Greg Nicotero talks about the masters of movie mayhem and 'malicious hysteria'

Hero Complex brought you an exclusive, in-depth piece yesterday on the future of Stan Winston Effects, the storied special-effects house founded by the late, great wizard of Hollywood. Now Gina McIntyre, who writes about horror for the H.C., brings us a chat with Greg Nicotero, another master of movie mayhem and the executive producer of a new documentary about the artistry of horror that airs tonight on Starz.

If your DVD library contains multiple copies of the "Evil Dead" films, this one's for you. The documentary “Starz Inside: Fantastic Flesh” features interviews with the makeup artists responsible for creating some of the most gruesome moments in horror cinema: Dick Smith, Tom Savini, Rick Baker, Rob Bottin and Howard Berger and Greg Nicotero of KNB EFX, the Van Nuys-based shop that, during its 20 years in business, has amassed a lengthy list of credits that includes “Army of Darkness,” “Kill Bill Vols. 1 and 2,” "Sin City," “Grindhouse” and “The Chronicles of Narnia” films, among others.

According to Nicotero, the idea was to showcase the history of great effects work, dating to the pioneering work of Jack Pierce in the 1930s -– he was the man who transformed Boris Karloff into Frankenstein’s monster. The hour-long documentary includes on-camera appearances not only from the effects mavens themselves, but also the writers, directors and actors responsible for landmark genre films. Nicotero describes the roster as a “who’s who of genre filmmaking” -- George Romero, John Carpenter, Wes Craven, Joe Dante, Simon Pegg and Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino.

Stan Winston and the tricky business of Legacy

(Note: There's also a tidbit here about the "Green Lantern" film project, check after the jump.)

The creature creators at Stan Winston Studio specialize in Hollywood miracles -- they brought dinosaurs to life for "Jurassic Park" and turned metal men into movie history with "Iron Man" and "The Terminator" -- but their next trick will be their toughest. The illustrious special-effects shop will try to hold on to its history even as it sheds its late founder's name and abandons his storied workshop.

Stan Winston, (at right) a four-time Oscar winner, died in June in Malibu at age 62 after a seven-year battle with multiple myeloma, a cancer of the plasma cells in bone marrow. He was universally eulogized as one of the true wizards of Hollywood. "The entertainment industry has lost a genius," Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger said at the time, "and I lost one of my best friends." Steven Spielberg and James Cameron spoke at the funeral, and across Hollywood there was reflection on what made Winston and his shop so special. "He came to special effects from a background of acting, which informed everything," director Jon Favreau said. "It was always about performance, not just puppetry."

Winston became a brand name in Hollywood decades ago (he won his first Emmy in 1973) and his namesake studio in Van Nuys became an industry landmark with its collection of aliens, robots and magical beasties. But now, just months after his death, neither Winston's name nor his workshop will be part of the day-to-day life of the company he left behind. All the latex masks and robotic critters have been crated up or already moved to a new facility in San Fernando that is much more modern but also far less charming. 

Stan Winston Studio will also give up the ghost by changing its name to Legacy Effects, a somewhat ironic moniker for a company that seems to be pushing away so much of its history. I recently dropped by Winston's maze-like old workshop, which sits on a gritty industrial stretch of Valjean Avenue in Van Nuys, and got a tour before most of its treasures were boxed up. Everywhere you looked there was movie history, both famous (there's a mottled, undead version of Tom Cruise from "Interview With the Vampire" standing in one corner) and nearly forgotten (it took me a long minute to recognize one of the robots from the 1981 Andy Kaufman movie "Heartbeeps" -- but that film did earn Winston his first Oscar nomination).

The real treasure of the company, though, is its talent, not its heirlooms. That's the main reason behind the name change. John Rosengrant, who started working with Winston on the set of "The Terminator" (1984), said that he and the three other partners who will lead the company forward all value the studio's towering tradition, but have decided it would be best to take a step out of its considerable shadow.

"This was not an easy decision," Rosengrant told me. "When Stan died we lost a friend, a mentor, a teacher, an inspiration -- the whole gamut. Everything he did and everything he represented, it's ingrained in us. It would be hard to do anything but 'the Stan way.' "

That's why no one was surprised when, in the days after the company's founder's death, one of Rosengrant's partners told Ain't it Cool News, the popular fanboy website, that the business would be renamed the Winston Effects Group. It seemed fitting and natural. But that name didn't stick for long. Instead, the partners informed the Winston family that they would rename the company. "We did receive the blessing of Stan's widow, Karen, but I'm sure there was mixed emotions for the family. I know there was mixed emotions for us."