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Dan Roebuck

Excl. Interview & BTS Photos: Dan Roebuck Talks Halloween – Part 2

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From his debut turn as a teenaged murderer in Tim Hunter’s 1986 cult drama River’s Edge to his role of “Arnold Walker” in the television sci-fi series “The Man in the High Castle,” prolific actor Dan Roebuck has over the span of his thirty-five year career demonstrated an impressive diversity working within multiple genres. But with over two hundred roles under his belt, the often-maligned category of horror remains to this day his personal favorite.

Dan Roebuck in Rob Zombie’s Halloween II

A monster fan from an early age and a lifetime collector of genre ephemera (his assemblage of oddities range from life-sized Frankenstein props and Famous Monsters of Filmland magazines to vintage 70s wax museum pennant banners and Don Post Studios masks, and most everything in between), Roebuck would also go on to further explore his love of horror through the arts via several genre roles, including but not limited to turns in Final Destination (2000), Bubba Ho-Tep (2002) and Larry Blamire’s 2009 cult indie The Lost Skeleton Returns Again (among others), as well as his own creation of his horror persona “Dr. Shocker,” host of Dr. Shocker’s Vault of Horror.

It’s his appearance though as “Lou Martini” in both Rob Zombie’s Halloween and Halloween II which genre fans may most recognize him for, and of which we dug into recently while chatting with the affable actor and filmmaker in his Los Angeles home cum-museum.

“For (2007’s) Halloween, I auditioned,” recalled Roebuck, who at the time had already worked with filmmaker Zombie on The Devil’s Rejects in 2005 (in which he appears as “Morris Green,” a role he’d reprise some years later in 2019’s 3 From Hell). “I’m not precious when it comes to that. Even though I had worked for Rob before I had to prove myself again. This is what I do. I’m an actor, so I don’t mind.”

Of the audition Roebuck remembers, “I actually was coming from a read for something else, and I had glued on a moustache and a beard, because the character I was reading for (in Halloween) was Chester Chesterfield, this groundskeeper that Michael Myers kills at a cemetery.”

“That role ended up going to Sid Haig,” continued Roebuck, “so I didn’t get that part, but Rob said, ‘Do you want to play the part of the strip club owner instead?’ So, that’s how I was cast in Halloween. And I remember I acted opposite Gary Grossman, who was the nerdy guy in (the 1984 film) Bachelor Party, and I was so excited, because I love that film. Gary was the other guy at the bar, and we shot a day or two.”

(left-to-right) Dan Roebuck & Gary Grossman in a scene deleted from Rob Zombie’s Halloween

Reminiscing on principal photography of Halloween, Roebuck offered, “It was in Valencia, California, at The Rabbit in Red set which they had built there. And while there is a shot of me in the movie, one brief glimpse, I think it turned out to my benefit that I got cut out of the film. Because of that, there was no definitive end to my character, which allowed Lou to come back in Halloween II. And that was more of a meal certainly than the role as it was written in the first film. In the first one I had one or two scenes, one of which was a nice one with Sheri (Moon Zombie). But the second film, the role was a much larger one, and it had a great death scene for my character, which we ended up shooting twice, because the first time we shot it, when Michael killed me, he wasn’t wearing the mask.”

As for Roebuck’s return in Halloween II, the actor recalled, “Because I had been in Halloween, it was assumed I suppose that I would be in Halloween II if the character were to return. So, three or four weeks before they were to shoot Halloween II, Rob calls me up and says, ‘Dan, we were just thinking, this guy in the script who’s this Frankenstein guy, I thought maybe it should be Lou Martini. What are you doing this weekend?’ I said, ‘I’ll be wherever you need me to be, Mr. Zombie.’ So, I flew right to Atlanta (Georgia) to the film’s production offices.”

With over two decades having passed in narrative since the introduction of his character in Rob Zombie’s Halloween, the character of Martini was not only required to look older in Zombie’s follow-up, but also at times to sport the previously mentioned Frankenstein’s Monster getup as the script necessitated.

(left-to-right) Dan Roebuck & Wayne Toth (Photo Copyright: Dan Roebuck)

“So, it was (makeup department head) Douglas Noe who handled the age makeup and the sideburns, and (special effects makeup designer) Wayne Toth who created the second Frankenstein look,” remembered Roebuck. “So, I went down there, and I was like a kid in a candy store! Wayne is a great makeup man, and on top of that I had friends in the Atlanta area, fellow monster collectors, and they got to come to set and to meet Rob, while the makeup department established the looks.” (Writer’s note: additional never-before-seen photos at the end of this article).

“And I’ll tell you what my favorite part of it was,” expounded Roebuck. “I was in the wardrobe trailer waiting on something, the pants I was going to wear or whatever, and there were some Don Post masks in there. I said, ‘Oh, are you using these in the film?’ And they said, ‘No, we can’t get permission (from Don Post Studios) to use them.’ So, I called Don Post Jr., and he answered the phone, and I said to him, ‘Don, I’m on the set of this new Halloween movie that Rob Zombie’s doing, and do you know this mask? And this mask? Can they use them in the movie? And Don said, ‘Yeah.’ So, I said to production, ‘OK, you now have permission to use these masks in the film!’ So somewhere in the background of Halloween II are those Don Post masks! What are the odds?”

As for Roebuck’s death scene as originally shot in Halloween II, the actor stated, “The first time, you know, it wasn’t much of a death. Tyler kind of just threw me into a locker, and that was that. He had already stomped Jeff Daniel Phillips, and I don’t remember what he did to Sylvia Jefferies’ character. But the deaths were much quicker. And then, when we went to re-shoot with Tyler wearing the mask, we shot all that totally inappropriate stuff. You know, the, ‘You want to bang Frankenstein’s monster?’ stuff.”

(left-to-right) Sylvia Jefferies & Dan Roebuck in Rob Zombie’s Halloween II

Of that, Roebuck recalled, “So, my wife called during filming and asked, ‘How’s it going? What are you up to?’ And I said, ‘Oh, it’s a hard day, you know, I’m up here with this naked actress.’ My wife said, ‘What? She’s naked? How naked?’ And I said, ‘Well, naked.’ You know, you can’t for the life of you convince someone who you’re married to that spending a day with a gorgeous naked lady is work. So, don’t even try.”

Regarding his death scene redux, “I’m sure that I have brain damage from it, to this day,” he laughed. “When we were shooting the scene in the (strip club’s) hall, and I’m trying to think of how the shots are configured, but I think I was running away from (Michael Myers actor) Tyler Mane, and the camera was behind him and he yelled, ‘Dan!’ And I turned around to see that he was running at me in huge steps, and he probably covered thirty-five feet of hallway in just five of them, and I was like, ‘Ahhh!’ Because he was Michael Myers, and I hadn’t seen him in the mask up until that point. And that was quite simply total immersion: the immersion of your child self into your adult self, and from the kid to the artist. None of that was lost on me. From the boy who was inspired by movie monsters to act and to create to the adult who later was working with movie monsters, it was full circle. It was a gift.”

As for Roebuck’s personal relationship with the 6’ 8” Mane, “He’s just quite simply a really nice man. You know, my daughter has always called him ‘Buttercup,’ because as a little kid she gave all of my friends nicknames. So, she told him, ‘I’m going to call you Buttercup.’ And he just smiled and said, ‘OK.’”

For more, check out part 1 of our interview with Roebuck here, and for those interested in Roebuck’s latest endeavors, you can visit achannelofpeace.org for more.

(left-to-right) Gary Grossman, Dan Roebuck, Ken Foree & Rob Zombie (Photo Copyright: Dan Roebuck)

(left-to-right) Dan Roebuck, Tyler Mane & Sylvia Jefferies (Photo Copyright: Dan Roebuck)

(left-to-right) Douglas Noe & Dan Roebuck (Photo Credit: Dan Roebuck)

(left-to-right) Dan Roebuck & Rob Zombie (Photo Credit: Dan Roebuck)

Between takes on the set of Rob Zombie’s Halloween II (Photo Copyright: Dan Roebuck)

 

 

Excl. Interview & BTS Photos: Dan Roebuck Talks Halloween, River’s Edge & More

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The Rabbit in Red. For horror audiences watching John Carpenter’s classic film Halloween in 1978, the crimson book of matches which bore that name served merely as a quasi MacGuffin: a piece of strategically placed production art intended to communicate antagonist Michael Myers journey from Smith’s Grove to a remote set of train tracks outside Haddonfield. For Halloween fans though, who often obsess over minutia, the lounge’s name itself would become a ‘deep cut’ as emblematic as the film’s iconic poster art, with the Rabbit logo finding its way first onto black market merchandise, and later licensed product.

The Rabbit in Red – Rob Zombie’s Halloween 

Rockstar turned writer and director Rob Zombie also took notice, and in penning his 2007 reimagining of the film he appropriated the Rabbit name, transforming it from a simple Midwestern lounge to a full-blown strip club in which young Michael Myer’s mother Deborah works. The Rabbit in Red would also go on to make an appearance in Zombie’s follow-up to his remake, 2009’s Halloween II. And as with most cinematic portrayals of strip clubs, it wouldn’t be complete without a colorful owner.

Enter prolific actor Dan Roebuck, who as The Rabbit in Red’s proprietor “Lou Martini” not only inhabited the role Zombie had written, but also imbued it with some of his own monster loving tendencies.

Sitting down recently with Roebuck in his Los Angeles home-cum-museum (the actor and filmmaker has over time amassed an entirely awe-inspiring collection of antiquities and artifacts, which combined work as a living history of the horror genre itself), we chatted of his involvement in Zombie’s divisive take on Halloween, as well as his early beginnings as an actor opposite Dennis Hopper in 1986’s infamous River’s Edge, and a whole lot more.

Dan Roebuck (Photo Copyright: Dan Roebuck)

“I first saw John Carpenter’s Halloween in 1979 at the Boyd Theatre in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania,” recalled Roebuck of his teenaged introduction to the film, “and I was obsessed. What Carpenter presented in that movie was something lacking in modern horror film, which was, he re-introduced suspense to the story, as opposed to the William Castle approach of it simply being, “Thrills and Chills!” So, it became a mixture of the two. And I remember being absolutely 100% interested in how that was different.”

Not content with simply being a passive viewer (Roebuck had already at an early age shown an interest in movie monsters and magic, as evidenced by his self-applied makeups using Imagineering products, in direct emulation of his film idol Lon Chaney), the actor decided to augment Michael Myers’ silver screen scares by terrifying captive theater-goers himself.

“I actually made myself up with a rubber white face, because I don’t think anyone knew then that Myers’ mask was actually a (modified) William Shatner mask,” said the now fifty-seven year-old, “and I came back later and ran through the theater while Halloween was playing, just like they used to hire people to do during screenings of The Tingler (in 1959). Bob Clausen, the theater’s manager, he knew I liked to do makeup, and as some friends and I had already started a Rocky Horror Picture Show revival there called the Lehigh Valley Rocky Horror Players, he’d asked me to do it. I guess it didn’t bother him that my fifteen year-old self was running around a screening of a R-rated horror film. But being killed on the screen by Michael Myers himself so many years later? I couldn’t have seen that coming.”

Roebuck’s pubescent interest in Halloween didn’t wane, and following Rick Rosenthal’s follow-up Halloween II in 1981, he like many was eager to see what next the series would bring, and for him the Myer’less third film, 1982’s Halloween III: Season of the Witch, didn’t disappoint.

“By Halloween III they had me,” remembers Roebuck, “because by then I was reading Fangoria magazine, and I was well aware that the masks in the film, the glow-in-the-dark skull, the lime-green witch and the jack-o’-lantern, were made by Don Post Studios, and I lusted after Don Post masks.”

From Dan Roebuck’s Collection. (Photo Copyright: Dan Roebuck)

While his love of horror and sci-fi continued to grow, so did his passion for performing, and a move to Hollywood, California, would soon follow. Roles came quickly, and  his second feature film (following his top-billed 1985 comedy Cavegirl), Tim Hunter’s previously mentioned River’s Edge, found Roebuck inhabiting the role of a teenaged murderer opposite the late Dennis Hopper.

Written by Neal Jimenez and co-starring a young Keanu Reeves, Ione Skye, Crispin Glover and Joshua Miller (who had made his own film debut in Halloween III), the suburban, post-punk flick is based on an actual 1981 crime, in which a sixteen-year-old Milpitas, California resident raped and murdered his fourteen-year-old girlfriend before boasting about the crime to his peers, who then took over two full days to report it.

In River’s Edge, Roebuck portrays a representation of that murderer, the unhinged and disassociated “Samson.”

“I went in as the character,” Roebuck recalled of the audition. “I greased my hair down and put on clothes that were very similar to the (eventual) costuming in the film, like a plaid shirt over some kind of t-shirt, and I walked into the room with a can of beer, cracked open the can and said, ‘Go ahead.’ As far as (director) Tim Hunter knew, I was just some dirty, crazy kid (casting director) Carrie Frazier had found. And the scene I was reading was the scene at the river with (Dennis Hopper’s character of) Feck. You know. ‘So, why’d you kill her? She tell you to eat shit?’ All of that stuff. It was crazy.”

(left-to-right) Actors Roxanna Zal, Josh Richmond, Daniel Roebuck and Ione Skye between takes on River’s Edge (Photo Copyright: Daniel Roebuck)

Already a legend having appeared in such iconic American films as Rebel Without a Cause and Easy Rider, prolific actor Hopper (1936-2010) was however at the time working on a career revival following a recent stint in rehab. Of the trio of films which helped him attain it, one was David Lynch’s Academy Award nominated Blue Velvet, which he had wrapped just prior to principal photography of River’s Edge.

“I only remember the Blue Velvet thing because when we were shooting outside of Feck’s house,” remembered Roebuck. “River’s Edge cinematographer Fred Elms, who had also served as director of photography on Blue Velvet, gave Hopper a wax ear acupuncture model, and none of us knew why. But Dennis was very entertained by it, and I remember it so well.”

As for working with the seasoned actor (many of their scenes together found the two shooting nights on the banks of the American River outside Sacramento, California), “I probably wasn’t smart enough to be intimidated by him,” Roebuck said. “And that’s not a joke. I was such a fan of his. But it was so intimate, him and me. I mean, he’d work with the other kids, then they’d all leave, and I’d have night upon night upon night with just him, and only him. All to myself. And I was elated, actor to actor.”

Daniel Roebuck and Dennis Hopper share a laugh on the set of Rivers Edge (Photo Copyright: Dan Roebuck)

Of those scenes which they share in River’s Edge, inarguably the most disturbing revolve around the two characters’ admissions to one another of the unrelated murders of two women, an act Hopper’s character of Feck tearfully regrets onscreen.

“I remember him saying to me off camera while he was crying, that he was thinking of (actress) Natalie Wood,” recalled Roebuck. “She had just died, and she’d been his friend who he’d acted with in Rebel Without a Cause. It was very weird too. Rarely does an actor share the emotional place they go to in order to ‘get there.’ It’s such a personal thing, and I started to weep while watching him cry.”

(left-to-right) Roxanna Zal, Crispin Glover, Josh Richmond, Keanu Reeves, Ione Skye, Phil Brock, Daniel Roebuck and Danyi Deats relax between set-ups on the Rivers Edge (Photo Copyright: Dan Roebuck)

Upon theatrical release in 1986 River’s Edge achieved critical acclaim and cult status, and as a result Roebuck’s career was in full swing. Over the next two decades he’d book well over one hundred film and television roles, including turns in 1987’s Dudes, 1993’s The Fugitive and 2000’s Final Destination, but it wouldn’t be until the late 2000s when his career came full circle. The Pennsylvania teen and monster enthusiast, who’d once frightened theater-goers in his self-applied faux Myers makeup, was about to be murdered on the silver screen by that very masked killer in Rob Zombie’s reimagining.

And that’s what we jump into in part two, which you can read here.