As a correspondent for Fangoria, the world’s best-known horror magazine, I got to go on the set of quite a few scary flicks being made in and around the thriving metropolis of Vancouver, B.C.
They weren’t all good movies…
…okay, they were almost all bad.
But I still had a gas doing them. Thanks Fango!
Childhood terrors spark the dark heart of Vancouver’s MICHAEL SLADE (2003)
Vancouver’s INDIE FILMMAKERS make horror on the cheap: 2003 cover story
Michael Myers unmasked on the Vancouver set of HALLOWEEN: RESURRECTION in 2001
Interviewing kickass screen legend Pam Grier for the Snoop Dogg horror flick BONES (2001)
Gettin’ buggy with Brad McDonald on the Vancouver set of THEY NEST in 2000
Hangin’ out with BILLY ZANE on the Vancouver set of Dean Koontz’s SOLE SURVIVOR (2000)
The GOREHOUNDS of Vancouver make horror special (FX): 1999 cover story
X-Files alumni plot death in FINAL DESTINATION debut in Vancouver in 1999
On the Vancouver set of the unfathomable sea-beast flick DEEP RISING in 1997
On the Vancouver set of PETER BENCHLEY’S CREATURE with a shark that can walk (1997)
Checking out Katie Holmes’ DISTURBING BEHAVIOR in Burnaby in 1997
Analyzing Edgler Vess’s spider-eating ways on the set of Dean Koontz’s INTENSITY (1997)
Helen Shaver gives demonic birth on the Vancouver set of POLTERGEIST: THE LEGACY in 1996
BORDELLO OF BLOOD sets up shop on Vancouver’s old Expo 86 site (1995)
Searching for THE SURGEON’s gore at Riverview Hospital in Vancouver (1994)
Interviewing Jeff Goldblum and Alicia Silverstone on the set of Dean Koontz’s HIDEAWAY (1994)
Hangin’ with Dan O’Bannon on the Vancouver set of his 1992 Lovecraft flick THE RESURRECTED
Meeting the men behind Freddy Kreuger inside Wes Craven’s NIGHTMARE CAFE (1992)
Analyzing THE CRUSH with 16-year-old Alicia Silverstone in Vancouver in 1992
OMEN IV set visit for Fangoria leads to Satanic 666 sighting in Vancouver
Horrific hijinx on the Vancouver set of Stephen King’s NEEDFUL THINGS in 1991
Interviewing Tim Curry on the Vancouver set of STEPHEN KING’S IT in 1990
Covering the Vancouver filming of FRIDAY THE 13TH PART VIII: JASON TAKES MANHATTAN in 1989
Braving Vancouver’s seedy Granville strip for MIDNIGHT MATINEE in 1988
Watching Dean Koontz’s beloved WATCHERS get trashed in Vancouver in 1988
And as a writer and editor for Vancouver’s Georgia Straight newspaper for over thirty years, I got to do a few horror covers when Halloween rolled around.
For the Georgia Straight‘s Halloween 2000 issue I did a cover story on “bug wrangler” Brad McDonald, who I’d met while doing a Fangoria set visit for a film I can’t remember right now. The photo was taken by Vancouver’s amazing Alex Waterhouse-Hayward.
In advance of the release of 1990’s Nightbreed, British horror master Clive Barker came to Vancouver to do some press, and I got to interview him in the flesh. Alex Waterhouse-Hayward took a great shot of Barker puffing on a stogie, and was kind enough to take a quick Polaroid of us together, which I inserted on a cover before framing.
During my lucky 13 year stint as Fangoria‘s “man in Van” I was assigned to do a number of set visits, including ones for film and TV adaptations of Stephen King (Needful Things, IT) and Dean Koontz (Watchers, Hideaway, Intensity, Sole Survivor). But none of my stories were ever the main image on the cover of Fango until Stephen Sommer’s 1998 action-horror Deep Rising. Although the movie turned out to be crap, I did get to hang out in Famke Janssen’s trailer for a bit.
