Monsters, Music, and Muscles

(L-R Ted, David Skal & Larry Blamire at Monsterpalooza.)

Ted Newsom has acted in 27 films and written over 60 documentaries and movies. He has also collaborated on several screenplays with Stan Lee for some of the Marvel Comic book Characters: Sgt. Fury, Spiderman, and the Sub-Mariner. As well as writing various magazine articles for a lot of magazines including Hustler. He was the last director to pair Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee together. I recently had the pleasure of interviewing him!

1. What was your favorite thing to dress up as for Halloween in childhood?

Frankly, I can�t remember having a favorite as a kid. All I remember is gorging on candy for the next week. The one thing I do remember is going shopping on Halloween Eve with my dad to find a costume for my little brother Tom, who was about 5 or 6. I had my eye on a Superman costume for him, but, frankly, for me. I�d wanted a Superman costume since I was 4 or 5 and saw it in a Sears & Roebuck catalog. My dad found a red devil costume, slightly cheaper, and said, �I think he�ll like this.� I was insistent to the point of whining, and my Dad said, �I don�t have enough money!� And my brother was quite happy with the devil costume. I wasn�t, but I learned a little about money.

2. What is your favorite horror movie and why?

HORROR OF DRACULA, though after having seen it about 60 times (in theaters, on TV, and tape, and DVD), it doesn�t hold a lot of plot surprises. I once visited a guy named Stephen Pickard (no relation to the Enterprise captain) who actually had the stone eagle prop from the opening credits shot of HORROR OF DRACULA. It was made of Styrofoam or something, but still. That was like being in the presence of the goddamned Ark of the Covenant.

When you get a little older, it�s harder to enjoy a �spooky movie.� Especially for me, since I watch these things and know how the gags are done, or spend time mentally trying to figure them out. That takes you out of the flow. But even as a cynical grownup, I appreciated the visceral effect of the original TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE, NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD, and PHANTASM. THE REANIMATOR was fun, and had some unexpected scares. I remember the original THE HILLS HAVE EYES kept me on edge for the full ninety minutes, and being happily surprised something could still creep me out.

As it�s turned out, I�ve crossed paths with people from many of those films later on. I walked past Tobe Hooper at Cannon when he was set to direct our script for Spider-Man (which was as close as he got to it. Joe Zito was eventually assigned.) At one point I was hired by TransWorld to rewrite and direct John Russo�s script CHILDREN OF THE DEAD, and I talked to him a bit before rewriting it, as you�re supposed to do under WGA rules. I had a project which was going to be produced by the guy who was line producer on PHANTASM 3. I�ve spoken with Stuart Gordon several times; smart guy. And Wes Craven, whom I met when he was preparing a garage sale with art director Robert Burns (CHAINSAW MASSACRE), which was certainly an odd situation. Plus Michael Berryman from HILLS ended up doing a fun part in TEENAGE EXORCIST. Wonderful man. And Jeffrey Combs played the scientist in TIME TRACERS, which I wrote..

Thrilling someone, keeping them uneasy for an hour and a half, is not easy. What IS easy is doing a slasher film. I liken it to porn movies, since you interrupt the flow of the story every ten minutes to show something wet. All the �hand grabbing the shoulder� shots or the Val Lewton �bus� jolts are no damned good if they�re not set within a competent story framework.

Later stuff, I�d certainly push Guillermo del Toro�s horror films, and Eli Roth�s HOSTEL movies. Despite all the bad-mouthing of those, he had a steady hand and the plotting was solid; the characters had arcs and grew from Point A to Point C, and the set-up was brilliant and actually said something about the cheapness of life, from the elite�s perspective. NEKROMANTIC, I thought was bizarrely affecting, grisly and fascinating, with a great off-kilter mood, but I can understand why people don�t throw money at Buttgerheit to make more. He presses the envelope into truly transgressive areas.

3. Who are your favorite horror movie actors/actresses?

Lugosi is up there, for a lot of reasons, Karloff to a lesser extent. And Lon Chaney was a most underrated character actor. The son, not the father. As for actresses, I always enjoyed Beverly Garland in anything, horror, comedy or whatever. Jamie Leigh Curtis was an absolute hoot; I interviewed her for print 3 or 4 times. It�s lovely that both of those ladies had happy endings after their horror eras. I adore Brinke Stevens and have worked with her in a bunch of capacities: as an actress and voice-over performer with me as director, as a writing partner, as an interview subject with her as producer.

4. Is there any particular monster that fascinates you?

If it�s a good character, they all do. Kong, both the original and the Jackson version, maybe even the deLauerntiis movie, because it was a three-dimensional character, not just a big ape. The Monster in the 1931 FRANKENSTEIN, Christopher Lee�s pathetic Creature in the first Hammer FRANKENSTEIN.

One-dimensional spooks of slasher pictures don�t do much for me. It�s a paradox. Properly used, they�re impersonal killing machines. But after one or two movies, all you�re doing is repeating yourself, so the writing and directing goal is to expand the character (ala Whale�s BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN)� which humanizes the character, sure, but it takes away the visceral impact: see Rob Zombie�s remake of HALLOWEEN. Who cares if someone had a shitty childhood? Look at Catherine Deneuve in Polanski�s REPULSION, a wonderful performance and a well-written character. We learn very little about the character herself, but it�s just enough.

And zombies in general�ptooie. Feh. Romero said it all in the first film, and did it in color in the second. There�s no place to go with them except excessive chop-em-up. I hope THE WALKING DEAD is the last damned word on them. Zombies need to be retired for about 20 years. Maybe 30.

5. What is your favorite movie you have acted in & why?

It�s one that most of the world will never see. A friend named Ron Ford asked me to play a serial killer in his project, DEAD SEASON. Actually, I played twin serial killers, so I got to die twice, get a prop beer bottle broken over my head, killed a whole bunch of women, and generally be creepy. The reviews were actually pretty good for a micro-budget project. One reviewer wrote, �I don�t know what mortuary they dug up this Ted Newsom, but he�s creepy.� And sadly, the producer managed to lose not only the edited master of the movie, but all the source material, so it could never be released. All that exists are the VHS copies Ron made for the cast and reviewers.

6. Who did you idolize as a child?

Jet Jackson, aka Captain Midnight. John F. Kennedy. My Dad. Superman. The Lone Ranger. Later on, Sean Connery. And much-much later on as an adult, General Smedley Butler, who was probably the greatest hero of the 20th century, and nobody knows who he was. Butler was much decorated Army hero who realized his entire life he had been had been a shill for commercial enterprise and big business, who wrote a still-alarming book called WAR IS A RACKET, and may have single-handedly prevented the United States from being taken over by home-grown fascism in 1936. People need to know what he did.

7. What's one of your favorite horror based movies that you've produced?

You realize that�s like asking, �Who is your favorite child?� FLESH & BLOOD, THE HAMMER HERITAGE OF HORROR, I am proud of. Also 100 YEARS OF HORROR, 26 half-hour shows which gave me the chance to work with Christopher Lee again, shooting at Bray Studios, no less. A lot of people, including me, like ED WOOD: LOOK BACK IN ANGORA, which personally I think is the best documentary on him in an admittedly small field.

8. What was it like working with Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee?

I was ecstatic. Cushing was very ill, and this was only about two months before his death. Christopher Lee was great. The one day I put them together in the little audio studio in Canterbury was memorable. I was a nervous wreck�the entire show was paid for out of my own pocket�but it was worth it just to have them saying lines I�d written, to sit with them �directing� while they worked for me.

9. What made you decide to do horror movie documentaries?

Practicality. I was active in the 1988 Writers Guild strike, and no one could write for the duration, so I decided to make a compilation, MONSTERS & MANIACS. There had been a couple things like that before, like the one narrated by Anthony Perkins, and a cheapjack one hosted by a hammy Cameron Mitchell, and TERROR IN THE AISLES. I spent about 5000 dollars on this, which to me was a boatload of money. Brinke Stevens did the on-camera hosting and narration. After that, I realized doing them less expensively and elaborately was the only way I�d ever make money. I did three one-hour shows which I licensed to Rhino and actually made money on them for several years.

That led to doing probably 30 or 40 one hour shows for a guy named Lanny Lee, on every subject imaginable: the CIA, the flags of all nations, a history of the west, US Presidents, Chaplin, gangsters, steam trains. I got tired of it and decided I�d do one more which would actually be something good, a show about Hammer Films. As it turned out, that led to employment as writer-director on 100 YEARS OF HORROR and I spent the next four years doing even more clip shows.

10. What made you get into acting?

I�ve always been into it one way or the other, on stage since I was about 14. I think if you ask most people in the arts (as with the other interviews on your blog), you�ll find their methods of �artistic expression� aren�t limited to one type or the other. Peter Cushing, for instance, was an utterly brilliant watercolor artist. Lugosi was a sculptor, as was John Carradine. When I moved to California, I actually started out wanting to be an actor. I had one audition, which went very well. I kept getting called back to read opposite other people. I had my doubts, and I called the guy who was making it and asked, �Do you really think I�m any good?� He said, �Good? Whaddya talkin� about? You�re the next Jack Nicholson!� At that point, I thought, �If everybody in this business is that full of shit, I can�t take it�and he was being complimentary.

Playing �Let�s Pretend� is fun. I�ve now done probably 15 or 20 character parts for Fred Ray, who�s a hoot. He has a tendency to write characters with me in mind and having them end up in drag. What is the most fun is working with a lot of the same performers. It makes it like a rep� company, like a reunion.

11. What do you feel makes a good horror movie?

The same things which make a good movie in general: a script with understandable characters who actually have a character arc (they accomplish something, or learn something, change for the better or worse); a director who knows cinema grammar and how to pace a scene and keep all the actors in the same universe, performance-wise; actors who take their craft seriously, whether than means playing a psycho or getting a pie in the face. It�s even better when there�s a certain level of competence to each of those.

12. Why do you think that people enjoy being scared?

I think Peter Cushing summed it up nicely. It�s like taking a date on a roller-coaster. It�s frightening but within limits. You laugh nervously a little, maybe you scream, and maybe you even get to put your arm around the girl and comfort her, which -- Who knows? -- might actually lead to something nice. You know you�re going to have a thrill, but in the end you walk out of the theater and everything�s okay.

13. Any current projects?

My agent is current pitching the screenplay I did with Brinke Stevens, SINBAD AND THE 7 CURSES, which was from a story I wrote with Ray Harryhausen. I�ve got a horror script I�d love to do called ALIAS DR. GHOUL, where I�d play a long-dead horror movie star who plans a comeback in 2013. Other than genre stuff, I�ve got a script about the WASP unit, which has never been told: women fliers during the war, like LEAGUE OF THEIR OWN in dive bombers. And there�s TORSO, my take on the true-crime story of unsolved murders in Cleveland by �the Phantom of Kingsbury Run,� where Eliot Ness (yes, he really was there) goes up against America�s first serial killer. Come to think of it, that�s still genre stuff. I just can�t get away from it.

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