With ‘Creepshow,’ some of the fun was in making the creepy-crawlies
The cockroaches had names.
The big ones were “George,” the medium were “Stephen,” and the smallest, “Richard.”
Having named the vermin probably wasn’t weird, given this was the Pittsburgh set of the 1982 film “Creepshow,” and the guys were director George A. Romero, screenwriter Stephen King and producer Richard Rubinstein.
“I was never in the same rooms with them,” said Pittsburgh special makeup effects artist Tom Savini, a longtime friend and collaborator of Romero’s, referring to the insects. He made horrific monsters for the film but, ugh, found no need to associate with those roaches.
Fans of the cult classic five-part anthology film, which mostly was shot around the city and suburbs, remember the scene in which E.G. Marshall plays a wealthy germaphobe who ends up in a panic room with thousands of the skittering critters.
When he’s discovered later, there’s not a bug in sight. Until they all come scrambling out of the fake E.G. Marshall head created by Savini.
“The stories of collecting those roaches were scarier than the [film’s] story,” Savini said. They involved two entomologists who trekked into dark caves in Trinidad, looking for roaches in the bat guano. Enough said. The roaches, more than 20,000 of them, were housed in a special trailer dubbed, naturally, “the Roach Hotel.”
By 1982, Romero had created buzz and respect writing and directing films such as “Night of the Living Dead” (1968), “Dawn of the Dead” (1978) and “Knightriders” (1981). With “Creepshow,” he had a bigger budget and bigger-name actors such as Hal Holbrook, Adrienne Barbeau and Leslie Nielsen.
Much of the shoot took place at a former private girls school in Murrysville, with the gymnasium converted into a sound stage and makeup studio. One room was a replica of the basement at Carnegie Mellon University, another, a living room for Nielsen’s character.
Savini was hardly the only one creeped out by the roaches. “I still have nightmares about them, I’m telling you,” said Nick Tallo, who was a grip on the film. “They made this terrible hissing noise.”
Tallo said he would come home from work and strip to his underwear on the porch, so freaked out that a bug or two had hitched a ride in his clothing.
Rick Catizone’s animation company, Anivision, did the 2D work on the original as well as the sequel, “Creepshow 2.” His Rick Catizone Productions worked on the new series, which debuts Thursday on Shudder, AMC’s subscription streaming service.
Back in the day, he and his crew created all sorts of commercial animation in the area and had office space in the same Downtown building as Romero’s Latent Image production company.
He sculpted part of “Fluffy,” the animatronic monster in the movie’s “The Crate” story, and other prosthetics, per Savini’s designs. But doing the “Creep,” the skeletal, ghoulish host of the films and series, was his outstanding contribution.
The Shudder series’ Creep panels, which resemble the old EC Comics that everyone’s parents banned, were recently done by Catizone, his son, Andy, Phil Wilson and Mike Schwab.
The idea of the Creep introducing stories that most certainly did not meet parental approval was something Catizone could relate to: “It was something I lived, with my dad,” he said. “He didn’t want me reading them but my uncle gave me the EC Comics.”
After one story so frightened Catizone, his father ripped up the pulpy magazines, with their ads for Charles Atlas body-building courses and “X-Ray Specs.”
In George Romero, a wide range of writers, actors, artists and crew found a home. Many of his “Night of the Living Dead” friends and colleagues, including John Russo and the Streiner brothers, Russ and Gary, worked with him for years.
John Harrison, first director on the 1982 film, directs two segments of the Shudder series. He also wrote the original score of the film. Darryl Ferrucci did special effects and also played “Fluffy,” the creature in the crate. Romero died of lung cancer in the summer of 2017.
Greg Nicotero, the executive producer and showrunner for the new series, became part of the circle when he joined the special makeup effects team for “Day of the Dead” in 1985. But even before that, he was involved.
“I was offered a job on [‘Creepshow’], but I had to turn it down because I was only 17 and was going to go to college,” said the executive producer and director of AMC’s “The Walking Dead.”
Nonetheless, with “Creepshow” he got to attend his first “Hollywood” premiere, even if it was just at the South Hills Theater on West Liberty Avenue in Dormont. There was no red carpet.
“I remember the exact date because I still have the ticket,” he said. “June 14, 1982.”
Nicotero’s favorite story in the film was “The Crate,” because “it was the most monster movie-ish of all of them at the time.” In fact, he owns that crate; look for it in the Shudder series.
Tallo was probably on the mark when he said that making a George A. Romero film was such exhausting work but also fun. Given that “Creepshow” was by its very nature one big scary campfest, he has some pretty funny anecdotes.
Nielsen, he said, enjoyed carrying around “this little rubber thing in his hand that made fart noises. People would come up to him and say, ‘Oh, Mr. Nielsen, my wife and I are your biggest fans.’
“And he would just be ‘farting’ his ass off.”
“He was very cool, very generous, and he was friendly. He’d been around and done so many big pictures, this was fun to him.”
In “Something to Tide You Over,” Nielsen’s character buries his wife (Gaylen Ross) and lover (Ted Danson) up to their necks in sand during low tide.
That segment was shot on a beach in New Jersey, with the actors sitting uncomfortably in a pit while water from three giant wooden boxes washed over their heads. There also was a beachfront house set, where Nielsen’s character had a bronze statue of the Buddha in the living room.
“It’s in my bedroom now,” Tallo said. “When I move to New Jersey, the Buddha’s going back to the beach. It looks like it weighs 5,000 pounds, but it’s just Styrofoam.”
King, who played the hapless title character in “The Lonesome Death of Jordy Verrill,” was also just one of the crew, Tallo said. “Nobody treated him like he was super special. I mean, he was a real cool guy, and everybody liked him, because he was a really cool guy.”
Many on the crew — but not Romero, who was too busy with the thousand daily details of making a film — participated in what Tallo called “theme days.” It helped lighten the mood of working long hours for six straight days.
“Nick Mastandrea was the key grip, and he and I would come up with these ideas for theme days. Of course, everyone has ‘stupid tie day’ or ‘funny hat day’ but we had ‘skirt day.’”
Despite some initial reluctance to participate on that one, when Tallo brought in a bunch of his ex-wife’s clothing “all of a sudden they were all arguing over which skirt to wear.”
Savini said he’s grateful to Nicotero for bringing the band back together, and for acknowledging that “it all goes back to George.” He has a George Romero doll in his kitchen and a tattoo of Romero’s signature glasses and “Stay Scared” on his left arm.
“A bunch of us, part of a cult, have this George Romero tattoo,” he said.
With the Shudder series, it seems everything still goes back to Romero. In the end credits, there’s a shoutout to not only Romero but “Chilly Billy” Cardille as well.
Stay scared? They’re just getting started.