| Someone asked me the question the other day why on Earth
I was so fascinated by the sci-fi horror movies of my youth, where did all of
this weird stuff come from, and why, why, why did I make the 1950's-style sci-fi
movie Contamination? |
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I think it's my mother's fault...She was the one
who called me in from playing on a really beautiful Sunday
afternoon to watch the afternoon movie with her (It
was George Pal's The Time Machine, and it was
the first really serious sci-fi movie I remember
seeing. It changed my life...you'll see...). She's the one who
watched The Night Stalker tv series with me.
She's the one who sat up late with me to check out movies like
It Challenged the World, the original
Frankenstein, and (a personal favorite)
The X from Outer Space. She took me to see movies
like Inframan at the drive-in. And she bought me my
very first issue of Famous Monsters of Filmland. So
if you want to blame someone for what I did...Blame my mom. |
| Then again, you might want to blame my dad. He told me all
about going to see The Thing (From Another World) when
he was a kid. And he took me to see John Carpenter's The Thing
on my birthday. He told me about the original The Blob, and
fell asleep in his easy chair trying to watch it with me when I was 10. He
helped me fill out the order form in the back of FMoF to
send away for a bunch of books. He read comic books to me when I was a kid.
He took me to see movies like Dr. Syn, Alias the Scarecrow, and
he made fun of the late movies like Monster from Green Hell
(God, Don't you just love that title?). And (this is probably why you
should blame him) my dad bought a Sony Super-8 camera when I was 8.
He showed me how to load film into it. He introduced me to moviemaking.
And he helped pay for the filmstock for my first movie when I was 12.
Yeah, it's probably all his fault... |
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Then again, maybe it's my wife's fault. She was the
one who told me to go back to school and finish my degree.
She's the one who, while managing a used book store, bought some
guy's complete collection of FMoF, as well as countless
copies of Castle OF Frankenstein, and gave them to me
for our anniversary. She told me every day (then as she does now)
"You're only happy making movies, Steve. So, make movies!" And,
while showing our friend Andrea Bruce ( the actress who stars in
Contamination as Nurse Amanda Pritchard) a copy
of The Giant Claw, I said "They just don't make movies
like this anymore", my beautiful wife said "Well, Steve, why don't
you make one?" So, you see, it could be her fault, too. |
Blame aside, I thought about it. I thought about all those
great (and not-so-great) movies I had grown up with. And how they
were no longer as loved as maybe they should be. How the "new-wave"
of genre moviemakers seemed to forget about them after
Star Wars had come along. But I hadn't forgotten, and
I still love those movies as much now as I did then. Maybe even more
so...
I decided to do it. To make a movie that would pay homage to the movies
of the 1950's. I decided to make Contamination. |
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When I told the story to Andrea, she nodded her head, and
gave me a look like I was insane. Then she started laughing.
"Okay", she said, "When do we start?"
That was the question. I had hacked out the script in a very rough
form in a couple of days. Much of the dialogue wasn't written out,
especially the long "scientific" speeches that Nurse Pritchard would
have to spout. Andrea said that she would help write those, and within
a day she had several rattled off that would work just fine. Together,
she and I started looking for other talent. Andrea introduced me to
John Frazier (Dr. Graves in Contamination and later Donny
in Confession and he brought Dezzy (the first victim) and
suggested Jack. |
| We approached Jack Wheeler, an incredibly talented actor
who bore a remarkable resemblance to Tom Cruise, about the role
of Sergeant Jack Powers (A brief aside, I actually worked with
a Sgt. Jack Powers in the Army. He was a jovial, extremely funny
guy with this name that always struck me as the heroic moniker
of a sci-fi hero. Just say it a couple of times, with meaning.
"Sergeant Jack Powers!" See what I mean?). At first Jack was
mystified. "You want me to play a bad actor?" "No, no. We want
you to play it...not bad. Like in 1950's movies. Kinda over the
top." Laughing, Jack agreed. As things were coming together, I
started working on the special effects. We were almost ready... |
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We gathered our bunch of players and started shooting.
The schedule was incredibly tight, 6 nights plus one night of
pickups and one night for special effects. I was shooting
a Roger Corman movie, on a Roger Corman
schedule for less than a Roger Corman budget
(ps. If you don't know who Roger Corman is,
you should go to the library and check out his
book How I Made 100 Movies in Hollywood, and Never Lost a Dime.
Pay special attention to the early chapters about his 1950's
sci-fi movies. Then go rent them. If you don't like them...well, don't
buy Contamination). I loved it and laughed for days.
Everyone got into the spirit of the thing, and later Jack told me
it was the most satisfying acting experience he had had so far. |
| I edited the thing on two vcrs and wiped the
color out using a consumer color corrector. It took me 18 hours
to put the whole thing together, and if you've never made a movie,
let me tell you, that is very little time. But
we had shot only what we needed, and the only multiple takes I had were from
special effects and scenes where people just broke up laughing in the middle of
a line. My little homage to 1950's sci-fi was complete. The first
person to watch it was my wife. She laughed all the way through and
afterwards gave me a big kiss. |
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Next up was showing it to my professor Dr. Matt Jenkins.
We watched it early in the morning in the campus tv studio
where no one would disturb us. He, too, laughed through the
whole thing. Luckily, he didn't try to kiss me, but he did ask
if I would like to show it at the school. Naturally, I said yes. |
| Now when we made the movie, I had decided to pay homage
to many movies I loved in my youth. I shot scenes that were
similar to several movies from the '50's. So, when we showed
the movie at the university, I asked people to
try to figure out what movies we were playing with. This was the birth of
the Contamination Game. Afterwards,
members of the audience brought me cards they
had filled out with many names of many movies. No one got them all, but
many asked how much a copy would cost. I calculated it out and came up
with the price that you now see, $7.95. We
pre-sold 18 copies at the first showing. |
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So, whoever's fault it is, my mom's, my dad's, my wife's,
or all of those old movies I used to watch (and still love
to watch now), what you end up with is a movie that is
very funny, very entertaining, and very cheap. And, if you are a serious
movie fan, you can try to figure out which movies we parodied since a copy of
the game comes with every copy of the movie. Give it a try. And keep
watching the skies!
