Q&A with the director of “American Scary”
We are pleased to announce that Sandy Clark, the director of “American Scary” will be joining us on October 26th as a judge. American Scary is a documentary about the unique American tradition of horror hosting.
The film is showing across the country at film festivals and has been a critical success. Check out the website www.americanscary.com to see a preview and find out more about the film.
Sandy recently took some time to talk with WWFF about “American Scary”
Tell us who you are and where you are from.
I’m Sandy Clark, a writer from Knoxville, TN who spent the last decade
living in San Francisco, CA and five of those years making a
documentary about TV Horror Show Hosts.
Tell us about American Scary. What’s it about?
American Scary is the story of the midwives of horror cinema, the TV
Horror Show Host. These late-night guys and gals introduced America to
the scary movie and much of the camp and levity associated with the
bad films of the genre is a direct result of the horror hosts. They
are all aging and I wanted to record this history of television’s
early days before it was gone for good.
is this your first film?
This is very much my first film. I had the good fortune to have a
talented and gullible friend, John Hudgens, to do the technical heavy
lifting. John and I had some background in making Star Wars fan films
and grew up in Knoxville, TN together.
What gave you the idea to make a documentary about horror hosts?
I was selling a comic book called Moo at Wondercon in Oakland, CA and
could not believe the crowds that came to see the Creature Features
hosts. They had been off the air for 15 years and the crowds still
came. I was also amazed at the transformation the topic had in my
friend Lowell Cunningham. About ten years older than me, Lowell is
normally a very quiet and stoic guy. When he was discussing Sir Cecil
Creape, his horror host from 1960s Nashville, he was transformed into
a nine-year-old kid.
Did you have a favorite horror host when you were young?
No, they were a mystery for me. Making the movie was partly a quest to
identify who these men and women were who had such a profound impact
on our culture and held such nostalgic sway over the childhoods of so
many. I actually tried to get others to make the film, but found no
takers, so in a fit of inspiration and ignorance, I jumped into the
process myself.
Why were there so many horror hosts?
Shock Theater is the simple answer. Screen Gems had this movie package
that they sold to TV stations across the nation in the wake of the
popularity of the television broadcast of King Kong. Kong’s numbers
were phenomenal. As stations snapped the films up, they needed a host
to brand the films locally, pad them out to a uniform length, and take
the edge of the scary off of what were very scar films at the time.
Each station had their own host and a nationwide yet local phenomena
was born.
Who was the first?
Vampira is simply the first we would recognize. She is the queen of
hosts. She even predates Shock Theater. Before her, there were other
hosts, like The Swami in Chicago, that came very close to the form,
but weren’t strictly horror. A lot of the similarity in the hosts
comes from similar cultural influences. They were all influenced by
the hosts of radio shows like Lights Out, the hosts of comics, like
EC’s Cryptkeeper, and the hosts of travelling Spookshows.
Is the horror host genre strictly an American phenomenon?
Th Horror host is very much an American phenomena. North of the
boarder, it is too cold for them and south of the boarder they all
turn into Mexican Wrestlers. Seriously, the host is a product of a
unique blend of American culture and commerce.
On your website you mention that local television hosts were the first to go
away when the industry began to access and accept cheaper syndicated
material. With 100′s of cable channels and the internet- do you think we
could see a resurgence in these types of programs?
Well, we have in a sense. Count Gore De Vol trailblazed the Internet
and with other hosts around the country established the Horror Host
Underground. The HHU distributes their shows around the world. With
the developing vidcast market and video ipods now in the $150 range, I
expect the genre to grow actually. It isn’t hard to envision a world
where there are more hosts active than were on TV at the height of the
early 60s monster boom. They won’t have anything approaching an
equivalent market share of the total media pie, but the future of
video is one of eclectic abundance.
I also expect to see their influence in other things. Like Mystery
Science Theater 3000, there are bound to be other shows that reflect
the horror hosts influence.
Are there new programs and hosts out there?
All the time. Google the Horror Host Underground and be astounded at
their abundance.
To me the amazing and exciting thing about these shows was that they were
done on no budget and were live. Can you talk a little about some of the
specific shows and the creative ingenuity that they used. Any funny live
stories that you can recant?
These shows were done in an amazing number of different ways. The live
and low budget shows were the first, but tape was soon used and
budgets could vary greatly. The best shows were the ones with more
improv. The smaller budgets also led to some of the best innovation.
Stella in Philly used porno-shop sex dolls as extras, Zacherly made
giant amoebas out of Jello, Dr’ Gangrene in Nashville has a
garage-based studio. Many of their techniques for budget filmmaking
are being rediscovered today by low-budget Internet filmmakers.
Do you find that your film speaks to an older more nostalgic audience? How
is it received by younger audiences?
Younger audiences are amazed. This bit of culture rings with the same
tone of Americana as surf boards and diners, but it hasn’t been
corporatized, repackaged and shoved down our throats for 50 years. It
feels old and fresh at the same time. The fun and the camp are
timeless, and there is a serious DIY aspect that appeals to the punk
subculture. Also, Vampire could be the mother of goth. I’ve had
several 20-somethings or younger tell me they simply had no idea about
this stuff.
How long did it take you to make the film?
It took two years to shoot and three to edit. My father died and my
daughter was born while I worked on it, which probably cost us over a
year of production time.
Was it difficult to find some of the hosts? Any funny/interesting stories?
It was impossible to find some, and we got at least one in there from
beyond the grave. Yes, there are more stories than I can recount.
Digging 2″ helical scan videotape out of a coffin in a barn in
Syracuse New York while snow fell outside is a particularly
appropriate and vivid image in my mind. Dealing with the constant
feuding between hosts and the occasional egos that were larger than
life comes to mind. Overall though, it was just an amazing experience
because in every case, these were the best years of their lives. EVERY
host said they didn’t know what a golden age they were in when they
did their shows.
In your film you interview people like Leonard Maltin, Lowell Cunningham and
Tim Conway. How did the horror host genre influence them?
Tim Conway was partners with Ernie Anderson would later become
Ghoulardi. He gave us unique insight into this deceased host. Leonard
Maltin was a Zacherly fan. He credits Zach for his sense of fun.
Lowell illuminated the Nashville scene for us and credits Sir Cecil
with exposing him to the fantastic.
Your film premiered on October 21st of 2006 at the Hollywood Film Festival.
In the past year it has made the rounds to many different festivals
including Comic Con and the Austin Film Festival. What is that experience like?
I just drove all night returning from the Kansas International Film
Festival. At the moment, my answer is exhausting. I’m making a
two-week trip to hit the Secret City and Coney Island film festivals
later this month. It is good to get the film in front of people and
there are some exceptional opportunities at these events to meet
people. The really amazing thing is the uniformity of love for these
hosts that is out there. People really appreciate the fact we’ve done
this.
Where can we see your film? Any distribution deals in the works?
We’ll start selling it through the website next month. I’d love a real
distribution deal, but for now, I just want to get it out there. I get
three or four requests to buy it each week.
“What a great opportunity for young filmmakers to show their craft for good causes. Everybody wins!”
“The Wild West Film Fest has been bringing it to the Lawrence film scene. It is one of the best examples of what filmmakers are looking for in a festival.”
“The Wild West Film Fest puts filmmaking back into the hands of the people. It’s indy film in it’s purest, grittiest form. A great opportunity for local filmmakers to get their work seen by audiences.”