I’m not sure why the name Tom Savini was so familiar to me. Most likely it’s because I’d hang around the magazine rack at Lofino’s grocery store while my Mom did her shopping in the mid-1980’s and invariably I’d leaf through the latest issue of Fangoria, the light reading devoted to all kinds of blood and gore as seen in the movies. Tom Savini was one of the masters. In fact, Corey Feldman can be seen reading one such magazine in Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter, and an article about Tom Savini is clearly visible – quite an obvious, but neat tribute to the man who had done so much to advance the bloody cause of the film’s perenniel killer.
Among the gory, disgusting films that can claim to have benefitted from Tom Savini’s handiwork are Friday the 13th (note photo at the top of the posting of Tom applying make-up to ‘young Jason’ Ari Lehman), Creepshow, Day of the Dead, and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2. Savini’s talent doesn’t end there either, as he’s also been employed as an actor in films as recent as Zack and Miri Make a Porno and Grindhouse. And he’s even tried his hand at directing a small number of horror films and TV episodes.
I had no qualms about handing over $20 to Tom Savini to obtain the signed photo above and a free photo op with him, when he appeared at the Chiller Theatre Show in Parsippany, New Jersey, on October 30, 2010. If I had not been in a bit of a hurry at that point in the day, I might have asked him some questions about his craft of making bloody and disgusting things come to life. Somehow that just sounds fun.
Celebrities of the Fall 2010 Chiller Theatre Show will conclude in the next posting…
He was good in ‘From Dusk til Dawn’. Not a bad movie.
Tim Bash
September 9th, 2011