The Many Faces of Tom Savini

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VAULTCAST: Conversations in the Dark... w/Maweanne

I bet you've been laying up nights, just wondering when Conversations in the Dark would return... Well the answer is, right now! That's right, the Vaultcast returns just in time for the San Diego Comic-Con. As my guest this week I have someone who will actually be going to the event (unlike me)--and that's Maweanne (a.k.a. Maryanne Schultz) of The Spooky Brew.

Tonight we chat up this week's epic West Coast geekfest, as well as Maryanne's experiences as an honest-to-goodness horror movie makeup artist. Listen in on the embedded player below, or pay a visit to the new Vaultcast homepage, where you can also download it...


The Spooky Brew: http://spookybrew.blogspot.com
Twitter: http://twitter.com/maweanne

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Remembering the One and Only Jack Pierce...

Just a quick note to acknowledge the 121st anniversary of the birth of Jack Pierce, the single most important makeup innovator of the golden age of horror films, and perhaps of all time. Pierce was the mastermind behind Universal's classic monster movie makeups of the 1930s and 1940s, including Dracula, the Frankenstein Monster, the Mummy, the Wolf Man and many more. In honor of this day, I give you this amazing clip from the 1957 Boris Karloff episode of This Is Your Life, in which the former Monster comes face to face with his real creator...



* Thanks to Frankensteinia (the ultimate site for all things Frankie) for the heads-up!

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**SPOILER PIC** Michael Myers to Be Maskless for Majority of Halloween Sequel

Ryan Rotten of Shock Till You Drop landed a fascinating little interview with Halloween 2's makeup designer Wayne Toth on this Easter Sunday. The FX guru discusses a range of topics, including his surprisingly positive response to the bogus fan art that hit the web a couple of months back, the extensive use of dream sequences in the film, and most provocatively, the fact that The Shape will apparently be without his iconic mask for roughly "70%" of the sequel!

Here's Toth on the subject:

"I thought the reaction was pretty much going to be, What? No mask on Michael Myers?' But it's like anything else, as long as you're doing something cool, people get it. No one has dared to change the character, they just put him in different situations and that gets old pretty fast. Be daring with Michael Myers and change it, I think that was the appeal with this movie. It wasn't limited to a remake, like last time. We're taking it a step further."

This is bound to create some division in the fan community--which was already divided as to whether or not the remake sucked in the first place. For the rest of the interview, head on over to STYD. As for this "new design", the spoiler-wary among you might want to divert your eyes or jump to another site, 'cause I'm about to share an on-set peek of actor Tyler Mane sporting Michael Myers' maskless look. Here's the infamous shot which has been dropping jaws at STYD:


Well, no one can accuse Rob Zombie of being without balls. Although I'm tempted to say that without the Shatner mask, it kind of becomes less "Halloween" and more "Crazy Homeless Guy in a Jumpsuit Randomly Stabbing People". Stay tuned, true believers.

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Savini to Put the "Extreme" in Extreme Makeover: Home Edition

I'd never thought I'd be saying this, but you might want to tune into Extreme Makeover: Home Edition tonight on ABC. Apparently, the Douglas Education Center in Monesson, Pennsylvania, which includes Tom Savini's makeup effects school, will be participating in helping make "an autistic lad's dream come true."

I think this somehow involves building a new house for the kid, but I'm not sure where Savini comes in. Hopefully, it has something to do with tearing out Ty Pennington's small intestines like the bikers in Dawn of the Dead.

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You Can Help Get Jack Pierce a Star on the Walk of Fame

There is a petition afoot to get Universal's makeup mastermind Jack P. Pierce his own star on the famous Hollywood Walk of Fame. I came across word of the petition on Ain't It Cool News, and considered it important enough to pass along to readers of The Vault of Horror. I'm not sure if any other makeup artists have their own star, but if anyone deserves one, it would have to be Jack Pierce, who worked for Universal for a quarter century, creating some of the most unforgettable characters in motion picture history along the way.

Pierce's incredible body of work includes such films as The Man Who Laughs (1928), Dracula (1931), Frankenstein (1931), White Zombie (1932), The Mummy (1932), The Invisible Man (1933), The Black Cat (1934), Bride of Frankenstein (1935), Werewolf of London (1935), Dracula's Daughter (1936), Son of Frankenstein (1939), The Wolf Man (1941), The Mummy's Tomb (1942), Phantom of the Opera (1943) and Beauty and the Beast (1962):

Frankly, the man probably deserves to be on the Walk of Fame more than some of the actors and actresses already there. So do the right thing and add your name to the petition now!

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