Pulp Features

“William Winckler’s Frankenstein Vs. The Creature From Blood Cove” is an independent homage to the classic Universal monster movies – and it premieres at the Bay Area Film Events Terrorama at the Hyatt Cinema in Burlingame on Friday, October 21st and then again at Alameda’s art deco theater, Auctions by the Bay on Saturday, October 22nd.

But before that, writer, director and producer of the film, William Winckler, kindly agreed to answer a few questions about classic films, modern films and the highs and lows of independent cinema.

Paul: First of all, can you tell us a bit about “William Winckler’s Frankenstein Vs. The Creature From Blood Cove”
William: “William Winckler’s Frankenstein Vs. The Creature From Blood Cove” is an all-new, retro-style horror film specifically designed to resemble an old-fashioned monster movie/creature feature. It’s totally different from almost every other horror picture out today, and it features wonderful actors, cult-celebrity cameos, a unique plot, sexy girls and marvelous monster make-ups (done using traditional special-effects, not CGI). Even the musical score is designed as an homage, mixing 1930s-style horror motifs with 1950s-era Atomic Age horror themes.

Paul: Why a Universal-inspired monster movie?
William: It’s actually not entirely Universal inspired — I also love other vintage horror film franchises, such as the Hammer horror pictures, which were loaded with great sex appeal, the classic AIP drive-in movies and the Japanese monster pictures, among others. I’m really a lover of just about all classic horror and sci-fi cinema from the 1930s to the early to mid-1970s. My company, William Winckler Productions, Inc., specializes in retro-style films. We don’t make the types of contemporary movies most studios nowadays crank out. I basically write, produce, direct and act in these projects, all of which come entirely from my heart. Every film I create is the type of film I love.

Paul: Which films inspired you to start making films, and which films inspired you to make this film?
William: As I’ve said, the vintage horror and sci-fi films really inspired what I do. If you carefully watch those movies, you can see a real difference between the material made today by the studios and the classics made years ago. To the trained eye and the true fan, it’s like night and day. Alfred Hitchcock’s original “Psycho,” Vincent Price’s “The House on Haunted Hill” and “House of Wax,” the various Universal Mummy films, “Monster on Campus,” Mario Bava’s “Black Sunday,” the original “Godzilla,” AIP’s “I Was A Teenage Werewolf,” Roger Corman’s Edgar Allan Poe pictures (also starring Vincent Price), “What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?,” etc. are all GEMS in my opinion, and all light years ahead of junk like “Friday The 13th — Part 12″ or whatever number they’re on now.

But to get to the core of your question, what really inspired me to make “William Winckler’s Frankenstein Vs. The Creature From Blood Cove” was my overall love of the classics combined with a strange dream/nightmare I had some years ago. I imagined Frankenstein’s monster battling a half-man, half-fish creature on a beach at night, with waves crashing in the background, clouds roiling in the sky and lightning flashing in the distance. I built the entire script for “William Winckler’s Frankenstein Vs. The Creature From Blood Cove” around this single core idea. So the project was in many senses a dream come true.

Paul: The film is shot in black and white. Was this an artistic or financial decision?
William: I love black-and-white films, because something truly magical happens when you watch a movie — especially a horror picture — in black and white. For some reason it becomes more of a true fantasy experience: the adventure takes you out of reality and transports you to another place. It’s called “entertaining the audience,” and it’s an approach most contemporary horror filmmakers, who seem to love gore more than atmosphere and characterization, more often than not overlook. So yes, for artistic reasons we intentionally shot the film in black and white.

Paul: How “authentic” are your special effects? Have you relied on make-up, models and prosthetics throughout or can we expect to see a bit of CGI in places?
William: All of the special effects make-ups were totally “old school.” We had a whole team of people working on our many monsters, and the end results are, if I say so myself, fantastic. We had life casts made of actors, and the various monsters were designed and built using those molds, which mimicked almost exactly the methods and techniques used in the old days at places like Universal, Hammer and AIP. We did incorporate a tiny bit of CGI for a few lightning strikes and some firing of guns, but that was the only computer enhancement we used. Everything else was the “real thing,” including a climactic underwater battle between the Creature from Blood Cove and Frankenstein’s monster. For that scene, the actors playing the monsters, Corey Marshall and Lawrence Furbish respectively, along with our cameraman, Matthias Schubert, had to work underwater. It was difficult to say the least, especially since it was also the first time Matthias had used a scuba tank and diving mask.

Incidentally, all of our monsters and creatures are completely original designs. They do not resemble the past creations of any studio. So far, the response has been wonderful — people who have seen what we’ve done love these new additions to the classic horror pantheon (and folks around the world who haven’t seen “William Winckler’s Frankenstein Vs. The Creature From Blood Cove” yet can now pick up the film, available on an open-region DVD, at Amazon.com).

Paul: What sort of problems did you encounter during shooting - and which one gave you your biggest headaches?
William: Probably the most unusual problem was that we had a freak hailstorm on the final day of filming, which cut short our shoot that day. However, on a day-to-day basis, the length of time it took for the monster make-ups was probably the most troublesome element. I’m well aware as a filmmaker that latex appliances take hours to apply, but as producer I was always watching the clock to make sure my actors were on-set and on-time, every day, so we wouldn’t get behind schedule. That was the main issue I was concerned about throughout the entire picture. Other than that, and the freak storm, we really didn’t have too many significant problems.

Paul: And what’s the funniest thing that happened during the shoot?
William: We had so many funny things happen it’s hard to pick just one. Let’s see … the Frankenstein monster’s wig came off during the underwater fighting scenes; there were nudists on the beach location we filmed at; we had pizza delivered to a location and when Frankenstein’s monster answered the door he frightened the hell out of the poor delivery guy; when I went out one day to dig an open grave for a scene, hikers came across me working and thought I was a real murderer. You pick the funniest story! (By the way, some of these incidents were caught on film and are included as extras on the DVD.)

Paul: Your first film, “The Double-D Avenger,” was a comedy, whereas “William Winckler’s Frankenstein Vs. The Creature From Blood Cove” is a horror film. Do you have a preference for any particular genre or are you planning to do a bit of everything?
William: When I started my company, William Winckler Productions, Inc., I began in a modest way by writing, producing, directing and acting in a silly camp comedy titled “The Double-D Avenger.” It was a sexy action tale, and it was specifically designed to be a zany, Ed Wood-style farce. Fortunately, it worked: the picture made a ton of money and didn’t cost all that much to produce. It served as a really good start, and the success of “The Double-D Avenger” enabled us to make “William Winckler’s Frankenstein Vs. The Creature From Blood Cove”

I love both comedy and horror, but my horror films are totally different animals than my comedy pictures. It’s like comparing apples with oranges. My horror productions are serious, dramatic monster movies, played totally straight. They are definitely not comedies, even though there is some comedy relief within them.

Paul: In “The Double-D Avenger,” you managed to get Kitten Natividad, Haji and Forrest J. Ackerman on board. Have you managed to land any celebrities for “William Winckler’s Frankenstein Vs. The Creature From Blood Cove”?
William: Absolutely! Butch Patrick, star of the legendary TV show “The Munsters,” has a great cameo (he’s actually billed as Patrick Lilly, his real name, in the credits). David Gerrold from the classic “Star Trek” also has a wonderful cameo. Russ Meyer actress Raven De La Croix, who also starred in “The Double-D Avenger,” returns to portray a crazy gypsy woman. Lloyd Kaufman from Troma Entertainment, who has acted in the past in pictures like “The Toxic Avenger” and “Tromeo and Juliet,” plays a drunk in a bar, along with, believe it or not, the infamous Ron Jeremy.

At the same time, like the sexy Hammer horror films, which often featured quick nude shots with vampire women, there is a bit of brief, tasteful nudity in the picture, including scenes with popular Playboy model Carla Harvey and adult-film starlet Selena Silver.

So we’ve got quite an array of fun cameos in “William Winckler’s Frankenstein Vs. The Creature From Blood Cove,” though I should emphasize that the biggest star is, of course, Frankenstein’s diabolical monster.

Paul: And are there any actors or actresses that you would like to work with in the future?
William: Unfortunately, most of the actors I’d love to work with have passed away. It would have been Heaven on Earth to have had people like Vincent Price, Bela Lugosi, Boris Karloff, Lon Chaney, John Carradine, and Peter Cushing make cameos in my films!

Still, I really enjoy working with Larry Butler, and plan to cast him in future films. Larry starred as a wacky, Jackie Gleason-esque villain named Al Purplewood in “The Double-D Avenger,” and in “William Winckler’s Frankenstein Vs. The Creature From Blood Cove” he portrays a Vincent Price or Lon Chaney, Jr.-type mad scientist named Dr. Monroe Lazaroff. Larry is a wonderful character actor, and did an incredible job in both pictures. Hopefully, through his work in these and future William Winckler films, he can become a modern-day horror icon … sort of a contemporary Vincent Price. In my view there’s really no one like Larry in horror today.

Paul: Are there any more retro-inspired films in the pipeline?
William: Definitely! We’re just launching “William Winckler’s Frankenstein Vs. The Creature From Blood Cove” and then we can move on to other projects (I already have a number of scripts written). As I mentioned earlier, fans across the globe can easily buy the open-region DVD via Amazon.com (America), which not only features the film but also tons of bonus features, including two making-of documentaries, audio commentaries, bloopers, and much more.

Paul: And finally, if someone else has a great idea for an independent film, what advice would you give him or her?
William: I get this question a lot, and to be honest, it’s really tough to answer. Everyone has ideas, so my advice would be to write those ideas into a dynamite script, then go off and try to sell it. If you have the resources, you may also want to attempt to self-produce the script as an independent feature. However, nowadays anybody can make a film, so the real trick if you go that route is successfully marketing, promoting and distributing the finished product so it turns a profit. This is the toughest thing to do, since the major studios monopolize most television and film distribution. You really have to fight like hell to get your picture seen. Through a lot of hard effort, I’m proud to say that William Winckler Productions has been able to do this — a true miracle in this major studio dominated world, and one that I hope other independent moviemakers seeking to make quality films will also be able to accomplish.

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