FANGORIA® - Celebrating 30 Years of Horror 1979-2009 - Horror Movies, Music, Comics, Books, and more. Dedicated to the Preservation of All Things Horror...

Today we welcome a new blogger to the World of FANGORIA. FX Artist Marcus Koch has become a fixture at our Fango 'Cons since racking up credits on the indie circuit for the past several years. The Director of 100 TEARS recently found himself doing FX on the film SINNERS & SAINTS, and on Herschell Gordon Lewis' anticipated GRIM FAIRY TALE - the latter of which is the subject of his first blog here on FANGORIA.com

And now, we turn it over to Marcus...

Where do I begin?  To start things off, let me first say it has been a great honor to work for Herschell Gordon Lewis.  I grew up watching his movies as a kid (thanks mom and dad)!  What gorehound hasn't?  And I knew from a very early age that's what I wanted to do.

So fast forward many years from my childhood dream, and let's stop at five months ago when it became a reality.  I got the phone call from Andy Lalino and Andrew Allan (the producers), asking me to jump on board Herschell's newest film.  How could I say no? From that point, scripts were broken down, meetings were held, and shoot dates were put in place.  It was a fast greenlight.

However, as with any production, no film starts without a few hitches and glitches.  The start date which was originally set for March 23rd had to be pushed back to April due to conflicting schedules and the like.  No big deal, it happens all the time.  The upside was that now I'd have a few extra weeks for prep time.

At the Chicago Fango Con, H.G. was making his appearances, and I was there with three other films I was involved with.  I sat in while Herschell was on stage, hoping he'd make mention of GRIM FAIRY TALE, and he did, with the utmost excitement of getting the film rolling!  And he was pleased to announce filming would commence on March 23rd... the original start date.

My jaw hit the floor.  That would be in a week and a half, and I was already set for another gig due to the schedule change.  Now I'm left with no prep time!  So I called AA (not Alcoholics Anonymous, but Andy and Andrew) to confirm if this was true, and sure enough, it was back to the original date. Unfortunately, I'd still be wrapping up in LA on the first day of the GRIM FAIRY TALE.  Ok, so these things happen.  No prep time, no worries...this isn't my first rodeo.

Luckily my partner in grime and better half of Oddtopsy FX, Shelby McIntyre would be there while I was away.  So Shelby, Mark Angenola (another great FX guy), and I spent the week before I shipped out to LA prepping as much as we could possibly prep. Now, because of the schedule change, most of the materials had not arrived yet, so we were limited on what we could do.  This is typically a bad way to start things off.  I don't recommend it.  However since these situations happen all the time, and you have no choice to but to work within those limitations, it forces us as artists to think creatively.

So my first day of GRIM was day two for everyone else.  And it involved finger puppets, children, and about a gallon of blood.  So I arrive on location late because I forgot to set my alarm (give me a break...it took 16 hours and three plane changes to get home from LA), exhausted, and jetlagged.  I staggered up to greet Herschell and two happy, gleeful children playing with finger puppets.  Wait, finger puppets?  The script said puppets, so I assumed hand puppets.  First lesson of the day, DO NOT ASSUME ANYTHING on an H.G. set.  Without giving away anything that actually happens, the blood begins flowing.  Let me begin with my blood recipe.  I do not follow the standard blood mix of Karo syrup and red food dye.  Yes, those ingredients are involved but very little Karo mind you.  Mainly I use red, powdered vegetable dye and non-dairy creamer as a base (I keep no secrets) and it looks great.  Runs and spreads like the real thing.  Down side though, it stains just about anything it comes in contact with...like small children for example.  Also, I was in such a morning rush, that I did not get a chance to mix a fresh batch of blood.  Thankfully (or so it seemed), I had some left over blood in the pump from the weekend before (that's a whole other blog for another day).

So back to the children, puppets and scissors in hand, Herschell yells, "Action," and the blood begins to FLOW, in streams and spatters, soaking the kids and splashing everywhere.  Excellent.  I could see Herschell's eyes get as big as saucers, his hands shaking in tight fists, and a giant smile from ear to ear.  I couldn't see the kids from my angle; I just had his expression to go by that things looked fantastic.  "And CUT," he yells.  I peek around the corner, to view the kids and the carnage, and then the little girl looks at me.  With a look on her face like she was weened on a pickle, she said with such disgusted conviction, "This blood stinks bad!"  Oops.  Ok, so I prefer non-dairy creamer because it doesn’t spoil, unlike milk (a trial and error story all its own).  But still, after a week in a hot car, it is definitely a smell you will not soon forget.  Well, at least it's something they'll remember for years to come.

So day one went by pretty easily, since that was the only effect.  Now the real challenges began.  Making body parts and tons of guts and other dismembered pieces of the human anatomy.  No, not that part of the anatomy.  This is a Herschell film, remember?  Boobs are highly recommended and appreciated fare, but nothing below the belt.

We had a few various left over body parts from shoots past, and Herschell took one look at a foot and said, (which caught me by utter surprise), "It looks too real," and thus lead me to the biggest and most frustrating task I've ever encountered.  We had to make everything look fake.  Its sounds silly, but this is a new concept to me.  One that I wasn't sure how to exactly go about executing (pun completely intended).  I'd even go so far as to say it was life changing.  This idea goes against everything I have strived for as an artist.  Two things came to mind upon hearing this.  The first, "Are you out of your mind?" And the second, "I'm never going to find work again."  Here I am, working for the Godfather of Gore and he wants everything to look fake?  It took a few days on the shoot for the "Why?" to be realized.

With Herschell, it was never about the gore.  He just beat everyone to the punch.  No one had done it before and he thought, "Why the heck not?"  His gore films have never been about how real something looks.  People who watch his films know that it's not real and do not expect it to be.  That is what is so genius about his movies.  It's always been about being entertained.  And if it took dime store mannequin parts, cow tongues, and Pepto Bismol mixed with red dye to do that, then so be it.

He doesn't make parodies and he doesn't make satire.  It's definitely his own style that works well with the absurd circumstances he puts his characters into.  Of course the blood and the boobs are there as an added bonus.  Herschell is the first person to tell you his films are not great films, and doesn't understand why fans hail his films as the great classics. 

But he can tell you he is sure glad they do.

More from the set of GRIM FAIRY TALE very soon...

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