Best New Horror 29

by Stephen Jones

  American character actor Bob Morrisey died of complications from Alzheimer’s disease the same day, aged 71. He was in Total Reality, Don’t Look Down and episodes of TV’s Nowhere Man, The X Files, Millennium, Sliders, The Outer Limits (1999), 3rd Rock from the Sun, Good vs Evil, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, The Invisible Man (2001), Angel, Roswell, Star Trek: Enterprise, Invasion and Flashforward.

  Canadian-born actress and operatic singer Gale Sherwood (Jacqueline Nash) died in Florida on December 31, aged 88. She was the nightclub partner of singer Nelson Eddy from 1953 until his death in 1967. In a brief screen career, Sherwood played a female Tarzan in PRC’s Blonde Savage (1947) and portrayed “Morgan Le Fay” in a 1955 TV movie of Mark Twain’s A Connecticut Yankee, co-starring Boris Karloff. She retired from acting that same year.

  Irish character actress Doreen [Sheila Elsie] Keogh died the same day, aged 91. Best known for her recurring role as barmaid “Concepta Hewitt” in the TV soap opera Coronation Street (1960-67), she was also in the 2005 zombie comedy Boy Eats Girl.

  FILM/TV TECHNICIANS

  Scottish-born film and theatre producer Bill Marshall (William T. Marshall) died of cardiac arrest in Toronto, Canada, on January 1, aged 78. He co-scripted and produced the 1970 movie Dr. Frankenstein on Campus (aka Flick). In 1976 he co-founded the Toronto International Film Festival with Henk Van der Kolk and Dusty Cohl.

  British TV director Rodney Bennett died on January 3, aged 81. He began his career in the early 1970s, and his credits include episodes of Dead of Night, Doctor Who, The Legend of King Arthur and Tales of the Unexpected.

  American production designer and art director Joel Schiller died on January 17, aged 86. Amongst the many movies he worked on are The Road to Hong Kong (uncredited), Rosemary’s Baby (1968), The Illustrated Man, A Reflection of Fear, Man on a Swing, The Muppet Movie, Charlie Chan and the Curse of the Dragon Queen, Megaforce and Slapstick of Another Kind.

  Pioneering British TV producer and director David [Edward] Rose died on January 26, aged 92. He began his career at the BBC, where he produced the 1977 dramatisation The Witches of Pendle. He subsequently became a senior commissioning editor and later head of drama at Channel 4, where he produced Artemis 81 (featuring Sting and Ingrid Pitt) and oversaw the channel’s “Film on Four” slate of productions until 1990.

  British cinematographer Frank Tidy died of complications from dementia on January 27, aged 84. His credits include Spacehunter: Adventures in the Forbidden Zone, One Magic Christmas, Slipstream, The Butcher’s Wife, Through the Eyes of a Killer (based on the story ‘The Master Builder’ by Christopher Fowler), Chain Reaction (1996) and The Christmas Secret.

  American TV and movie director Robert Ellis Miller died the same day, aged 89. He began his career in television in the early 1950s and directed episodes of Matinee Theatre (‘The Canterville Ghost’), Shirley Temple’s Storybook and The Twilight Zone.

  Academy Award-winning American sound engineer Richard [Raleigh] Portman died on January 28, aged 82. He worked on Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory, Silent Running, Hammersmith is Out, The Day of the Dolphin, Chosen Survivors, The Nine Lives of Fritz the Cat, Young Frankenstein, The Town That Dreaded Sundown (1976), Star Wars, High Anxiety, Quintet, Resurrection, Delusion, Timerider: The Adventure of Lyle Swann, Something Wicked This Way Comes, Splash, Frankenweenie (1984), Baby: Secret of the Lost Legend, The Black Cauldron, The Great Mouse Detective, The Wraith, Hyper Sapien: People from Another Star, The Monster Squad, Made in Heaven, She’s Back, Ghosts Can’t Do It, Dark Angel (aka I Come in Peace), Cast a Deadly Spell, The Hand That Rocks the Cradle, Brainscan, Wolf and the Stephen King adaptation Dolores Claiborne, along with two episodes of TV’s Tales from the Crypt. Portman was reportedly indirectly responsible for inspiring the name of the “R2-D2” robot in the Star Wars series.

  American movie preservationist and cineaste David H. Shepard died of cancer on January 31, aged 77. During the 1960s he was hired as curator of the newly-formed American Film Institute and went on to work with the Directors Guild of America and such distributors as Blackhawk Films, Kino Lorber and Lobster Films, Paris. Through his company Film Preservation Associates, Shepard helped restore most of the silent films available in today’s video market, including Fritz Lang’s The Spiders, The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1923), The Thief of Bagdad (1924) and The Lost World (1925), to name only a few.

  British production designer and art director Roy Forge Smith died on February 6, aged 88. He began his career working at the BBC and his many credits include the movies The Amazing Mr. Blunden, Monty Python and the Holy Grail, Jabberwocky, The Hound of the Baskervilles (1978), The Last Chase, Curtains, Love at Stake, The Kiss, Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure, Warlock, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (1990), Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: The Secret of the Ooze, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III, Dracula: Dead and Loving It, RocketMan and The Seventh Stream, along with the first two seasons of CBS-TV’s Ghost Whisperer.

  British-born American TV producer and scriptwriter Bruce Lansbury (William Bruce Mageean Lansbury), the younger brother of actress Angela Lansbury, died on February 13, aged 87. The many series he worked on include The Wild Wild West, The Fantastic Journey, Wonder Woman, Buck Rogers in the 25th Century, The Powers of Matthew Star and Knight Rider, along with the TV films Escape, Bell Book and Candle (1976), World War III, The Return of the Six Million Dollar Man and the Bionic Woman and I’m Dangerous Tonight. Lansbury also executive produced the 1984 horror movie Initiation.

  American cinematographer Gerald Hirschfield died the same day, aged 95. His credits include Fail-Safe, Child’s Play (1972), W, Young Frankenstein, The Ultimate Warrior and The Car, plus episodes of TV’s Johnny Jupiter and the 1954 pilot Mandrake the Magician.

  Japanese film-maker Seijun Suzuki, who directed everything from mysteries (The Sleeping Beast Within) to operatic fantasies (Princess Raccoon), died on February 13, aged 93. As an actor, he appeared in more than twenty films, including the 1999 horror movie Enbalming.

  German-born British director Michael [John] Tuchner died on February 17, aged 82. His credits include the 1982 TV movie of The Hunchback of Notre Dame starring Anthony Hopkins, Back to the Secret Garden and two episodes of Tales of the Unexpected.

  American costume supervisor and designer Stephen Lodge died on February 26, aged 74. His credits include the TV movies Revenge! (1971), Visions…, Something Evil, The Horror at 37,000 Feet, Snowbeast and The Strange Possession of Mrs. Oliver, plus the series Korg: 70,000 B.C. (1974) and Jason of Star Command (1979). Lodge also worked as an actor, a producer, a stuntman and scriptwriter, coming up with the original story for Kingdom of the Spiders (1977) with Jeffrey M. Sneller.

  American producer Fred [Robert] Weintraub, best known for Enter the Dragon (1973) and various other martial arts movies, died of complications from Parkinson’s disease on March 5, aged 88. His other movies include Invasion of the Bee Girls, The Ultimate Warrior, Trial by Combat (aka A Dirty Knight’s Work), The Pack, The Devil’s Arithmetic (based on the novel by Jane Yolen), Endangered Species (2002) and Dream Warrior. His 2011 autobiography (written with David Fields) was entitled Bruce Lee, Woodstock and Me: From the Man Behind a Half-Century of Music, Movies and Martial Arts.

  Legendary Hollywood producer Jack H. (Henry) Harris died on March 14, aged 98. His credits include The Blob (1958) starring Steve McQueen, 4D Man, Dinosaurus!, Equinox (featuring author Fritz Leiber, Jr.), Beware! The Blob, John Landis’ Schlock, John Carpenter’s Dark Star, Ape, Eyes of Laura Mars, Prison Ship (aka Star Slammer) and the 1988 remake of The Blob. Harris also co-produced the 1960 Argentinean TV series Obras maestras del terror, three episodes of which were cobbled together into the Edgar Allan Poe movie Master of Horror (1965).

  British-born director Robert [Frederick] Day died in Washington state on March 17, aged 94. He began his career in the mid-1950s, and he directed Grip of the Strangler (aka The Haunted Strangler, starring Boris Karloff), Corridors of Blood (with Karloff and Christopher Lee), First Man Into
Space, Tarzan the Magnificent (with John Carradine), Tarzan’s Three Challenges, Hammer’s She (with Lee and Peter Cushing), Tarzan and the Valley of Gold, Tarzan and the Great River, Ritual of Evil, The Big Game and The Initiation of Sarah. On TV, Day’s credits include episodes of Tarzan (1966), The Avengers (including ‘Never Never Say Die’ with Lee and ‘Return of the Cybernauts’ with Cushing), The Invaders, Circle of Fear (‘Time of Terror’, based on the story by Elizabeth Walter), The Sixth Sense, Logan’s Run and Lucan. He retired in the early 1990s, and his second wife was American actress Dorothy Provine.

  American exploitation screenwriter, producer and director Radley [Henry] Metzger (aka “Harry Paris”), best known for such adult movies as The Opening of Misty Beethoven, died on March 31, aged 88. He began his career distributing European erotic movies in America and working as an editor on The Flesh Eaters (1964) and The Beach Girls and the Monster (uncredited). Metzger’s most mainstream credit is the 1978 remake of The Cat and the Canary.

  Disney “Imagineer” George F. McGinnis (the last to be personally hired by Walt Disney himself) died on April 6, aged 87. He designed many of the attractions for Disneyland, Walt Disney World and EPCOT, including Space Mountain. McGinnis also designed the robots in the 1979 movie The Black Hole.

  British television producer and director Christopher [Thomas] Morahan CBE died on April 7, aged 87. His credits include a 1958 version of Arsenic and Old Lace starring Dave King and Peggy Mount. Morahan was head of plays at the BBC from 1972-76 before joining the National Theatre in 1977 as deputy to Peter Hall.

  German cinematographer Michael Ballhaus died on April 11, aged 81. He shot Francis Ford Coppola’s version of Bram Stoker’s Dracula, Wild Wild West (1999), What Planet Are You From? and The Legend of Bagger Vance. His uncle, actor Carl Balhaus, appeared in Fritz Lang’s M (1931) as the man who marked Peter Lorre with the sign “M”.

  American movie producer J. (Jeffrey) C. (Christian) Spink died from an accidental drug overdose on April 18, aged 45. Hs credits include The Ring, The Butterfly Effect, The Ring Two, The Butterfly Effect 2, Insanitarium, The Butterfly Effect 3: Revelations, Joe Dante’s The Hole, I Am Number Four, Zombeavers, Curve and Rings, along with the ABC-TV series Kyle XY.

  British-born Australian comedy scriptwriter and producer Chris Bearde died of a heart attack in California on April 23, aged 80. In the late 1960s and early ’70s he was a resident writer for such shows as Rowan & Martin’s Laugh-In and The Sonny and Cher Comedy Hour, and Bearde directed the 1983 horror spoof Hysterical starring the Hudson Brothers.

  Academy Award-winning American screenwriter, producer and director [Robert] Jonathan Demme died of complications from oesophageal cancer and heart disease on April 26. He was 73. Demme began his career in the early 1970s, working for Roger Corman on such films as Angels Hard as They Come and The Hot Box, and he made his directing debut in 1974 with the women-in-prison movie Caged Heat (featuring Barbara Steele). His later credits include the Oscar-winning The Silence of the Lambs, Beloved and the 2004 remake of The Manchurian Candidate. Demme also had a supporting role as an actor in The Incredible Melting Man (1971).

  American businessman Stanley Weston, who created the G.I. Joe action figure in 1963 and was a pioneer of the licensing and merchandising industry, died on May 1, aged 84. He sold the G.I. Joe concept to Hasbro, who turned it into a hugely successful toy line and TV and movie series, and he later helped created the 1980s animated TV show Thundercats.

  Yoshimitsu Banno (Yoshimitsu Sakano), who scripted and directed the revisionist 1971 movie Godzilla vs. Hedorah (aka Godzilla vs. the Smog Monster), died of a subarachnoid haemorrhage on May 7, aged 86. He began his film career as an assistant director on Akira Kurosawa’s Throne of Blood, and co-wrote and performed the same role on The Last Days of Planet Earth. In later years he was credited as an executive producer on Godzilla (2014) and the sequel Godzilla: King of the Monsters (2019), along with the 1982 animated Japanese version of The Wizard of Oz.

  American make-up artist Ron Berkeley, who was closely associated with actors Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor, died on May 9, aged 86. He worked with the couple on such movies as Doctor Faustus (1967), Hammersmith is Out, Bluebeard (1972), Night Watch, Exorcist II: The Heretic, The Medusa Touch, Absolution and Lovespell, and his other credits include The Time Machine (1960), The Manchurian Candidate (1962), The 7 Faces of Dr. Lao and John Landis’ Innocent Blood.

  American production executive Brad Grey (Bradley Alan Grey) died of cancer on May 14, aged 59. He began his career as a production consultant on the 1981 horror movie The Burning, coming up with the original story with producer Harvey Weinstein and director Tony Maylam. Grey went on to executive produce such films as What Planet Are You From?, Scary Movie and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. He was Chairman and CEO of Paramount Pictures from 2005-17.

  American designer, engineer and documentary film-maker Jacque Fresco died on May 18, aged 101. He helped design the models for the 1953 SF movie Project Moon Base and an episode of TV’s Caprica, and with Ken Keyes, Jr. he imagined a 21st century cybernetic society in the non-fiction book Looking Forward (1969).

  American producer and director Maury Dexter (Morris Gene Poindexter) died on May 28, aged 89. His credits include The Day Mars Invaded Earth and House of the Damned. He was also an assistant director on the TV series Highway to Heaven (1984-89).

  American cinematographer Fred J. Koenekamp, who shared an Academy Award for The Towering Inferno (1974), died of complications from a stroke on May 31, aged 94. After working as a camera operator on The Outer Limits, his credits include Doc Savage: The Man of Bronze, Embryo, The Swarm, The Amityville Horror (1979), It Came from Hollywood, The Return of the Man from U.N.C.L.E.: The Fifteen Years Later Affair, The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension, Alice in Wonderland (1985), The Return of the Shaggy Dog (1978), 14 Going on 30 and Splash Too, along with ninety episodes of TV’s The Man from U.N.C.L.E.

  British-born film editor Bill Butler died in California on June 4, aged 84. He was nominated for an Oscar for his work on Stanley Kubrick’s A Clockwork Orange (1971), and his other credits include Vampira (aka Old Dracula) and Chameleon.

  American costume designer Rita Riggs died on June 5, aged 86. She worked with Alfred Hitchcock on both Psycho and The Birds, and her other credits include The Legend of Hillbilly John (based on stories by Manly Wade Wellman), Georges Franju’s Shadowman and Bad Moon.

  British film director Cyril Frankel died on June 7, aged 95. After appearing as a schoolboy extra (alongside author R. Chetwynd-Hayes) in Goodbye Mr. Chips (1939), he began directing documentaries in the early 1950s before moving on to such movies as Hammer’s Never Take Sweets from a Stranger and The Witches (aka The Devil’s Own). Frankel also directed episodes of TV’s The Avengers, The Champions (including the pilot), Randall and Hopkirk (Deceased), UFO and Hammer House of Mystery and Suspense (aka Fox Mystery Theater), and he was also a creative consultant on Randall and Hopkirk (Deceased).

  Carolyn Cronenberg (Carolyn Marcia Zeifman), the wife of director David Cronenberg, died in Toronto, Canada, on June 19, aged 66. She worked in various capacities on some of her husband’s movies, including Rabid and The Brood.

  British make-up and special effects designer Simon Sayce died after a long battle with cancer on June 20. Best known for creating Lemarchand’s iconic Lament Configuration puzzle box for Clive Barker’s Hellraiser and the sequel, Hellbound: Hellraiser II, he also produced David Cronenberg’s mask for Barker’s Nightbreed. His other credits include The Unholy, The Lair of the White Worm, I Bought a Vampire Motorcycle and Extremity.

  American supervising sound editor and sound designer David Lewis Yewdall died of pancreatic cancer on July 4, aged 66. He worked on numerous movies, including Deathsport, Piranha (1978), Humanoids of the Deep, Battle Beyond the Stars, Escape from New York, Halloween II (1981), Galaxy of Terror, The Thing (1982), Halloween III: Season of the Witch, Twilight Zone: The Movie, Wavelength, The Dead Zone, Christine,
Amazons, The Philadelphia Experiment, Dreamscape, Transylvania 6-5000, Black Moon Rising, April Fool’s Day, Sorority House Massacre (1986), Flicks, A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors, Evil Dead II, Munchies, Near Dark, Flowers in the Attic (1987), The Unholy, Out of the Dark, Elvira Mistress of the Dark, Purple People Eater, The Punisher (1989), Halloween 5, Predator 2, Nemesis, Return of the Living Dead III, Philadephia Experiment II, Evolver, The Fifth Element, Starship Troopers, Phantoms, Fortress 2, Terror Tract and Sasquatch Mountain.

  American production designer and art director Thomas E. Sanders died of cancer on July 6, aged 64. He worked on Hook, Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1992), Red Riding Hood (2011), After Earth, Crimson Peak and Star Trek Beyond. Sanders also directed one episode of TV’s Tales from the Crypt (‘About Face’).

  Tony Award-winning American dance choreographer Danny Daniels died on July 7, aged 92. He worked on such movies as Zelig and Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom.

  Oscar-nominated British film editor [Elizabeth] Clare Douglas died on July 9, aged 73. Her credits include The Aerodrome, Cold Lazarus and the 1976 Doctor Who serial ‘The Masque of Mandragora’.

  67-year-old Czech-born producer Evzen [William] Kolar died after a short illness in Los Angeles on July 11. He worked as a production manager on To All a Goodnight and the Bond film Never Say Never Again; as an assistant director on Terror on Tour and Home Sweet Home; as a production assistant on Crawlspace, and as an associate producer on Masters of the Universe.

  American-born screenwriter, producer, editor and director George A. (Andrew) Romero, who revolutionised the zombie genre with the groundbreaking and hugely influential Night of the Living Dead (1968), died of lung cancer in Toronto, Canada, on July 16, aged 77. Romero continued his zombie series with Dawn of the Dead (1978), Day of the Dead (1985), Land of the Dead, Diary of the Dead and Survival of the Dead, and his other credits include Season of the Witch (aka Jack’s Wife), The Crazies (1973), Martin, Creepshow (scripted by Stephen King), Monkey Shines, Two Evil Eyes (with Dario Argento), The Dark Half (based on the novel by King) and Bruiser. He also wrote Creepshow 2 (based on stories by King) and a segment of Tales from the Darkside: The Movie, and executive produced the anthology TV series Tales from the Darkside (1984-88), Dead Time Stories: Volume 1 and Volume 2, the 1990 remake of Night of the Living Dead, and the 2019 remake of The Crazies. Romero directed the music video for ‘Scream’ by The Misfits, and he had cameos in a number of his own films, along with playing an FBI agent in The Silence of the Lambs and appearing in the 2006 movie Dead Eyes Open. His short story ‘Clay’ was anthologised in Modern Masters of Horror edited by Frank Coffey, while his comic book mini-series Toe Tags Featuring George A. Romero was published by DC Comics in 2004 and Empire of the Dead appeared from Marvel Comics in 2014. At the time of his death, Romero was developing Road of the Dead, to be directed by Matt Birman.