulies, Robot Jox, Terrorvision, Rawhead Rex,
The Puppet Master films, Re-Animator, Demonic Toys, Trancers, Subspecies,
From Beyond... and worked with masters of horror such as Stuart Gordon and
David Goyer (who wrote Demonic Toys).
So the day of the show, my wife and I made sure to get to the theater early
so we could look around at all the props, toys and other things that were
going to be in the lobby of the beautiful Paramount theater in downtown
Austin. As I walk in, I see an entire wall of DVDS for sale; all classic
FULL MOON movies, some that are not even available for sale in the states. I
knew I was going to load up on these DVDS because when I met my wife 5 years
ago, she had not really seen many horror films. She'd seen maybe The Shining
and The Fly. So in the last 5 years I've been slowly showing her all of my
favorites and she has become quite the horror movie hound because of it. But
I have yet to bring her up to the late 80's and 90's, the golden age of FULL
MOON movies, so she had yet to see any of the movies that we were about dive
into. In the center of the lobby was a giant coffin filled with note-cards.
This was where we were to jot our names down and toss them into the hat,
err, coffin... for a chance to become immortals and die in Band's next
horror movie. My wife giggled at me as I quickly wrote my name down on one
of the cards and bent the edge a little hoping that might make the person
drawing it out notice it a little more (yeah, I know that never works). In
the back was a sweet display of t-shirts. The best t-shirt had a picture of
BLADE from the Puppet Master movies on it. I quickly forked over my cash to
be the coolest kid on the street sporting this bad boy. In the very back was
a glass case that held the original puppet props that were to be auctioned
off that night from the movies RETRO PUPPET MASTER, DOLLS, DOLL GRAVEYARD
and DEMONIC TOYS. Each City was going to get its own set of props that were
going to be auctioned off, and these were the first to go since Austin got
the honorable distinction of being city number one of the tour.
After chatting with a few of my friends in the lobby, we went inside the
auditorium to be seated by the super friendly ushers at the Paramount. It
was about 10 minutes before the show started, but they had some of the music
playing from the soundtracks of Band's films to keep us entertained for the
time being. Really creepy music to go along with the red, blue and green
lighting they had flooding the Paramount. I looked at the stage and sitting
there was a huge post with a giant chain wrapped around it, I knew this
could be nothing but trouble. I started to bring my feet up, a little
feeling afraid that at any moment some evil fucked up puppet thing was about
to slice my leg open under the seat. But Alas, Charles Band didn't go the
Castle route with his show and we were perfectly safe.
The show started and they played a quick trailer going over some of the more
gory scenes from Full Moon's history ... they showed bits like Jack Deth
being assaulted by his giant alien partner, Tunneler doing his thing in a
girl's mouth, vampires drooling blood over their little demonic stop motion
minions, Jeffery Combs fighting things from pineal gland monsters to
re-animated lower intestines, and of course a multitude of little killer
puppets and dolls doing a lot of bloody damage ... these clips really set
the tone for the night and brought a giant wave of nostalgia over me.
Charles Band then took the stage. He let us know that Austin was the first
stop for the first time he had ever done a road show like this. So he showed
us his giant cheat sheet of what to talk about that was sitting just off
stage. It was almost as tall as he was. The first thing he showed us was the
young stars that he had discovered earlier in his career. He played a clip
from a movie he directed called PARASITE that had a very young Demi Moore
being attacked by a giant flying tube of flesh with teeth. The clips went on
to show actors like Viggo Mortensen, Bill Maher, Bill Moseley, Jeffery Combs
and Helen Hunt getting some of their first breaks with Band's films. After
the clips he went on to talk about casting his movies, he talked about how
you always want to look and see what the actor is going to bring to the
role. Do the actors somehow embody the character and will they be able to
relate to the situation the characters find themselves in. But then he said
he had an epiphany one day, and realized that he might be casting a future
girlfriend... so he started looking for... other "assets" in his actresses
as well. He said he knew that most of his audience was male (this got a
little jeer from the audience that had a lot of female fans attending) so
he had to make sure to cast an actress that us guys would want to look at
for over an hour and a half. He also said something very disappointing; he's
made it a new policy not to kill off any of his female characters in any of
his new movies. He said he felt like the audience only wanted to see the
dudes killed off and have the ladies live to the end of the film. This got
some major hisses from the females of the audience and even a few
disapproving glances from the guys. I have a feeling he might change his
stance on this after the road show. He even got asked the question "What
happens if a girl wins your contest to be killed off" ... he said "Boy, you
know, I didn't even think about that, I guess we'll have to make an
exception to the rule there" ... this was met with applause. See Charles,
the girls like to watch their own get nailed by some vengeful puppets as
much as the boys do!
The next bit was a clip from Charles's next movie release THE GINGER-DEAD MAN - The movie is about a serial killer
that, after he dies, gets his ashes baked into a ginger bread man. Now, that
might sound silly... but when you find out that Gary Busey is the voice of
the dreaded Gingerdead Man, then the veil is pulled back and you can see the
full potential of this movie. Band has a few funny stories from the set
working with Busey. Apparently he only had him actually live-acting in the
film for one day's worth of shooting. It was suppose to be a simple scene in
a little bakery/diner where Busey's character is robbing the place and then
gets killed. Charles explained something like this should only take 8 or so
hours, with a master shot, and a few close ups. But Busey insisted that
every line of dialogue have its own camera setup. Charles thought at first
this was because of artistic integrity, but later discovered it was boiled
down to Busey not being very good at remembering his lines. A scene that
should have only been 8 hours worth of shooting ended up taking almost 18
hours. Later on, when Busey came in to do the ADR (voice over) session to go
over the entire script worth of his lines for the voice of the Gingerdead
Man, Charles kept the previous experience in mind and made sure to book the
ADR studio for a full 12 hour day. Because Busey had to not only remember
his lines, he had to be able to perform them exactly in synch with the
Gingerdead puppet's scenes that had already been filmed; literally putting
the words into the puppet's mouth. Band was worried that this was going to
be like pulling teeth, but knew that he at least had an entire day to try
and pull it off. Busey arrived at the studio with his guitar in hand
(apparently this is something he does) playing a little bit in the lobby. At
some point a cute girl walks into the studio and strikes up a conversation
with Busey. After he continues to flirt back and forth with this girl, Busey
walks over to Charles and says "Hey look... I gotta run, can we bust this
thing out quickly?" Well, Charles said he would do it as quickly as he
could, but ultimately it would be up to how fast Busey could get the lines
right.
He did it perfectly in 30 minutes.
Charles then informed us that he had a special fashion show ready for us.
That he was unveiling to the world his new "invention" that he had
collaborated with some toy makers over in India to create. He called up two
girls that he said he met out in the lobby, both of them having the "assets"
that he was mentioning earlier when he was talking about casting his films.
He said the girls would be modeling his new product ... the MONSTER-BRA. The
girls walked off the stage as Band explained to us the inspiration for some
of the MONSTER-BRA styles. One was from one of his movies called THE KILLER
EYE. The first girl came back up on stage with a pair of giant rubber eye
balls covering her chest. As strange and goofy as that sounds, it actually
looked pretty damned cool! I leaned over to my wife and said "I know what
someone is getting for Christmas". The girls modeled a few different styles
of MONSTER-BRAS, one of the best being the Vampire Skull-BRA ... "How cool
would this be to wear under your shirt at some Goth dance club?" Band
remarked. All of the girls in the audience were clapping for the
MONSTER-BRA. I think he might have a hit product on his hands. He said the
bras we were seeing that night were just prototypes, but that they should be
hitting the market very soon.
Next came out special guest number #1. BILL MOSELEY (House of 1000 Corpses,
Devil's Rejects, The Blob). They showed a clip of Bill staring in Charles's
killer cyborg movie CRASH AND BURN. Afterwards Bill reminisced about the
shower sex scene they had just showed the clip of from the movie, saying
that the water was very cold, and it was his first on screen love scene and
he was humping the actress like a jack rabbit. Charles apparently told him
to slow down and do it like he really would... to this Bill responded "This
IS how I really would do it!" Charles went on to say how he thinks Moseley
is about to explode in Hollywood as more and more people discover Moseley's
talent.
After Moseley left the stage, his next special guest was introduced. This
time it was his son Alex Band (who is the lead in the hit band THE CALLING)
who was going to give us a mini concert. Charles Band said that he was glad
that his son got to grow up around film sets and that kind of creative
environment. He said if we wanted to introduce our children into horror
movies, to start with the classic Universal Monster films. He said they were
the way he slowly initiated his son into the world of horror and prepared
him to grow up around the kinds of things he would see when going to work
with Dad. Charles himself grew up on film sets so he knew what it was like.
His own father was a director named Albert Band who did quite a few films in
Italy when Charles was a child. Charles said he could remember being on a
huge film set of his father's in Italy, right next to another film set where
Sergio Leone was filming some of his spaghetti westerns. Charles then showed
a clip of his son playing one of his hit songs on the Jay Leno show. But he
said this was not the first time that Alex had been on Leno. He then showed
a segment from the early 90's where Jay Leno was going to a video store and
calling people that had the strangest rental histories. He called the Band
household and spoke with a very young Alex band (who sounded like he was
maybe 9 or 10 at the time) about renting a movie called "Piranha Women in
the Avocado Jungle of Death" (starring none other than Bill Maher). Young
Alex informed Mr. Leno that his father directed the movie, to Leno's
surprise. Alex took the stage and said that it was strange growing up on
film sets because one of his first memories ever was seeing a giant rat
having sex with some poor girl. To this Charles said "See, and he still grew
up normal". Alex went on to play a few of his songs, including his biggest
hit "Wherever You May Go" which is on the "Love Actually" soundtrack which
made my wife very happy (and all the other cooing girls in the audience)
since she's seen that film about a 100 times. It was a pretty nice little
mini concert, but felt very strange coming off of seeing a bunch of puppets,
cyborgs and giant robots killing people.
After the mini-concert, Charles asked for volunteers from the audience to
come up on stage and act out a small horror movie scene that he would
direct. This was probably one of the best segments of the night. Charles was
asking the audience if there were any aspiring filmmakers out there. A few
people raised their hands. He wanted to demonstrate how one might work with
first time actors, because when you first start out as a filmmaker, more
than likely you're going to be working with people that have very little to
no acting experience themselves. He finally got the three volunteers that he
needed from the audience to play the "Hot Girl in Trouble" the "Handsome
Hero" and "The Creature". The girl that was to play the hapless victim was a
nice lady from Australia. Charles told her she would be tied up to the big
wooden post with chains wrapped around her that was sitting on the stage.
She took her place and a stage hand came out and fitted her to her new giant
chain belt. He then told the hero that he would come out on stage, and try
to free the poor girl, but that the monster would jump out, take him out
immediately because he was a pussy and then rip off the clothing of the
girl. He asked the Australian lady if that was okay with her... to this she
replied "Um, okay." This caused Charles to do a double take "Wait and
minute, that was a joke, you were suppose to say no... but um, wait, really,
would you be okay with that?" The audience cheered at this. He then hurried
them off stage to get into wardrobe. They returned a short time later ready
to do the scene. After a bit of direction from Charles, mostly to the guy in
the rubber mask playing the monster telling him how to rip off the Velcro
outfit the girl was now wearing, they were ready to take their first places.
Honestly the humor of all of this is something that MUST be seen live to
fully understand. But Charles kept growing more and more agitated with his
young "actors" as they couldn't even get the simplest stage business to work
right. But it was all in good fun, even when Charles went from saying "okay,
um, cut" to screaming "NO! FUCK, CUT!" He was doing it with a smile on his
face and would nicely walk over and ask the monster why he was having
trouble with Velcro. The audience at the Paramount loved it, and I think it
was a lot of people's favorite bit of the night.
The night was coming to an end and there were two things left to do; to
auction off some of the original puppet props that Charles had brought with
him and to draw the name of the lucky stiff who would get to be killed in
Charles's next movie. He brought out a glass case that contained 4 puppets
from four different movies that he had directed in his lifetime. The first
puppet was from his 1987 movie DOLLS - it was in a little rough condition
from age, but you could still tell what it was and what movie it was from.
Charles explained that this was an original stop motion puppet from award
winning puppeteer DAVID ALLEN. David Allen not only worked with Charles on
most of his killer doll/puppet movies, but he was also involved with all the
stop motion work in movies like Twilight Zone, Willow, *Batteries not
included, The Howling and was nominated for an Oscar for his work on Young
Sherlock Holmes. Band explained that something like this would go for
thousands on e-bay ... so he was a little bit in shock when a blonde girl
from the 6th row got it for $65 bucks in the bidding war! The next few
puppet props went for a little bit more than that. But all of them were
worth thousands and most of the only went for a few hundred bucks. I even
bid on the Toy Soldier stop motion puppet from DEMONIC TOYS, but I realized
I wasn't going to win when this one guy sitting in the balcony above me kept
upping me by $50 every time I opened my mouth to bid. After Charles dried
his tears from these props going for so much less than they were worth, it
was time to draw the name of the lucky person who would be one of his
unlucky victims in his next Full Moon movie. He asked the blonde girl who
won the DOLLS prop to come up and draw the name out of the coffin. Some guy
that worked in a café around the block from the Paramount won (bastard!) and
Charles brought him up on stage. He asked him if he'd ever done any acting
work before and the guy said no. Charles said "well then, we're going to
kill you off quickly!"
Charles ended the night by letting us all know that he was going to attempt
to get into Guinness World Book of Records, and he invited us all to join
him. He told us a story about how in Hollywood and all over the world, guys
(and some girls) attempted to get dates by pulling out the "you know, I'm an
executive producer on a movie" line to impress their potential future bed
buddy. He said sometimes they even had business cards printed up and
everything, but had never produced one damned thing in their life. He said
if someone tries to use this line on you, look them up on the Internet Movie
Database before you become officially impressed. But to help out anyone that
would like to use this line honestly in a bar, he was offering a special
deal for people that go to his road-shows! Band let us know that if we
bought $100 worth of his merchandise out in the lobby, that we could get
little certificates saying that we were going to be executive producers on
his next movie. We'd be listed in the credits of the film, given imdb.com
listings and would get to keep our executive producer cards after they were
mailed back to us. Well, this was just too cool man, especially since I was
already planning on dropping at least that much on their DVDS outside alone.
He said he wanted to get into the record book for having the most executive
producers on a movie ever. Considering how many of these shows he is doing
this month, and how many Full Moon fan freaks are going to attend them, I
think he might just do it.
The only thing that bummed me out was that he ran out of time before he
could do an official Q & A session for the night. But Charles said that he
would stay in the lobby as long as he needed to, so he could talk to every
fan that had a question and sign anything they wanted. He was a man of his
word because I think everyone was there for about another hour or so waiting
in line to talk to him and get their DVDS, toys and posters signed by the
man himself. I bought most of the DVDs they had to offer (The Puppet Master
DVDS are great), and picked me up a sweet special bronze road-show
edition of his BLADE
RESIN STATUE. They only made 1,000 of these little guys just for the
road show, and they look great.
I also picked up his set of CINEMAKER
DVDS. Some of my favorite memories from the early FULL MOON movies were
seeing the VIDEOZONES he would do after his movies ended on the old VHS
tapes. It was the first time I remember seeing anything that let me into the
behind the scenes world of movie making. This was back in the late 80's
early 90's, way before DVDS and all those extra features we expect to be on
our movies now. Back then when Charles told the distributor that he wanted
to add these behind the scenes looks of his movies they told him it wouldn't
be worth the money, that nobody would want to see that sort of thing. So, he
put up his own cash to produce and add these VIDEOZONES to his films. The
CINEMAKER DVDS are basically a better produced collection of these VIDEOZONE
episodes plus insight on how to make a film from pre-production to
distribution and marketing of your own film. I don't know that they would
give much insight to those that have already made a few films, but if you're
just starting out as an aspiring filmmaker, I'd say they give you more
information than your average "how to make films" book you'd pick up at the
book store, and you also get to see some interesting interviews from guys
like Stuart Gordon, Roger Corman and John Carpenter (who edited for Charles
Band back in the day).
It was a great evening for a FULL MOON movie fan, it felt like an old style
variety hour show, but with boobs and gore! It was a lot of fun and if it
sounds like something you might dig, check out www.fullmoondirect.com for special
rate prices and dates on the remaining shows that he will be doing through
the month of October. Each show is expected to be something different with
different special guests, auctions and events (William Shatner turned up at
the show in Dallas after the first show in Austin) Oh, and fear not West
Coasters! Charles said on the next road-show that he is already planning he
will definitely be heading your way.
Well, I hope you FULL MOON fans out there enjoyed my write up of this event.
See you around! I'm heading back to my comfy underwater cage now.
KRAKEN
