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Danielle Harris

Halloween’s Danielle Harris to Slay in LA Haunt Experience Joe Bob’s Haunted Drive-In

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This year’s been tough for us all. And for fans of the Halloween season in Los Angeles (where they’ve instituted a ban on both Halloween parties and trick-or-treating) many are left to wonder, “How are we to celebrate the holiday?” Well, it seems that Halloween series star Danielle Harris has figured out an alternative, in the form of the drive-in/haunt experience Joe Bob’s Haunted Drive-In, coming to Pasadena’s the Rose Bowl on October 31.

Danielle Harris

According to the official site www.joebobshaunteddrivein.com, the event will, “blend the nostalgia of watching a drive-in fright film festival with a live, interactive haunt. As you and your friends watch The Last Drive-Ins’ Joe Bob Briggs, Darcy the Mail Girl, and scream queen Felissa Rose onscreen present a slew of fright flicks to you in the safety of your own cars, the drive-in itself will become overrun by flesh-hungry ghouls fresh from a Halloween party that are eager to terrorize!”

That, and Halloween series star Harris will make an appearance in the film, according to this lobby card which was released earlier today.

Check out a promo for Joe Bob’s Haunted Drive-In below, and you can follow the event on Instagram @joebobshaunteddrivein and on Twitter @joebobshaunted and Danielle Harris on Instagram @horrorgal and on Twitter @halloweengal.

Be safe out there!

Return to Halloween 4: Where’s Haddonfield’s Vincent Drug, and What’s It Look Like Now?

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For many, the nostalgia of small-town drug stores of the 50’s through 80’s endures, from the soda fountains and pocket revolving racks filled with 10 to 25 cent comic books, to the shelves of spooky offerings and costumes always prevalent during the Halloween season. And for fans of Michael Myers, those feelings of sentimental longing are most assuredly stirred each time they watch 1988’s Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers, given its wistful portrayal of one of those locations: Vincent Drug.

From young Jamie Lloyd’s trepidatious selection of her clown costume within to teen Grady’s romantic overtures to the attractive store clerk being decidedly shut down (“Fuck off, Wade”), the colorful events which transpire in the establishment recall for many of us similar memories of own adolescence. But where is Vincent Drug, and does it still exist?

Located on Main Street in Midvale just outside of Salt Lake City, Utah, we recently visited the location to snap some photos, and you can see them below.

Now sadly shuttered, Vincent Drug and its place in cinematic history however remain, from its exterior appearance in Halloween 4 (Utah’s nearby Millcreek Pharmacy stood in for the interior shots) to its prominent presentation in 1993’s The Sandlot and Steven King’s “The Stand” miniseries, among others.

For more on Vincent Drug, here’s an episode of “Horror’s Hallowed Grounds” with host Sean Clark below, which takes a deep dive into the locations of Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers.

Lastly, Fright-Rags even has a new t-shirt depicting Vincent Drug, along with some other really cool designs celebrating Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers.

We’re definitely feeling the Halloween spirit!

‘Rewind’ to ’89: Halloween 5’s Danielle Harris & Donald Pleasence on MTV’s “The Big Picture”

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In our latest installment of ‘Rewind,’ we take a trip back to 1989 via MTV’s “The Big Picture” with host Chris Connelly, who interviews the film’s then twelve-year old star Danielle Harris (with the addition of a clip from the set of Halloween 5 of series veteran, the late-great Donald Pleasence), as well as a rather cheeky video montage of Halloween‘s Michael Myers, set to Steve Winwood’s “Back in the High Life Again.”

Be sure to stick around for the end, in which Harris goes trick-or-treating just outside MTV’s studios in New York City! Oh, the 80’s!

Check it out below, as well as trailers for both 1988’s Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers and 1989’s Halloween 5: The Revenge of Michael Myers.

Excl: Kristina Klebe Looks Back on Rob Zombie’s Halloween

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The Halloween film franchise, over its forty-two years, has assisted in launching the careers of many, from Jamie Lee Curtis in John Carpenter’s 1978 classic Halloween to Paul Rudd in 1995’s Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers (in his first feature film role), as well as Golden Globe-winner Michelle Williams and her co-star Josh Hartnett in 1998’s Halloween H20: Twenty Years Later. Similarly, the franchise also helped catapult the career of German-American actress turned producer and director Kristina Klebe, who recently sat down with HalloweenMovies in order to discuss her breakout role of “Lynda” in Rob Zombie’s 2007 reboot Halloween, as well as her far-ranging career which spans theater, voice-over work, directing, and surprisingly at one time, filming open heart surgeries, among other things.

Kristina Klebe

Born in New York City, where she’d later hone her acting skills in off-Broadway plays ranging from characters such as “Juliet” in “Romeo & Juliet” as a member of the Jean Cocteau Repertory to working with Colman Domingo (“Fear of the Walking Dead”) on “The Big Funk” for New York Theater Workshop, Klebe showed an interest at a young age in the craft.

“I think the thing that inspired my inclinations towards acting was more than anything else being an only child,” offered the actress, who’s multinational upbringing found her spending significant time in Germany, France and Italy as both a child and later a teenager, including living in Paris as an exchange student in her senior year of high school, where she interned at the film distribution company M5.

“As a kid, I made up stories and imaginary characters all of the time in order to entertain myself. Also, because my parents spoke both German and English at home, I interestingly didn’t start speaking until I was two years old, and because of that I was in my own world I think, as I couldn’t prior to that find words to express myself, which led to me have a very vivid imagination. I think that helped me as an actor, because in my opinion, it’s all about imagining a situation, and putting yourself into it. Later in life I’d discover the Michael Checkov technique, which is exactly that: imagining yourself in the world of the narrative, both in theater and on film.”

Attending Catholic school as a young child, Klebe recalled of the time, in which in addition to her scholastic activities included public service (her choice was to read to the blind), “I liked to recite things, and I loved poems. I’d get a two-page poem on a Friday and memorize it in order to recite it in class the following Monday. I just loved poetry, and spoken word, most probably because I didn’t speak until I was two. Maybe I felt the need to catch up.”

Her introduction to the stage happened during this time frame as well.

“The school’s drama department would put on Christmas shows,” Klebe offered, “and we’d do ‘The Three Kings.’ They asked, ‘Who wants to play one of the kings, and which one do you want to play?’ And I raised my hand and said, ‘The one that has the most lines!’ I wanted to be the lead in the show, which is absurd now when I think about it, but I was a little kid, and I wanted to act.”

Her passion continued into college. Klebe graduated Dartmouth cum laude with a major in Politics and a minor in Film, and then attended the National Theater Institute at the Eugene O’Neill National Theater Center in Waterford, Connecticut (along with John Krasinski), all the while honing her craft off-Broadway, where she played the leads in such productions as “The Bourgeois Gentleman,” “On the Verge” and “A Servant of Two Masters,” among others.

“I was always doing theater,” Klebe recalled. “That was my number one love, and still is. My dream was always to be on Broadway, and that’s why at one point in my career I decided to go to Hollywood, for it to assist in that dream. That was my ultimate goal: to get back up on the stage in New York.”

Kristina Klebe on the New York Stage as “Juliet” in “Romeo & Juliet” (2004)

It wasn’t long before Hollywood came calling, by way of the Halloween franchise. Having auditioned for the film while on a trip to Los Angeles, Klebe made the decision to move to the west coast shortly thereafter, and after only having lived in Los Angeles for a week, she got the call. She’d got the part of “Lynda” in Rob Zombie’s remake.

“It was a weird thing,” said Klebe of the casting. “I mean, how lucky! That doesn’t happen very often, you know. And then at the same time, I was offered an incredible theater role as ‘Charlotte Corday’ in Marat/Sade at the Classical Theater of Harlem. What a month! What a year. I ended up giving up the play in New York to be in Halloween. It was a great theater role, and it was hard to say ‘no’ to it, but how could I not? It was a crossroads for me, leaving theater and going into film, and having the opportunity to be in such a big film was just incredible.”

As for her familiarity with the source material, Klebe confessed that at the time she’d never seen Carpenter’s classic, and that the horror genre itself had previously frightened her.

“I remember I was traumatized at an early age by horror movies like A Nightmare on Elm Street,” she said recalling a sleepover at a friend’s house at an early age, where she first saw the 1984 Wes Craven classic. “I came home crying the next day, and said to my mom, ‘Don’t ever let me watch anything like that ever again!’ So, growing up, I didn’t really watch horror films. I was scared of them. So, I hadn’t seen Halloween when I got the part. Prior to production, I started to watch it, but then stopped, because I didn’t want to be influenced by (Halloween 1978’s) PJ Soles performance. But of course I watched the original after we finished filming, and it’s a masterful film.”

Regarding her casting, and her preparation for the role of the foul-mouthed yet endearing character, “When I received word that I’d received the part, they also told my manager that they were testing for the role of ‘Laurie,’ which went to Scout Taylor-Compton (writer’s note: Academy-award winning actress Emma Stone had also auditioned) and wanted to do a chemistry read with Danielle Harris, Scout and myself. I had never done anything like that before.”

(left-to-right) Scout Taylor-Compton & Kristina Klebe on the set of Halloween

“We went to the Sony lot, I believe it was,” Klebe continued, “and as I was meeting Rob for the first time, I was super nervous. Not because Rob was a rockstar – thankfully I wasn’t too familiar with his music. If I had been, I would have probably been even more nervous, but because I was just praying that I survived that test, and that I did a good job, because you know, they can always fire you. I think it’s moments like that, when you are under so much pressure, that you can really shine, and show people that you can handle it. It’s so important as an actor, but we are not always taught that.”

Regarding Klebe’s working relationship with Halloween veteran Danielle Harris (who’d previously inhabited the role of “Jamie Lloyd” in both 1988’s Halloween 4: The Return of the Michael Myers and 1989’s Halloween 5: The Revenge of Michael Myers, and who in Rob Zombie’s Halloween took on the role of “Annie Brackett”) and her understanding of her place in the genre, she said, “I didn’t really know at the time. I was so new to the world of horror and of Hollywood, that my thoughts were really preoccupied with the mantra of, ‘Do a good job, Kristina. Do a good job.’ I do remember though that I couldn’t believe that I’d have a scene with (actor) Brad Dourif. I was star struck by him, as I was a huge fan of his work in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. So that was really cool. Plus, Brad loves and writes poetry, as I do! And we talked about poetry the entire time on set!”

(left-to-right) Kristina Klebe, Danielle Harris & Scout Taylor-Compton in Rob Zombie’s Halloween

As for working with director Zombie, “Rob was always so great and easy to work with,” she recalled. “He was very direct, and he was great at giving directions, was full of praise for his cast, and sometimes encouraged improvisation. There’s a scene in the director’s cut of Halloween, where the girls are walking and I’m talking about conjugating some French with a French teacher, which I had made up, and Rob said, ‘Hey, you speak a couple of languages, right? Do something like that.’ I was like, ‘Oh my god, OK!’ Rob can pick out your strengths and he knows how to play to them.”

(left-to-right) Behind-the-scenes of Halloween with Kristina Klebe, Rob Zombie & Scout Taylor-Compton 

Announced on June 4, 2006, the Halloween remake, with writer, director, producer and music supervisor Zombie at the helm, sent shock waves through the Halloween fan-base, and proved instantly polarizing. And while he received Carpenter’s blessing to “make it his own,” the news of a remake of one of cinema’s most beloved horror films nevertheless set horror fans abuzz, both for the Zombie re-imagining (given his previous gore-soaked films House of 1000 Corpses and The Devil’s Rejects), and against.

Was Klebe aware of any perceived pressure surrounding the film?

“I don’t remember that being a concern, honestly,” she offered. “I really don’t remember it being an issue at all, but it could have been a situation of, as I wasn’t aware, I wasn’t looking for it? But I don’t remember it being a topic of conversation. Rob might have been aware, but Rob’s so confident that he probably wouldn’t have given a shit. He was probably like, ‘Yeah, whatever. I’m going to do my thing.’”

It being a Zombie film, the levels of violence, and of nudity, would be upped from Carpenter’s suspense-driven original, and this applied to the scripted role of Lynda as well, which called for the character to suffer (by mid-2000s wide release standards) a rather gratuitous post-coital demise.

(left-to-right) Behind-the-scenes of Halloween with Danielle Harris, Kristina Klebe & Scout Taylor-Compton

“At the time, would I have preferred not to have done the nudity?” offered Klebe. “Of course. But it was a pre-requisite, and it was a big movie, and it was my first big role in a big movie. So, there really wasn’t any room for debate. I think it’s not that I have an issue with being naked in a movie. There are many European films that have beautiful and tasteful nudity – like Blue is the Warmest Color. The problem is that I don’t like being naked on the internet. The fact that people take stills from a film and feature them on prurient websites, skin sites, is bothersome. It’s not really a nice photo when it’s a screen grab taken from a film, because it’s from a moving image which is meant to be moving. If I was going to pose nude for photo, then I’d do it properly for Playboy or something, which I was actually asked to do in Germany but turned down.”

(left-to-right) Tyler Mane as “Michael Myers” & Kristina Klebe in Rob Zombie’s Halloween

“Today though, I certainly know that stills ending up on some of these sites is a possibility,” she continued. “I haven’t done any nudity since, except for Proxy, (in reference to the 2013 Zack Parker-directed indie) in which I did a topless scene, as well as a scene of me masturbating. But I was not taking off my underwear. I don’t care if that’s not what a normal person would do, but I didn’t do it because I knew it would be all over the internet. That’s the only other movie I did a topless scene in, and it was right for the character, and would have been weird had I not done it. But I’m very concerned about these things being on the internet. I think it ruins it for an artist, and for the directors who want to take care of their actors.”

As for her character’s death, which required Klebe to be mock-strangled and subsequently carried off by towering actor and stuntman Tyler Mane, “That was the part that was the most difficult,” Klebe offered. “I felt so embarrassed, and he probably felt that way too, but Tyler was still so gentle and careful, and I could not have asked for a more respectful man to have done that scene with. Even if he was playing Michael Myers.”

Zombie also proved to be caring.

“While filming Halloween, I was also shooting the (2008) romantic comedy ‘The Accidental Husband’ in New York,” recalled Klebe, “and they needed a pick up shot, so I had to fly back to the east coast to do it, and then get right back on a red eye flight in order to return to the Halloween set in LA, in order to shoot the scene in the library where the girls are talking. I guess I was a little tired and I had a blemish on my chin or something, and someone on the crew, and I won’t say who, mentioned it in front of people. Like, ‘Oh, Kristina, you have something on your chin, and you should cover that up.’ People could have said anything, and I wouldn’t have cared. I was just so tired and was only focused on the scene, but I guess Rob became so angry with that person over their comment that he yelled at them, and later came to my trailer to apologize personally for that person’s statement. It was such a weird moment, and I thought, ‘Wow, I can’t believe that Rob even noticed that, and that he went out of his way to apologize.’ It was meaningful. He really cares for his actors.”

(left-to-right) Scout Taylor-Compton & Kristina Klebe in Rob Zombie’s Halloween

Welcome note provided to Kristina Klebe on her first day of Rob Zombie’s Halloween

With the film wrapped, Rob Zombie’s Halloween would debut on August 31, 2007, receiving the widest release of any previous installment in the franchise, as well as a gala Hollywood premiere at Mann’s Chinese Theater in Hollywood, CA, six days prior. Klebe recalled of the event, “I took my dad with me as my plus one, which was always on his bucket list. He had grown up in post WWII Germany, and the country at the time was very poor. There was little food, and very little of anything, really, and he would ride his bike to school ten miles every day, and would pass posters advertising American movies. As a kid he thought it would be a dream to go to a Hollywood film premiere, so being able to take him to one, and a movie that his daughter was in, was very meaningful to us both.”

Kristina Klebe attends the premiere of Rob Zombie’s Halloween

“I remember that I was obviously a little nervous since I had a nude scene in it,” she continued, “but my parents are European, so it’s not such a big deal for them.”

As for her response to Zombie’s “nurture over nature” approach to the pathos of Michael Myers and her reaction to the film upon seeing it, “I felt like I understood the little Michael,” Klebe said. “I liked the fact that there was a backstory. I know that’s a bit controversial, because many people don’t want an explanation for Michael Myers, but I liked the realism of it, and I remember liking the movie when I went to see it on that first day.”

With Rob Zombie’s Halloween a box-office success, grossing $80 million worldwide, Klebe found a footing in the genre space, and as the years went by she’s appeared in several horror films, including a hilarious turn as “Eva Braun” in director Adam Green’s parody “The Diary of Anne Frankenstein” installment of the 2011 anthology Chillerama. More would follow, with lead roles in 2014’s Montenegro-shot Killer Mermaid and Mike Testin’s 2015 feature Dementia, as well as a supporting role in Neil Marshall’s 2019 feature Hellboy.

Additional appearances include those in SAW director Darren Lynn Bousman’s 2016 cult-fave Alleluia! The Devil’s Carnival (as “Geraldine,” in which she steals the show with an infectious song and dance number) and Mike Mendez’s 2016 feature Don’t Kill It, as “Agent Evelyn Pierce,” all running concurrently with both television and theater work.

Was she concerned at being typecast as a “Scream Queen?

“I didn’t even know the term at the time of Halloween,” reflected Klebe. “On a career level, I think it’s been a double-edged sword. I didn’t realize that being in one horror film would then put me into a niche as a ‘horror movie actor.’ I can remember growing up that people would say, ‘Don’t’ ever be in a soap opera, because then you’ll forever be a soap star.’ But I would have probably accepted a lead in a soap regardless, because I love acting and I want to have every opportunity to act, because I love it so much. I didn’t really realize at the time though that being in a horror film was similar in the way that it’s impacted my career. On the flip side, it’s provided me with so many opportunities for work, for which I’m so incredibly grateful. Eventually though, as I found that many of them were only within the genre, I made a conscious decision to change my path and to branch out. I didn’t want to be perceived as someone who could only do horror, but as someone who could anything: television, drama, thrillers, action films, comedies and voiceover work.”

One of those opportunities arose while making an appearance at a horror convention and speaking to Friday the 13th veteran and Chillerama co-star Kane Hodder: an appearance in Gun Media’s Friday the 13th: The Game.

“Yes!” exclaimed Klebe. “How funny! I have always loved doing voiceover. When I was growing up doing theater, I was a singer, and loved musicals, and loved the musicality of changing your voice and pitch and accent, which certainly applies to voiceover work. That’s always fascinated me, and it was something else I wanted to do. But anytime I would try to get into that world, it proved daunting. It’s really an insular space, and they seem to often only hire people they know. So, Kane and I were talking about this, and he said, ‘Well, we are casting for this Friday the 13th game,’ and I literally begged for an audition. I auditioned for many roles in the game, and they gave me the role of ‘The Girl Next Door,’ which they then changed to Jenny ‘Myers’ as a nod to Halloween. I don’t think anyone knew that the game was going to be as popular as it became, and I’m so happy about that, because I love all of the people involved.”

Artistically industrious, in 2011, Klebe, whose historically divided her time bi-coastally, decided to in addition to her already prolific creative endeavors to also pursue a career behind the camera as a director, and dove into studies at NYU’s Grad Film Program at Tisch School of Arts in New York City.

Kristina Klebe directing on the set of her short film As Human As Human

“So, this was an interesting. When I was growing up, I got along with all of the girls, but I always felt like I was one of the guys,” Klebe mused. “I was into sports, and kind of a tomboy, and I always felt like I didn’t feel any separation between men and women. I obviously knew that some guys were attracted or there was attraction, but I was always able to maintain friendships. And in the acting world, I felt more competition between women than between women and men.”

“Only when I went to NYU did I experience first-hand the real gender divide. I was like, ‘Wait a second, hold on. Why are all of these guys that I went to school with getting meetings and agents, and they have less experience than I do in the film business?’ For the first time, I felt a real wave of anger come over me about how unfair things were. For me, the doors were closed. I was being told ‘Oh, in order to direct a feature you first have to have written a feature script,’ something which men at the time seemed to not be hearing. Believe it or not, I couldn’t handle that much rejection, which is ironic, as an actor.”

“So, for a minute I just kind of gave up, even though by that point I’d already directed a couple of shorts, one of which (As Human As Human) ended up being award-winning film, which played in competition at the Sitges Film Festival.” (Writer’s note: Klebe’s most recent short film, Daddy’s Little Girl, was supposed to premiere in competition at the Oscar-qualifying Cleveland International Film Festival in April, but the festival was canceled due to Covid-19.)

Undaunted, she wrote her first feature script, Gene Therapy.

“I think since then things are getting better,” she said, “because people are now much more aware of that ‘boys club’ mentality, which is great. I hope that more women are hired as directors until we are at an equal 50/50, and I still aim to direct the feature from the script that I wrote. It’s a dark, fantastical comedy, and something that I feel is a meaningful story. A script that has something to say.”

As such is life, Klebe’s philanthropic side, something which commenced in Catholic school by her readings to the blind, itself evolved along with her creativity, and eventually the two made a confluence years later in documentary form while attending NYU. Via Doctors Without Borders, Klebe filmed open heart surgeries in Haiti and Nicaragua, a task which may seem surprising for a woman who was terrified by Freddy Krueger as a child.

“It was part of an exercise called a character study,” she offered of how she became involved, “and mine was about this well-known New York heart surgeon who performed open-heart surgeries. I followed him one day, documenting his work from the start of his shift until the end, and afterward, he asked me if I would film him and his trip to Haiti for Doctors Without Borders and Open Hearts Haiti. So, I did, and filmed him performing heart surgeries on these poor Haitian children who have no money and little opportunity. The surgeries were free. It was one of the most meaningful trips I’ve ever taken in my life, and changed my perspective. Our lives are so privileged, and the trip made it quite clear to me that so many of the problems which we think we have are absolutely miniscule in comparison to what these kids and their families are going through. And I loved doing my part to help by being there to document it.”

Reflecting on our current pandemic and self-isolation, Klebe finished, “My biggest sadness is that I feel as if I can’t do anything for people right now. I would love to bring food to people who need it, or help in some way however small, but due to social distancing and out of concern for my family’s health, I can’t take the chance of bringing anything back to them. But I’ve been yearning to help, and I look forward to the day when I can return to that.”

Klebe’s latest feature I Am Fear, in which stars and produced, was released on March 3, 2020. For more, you can follow her on Instagram at @kristinaklebe and on Twitter at @kristinaklebe, and catch her on the television series “American Dad” on June 1.

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Writer’s note: this interview has been lightly edited and condensed for clarity.

Danielle Harris, Wendy Kaplan & Tamara Glynn Wish Don Shanks a Happy 70th Birthday

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On Michael Myers actor Don Shanks’ 70th birthday, our absolute best wishes from HalloweenMovies and Trancas International Films and his Halloween 5: The Revenge of Michael Myers co-stars Danielle Harris, Wendy Kaplan and Tamara Glynn! Here’s to you, Don!

Exclusive Interview: Halloween 5’s Wendy Kaplan Speaks! – Part 2

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On the heels of the box office success of 1988’s Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers, series producer Moustapha Akkad was eager to expand the narrative of Haddonfield’s reinvigorated slasher (following the decidedly lackluster reception of its predecessor, the then maligned and now rather celebrated feature Halloween III: Season of the Witch). The result was Halloween 5: The Revenge of Michael Myers, a feature film directed by Swiss-born director Dominique Othenin-Girard.

Co-written by Girard and screenwriters Michael Jacobs and Shem Bitterman (following the director’s literal trashing of the original Bitterman script titled Halloween: The Killer Inside Me, which was intended as the follow-up), Halloween 5 was rushed into production in order to make its announced release date of October 13th, 1989. The outcome? A picture which proved polarizing for fans, and one which was received with far less fervor, both critically and financially, than its forerunner. Additionally, the narrative, which introduced audiences to the Cult of Thorn mythos, and which additionally was the victim of both reshoots and a post-production process which left entire sections on the cutting room floor, created some confusion within the Halloween fan base.

In part two of our recent interview series with Halloween 5’s Wendy Kaplan (see part one here), the actress talks the film, the rather infamous party scene at the hotel used to house the cast and crew, her offer to potentially appear in Halloween 6, her surprise at the truncated Haddonfield police station massacre as it appeared theatrically, and her thoughts on the flick thirty-one years later.

Wendy Kaplan as ‘Tina Williams’

With principal photography on Halloween 5 kicking off in Salt Lake City, Utah a mere five months before the film’s scheduled release, and script changes occurring consistently throughout production (in fact the script itself wasn’t complete when cameras started to roll), Kaplan recalls that set life too played fast and loose.

“It was a festive group of people,” Kaplan, who portrayed Halloween 5’s (“I’m never sensible if I can help it!“) ‘Tina Williams’ recalled. “It was pretty fun. You can imagine yourself at twenty-three years old, which is how old I was when I made the movie. We were all young actors, excited and on location, and we were crazy.”

Touched on in the bonus feature Dead Man’s Party – The Making of Halloween 5 contained in Anchor Bay and Shout Factory’s 15-disc Halloween Blu-ray box set, Kaplan alluded of the after-hours festivities, which included makeup effects artists Robert Kurtzman, Greg Nicotero and Howard Berger of K.N.B. EFX Group (a trio known then for not only their exemplary FX work, but also their penchant for the Sunset Strip’esque revelry of the late 80s), “It was like summer camp. We didn’t have phones or the internet to muck it up. And the party sort of followed the three of them. That sort of rock star thing. Everybody was just sort of trailing along.”

“We were doing night shooting,” she continued, “and then we would come home to the hotel at daybreak and have a party in somebody’s room. And I felt kind of terrible for the other guests, but I was like, ‘Oh my god, this is your typical Hollywood kind of scene.’ I don’t know that we trashed a room, but we would hang out a lot. Even at night we would come home and hang out in this little Salt Lake City hotel bar and ask the bartender to turn up the music, and we would dance. It was fun. I guess every set has that kind of feeling.”

Wendy Kaplan as ‘Tina Williams’

As for her character in the film, conversation turned then to her rather nebulous fate: while indeed stabbed by The Shape (actor Don Shanks) in the third act, she’s never shown definitively as having perished. Was this intended as a set up for Kaplan’s potential return for a Halloween 6?

“I think in the original screenplay it was never really clear what happened to my character,” Kaplan offered. “You know, Tina saved Jamie in the script, but there was no like, ‘Tina’s dead or Tina’s alive, or ‘Jamie goes and visits Tina in the hospital,’ sort of thing. I think it was very open ended, what happened to Tina. And I think that it may have been based on me signing a contractual clause that said I would do a part 6, but my agent didn’t want me to sign it. So, the producers I guess kind of left it open. It could have been that they wanted to hire a whole new crop of people, because I know we were probably a pain in the ass for Moustapha. We were a little crazy when we were shooting Halloween 5. But I do know I didn’t sign on for 6, because my agent was like, ‘Well, it’s really good for you to do Halloween 5, and it’s a significant role in a movie, but it is a horror movie, and we don’t want to make any more commitments.’ But I wound up going back to New York in 1990 and doing a bunch of theater, so it didn’t really have any bearing on anything anyway.”

With the narrative fluctuating as director Girard improvised aspects of the Halloween 5 story-line, and with whole sections missing from the theatrical cut, including the massacre of the Haddonfield police force at the hands of the mysterious Man in Black, Kaplan commented, “I felt that things had to be missing (from the film). They shot in that jail location for a long time, and in the film it’s just Michael sitting in a jail cell, with his mask still on. I was really surprised by that.”

Regarding the heavily edited first act scene featuring Tina and Rachel (as portrayed by actress Ellie Cornell) and an introduction to (as originally posited) a BMX bike-riding Billy Hill (actor Jeffrey Landman), Kaplan recalled, “I think that we had more to say to each other in that scene where we’re walking. There’s actually a lot more to it. I mean, I guess it just went on forever and they cut a lot of it. Which I don’t blame them, I guess. And the script, it kept changing.”

From the Trancas vault, Page 38 of the Halloween 5 Shooting Script, dated 5/2/1989.

Thirty-one years after the film’s release and six films later, and with an ever-growing international fan-base surrounding the franchise, Kaplan mused of her place in the genre, “It’s meaningful and it’s heart-warming. I really appreciate that people for whatever reason really gravitate towards the movies. And also towards Tina, for whatever weird and polarizing character that she is. I never expected that. I just was tagged in an Instagram post that said, ‘Tina’s the best character in the whole series!’ When people say things like that, it’s sweet. It’s a crazy character that came out of me years ago, and people are still kind of, you know, loving or hating her. I guess we all have the power to effect people.”

Fan-made doll of Halloween 5’s Tina Williams by Heath Newman

“With all of the stuff going on in the world right now,” the actress concluded, ”if people have a few moments where they can sit down and watch a horror movie, and they can release some of their fear, then that’s a great thing. I feel like a lot of people have come up to me at conventions and have said, ‘Tina made me feel that it’s okay to be who I am, and that it’s okay to be me.’ And I find that to be the best thing that anybody could ever say to me. Because I didn’t expect that this movie would impact the lives of people. The idea that people can feel like they can express themselves because they watched Tina in the movie is just great, because I feel that way about that character. People should be able to be themselves, and to actualize themselves, and to feel okay. Like, if these people are doing it, then I can do it too. I can be who I need to be.”

Exclusive Interview: Halloween 5’s Wendy Kaplan Speaks! – Part 1

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With director Dwight H. Little’s 1988 film Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers (the first appearance of the iconic slasher since 1981’s Halloween II) proving itself to be a critical and box office hit, excitement ran high and speculation rampant the following year for its sequel, Halloween 5: The Revenge of Michael Myers.

But would the fifth film bring? With Little’s predecessor having introduced compelling new characters in the forms of both Jamie Lloyd (actress Danielle Harris, portraying Myer’s stalked niece) and Rachel Carruthers (the series’ new ‘final girl’) as well as delivering one hell of a cliff hanger of a finale, anticipation was palpable, and fans buzzed. Had little Jamie truly become evil? Had Mrs. Carruthers died? How had Myers survived that hail of bullets?

The film which moviegoers received however on October 13th of 1989 seemed to ask more questions than which it answered. From the introduction of the character of the Man in Black and the early beginnings of the Cult of Thorn mythos to a psychic connection between uncle and niece, Halloween 5 remains to this day one of the more polarizing entries in the entire franchise, as does the role inhabited by one of the film’s stars, actress Wendy Kaplan.

Wendy Kaplan as ‘Tina Williams’ in Halloween 5: The Revenge of Michael Myers

Directed by Swiss director Dominique Othenin-Girard from an ever-changing and unfinished script by Michael Jacobs (with reshoots by series producer Moustapha Akkad), Halloween 5: The Revenge of Michael Myers introduces Kaplan’s teenage character of “Tina Williams” to the fold. Friend to both Halloween 4 characters Rachel and Jamie (although never previously referenced), Kaplan’s Tina as written falls somewhere between that of stock slasher victim and noble final girl, with the added fashion sense and rebelliousness of an early 80’s Madonna thrown in for good measure.

And it’s perhaps this very deviation from the scripted norm of wall flower as ‘final girl’ why Halloween fans remain divided to this day.

On the 30th anniversary of Halloween 5: The Revenge of Michael Myers, we sat down with Kaplan (now Foxworth) to discuss in-depth her experience and thoughts on the production, and her outlook on the film three decades later.

“I didn’t know this at the time, like how different Tina was I guess from your typical Halloween ‘final girl,’” offered Kaplan of her role. “Like, I really knew nothing about any of that, or even of the term. It’s just been in the last few years that people have come and said, ‘You’re kinda’ like the final girl’ in the film.’ Which I don’t know if that’s even correct, because the movie’s so strangely structured. But I know that there was all that controversy, because the character’s not particularly a good girl. Like, that was a big thing, and it was a certain aspect of my personality and my performance, too.”

With commercial and soap work and a couple of television credits to her name in 1987 (an episode of “My Two Dads” and the TV movie “Police Story: Monster Manor”), the then 23 year old Kaplan, who had transplanted from New York to Los Angeles in order to pursue acting, found herself offered an audition for Halloween 5, of which she remembers at the time her management being rather underwhelmed.

Recalls the actress of the 80’s mainstream stigma attached to the horror genre, “My management had a certain attitude about it, and I think then too that horror was not as celebrated as it is today. Now there are amazing directors and actors doing all these films, but you know, back in 1989 it was still, ‘Oh, it’s a slasher film.’ So, I think that there was a little bit of that conversation, but I went in for the audition anyway, and the role was so much fun to read for. Tina as a character was written so differently, and I don’t think at that point really that there was any reason why I wouldn’t do it. It was a really good opportunity, and it (eventually) came down to me and one other actor.”

According to Kaplan, that other actor was none other than Lori Petty, who later that year would land a reoccurring role on the “21 Jump Street” spin-off television series “Booker,” before securing the titular lead in Rachel Talalay’s cult-classic Tank Girl four years later.

“She was a very different kind of actress. You know, very different,” recalled Kaplan, “and I think that we were each bringing very different things to it.”

As for the audition process itself, “They brought me back couple of times, and (Halloween series executive producer) Moustapha (Akkad) was there for at least the last audition or two, and so was Dominique,” she offered. “The last audition was in this big office where we had to run around and scream and do things from the script, but it was pretty fun. You just put yourself into it. And I remember I was surprised by Dominique, because I just didn’t expect this arty European man to be the director. He had a very different approach.”

With principal photography of Halloween 5 kicking off in Salt Lake City, Utah in May of 1989, a mere five months before the film’s scheduled release, and script changes occurring consistently throughout production, we asked Kaplan of her memories of the shoot.

Wendy Kaplan in Halloween 5: The Revenge of Michael Myers

“You know, I was so young. I was in my early 20s and was like, ‘I’m in a movie!’” she said. “So, I was not paying a lot of attention to some of the things that now would probably perk my ears up, like, ‘Oh, something’s happening here, the director and the producer aren’t getting along!’ But back then? I mean, there’s aspects of Tina, especially at that time of the life, that were representative of me (as a person), so much so.”

“And I think that the happy part of me that just wanted to enjoy making this movie and be able to play this incredibly vibrant and fun, daring and snappy character, that was what I was focused on the most,” she continued. “Tina took me over a little, and I took her over a little, so I wasn’t paying a lot of attention to some of the other things. I wish I had. But in retrospect, I can see how fast that Halloween 5 was put into production, and I can see why there was so much disappointment about how different Halloween 5 was from Halloween 4. Like with the death of Ellie Cornell’s character of Rachel. That’s an intense thing for her as an actress, leading in Halloween 4, and then all of a sudden her character is killed off (in Halloween 5)? That doesn’t really make a lot of sense, and it’s kind of disappointing for the fans. I know that she was really loved.”

Don Shanks & Ellie Cornell in Halloween 5: The Revenge of Michael Myers

With the character of Rachel meeting her unceremonious demise in the first act of Halloween 5 (and the character of Jamie losing her surrogate mother figure and protector in the process), the ‘final girl’ baton was passed in narrative to Kaplan’s freewheeling Tina, which causes for her character not only a moral crisis, but also leads to one of the more selfless acts demonstrated in the series.

“Well, I was sort of oblivious to the slasher genre in general at the time,” offered Kaplan of the trope, and of her approach to her performance. “So, I really was just approaching it from the perspective of a person who clearly isn’t strong at parenting, and I think that Dominique had something to do with this too. I vaguely remember these conversations about Tina being hard on the outside, in the sense that she was a wild person, I guess, but also that she was vulnerable and had love to give, and that the one thing she did that was good and positive was to be there for Jamie.”

“You know, there’s that scene where I’m up in the clinic with Jamie, and I’m telling her, ‘I can’t stay with you, I have to go see my boyfriend,’ which makes Tina kind of look like a shit, but when I come downstairs and run into Loomis, I’m fully crying, and there was definitely direction from Dominique there to push Tina into more of a sympathetic realm.”

Kaplan expounded, “And I think that, if you look at that moment of sacrifice, when Tina shields Jamie with her own body and is stabbed, as some form of redemption for maybe some of the things she had done as a teen that were not so great, you can see it that way. I like to think of Tina as a whole person. I mean, most teenagers are everything. They’re troubled, they’re loving, they’re rebellious, they’re afraid. They’re such complex beings. And I think that Tina has all these qualities.”

Don Shanks & Wendy Kaplan in Halloween 5: The Revenge of Michael Myers

“I have had people come up to me since the film,” she continued, “sometimes at horror conventions, and they have told me that in ways that they relate to Tina, or that if they were having trouble in life, that she served as a little bit of inspiration for them, and that to me is amazing because they are finding something in this kind of wild, conflicted character. I mean, I don’t think that sacrificing her life was Tina’s plan, but she did it instinctually, and it was a noble act.”

As for her interaction with series star Donald Pleasance, in which Kaplan shares the screen briefly in Halloween 5, Kaplan recalls of working with the English actor, “He was really professional, and he was really kind. It never felt like he was behaving like the sort of icon that he was. He was very present with us, in the sense that it didn’t feel like he put himself above us, but I didn’t have a lot of direct interaction with him outside of when we were shooting. I think I was a little intimidated by him, frankly. Like I didn’t feel particularly comfortable going, ‘Hey! Whatcha’ been doing here in Salt Lake City for the last few days in your down time?’ It’s not to say that he was unapproachable. It’s just that I was young and new and he was this big deal. He was this icon of film and theatre.”

Donald Pleasence as ‘Sam Loomis’ in Halloween 5: The Revenge of Michael Myers

In our upcoming Part 2, Kaplan talks her near attachment to an already gestating Halloween 6, the rather infamous party scene at the production’s hotel during principal photography of Halloween 5, her confusion over the introduction and identity of the Man in Black, her surprise at the truncated Haddonfield police station massacre as it was released theatrically, and her thoughts on the film thirty years later.

Exclusive Interview: Halloween 5’s Don Shanks Speaks! – Part 3

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In 1989, director Dominique Othenin-Girard’s Halloween 5: The Revenge of Michael Myers polarized Halloween fans. From the introduction of the character of the Man in Black and the early beginnings of The Cult of Thorn mythos to a psychic connection between uncle and niece, this fifth film in the franchise (and the fourth which followed the iconic character of the babysitter-slashing Myers, who first found fame in originator John Carpenter’s seminal 1978 horror classic Halloween) was indeed a departure from its predecessors.

But what of the man who donned the infamous coveralls and mask for this fifth entry? Thirty years since its release, we caught up with stuntman and actor Don Shanks to discuss his experience, and touched on topics ranging from the film’s deleted scenes to working with young lead Danielle Harris, as well as his prolific career in the film and stunt industry, navigating Hollywood as a Native American, and a whole lot more.

Commencing with his role of Indian brave Nakoma in the 1974 film The Life and Times of Grizzly Adams, and kicking into high gear in 1977 in the hit television series of the same name (you can dig deep into that in Part 1 of our interview series here), prior to assuming The Shape’s mantle Shanks had cut his teeth on an entirely different slasher film, the 1984 flick Silent Night, Deadly Night (you can dig into that in Part 2 here, as well as his recollection of shooting the infamous ‘lost’ “Dr. Death” scene from Halloween 5).

As for Halloween 5: The Revenge of Michael Myers itself? With principal photography kicking off in May of 1989, a mere five months before its scheduled release on October 13th, 1989 (in a year already saturated with slasher sequels, including Friday the 13th VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan and A Nightmare on Elm Street 5: The Dream Child, along with dozens of other hopeful contenders), Shanks didn’t have much time to prepare for the role – or to prepare for the evening on which series regular Donald Pleasence accidentally broke his nose with a two by four, either.

Shanks recalled of that spring night in 1989 in Salt Lake City, Utah (where the majority of principal photography took place), “(It was our fault that) we didn’t let Donald know. The board we were using was foam, but it had a piece of PVC in it, and so as long as you hit with the right side of it, you’d be fine. But if you hit with the other?”

Don Shanks and Donald Pleasence in Halloween 5: The Revenge of Michael Myers

“He was getting tired,” expounded Shanks of Pleasence and the scene, which finds the actor’s character of Loomis dropping a chain net onto Myers before striking him repeatedly, “and he caught me (with the prop), and blood was running out of my mask, and (stunt coordinator) Don Pike ran over asked if I was OK. I said that I was, and not to worry about it, and not to say anything (to Pleasence). But the next day my eyes were black, and that’s a pretty good sign that you broke your nose.”

Aside from that unfortunate incident, Shanks recalls that working with the actor, “Was great. That scene where we were on the staircase (in the Myers house) and he’s talking to me – I swear I was getting lulled by his voice. It’s almost hypnotic, just listening to him. And (even at his age) he wanted to do all his own stunts. So when I slam Loomis into the window (in the film)? That was actually Donald Pleasence.”

 A famously committed actor, the classically trained Pleasence’s desire for authenticity was additionally illustrated in his request to Shanks for him to remain on set – for a scripted scene in which the latter doesn’t appear.

“They were to shoot the scene which takes place right after I wreck the car (at the Tower Farm), and they had wrapped me for the night,” remembers Shanks. “And there was a knock on the door and I answered it. It was Donald and he said, ‘Might I impose on you? I have to shoot the scene where I’m talking to you and I won’t see you, but I just want to know that you’re out there. Would you mind?” I’d already wrapped for the night, but I was like, ‘It’s OK. Cool.’ So I was out there in the trees when he’s saying, “If you want to get rid of this rage, Michael, go home. Go home. Go to your house.’”

Shanks also holds fond recollections of the film’s young lead Danielle Harris, who had returned to reprise her role of Jamie Lloyd in Halloween 5, which she’d originated in its predecessor.

“I thought she was a trooper,” effused Shanks. “I mean, for eleven years old, she was like a little person. She was always there, and she always wanted to do her own stunts.”

One of those stunts required Danielle’s character to be marauded by Myers while trapped within a metal laundry shoot, while The Shape stabs violently through it with an actual butcher knife.

Danielle Harris in Halloween 5: The Revenge of Michael Myers

“That whole thing, she wanted to do it,” offered Shanks of the sequence, “And I was stabbing blind. I couldn’t see where she was. So we worked it out, and I put marks on the inside where she had to be, and I would stab through it.”

 “Even when we were doing the chase (at the farm), she wanted to be there. I was tearing up the place in that car (with her running in front of it), and there was so much fog!”

Inarguably one of the more visually arresting moments of the film, the scene finds Myers, having previously dispatched the character of Mike and having stolen his prized 66’ Camaro, chasing down not only Harris, but actors Jeffrey Landman and Wendy Kaplan (the latter in the role of Tina Williams) in it. And as Shanks tells it, it was for Kaplan that things got a bit dicey.

Wendy Kaplan in Halloween 5: The Revenge of Michael Myers

“Well, we had very few doubles,” Shanks said of the production’s apparently anemic approach in hiring stunt people, “(and for that scene) we were using the car for lighting. (Cinematographer) Rob Draper was in the back seat, and we had the headlights on Wendy and we were chasing her, so we had to be fairly close. So we had done it three times, and she asked Rob between takes, ‘When does the camera see my face?’ And Rob said, ‘Well, I really don’t see it.’ So, I think it was on the fourth take that she turned towards us (during the chase), and when she did she stepped on her cape, and it pulled her down and screamed. My heart was jumping out of my chest. I said, “My god!” and slammed on the brakes. I put it right on top of her. I didn’t run over her, but I could have. And I was like, ‘What are you doing?’ And she said, ‘Well, I want them to see my face.’ I told her, ‘It’s not worth getting killed over!’ But she was a trooper too. They all were!”

 “There’s one shot (though from that sequence) that I wish I had,” said Shanks, “where I had the mask on, and there was so much fog that it was coming out of the eye holes.”

Having previously dived into the “Dr. Death” alternate opening, conversation then turned to the other ‘lost’ footage from Halloween 5: the long rumored SWAT team massacre at the hands of Myers.

“Oh, I took out Haddonfield’s SWAT team,” confirmed Shanks. “I killed a whole bunch of people.”

Expounding of the filmed scenes, “They took place at the hospital, the place where Danielle’s character left from,” he offered of the location in Orem, Utah which stood in for Haddonfield Children’s Clinic. “If you remember, the police get on the radio (in the film) and they say, ‘He’s here,’ and the whole SWAT team (which is stationed) at the Myers house gets in their cars and they drive off, and there’s one guy left up (in the house) with Danielle in the bedroom, and then there’s one guy down below in a police car (on the street), and over the radio he hears people screaming. So that’s where the (SWAT massacre) scene was to be – just before that.”

Of the extent of the sequence, Shanks said, “Well, I think we didn’t spend that much shooting it, because it was mostly second unit, with Don Pike directing instead of Dominique. So we were doing it fast.”

Speed of set-ups aside, Shanks does indeed recall the kills.

“There’s one guy, and I mean they show it, when they’re taking out one of the bodies, whose head is twisted around,” recalled the actor. “They put the wardrobe on him backwards, and he looks like his head’s been twisted one hundred and eighty degrees. And another, the direction was, ‘Take an M16 rifle, and you’re just walking through these guys and killing them.’ There’s Donre Samson, a big tall black guy that I kill, and another one, I put the M16 through his head, and another guy, I break his neck and stomp on him, you know. The whole idea was that you’d hear everybody screaming (over the radio) when he’s killing everybody. So we did all these really quick shots. You know: ‘Pick this guy up. Knock this guy down. Stab this guy.’”

In addition to the body count Shanks racked up in Halloween 5 as The Shape, he additionally tallied up a few as the film’s other antagonist, the nebulous Man in Black, a character whose identity and connective tissue had yet to be determined at the time of filming.

Gorezone Magazine. January 1990. Issue #11.

“Well, I wasn’t sure where they were going with that,” said Shanks of the conceit, “because in the scene where Danielle’s in the coffin, we were shooting stuff where I didn’t have the Myers mask on. And I was asking (executive producer) Moustapha (Akkad) about it, and he was like, ‘I’m not going to use the footage here, I’m going to use it later.’ So my thought was that in Halloween 6 that they’d cut back to scenes that were in Halloween 5 that would show that the Man in Black (and Myers) were the same person. Because later (after production) when Moustapha had called me and said, ‘We’re thinking about doing Halloween 6, and we would like you to go out and promote part 5,’ he also said, ‘but don’t say anything about the Man in Black.’”

And while Shanks would not return to reprise either role in 1995’s Halloween 6: The Curse of Michael Myers (those would go to George P. Wilbur and Mitchell Ryan as Myers and the Man in Black, respectively), the actor said of working with Halloween 5’s director Othenin-Girard (whose unique stamp on the franchise forced many a challenge for its immediate follow-up), “If you look at Halloween 5, it has certain artistic qualities to it, which is what he brought to it. You know, there’s little inner meanings and nuances, that when you watch it, aren’t in the other ones. Like the “Dr. Death” scene: the occult items (in it) happened through Dominique. He’d gotten in touch with (local) witches to get them, and he wanted it shot on a certain day, or it had to be a certain date, I don’t remember which. But numbers were a big thing with him for some reason. His (hotel) room even had to be have certain number, and his bed had to face a certain direction.”

 “And that’s just what Dominique did.”

 As for what Shanks, now sixty-nine years old (and surprisingly still fit, regardless of the spinal fractures he endured as a stunt man in the 80’s) is up to, “I’m still riding horses,” he said. “I have one friend, and she’s been doing horse rescues and stuff, and so I help her train the horses. You know, just taking it easy.”

“Although,” he added, “She did just start doing Mongolian archery. That’s where you shoot targets with a bow on horseback.”

 “I think I might try that.”

Exclusive Interview: Halloween 5’s Don Shanks Speaks! – Part 2

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In 1989, director Dominique Othenin-Girard’s Halloween 5: The Revenge of Michael Myers polarized Halloween fans. From the introduction of the character of the Man in Black and the early beginnings of The Cult of Thorn mythos to a psychic connection between uncle and niece, this fifth film in the franchise (and the fourth which followed the iconic character of the babysitter-slashing Myers, who first found fame in originator John Carpenter’s seminal 1978 horror classic Halloween) was indeed a departure from its predecessors.

But what of the man who donned the infamous coveralls and mask for this fifth entry? Thirty years since its release, we caught up with stuntman and actor Don Shanks to discuss his experience working on the film, and touched on topics ranging from the film’s alternate ‘Dr. Death’ opening and deleted scenes to working with young lead Danielle Harris, as well as his prolific career in the film and stunt industry, navigating Hollywood as a Native American, and a whole lot more.

Commencing with his role of Nakoma in the 1974 film The Life and Times of Grizzly Adams and kicking into high gear in 1977 in the hit television series of the same name (you can dig deep into Shanks’ beginnings in Part 1 of our interview series here), Shanks told us that prior to Halloween 5 he’d cut his teeth on an entirely different slasher film, the 1984 flick Silent Night, Deadly Night.

“I was in that film quite a bit,” Shanks offered of the movie, which went on to generate four sequels and the 2012 loose remake Silent Night. “A friend of mine was the stunt coordinator on it and he brought me on to double the Santa.”

Directed by Charles E. Sellier, Jr. (who Shanks had worked with on the Adams films and television series years prior), Silent Night, Deadly Night was written by Paul Caimi, and revolves around the character of Billy, who after seeing his parents murdered as a child at the hands of a Santa Claus suit-wearing criminal, goes on a Yuletide spree-killing of his own some years later.

Cashing in on the holiday-themed slasher craze of the time (its predecessors included Bob Clark’s underrated 1974 film Black Christmas and of course 1978’s immensely successful Halloween, as well as their imitators My Bloody Valentine, Friday the 13th Part 2, The Burning and dozens of others), the production too decided to give their killer a narratively related look. Thusly, Silent Night, Deadly Night’s Billy was presented as a none-too-family-friendly axe-wielding Saint Nick, much to the outrage of parents everywhere.

“Everything with the axe was me, and I did all of the stunts required of Santa Claus,” recalled Shanks of his work in the film, which also required him to double many of Santa’s victims as well, “and (often) we were using real axes.”

Of one of those moments when Shanks was asked to use an actual edged weapon, “We were doing one scene with Linnea (Quigley) where she runs to the telephone and (the character of) Billy throws his axe at her, and they wanted me to cut the telephone cord next to her with the axe,” Shanks offered. “I said, ‘That’s a little too close to her for me. There’s a snowman (decoration) right next to her. Let me throw it at that.’ So I first did it with a rubber axe, which didn’t stick and just knocked the fake wall down. So they fixed the wall, and I did it again, and the second time the axe splitt the snowman and it stuck (in the wall).”

 “After the take Linnea said, ‘That was really amazing!’” recalled the actor. “And I said, ‘Well, you know I throw knives and tomahawks.’ And she said, ‘Yeah, but how do you get a rubber one to stick in the wall?’ And I said, ‘The second one wasn’t rubber! They didn’t tell you that I was going to be throwing a real axe at you?’ And she said, ‘No, they didn’t.’”

Linnea Quigley in Silent Night, Deadly Night.

As it turns out, scantily-clad women weren’t the only ones on Santa’s “naughty list” in Silent Night, Deadly Night.

“In another scene, this kid steals a toboggan and is sledding down a hill,” continued Shanks. “So we had a stunt guy wearing a prosthetic head double the kid, and we put a ghost neck on the top of his own head and built his shoulders up, and I took the real axe and cut his (prosthetic) head off with it. So like I said, we were using real axes.”

 Such holiday mayhem was the cause of much controversy on November 9th, 1984, when the film was released to theaters. Lambasted by critics and picketed by parental groups for its content (and television trailers, which aired during hours of family-friendly programming), the TriStar film was pulled from theaters six days into its release. (Wes Craven’s A Nightmare on Elm Street was incidentally released the same day – to less vitriol and far more fanfare).

In the years following Silent Night, Deadly Night, Shanks found work in the television films Louis L’Amour’s Down the Long Hills and Stranger on My Land, as well as the television series Werewolf, before landing the role he’s most known to genre fans for: that of The Shape in 1989’s Halloween 5: The Revenge of Michael Myers.

Of that casting, Shanks recalled, “What it was, was that I had worked with stunt coordinator Don Pike. We had done a CHiPS episode together and had become kind of friends, and then later I was here in Salt Lake City, and he called me and said, ‘We’re doing this movie and I wanted to know if you were available to do stunts.’ I go, ‘Yep, sure.’ And so he calls me back ten minutes later and says, ‘The director would like to talk to you.’ I asked, ‘About doing stunts?’ He says, ‘Well, we’re doing Halloween 5 and we’re considering you to play Michael Myers.’ I go, ‘That’s cool.’ So I went in and talked to (the director) Dominique, and after a little bit he says, ‘I want you to walk for me like wood through water.’ I thought about it for a minute, and then I did it, and he said, ‘OK, perfect.’”

 “And that’s how I got the role.”

Don Shanks Unmasked in Halloween 5: The Revenge of Michael Myers

 With its predecessor Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers having released to box office success in October of 1988, the series’ producers were eager to duplicate that with an October 1989 follow-up, and thusly, Halloween 5 was moved quickly into production. Ideas pertaining to the continuation of the storyline varied wildly. A first draft by Shem Bitterman followed Alan B. McElroy’s established conceit and found the character of Jamie Lloyd to have become pure evil, following the stabbing of her stepmother in the finale of Halloween 4. That concept was however rejected by producer Moustapha Akkad, who felt that fans’ interest lay in the story of Myers (given the box office disaster that was the Myers-less Halloween III: The Season of the Witch, his concerns were warranted). Ultimately, writers Bitterman, Michael Jacobs and director Othenin-Girard all found writing credits on the shooting script, in a story which picked up directly where the previous film had left off: with Myers falling into a mine shaft beneath a hail of gun fire.

“We started filming a week and a half after I got the script,” recalled Shanks of Halloween 5, which commenced principal photography in May of 1989 in Salt Lake City and its surrounding environs.

As originally scripted and shot, Myers, in true First Blood fashion, escapes via a fiery opening in the side of a mountain, and riddled with bullets floats down the river to the cabin of Dr. Death, portrayed by local Salt Lake City resident Theron “Uncle Thud” Read, in what has become one of the more discussed ‘lost’ scenes of the film franchise.

Writer’s note: It may not be lost.

“He was a punk comedian here in town,” recalled Shanks of the actor, comic and fixture on the 1980’s SLC punk scene, who is most remembered for his role of Mark Bojeekus in the 1987 comedy Three O’Clock High, and who passed away on July 20th, 2009. “He had a Mohawk haircut, and was very, very emaciated looking.”

Of the scene, which finds The Shape being discovered by Dr. Death and subsequently brought into the cabin in which a resurrection ritual is conducted, Shanks recalled, “(I was) placed on this stone alter, and all around (the set) were things that the production had gotten from witches, and people that sell you the occult. And there were scrolls and different chants and this and that. And (suspended from) the altar, right above me, was this rock that looked like a stalactite – it was on a string and it would circle. And Dr. Death was doing an incantation on me, and then he tattoos on me the Thorn rune, which is the sign of eternal life. And so he does all these incantations, and on Halloween Eve (one year later) I come back to life.”

“So I put the mask on,” continued Shanks of the results of Myers’ not-quite-grateful response to his resurrection, “and I grab Dr. Death by the throat and pick him up over my head and break his back, and then put him on the altar, and take the stalactite and I go through his chest with it. I thought it was one of my better kills. But (later) Moustapha thought it was too much of the occult type thing. So they decided to shoot it differently.”

Gone was Dr. Death, now replaced by actor Harper Roisman who would in the theatrical release portray an elderly mountain man living in the same cabin (in a direct homage to 1935’s Bride of Frankenstein), as were any signs of the occult, with a talking parrot taking their place.

Of Reads’ performance as Dr. Death, “It was eccentric,” offered Shanks, “and if you saw it you would just go, ‘Wow, that guy looks really weird.’ But it kind of gave the film a little more of an artistic and avant-garde (touch). I mean, it worked perfectly. For what we were doing and the way the (occult) set looked, you want something that isn’t the norm. And the old guy, when we re-shot the opening, Othenin-Girard wasn’t even there. We shot that the last day (of production). I think it was (line producer) Rick Nathanson that directed it. Or it might have been (first AD) Kelly Schroeder. But I’m pretty sure Dominique was not there.”

Fangoria Magazine. November 1989. Issue #88.

 Other interesting changes to Myers included those that were visual, as evidenced by The Shape’s mask itself. As designed and provided by Robert Kurtzman, Greg Nicotero and Howard Berger of K.N.B EFX Group (who also served as the film’s special makeup supervisors), Myers’ visage took on an arguably more malevolent look than the ones which had preceded it.

“There were some changes to it after I’d been cast,” said Shanks of the mask. “I believe it had been sculpted off of a mold of Nicotero, and my head’s a little bigger than his. And then Moustapha thought that the nose needed work, so they changed that. And then we put makeup sponges underneath the neck so it would flare out more, because it form-fitted (without them), and it looked more like a face than it did a mask.”

 “And then of course we had to change it again later after Donald Pleasence had broken my nose.”

 In our upcoming Part 3, Shanks talks working with Danielle Harris and Pleasence (and his hearty swing) in Halloween 5: The Revenge of Michael Myers, those infamous ‘lost’ SWAT massacre scenes, a near fatal Camaro mishap, his introduction to the Halloween fan base, and much, much more.


 

Exclusive Interview: Halloween 5’s Don Shanks Speaks! Part 1

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Love it or hate it, one thing which can’t be argued is the divergent path which 1989’s Halloween 5: The Revenge of Michael Myers took the franchise on. From the head-scratching introduction of the character of the Man in Black and the early beginnings of The Cult of Thorn mythos to a psychic connection between uncle and niece, this fifth film in the franchise (and the fourth which followed the iconic character of the babysitter-slashing Myers, who first found fame in originator John Carpenter’s seminal 1978 horror classic Halloween) was indeed a departure from its predecessors.

But what of the man who donned the infamous coveralls and mask for this fifth entry? Thirty years since its release, we caught up with stuntman and actor Don Shanks to discuss his experience working on the Dominique Othenin-Girard-directed film, and touched on topics ranging from the film’s alternate ‘Dr. Death’ opening and deleted scenes to working with young lead Danielle Harris, as well as his prolific career in the film and stunt industry, navigating Hollywood as a Native American, and a whole lot more.

Commencing with his role of Nakoma in the 1974 film The Life and Times of Grizzly Adams and kicking into high gear in 1977 in the hit television series of the same name, Shanks, now 69, recalls of landing the role of the young Crow brave (the first of many which paved his way to Myers) and of his entrance into the film industry, “I was twenty two at the time, and I was doing a play that required a lot of prosthetic makeup, and some people in the audience said that they’d really enjoyed my performance, as I was playing an old man.”

“About two months later I received a call from them that there was a movie in town that needed someone to work in prosthetic makeup,” he continued. “So I called the production, and they said, ‘We need a guy to be in makeup and wrestle a bear.’ And so I asked them, ‘Do you need any actors?’ They said, ‘Yeah, we are looking for an Indian in makeup and they’d have to wrestle a bear.’ And I told them, ‘Well, I’m part Indian and I’ll wrestle a bear.’ And that was my first film.”

Born February 26, 1950 in Piasa, Illinois, Shanks said of his childhood introduction to the world of cinema, “I grew up on a farm, and I’d watch these TV shows about the Old West and since I had a horse I learned to do all of the fancy mounts (the actors were doing on TV). And then when I was seven or eight, I saw a movie called The Crimson Pirate with Burt Lancaster, and since we had a barn I rigged it up like the mast of a pirate ship, and I would swing from it. I pretended to be a pirate, or a cowboy, or an Indian, and my Mom would say, ‘You’re going to break your neck doing that.’”

“I went on to make a living out of it,” Shanks chuckled, “starting with The Life and Times of Grizzly Adams.”

An initially storied production (as Shanks recalls, under financier/producer and Shick Electric mogul Patrick Frawley the film initially wasn’t completed), producer Charles E. Sellier, Jr. was brought on board with assistant cameraman Dick Freidenberg in order to save it (the latter was eventually bumped up to director). The resulting film was the seventh highest grossing release of 1974, earning $65 million worldwide off of a $140,000 budget.

“It’s still in the top five or ten highest grossing independent films of all time,” stated Shanks of The Life and Times of Grizzly Adams, which stars, as does the later network series iteration, the now deceased actor Dan Haggerty in the titular role. “And my role of Nakoma in that film led into an expanded role in the television series.”

Revolving around the character of woodsman Adams, an innocent fugitive from the law who lives in the wilderness and who helps passers-by in the forest with the help of his grizzly bear companion, the 1977-1978 period NBC series was comprised of thirty seven episodes, with Shanks appearing in thirty-six of them. And at the time, he was one of the few Native Americans working in the industry.

“It was starting to go into that trend,” said Shanks of Hollywood’s penchant for then casting Caucasion actors in roles written as Native American, as evidenced in such films as 1950’s Winchester ’73 (which featured Rock Hudson in feathered pigtails and face paint) and in 1953’s The Searchers (which featured actor Henry Brandon in the same). Television too wasn’t without its offenses: the popular 1970-1971 ‘Crying Indian’ commercials (which featured the weeping Iron Eyes Cody, in reality actor Espera DeCorti, whose descent was Italian and decidedly not Cherokee and Cree as he had claimed) similarly cast loose and fast.

“I have my family history, you know, to trace back,” mused Shanks, who is of Cherokee and Illini descent, “and if you were going to say you were Indian you had to have some proof. A lot of the Native Americans at that time weren’t educated. And so (one of the few actual Native Americans to) play many of those parts was Mohawk actor Jay Silverheels, who famously portrayed Tonto in the 1950’s The Lone Ranger television series. When he started out he did extra work, and they told him that if he could learn to read he could play speaking parts. So he learned to read through comic books. I mean, this is what I’ve heard. And so from that time on he started educating himself and trying to help other Native Americans.”

“Years ago they were going to do a remake of The Lone Ranger,” Shanks continued of the actor, and of the 1981 William A. Fraker-directed feature The Legend of the Lone Ranger, “and I was up for the part of Tonto. The only reason I wanted to play it was because Silverheels was going to play my (character’s) father. And I wanted to be in it because I really respected him.” (Writer’s note: Silverheels passed away on March 5, 1980 in Los Angeles, CA, and neither he or Shanks would appear in the film).

As for the impact his authentic portrayal of Nakoma in The Life and Times of Grizzly Adams had, Shanks offered, “A guy I knew once told me a story. He’d said that while his Native American cousin was dying of cancer that he’d told him he knew me, and that his cousin had replied, ‘Can you tell Don how much I thought of him in that role, because Nakoma didn’t take shit from anyone, and because he spoke in (correct) Indian dialect? When I watched that show as a kid, I’d pretend to be Nakoma.”

Regarding this, Shanks said of his determination to accurately portray the character, “At the time (the producers) didn’t understand why I wanted to speak in an Indian dialect, and it was also difficult because there’s a masculine and feminine gender in that language. That, and the Indian language had changed after the 1860’s, and the show was set in the 1850’s. So I had to find a way to translate the script into the right period dialect. So I found a lady up in Montana who would translate it from English to Indian, and then she’d send it down to me, and I’d have a man I knew translate her translation into the masculine Indian dialect. So, I tried to portray him as authentically as I could. It was that important to me.”

Shank’s portrayal helped rocket the NBC show to popularity with an impressive 32% market share during its run, although it would be a few years until Shanks and cast realized just how deeply the series had resonated with viewers.

“We had so many fan letters that we never got,” recalled Shanks. “Dan (Hagerty) was over at NBC one time, after the show had been over for I don’t know how long, and this lady there goes, ‘You want your fan mail?’ And he goes, ‘You have fan mail?’ She says, ‘Yeah. Have you got a truck?’ He goes, ‘Yeah, I got a pick up.’ She says, ‘No, do you have an actual truck?’ There were eight million fan mails that we didn’t get.”

Expounding, “I was working for scale and Dan was working for maybe $2,500 a week,” Shanks recalled, “and the producers on the show didn’t want us to really know how popular it was, because they didn’t want us to ask for more money. And they were running a scam too. The episodes were budgeted at $700,000 each, but they were shooting them for like $150,000 to $200,000 an episode and pocketing the difference. And there was also $139 million dollars of merchandising that we never received.”

Above. a 1978 merchandising tie-in: articulated Grizzly Adams dolls from Mattel.

“But you know what, we were having a good time (during production),” said Shanks of his then ignorance to the goings-on. “All the cast did was go out and make people happy (with the show) and have a good time, and I was just out of college and (even at scale) it was the most money I’ve ever made.”

Airing at a time when environmentalism had begun to flourish, much of The Life and Times of Grizzly Adams was shot on location in the mountains of Utah, Arizona and New Mexico, and contained several animal actors, one of which was the female grizzly Bozo, who portrayed the series’ Ben the Bear. Given this, the rugged locations and often rugged narrative, Shanks at times found more than just alleged shady dealings and the perfection of his character’s dialect to be of challenge.

“Dan once cut off two of my fingers when we were doing a scene,” Shanks laughed of an incident on the set of the 1977 Grizzly Adams episode ‘The Search.’ “(Rawhide actor) Paul Brinegar played a trapper in it, and (cast member) Denver Pyle gets caught in a net and Dan and I are cutting him out (of it), and Dan cut off two of my fingers with his knife. It was my first index finger at the first knuckle and the middle finger at the second joint.”

His response to this rather harrowing accident?

“I went and had them sewn back on and I went back to work,” said Shanks. “I’ve never missed a day of work. I’ve had my back broken before and I came back to work.”

Of that accident, “(Years later) I was doing a picture in Atlanta that required a high fall,” Shanks recalled, “and the production had ordered a bag that was too big for what I was doing. Long story short, it bounced me out of it and I landed on my face and my heels hit me in the back of the head.”

When asked if he took time off from the mishap (which resulted in compression fractures to his second, third and fifth vertebrae) in order to heal, Shanks replied, “Never did. Never have. You’re gonna’ have to kill me to get me off the set.”

In our upcoming Part 2, Shanks talks re-teaming with Sellier for the 1984 Christmas slasher Silent Night, Deadly Night and dives into the production of Halloween 5: The Revenge of Michael Myers, those infamous alternate scenes, Donald Pleasence’s hearty swing, and a whole lot more.