Author Ron Magid unpacks his bizarre, unlikely adventures forging a career from mask maven to film journalist, playwright and screenwriter in THE HALLOWEEN SOCIETY UNEARTHED and THE HALLOWEEN SOCIETY UNMASKED. His two-volume memoir provides a handy How-to for making a career (and contacts) in the hard to navigate entertainment industry.
Q: What is The Halloween Society?
The Halloween Society was founded by myself and Dante Renta in 1984, to celebrate horror, science fiction and fantasy films with a unique focus on monsters, masks and the artists that created them. From 1985 - 1989 we unleashed a baker's dozen of the most sought-after movie monster masks of all time and published 14 elaborate fanzines via the '80s analog medium of choice: Xerox. We filled each lovingly hand-assembled issue with as many as 50+ pages boasting in-depth coverage of the nascent mask industry of the era and snail-mailed them to our 100 or so members. For half a decade, The Halloween Society was virtually the center of the maskmaking world.
Somehow my early literary efforts impressed one of our acolytes, uber-collector Forrest J. Ackerman, then on the verge of launching Monsterland, his successor to Famous Monsters of Filmland magazine. To my eternal amazement, Forry permitted me to contribute a monthly column, The Halloween Society Catacomb, focused on the art of makeup the then-emerging field of practical makeup FX and maskmaking.
Q: Wasn't Forry's Famous Monsters to blame for infecting you with the mask collecting bug?
It was love at first bite when I saw Don Post Studios' glorious Universal Monsters masks pictured on the back cover of that legendary magazine back in the early 1970s. So it was providence that Uncle Forry brought me into his fold, which jumpstarted my 30-year journalistic career covering practical, makeup and visual effects.
Forry provided the lift that launched a thousand articles, initially in Monsterland, Cinefantastique and Fangoria. And my regular contributions to American Cinematographer (where I eventually became Special Effects editor) propelled me into the Los Angeles Times newspaper, Entertainment Weekly, Popular Mechanics and the late lamented Premiere magazines.
This led to meetings with remarkable men (and women), literally the top artists in the entertainment field: directors George Lucas, Steven Spielberg, James Cameron, David Lynch, Peter Jackson, and Robert Zemeckis; makeup artists Rick Baker, Rob Bottin, Tom and Bari Burman; actors John Astin and Angus Scrimm. These encounters are documented in my memoirs, replete with rollicking anecdotes of my personal adventures as a screenwriter, playwright, and journalist.
Where can you read about George Lucas literally crawling on hands and knees to plug in my tape recorder? David Lynch's giddy reaction when I said he was "so f'ing cool!"? Peter Jackson holding up a high-level guild screening to chat with me about Forry's King Kong dinosaurs? Or Robert Zemeckis' failure to immediately grasp the potential of the motion capture technology he pioneered? and many more.
Q: So, after these decades of writing about makeup and visual effects —why this book?
My memoirs chart the bizarre and largely unknown pre-Internet world of monster fandom while providing a roadmap to becoming a successful film journalist: Interviewing my heroes is one of the major through-lines in my books.
And it all began with The Halloween Society and our rare journals, The Allhallows Eve Companion and The Halloween Gazette.
Everywhere I went, monster kids, movie and makeup fans asked how they could get their hands on these near-impossible to find fanzines (distributed exclusively to our 100+ members nearly 40 years ago), featuring comprehensive histories of iconic maskmakers including Don Post Studios, Distortions Unlimited, House of Horrors, Horror Sanctum, Imaginative Creations and many others.
Naturally after 40 years, only a handful of the original issues, and their secret trove of priceless history, survive. But fear not: I've unleashed the entire run of fanzines in THE HALLOWEEN SOCIETY UNEARTHED and THE HALLOWEEN SOCIETY UNMASKED, along with my recollections of the shadowy history of The Halloween Society. And, of course, our crazed days and nights filled with some of the nuttiest antics ever.
Q: Do your books pull back the curtain on some crazed Halloween Society shenanigans?
All of them! We were a genuinely offbeat collection of humans. Beyond dressing in elaborate costumes and masks for conventions and movie premieres, we helped deck out the legendary Playboy Halloween parties, orchestrated by mask/collector extraordinaire Rich Correll. At another Hollywood party, I met Arthur Ross, one of the screenwriters of The Creature From the Black Lagoon, who revealed that in his original treatment, the Creature's sole line of dialog was a despondent "Glub!" Which reminds me: One of our members, dressed in full Gilman regalia for a kiddie matinee, was chased offstage by gleeful rugrats screaming, “Kick him in the balls!” We were mayhem on wheels!
Take the time actor (and Halloween Society sculptor) Paul Clemens' fake dead body ended up in my car, fooling the coroners and the cops, and nearly got me arrested. Or when we got locked in the spooky Hollywood Memorial mausoleum after closing. You can't make this stuff up!
But none of our outlandish experiences compared to the insane tribulations of making each of our 13 Custom Collectors Edition masks.
Q: How did you decide to immortalize a baker's dozen of the rarest characters in latex, and why are they among the most sought after movie monster masks of all time?
After collecting all the Don Post Universal Monster masks, we realized that certain major monsters had been overlooked. For example, Post had licensed the great Boris Karloff makeup in Abbott and Costello Meet Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde from Universal, but the classic Hyde was Paramount's 1931 film starring Fredric March, who won an Academy award for his dual portrayal. So The Halloween Society decided to fill those gaps with our own creations, beginning with March's Hyde, which sold all ten copies sight-unseen based solely on a drawing snail-mailed to our members.
Thrilled with our surprising success, we quickly unleashed our other creepy visages, offered in limited editions of 10 - 20 copies: Lon Chaney Sr. as the grinning Man in the Beaver Hat vampire from 1927's London After Midnight; Boris Karloff as the 3700 years dead Imhotep from The Mummy (1932), Charles Laughton as Quasimodo from The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1939) (replete with gigantic hump). We offered Bela Lugosi's 1931 Dracula (also offered as Murder Legendre from 1932's White Zombie) and Boris Karloff's burn-scarred monster from 1935's Bride of Frankenstein. We ended our run in semi-obscure mode with three German silent classics, the batlike vampire from Nosferatu (1922) the clay man from Der Golem (1920) and the Robotrix from Metropolis (1927). The 13 rare masks we created of our favorite horror movie monsters were largely responsible for The Halloween Society's enduring fame.
Q: Besides Forry Ackerman, Rich Correll and Paul Clemens, who were some of your other storied members?
The Halloween Society was kind of a Who's Who of fandom back in those analog days. All of whom you can read about in my memoirs and the pages of our fanzines, which feature interviews and profiles long entombed in the musty vaults of The Halloween Society. There we spotlighted legendary collectors like Metallica's Kirk Hammett, Evil Wilhelm, Frank Tocco, Cortlandt Hull, Pete Roberts, Guy Thorpe and David Lady. We covered pioneering garage kit modelmakers Billiken, Monsters in Motion and Dimensional Designs. Our readership included many great makeup and mask artists of the day: Rick Baker, Craig Reardon, Rob Bottin, Don Post Jr., Ed Edmunds (Distortions Unlimited), Joe Reader (House of Horrors), Sam McCain (Horror Sanctum), Henry Alvarez (Alvarez Wax Models), Dave Smith (Stroke of Midnight), and an in-house brain trust featuring Paul Clemens, Rob and Cathy Tharp, and Jim Rumph.
Q: What is cult fantasy sculptor, illustrator, ceramicist and designer Jim Rumph's connection to The Halloween Society?
Rumph's contributions to film, pop culture, and the worlds of Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, science fiction and fantasy art helped define the underground art scene of the mid-20th century, from the 1960s through his tragic death in 1993. Jim created one of our covers and we interviewed him and showcased his work throughout the run of our fanzines, including his horrific two-headed Possession mask, deemed among the rarest ever created. For the first time ever, my memoirs illuminate his life and work for Rumph fans worldwide.
Q: There's rumors of a feature documentary, "The Halloween Society Unmasked", in the works.
I'm enjoying a unique opportunity to work with my son, Harrison Magid, although there are times when I feel crazed! His ambitious documentary will expand on the bizarre trajectory of The Halloween Society's mysterious, yet humble origins. It began as a simple forum for fellow mask collectors, then grew into a publisher of over a dozen elaborate, hand-assembled fanzines with unlikely titles like The Allhallows Eve Companion and The Halloween Gazette. Its enduring legacy rests the creation of 13 of the most sought after masks of all time, whose creation is covered via commentary from founders, members, fans and master makeup artists and filmmakers. "The Halloween Society Unmasked" will reveal how this secret society became a nexus for the creations of pioneering maskmakers like the legendary Don Post, Distortions Unlimited and House of Horror Studios through the truly eyepopping headware by modern masters like Trick Or Treat Studios, displayed at massive fan gatherings such as MaskFest and Monsterpalooza! Premiering in theatres and online on Halloween!
But why wait? Enjoy the unexpurgated exploits of The Halloween Society from 1984 through the present in my memoirs, THE HALLOWEEN SOCIETY UNEARTHED and THE HALLOWEEN SOCIETY UNMASKED, available right now from BearManor publishing, Amazon and Barnes and Noble.
RON MAGID BIO:
Based on the quality of The Halloween Society's in-depth fanzies, Ron Magid's byline began appearing in the late lamented Premiere, Entertainment Weekly, Hollywood Reporter, Popular Mechanics, Wired, and countless other magazines worldwide. He was Special Effects Editor for the world's oldest film publication, American Cinematographer, where he specialized in writing articles about visual, practical, and makeup effects for decades, and was nominated for several Magi awards. His produced writings include screenplays, plays and documentaries. He is currently producing The Halloween Society Unmasked, directed by Harrison Magid.
He lives with his wife, Naomi, his son, Harrison, and a houseful of monsters in Los Angeles.