Few directors had a more successful, or eclectic, career than the late Bob Clark. And not many directors can claim as many classic motion pictures on their resumes: A classic holiday movie (A Christmas Story), a classic coming-of-age movie (Porky’s), a classic horror film (Black Christmas), and a classic Sherlock Holmes film combined with a classic Jack the Ripper film (Murder By Decree).
Children Shouldn’t Play With Dead Things may not be a classic contender, but it’s a clever little horror film that uses its resources wisely. A troupe of actors, led by their insane director (Alan Ormsby) arrive on a secluded island to re-enact a ritual that brings the dead back to life. Before you can say “Boo,” the dead begin to crawl out of their graves and carnage ensues.
What point were you at in your career before you started Children Shouldn’t Play With Dead Things?
BOB: I went to college at the University of Miami and I was in Theater. I had also worked in the Miami film industry in the late sixties.
I was doing a play in Miami, A View from the Bridge, and this man named Bobby MacDonald came to me and said, "You're my director." I had actually worked on a couple of his schlock films, films that were done for $40,000 - 50,000.
I said, "Bob, what are you talking about? I don't know anything about films. I've been in some as an actor, but I don't know anything else." He said, "Don't worry about that, we have a great situation over in the Everglades, near Fort Myers."
So I got involved in writing and directing a movie called She Man, which was done by a guy named Charlie Broun. Charlie had a combination of a hydroponic tomato farm, a clothing factory and a movie studio, all in one. I went into the Everglades and wrote this thing called She Man.
I knew nothing about movies, but they said, "Don't worry, we've got everybody. We've got a great cameraman," who turned out to be a World War II Nazi cameraman who had never shot a movie and knew nothing about it. The editor was a guy named Hack, from the Fort Myers local. But I did have a guy named Harry Anderson, who was a legitimate production manager who had done a few Hitchcock films.
So I did She Man and it was dreadful beyond belief. At the same time we decided we would shoot The Emperor's New Clothes, back-to-back, so we shot that in Miami in a famous castle there, and actually got John Carradine to be in it and he was terrific.
So I did these two movies -- I don't think they exist anymore -- and I was determined after that that I would not work again until I understood what it was to make a movie. So, for the next four years I was a production manager and an AD, and I did every job, virtually, except cameraman.
Then, in 1971, Gary and Ken Goch and I decided we'd get some money and we'd make a film. In those days, to start your career, you either made a horror film or you did porno, and I didn’t want to do porno, so we chose a horror film and we decided to do it in Miami. And that became Children Shouldn't Play With Dead Things.
It was populated with my college buddies and chums and people we knew and we did if for $40,000. It was an homage to Night of the Living Dead, but more of a comic version, putting it on a bit. Actually, it wasn't really that much like Night of the Living Dead; we were just capitalizing on its success.
Where did the title come from?
BOB: I was just walking by a payphone in New York and stepped in to call somebody in town and it just hit me. Children Shouldn't Play With Dead Things. I have no idea why it came into my head.
Instead of calling the friend in New York, I called Bob Kilgore immediately and said, "Bob write this down: Children Shouldn't Play With Dead Things." And he said, "Oh my god, what a great title. That's hysterical. We couldn't do better." And that's how Children was born -- by a little bolt out of the blue.
How did you make up the story?
BOB: It just came out of my consciousness somewhere. I took things that were familiar to me, like the theater group.
I was well trained by that time to take advantage of every discipline that we could to maximize the kind of film we could make. I wrote it for the two main locations, the cemetery and the house, plus the location on the island that overlooks the city. We had three locations total. I was very careful about that, because we only had ten days – actually, ten nights.
The remote cabin was actually in Coral Gables, a friend's house. It was in the middle of the city, in a neighborhood, but we pulled it off pretty well.
What were some of the things you learned during those previous four years that helped on this production?
BOB: Control your locations, control the number of characters. We actually had quite a few characters, but that wasn't very costly for us. The movie is fairly ambitious in terms of its action.
But the key was continuity, not having to make any moves to other locations. But there's nothing complex about that: Just make sure you have one major location.
Did the fact that Alan Ormsby knew how to do make-up help in the decision to do a zombie movie?
BOB: To some extent, yes. Alan was extremely gifted and I knew he could pull it off, and in a way that was superior to our very low budget. So that was a factor. The make-ups were pretty darned good.
I completed the script and we had read-throughs; I'm sure I made some adjustments at that point.
How do you know when a script is done and ready?
BOB: You use your training and your gut instinct. You go back over it to be sure that the plot points are clear without being labored and that there's clarity and also excitement.
That's basically what a screenplay is: a duel between clarity and pacing. No matter how complex it is, you need to understand what's going on, and then you need to have pace. And that can vary. Some films that aren't rapidly paced are still very engrossing. But those two factors, clarity and pacing, are the two critical factors.
I came from a classical background; I was a Shakespearean trained actor. I was a movie fan growing up, but not a movie fanatic. I liked movies but I wasn't obsessed with them. I didn't plan on going into theater. To be a novelist was my plan from the time I was nine years old. But the minute I got involved in films I knew that was where I would go.
Did your background as an actor help you in writing dialog and creating characters?
BOB: I think so. I'd done a number of classical plays and doing Arthur Miller doesn’t hurt anything at all. I'd done Tennessee Williams and Shakespeare, so you certainly gain something from that experience.
As a director, you’ve never shied away from doing different genres. In fact, that sort of your style – that you work well in any style.
BOB: I determined very early that I would be an eclectic director. If you want to be a darling of the critics, you're probably better off having a cohesive singularity to your vision, and some of our greatest directors do work that way, but I didn’t want to do that.
I wanted to try all the forms and set out to do that. It's in my nature to be adventurous, I think, so I've been able to do, fortunately, virtually every genre. It was a conscious decision, made from the beginning.
I started out in horror films, and it took me three films to get away from horror, because I didn't have any intention of staying in it.
I intended to be eclectic, and I intended that the style be determined by the needs of the work. The other thing I wanted to do was to have a visual style that was fresh and an approach that gave the audience a deep involvement in the film, like they were part of the adventure. I'm very concerned about the look and the texture of my films.
Even in my films that aren't necessarily designed to show off the beauty of the place, I'm still very conscious of my backgrounds and my textures; not so much that they overwhelm the audience, but that they feel part of the texture.
Are you surprised that Children Shouldn’t Play With Dead Things is still popular today?
BOB: Yes. I did a film called Now and Forever a few years back and we were on the festival circuit. I was at the Atlantic City Film Festival, and we won the festival and I won best director. I got up to give a speech and it wasn't a young, hip-appearing audience. The audience was young to middle age.
I said to them, "I know I am identified with Hollywood films, but my first film was a little film shot in ten days, called Children Shouldn't Play With Dead Things." And this crowd broke out into huge applause, all the young people, the middle-aged ones, they all knew the movie. That flabbergasted me. After speaking to them afterwards, indeed the film is, among filmmakers, pretty well-known.
Is there anything you learned on that movie that you still use today?
BOB: Sure. I learned that you want to change your backgrounds. I like to move my characters and move my camera; not obtrusively, but to identify the world that we're in and to identify the dynamics and the immediacy of the shot.
That's probably the one common element in my work is the tendency to move the camera a great deal. I mean, I'll do the classical over-the-shoulder close-up stuff when it's appropriate, when you're interested in seeing into the eyes of the people. But even then, we move the camera gently during close-ups.
What’s your best advice about writing?
BOB: Be truthful. Verisimilitude. You've got to find your reality, no matter how broad what you're doing is. If you're doing the Marx Brothers, it's wild, it's bizarre, but somewhere in there has to be some truth, no matter how outrageous or absurd or fantastical.
Dying to make a feature? Learn from the pros!
"We never put out an actual textbook for the Corman School of Filmmaking, but if we did, it would be Fast, Cheap and Under Control."
Roger Corman, Producer
★★★★★
It’s like taking a Master Class in moviemaking…all in one book!
Jonathan Demme: The value of cameos
John Sayles: Writing to your resources
Peter Bogdanovich: Long, continuous takes
John Cassavetes: Re-Shoots
Steven Soderbergh: Rehearsals
George Romero: Casting
Kevin Smith: Skipping film school
Jon Favreau: Creating an emotional connection
Richard Linklater: Poverty breeds creativity
David Lynch: Kill your darlings
Ron Howard: Pre-production planning
John Carpenter: Going low-tech
Robert Rodriguez: Sound thinking
And more!
Write Your Screenplay with the Help of Top Screenwriters!
It’s like taking a Master Class in screenwriting … all in one book!
Discover the pitfalls of writing to fit a budget from screenwriters who have successfully navigated these waters already. Learn from their mistakes and improve your script with their expert advice.
"I wish I'd read this book before I made Re-Animator."
Stuart Gordon, Director, Re-Animator, Castle Freak, From Beyond
John Gaspard has directed half a dozen low-budget features, as well as written for TV, movies, novels and the stage.
The book covers (among other topics):
Academy-Award Winner Dan Futterman (“Capote”) on writing real stories
Tom DiCillio (“Living In Oblivion”) on turning a short into a feature
Kasi Lemmons (“Eve’s Bayou”) on writing for a different time period
George Romero (“Martin”) on writing horror on a budget
Rebecca Miller (“Personal Velocity”) on adapting short stories
Stuart Gordon (“Re-Animator”) on adaptations
Academy-Award Nominee Whit Stillman (“Metropolitan”) on cheap ways to make it look expensive
Miranda July (“Me and You and Everyone We Know”) on making your writing spontaneous
Alex Cox (“Repo Man”) on scaling the script to meet a budget
Joan Micklin Silver (“Hester Street”) on writing history on a budget
Bob Clark (“Children Shouldn’t Play with Dead Things”) on mixing humor and horror
Amy Holden Jones (“Love Letters”) on writing romance on a budget
Henry Jaglom (“Venice/Venice”) on mixing improvisation with scripting
L.M. Kit Carson (“Paris, Texas”) on re-writing while shooting
Academy-Award Winner Kenneth Lonergan (“You Can Count on Me”) on script editing
Roger Nygard (“Suckers”) on mixing genres
This is the book for anyone who’s serious about writing a screenplay that can get produced!