Interview with Gregory Nicotero - Part 1 of 3

[Photo: Staci Layne Wilson]

Part 1 of 3

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Depending on who you are, you either know Greg Nicotero from his work on the oozy Evil Dead 2 zombies or as the guy whose special effects company, K.N.B. EFX, made the huge phallus for Mark Wahlberg to wear in Boogie Nights. “We’ve done so many projects, but I’ve had more people come up and go, ‘Hey you guys did the penis in Boogie Nights’,” Nicotero laughs.

Appendages aside, Horror.com was lucky enough to get a recent tour of his K.N.B. EFX Studio along with a few other genre journalists. We asked Nicotero about everything from his first job, to George A. Romero’s Land of the Dead, to his work on the currently-airing Masters of Horror series for Showtime.

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On his start in the business:

Gregory Nicotero: I grew up in Pittsburgh and as a youngster there was a very small film community there. George Romero had already shot Night of the Living Dead and one of the actors in Night of the Living Dead who plays a television reporter is named Bill 'Chilly Billy' Cardille. He used to host a Saturday night horror show called Chiller Theater. Back then you had three channels, you had ABC, CBS and NBC and that was it, that's all you had to watch. My love for horror films began watching Chiller Theater on Saturday nights. In particular in July, because July was classic horror month so they would show all the Frankenstein movies, Wolfman, Dracula and the Mummy. I was really a fan of those films growing up. My parents were avid movie-goers. My mom claims that when she was pregnant with me she read Dracula so she figures that's why I love horror movies so much. But the reality is, I remember going to see Planet of the Apes in the theater when I was 5 or 6 years old. My parents always took us to movies... 2001, From Russia With Love. Movies I had no concept of what they were about. But it was the fact that my parents always took us to the theater to see movies.

So I grew up, really, with a fascination. I started reading Famous Monsters magazine. The story is very similar to other makeup effects artists that you meet because they all were either inspired by Aurora model kits, Famous Monsters magazines, watching horror shows on tv, I did all of those. I had a very, very vivid imagination as a youngster. For me it was just something that I was always intrigued by. I remember seeing Jaws when it came out at the theater and for me that was one of the pivotal moments when I said "Wow I would love to learn how to do that." I looked at it like this big mechanical prop not so much as a real shark swimming around. I was always in my head sort of trying to figure out how they do that.

The beauty of film making back in the 70s was there wasn't a wealth of information about how they did it. If you saw The Exorcist and then the next day on television they said "Oh, here's how we turned beautiful little Linda Blair into the demon" then people would be like "Aww, it's just makeup". But those movies had an impact because people had no idea how it was done. And to me, I still think that the movies that are most successful right now are films that you don't want to know how everything was done. You always want to leave a few little gags to people's imagination because then it makes them want to go see it again and again. And buy the unrated DVD because they go "Now that I saw the movie in the theater I want to learn how they did it". To me it was that sense of wonder that I think sometimes today is lacking a little bit. I'd sort of like to be left in the dark a little bit more about how things are done because it sort of keeps that mystique about films.

I grew up loving those kinds of movies and it's interesting because I spent a lot of time with other big movie buffs. Anytime I go over to Quentin's house, he'll put on an old movie and you remember what inspired you. I've always been a fan of fantasy. So that's how I got into it.

Ironically enough, my uncle is an actor in Pittsburgh and he had a part in The Crazies, which is one of George Romero's early films. So, lo and behold, a couple of years later right before Dawn of the Dead is released, before they start shooting, I run into George Romero in a restaurant in Rome, Italy of all places. I walk up to him and say "hey, you're George Romero. My uncle was in The Crazies" and we ultimately sort of struck up a conversation and became friends. So I went to visit sets of films that he was working on. I remember I went to the mall where they were shooting Dawn of the Dead. I went to the set when they were shooting Creepshow and, lo and behold, that was when I became friends with Tom Savini.

Tom and I became friends and 1984 came around and all of a sudden they said "We're getting ready to do Day of the Dead. Do you want a job?" And I said "Hold that thought," and called Tom up. "Tom, I just got hired on Day of the Dead. Can I be your assistant?" And he went "Yeah!". That was literally how my movie career began. July of 1984.

The next thing I knew I was working on Day of the Dead. From there I moved from Pittsburgh to New York City, worked for Richard Rubenstein on Tales From the Darkside, and then moved to Los Angeles about 8 months later. My first job in LA was at Stan Winston Studios, I worked on Aliens and Invaders From Mars. Then I jumped around from shop to shop.

By 1988 Howard Berger, Robert Kurtzman and myself had been working in different studios all around town and we each had different strengths. I was sort of the manager/business type, Howard was a good shop foreman, Bob was a good creative guy, coming up with ideas and stuff. So we said, "Hey, we're doing this for all these other people, why don't we do it for ourselves for a change?" The first film that we were hired to do the effects for was called Intruder which was directed by Scott Spiegel and produced by Lawrence Bender. Of course, Lawrence would go on to produce all of Quentin's movies.

Scott I had met on Evil Dead 2 and that literally came from a phone call. He called me at home one night and said, "Hey I need some kids to do some fake heads in a basement. We have, like, $3000 to do all the effects". And I said "I'll do it. Howard, Bob and I have been looking for something fun to do, so why not?". That was literally 17 years ago. From there we just sort of worked our way up. Within 2 years we were doing Misery, Dances With Wolves…

So we instantly broke out of that sort of gore mentality that a lot initial companies get kind of pigeonholed into because we didn't want get pigeonholed just doing Texas Chainsaw Massacre movies, Freddie Kreuger movies, and Nightmare on Elm Street movies. We wanted to sort of broaden our horizons and show what else we were capable of. Dances With Wolves gave us that opportunity because we did 24 buffalo for Kevin Costner and then the movie was so popular and so well-received that it sort of catapulted us into [the work]. 

From that point on we've always been able to fake animals and realistic cadavers and body parts and character makeups and stuff. So that just sort of carried us through. One of the strengths about our company is that Howard and I have always been fortunate enough to get repeat business. We've done 12 projects with Sam Raimi, we've done 7 projects with Robert Rodriguez, we've done 5 with Quentin Tarantino, we've done 3 with Spielberg. The people that we work for call us back over and over again and that's why we've been around for 17 years. It's something that I'm very, very proud of.

Continue to Part 2 of 3