Re-Animator Director Stuart Gordon Talks Horror Nudes

From Death and the Maiden to Skingoria.

Best known for his over-the-top interpretations of the work of H.P. Lovecraft, director Stuart Gordon is a legend in the horror world.

Over the past 25 years, Gordon has directed gorefests like From Beyond, Castle Freak, and Dagon, written the scripts for Honey, I Shrunk the Kids and The Dentist, and done episodes of the cable anthology series Masters of Horror.

He has also worked with mainstream actors William H. Macy, Bai Ling, Denise Richards, Mena Suvari, and Julia Stiles in the non-horror movies Edmond and Stuck.

Earlier this month, he graciously sat down and talked to MrSkin.com’s own McBeardo and Count Rackula about nudity, the state of the horror film, and Re-Animator’s most famous scene.

In general terms, what is the role of sex in horror movies?

Well, horror movies are really about death. And the flip side, of course, is life. Sex symbolizes life and procreation.

Going back to the medieval times, there was a series of paintings called “Death and the Maiden” and they were of a skeleton or the grim reaper and he was embracing a naked woman. This was really kind of showing the two sides of the coin.

There’s always been the monster sneaking into the woman’s bedroom, going back to the very earliest movies like Nosferatu. In the 1940s, the monsters were always carrying the negligee-clad woman off into the darkness to do God knows what.

Now things just get a little more explicit.

Let’s talk specifics. What can you tell us about the famous “giving head” scene in Re-Animator, in which Barbara Crampton is naked on a table while the reanimated corpse of David Gale sticks his severed head between her legs?

The thing about monsters is that monsters always want to “eat” people [laughs]—zombies always want to eat brains and so forth. But the idea that an animated corpse would want to have sex with you is even more disturbing. And that was sort of the idea behind that scene.

We had originally cast another actress in the film who dropped out [because of that scene], and I cannot even remember her name. So suddenly we were looking for another person to do that part and luckily we found Barbara.

She was [a star on soap operas] and she had already done some films. But I think Barbara realized, “No guts, no glory,” and that this would be the big scene that people would remember from this movie. And she was fearless.

What are the elements that make that scene so effective even with today’s jaded horror audiences?

Well, I think it’s an idea that is still fresh. It hasn’t been “done to death,” if you’ll pardon the expression. There is something about it that is so “out there” that it still is shocking to people.

I think the idea was that when these people got reanimated, their libidos would run wild.

And Dr. Hill [David Gale], who’s had this crush on her for years, is suddenly completely uninhibited.

Well, if you thought about this scene, [you would realize] it would be impossible for this to happen to her. She does have one of her hands free. She could be unshackling her other hand and getting herself off of that table.

There was a theme that was cut from the movie that Dr. Hill was able to hypnotize people. There was an R-rated version where they put back all the hypnotism, but all that was cut from the original movie. The idea was that her character had been hypnotized and she couldn’t fight back. So I think that’s the reason that she played it that way.

That scene is always just as shocking as the first time, no matter how many times you’ve seen it.

Well thanks. When we made the movie we knew that was going to be the scene that people would talk about. As I was about to shoot it, one of the art department women came up to me and said, “Go as far as you can with this. This is the scene where you really have to go the distance here.” And I thought that was excellent advice.

One of the things I’ve learned is not to censor myself. When I did From Beyond, I had a scene in the beginning of the movie when Jeffrey Combs’s character gets the resonator to work and he goes and knocks on Dr. Pretorius’s door. There’s no answer so he goes in and sees that Dr. Pretorius has a naked woman in bondage and a nail has been pounded through her tongue. It’s a horrifying moment, and Jeffrey then unties the woman and gives her her coat and she runs off.

When I looked at the first cut of the movie I said, “There’s no way they’re ever going to allow this in the film.” I ended up cutting it myself, and that footage has been lost. Even in the restored version it’s no longer there. It’s funny, now every other girl has got a pierced tongue [laughs]. It taught me the lesson: don’t hold back. If you can imagine it, you should do it.

Can you tell us some more about Barbara Crampton?

I love Barbara. I think she’s a great actress, and the fact that she is so fearless is what makes her so terrific. She’s willing to take chances and put herself in situations that are beyond what most people would consider doing.

When we did From Beyond, though, there was a scene where she had to bite off [Jeffrey Combs’s] pineal gland. And we got into kind of a discussion about that, because the guys who were fashioning it kept referring to it as a “dog’s dick” and she said, “I know what that thing is. I’m not putting that in my mouth!”

Recently you worked with another fearless actress, Bai Ling, in your movie Edmond. I would love to see her in one of your over-the-top horror movies.

I would too. When we had finished doing her scene [in the peep show] she said, “Stuart, you didn’t shoot the butterfly!”

And I said, “The butterfly? What’s that?” And she showed me that she had a tattoo of a butterfly down . . . sort of . . . right above her, um . . .

Her butterfly.

Her butterfly, yes. And I said, “OK, bring the camera back.”

She’s great. And when we were working on that scene we actually went to a peep show together, and they thought that she was there looking for a job.

She kind of played that up and got to talk to all the girls that worked there to find out what their hours were, what their day was like, what they did, and so forth. And she watched a couple of peep shows and got the idea.

Edmond is not a horror movie, but it does deal with this theme of sexual frustration and wandering New York City's sleazy underworld of pornography and prostitution. Can you talk about that?

Well I saw Edmond as a play when it was first done in the '80s. I saw it here in Chicago, and it was an absolutely shocking and riveting production. It was one of those things that stayed with me, and I always thought it would make a great movie.

I talked to David Mamet about it many times, and finally we were able to do it. And it is about a guy who’s very sexually frustrated and is trying to find—in reality I think what he’s trying to find is love.

I have this theory that pornography is really about love, but that it’s the physicalization of it and we sometimes get confused by that.

I think that’s what we all want, to be loved and to find someone to love. And I think it’s very interesting that in porno movies, it’s all about the girl’s face and not really her body.

I think one of the sexiest porno movies was Behind the Green Door, which is shot completely different than most pornos are and really lingers on Marilyn Chambers’s face all the way through the film. And because of that, it’s incredibly sexy. So yes, I do think that [love] is what everybody wants.

Do you have a personal favorite horror movie nude scene?

Gosh, that’s a good question. I’m a big fan of Rosemary’s Baby, and there really isn’t a lot of nudity in that film, but the [nude] scene in that, where she is taken in a very dreamlike scene, is incredible.

Roman Polanski is one of my favorite directors, I have to say. And I watched Rosemary’s Baby about a hundred times before I shot Re-Animator, and I tried to use a lot of Polanski’s ideas about how to shoot a scene. The thing that is great about his movies is that they are very subjective. They really make you feel like you’re in the movie, that it’s happening to you. And I was trying to get that feeling in Re-Animator.

[Another favorite] is Don’t Look Now with Donald Sutherland and Julie Christie, and supposedly they were actually having sex when they shot that scene.

I like [Sissy Spacek in] Carrie. She’s so vulnerable. I think that’s the thing about her that’s so great in that movie. You really care about her. You’re really worried for her.

I think the same thing is true of Mia Farrow in Rosemary’s Baby. She just seems so little and in danger and scared that your heart goes out to her. I think it’s all about acting. I really do. Talking about special effects, I think good acting is a special effect. And if you’ve got a strong actor, they can make you believe anything.