Horror fans are unusual in the way we know the names of many of the people working behind the scenes in film, and this is particularly true of SFX artists; we can all name a few, and it’s highly likely that Tom Savini will be on that list. In many ways, this documentary film about Savini is a potted history of independent horror movies, as he’s played such an important part in developing what it was possible to see on our screens during our formative decades. There’s plenty to enjoy here, and whilst it doesn’t do anything particularly zany or experimental, it’s nonetheless a decent film with a whole host of big names and some great inclusions.
The opening reel sets up an idea which Savini himself comes back to several times throughout the film – not a controversial one, but a reasonable enough point about cinema resembling a magic show, with a nice guest spot for Doug Bradley as a circus master. From here on in, though, it’s a fairly straightforward, chronological trip through Savini’s early life and experiences, making a few interesting links between events in his childhood and his later career (for instance, his brother spent time training as a mortician). What he seems to have got from his upbringing, as a child of Italian immigrants, is the importance of hard graft, though it was quite surprising to hear Savini say that he also suffered from low self-esteem as a teen, and this drove him to overcompensate in some respects – taking on absolutely everything, from being on the school wrestling team to working in theatre. Time is given over to some key places in his life – notably, the Plaza cinema in downtown Pittsburgh, now apparently a big name coffee shop. It makes perfect sense that seeing Lon Chaney in The Man With a Thousand Faces was an incredibly influential experience, as does discovering that Savini played Dracula in a travelling show, after impressing the rest of the cast when chosen as a ‘boy in the audience’ to get dressed up as Dracula and successfully terrifying the spectators.
Savini’s time in the Army and Vietnam gets covered here, and it’s as grim as you’d imagine, though he manages to lighten the tone with an anecdote about having to open fire on what he took to be the Viet Cong…and, well, it wasn’t them. But as you’d expect, his career as an SFX specialist, actor and stuntman gets featured at the greatest length. Savini’s career in SFX came about almost by accident, surprisingly, and it’s from this point onwards that the documentary shifts into material that most of us would recognise. That all being said, the show reel which features here does demonstrate just how innovative a lot of Savini’s techniques really were, and still are. There are a lot of purists in horror who feel that computer-generated effects should be avoided at all costs; I don’t quite share that view (though bad CGI is certainly enough to ruin an otherwise solid idea) but Savini’s body of work is definitely a good argument for the merits of practical effects. It has underpinned a huge number of classic horror films of the 70s and 80s, though of course Savini is probably best-known for his collaborations with George A. Romero, with whom he started working during the filming of Martin (1976) and continued until Romero’s death (Romero features here, by the way, which tells you that not all of the ‘talking heads’ footage is exactly brand new – but, hey. Nice to see him again.)
With a mixture of interviews, still images, clips and some storyboards/cut scenes which are worthwhile on their own merits, this is a decent film. There’s an impressive array of interviewees, too, and no overreliance on just one or two of them. At ninety minutes, there’s just about enough to hold the attention, and I did learn a few things along the way. The point here isn’t to teach about technique or the more specialist aspects of Savini’s work, but if you would simply like to hear a bit more from an affable, talented fella about his career, then this is worth a watch.
Smoke and Mirrors: The Story of Tom Savini arrives on digital platforms on October 19th 2021.