Horror movies, reviews and more at buried.com
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Horror movies, reviews and more at buried.com
Horror movies, reviews and more at buried.com
Horror movies, reviews and more at buried.com
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03.19.2024
Doug Agosti
FX Creator/Filmmaker
Horror Interview by The Gravedigger
07.16.01


FILMOGRAPHY:

- GHOST FROM THE ID Peek-A-Boo Prod. 2001
- THE TOWN THAT LOVED PIZZA After Shock Prod. 2001
- DEMONS DAY After Shock Prod. 2000
- THE GARDEN TOOL MURDERS After Shock Prod. 2000
- RACHELS ATTIC Gothic Pictures 1999
- DARK HEAVEN aka THE OMEGAN Omegan Prod. 1999
- SCARLETT MECCA & THE PENTAGRAM GIRL Happy Tree Sprite Prod. 1998
- THE TOLEDO CONSPIRACY Leata Films 1997
- PINK COFFINS RESURRECTION Happy Tree Speite Prod. 1997
- THE DWELLER L.O.S. Prod 1996
- SCARED TO DEATH Trash Can Prod. 1994
- YODER ATV ACCIDENT 911 CBS Network 1993
- A WINTERS CHILL L.O.S. Prod 1992 !
- NOTHING IS GREEN Hurlbert Prod. 1992
- DR SHOCKS X-RAY CHILLER THEATRE WUPW-TV 36 FOX Affiliate Agosti Arts Prod 1989-1992
- THE ROLLING GROINS (Live Rock-N-Roll Gore Act) Agosti Arts Prod. 1985, 1987, 2000
- ZOMBIE PICNIC Sahley Prod. 1984
- SHARP OBJECT SALESMAN Black Lizard Prod. 1984

Q: Tell us a bit about yourself, where you are from, what your influences are, et cetera and what, exactly, got you interested in makeup effects.

DOUG: My name is Douglas Agosti I live in Toledo Ohio. I am a Special Make-up FX Artist who has recently crossed over into directing and producing Horror films with my partner Lance Smith for our company After Shock Productions. What got me interested in make-up fx is when I was about nine years old I saw a movie on The Wonderful l World Of Disney. I have forgot the name of this film, however it did star that red haired kid (Jody) from The Family Affair TV show. This film was about this kid who made his own Horror movies. When I saw this I thought... .."I can do that ". So I borrowed my Moms super-8 camera, bought a roll of film and started to make my own Horror films with the help of my friends. Of course they needed make-up so that is when I got bitten by the make-up bug. My influences are the make-up artist Dick Smith, the film NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD, and Horror Host THE GHOUL. !

Q: You've recently did makeup effects on several movies. Tell us a bit about each of them and what you did.

DOUG: On DARK HEAVEN aka THE OMEGAN which is about this Angel that comes down to earth after its end. I did some bullet hits via squibs. Some air bladder effects where the mark of the beast appears on the foreheads of a few characters. A cable controlled puppet head of a Ghost. On RACHEL'S ATTIC which is about a killer who while he is killing someone, interrupts the cable lines and broadcasts the killing as it happens. What I did on this with the help of my protege was build this elaborate gelatin torso duplicate of the actress. This would be used for one of the Snuff scenes when the girl gets cut wide open from the neck to the belly button. THE FGHOST FROM THE ID which I'm currently working on involves some appliance work and false teeth for a few of the principal characters.

Q: What is the most ambitious effects work you have done? What was your favorite?

DOUG: Several come to mind, because all effects work involves so much behind the scenes work... sculpting, mold making, painting etc. However I think I can highlight two. One was a Barmitzvah... ..YES A BARTMITZVAH! I was approached by a out of town design company. A client of theirs... a physician. His son wanted several monsters at his Barmitzvah which of course had a Horror theme. In a short period of time I had to come up with... ..The Mummy, Frankenstein, The Crypt Keeper as well as several zombies and a guy who had his face ripped off. That whole party really sticks out in my head... ..A BARTMITZVAH... ..my GOSH what's next? The second was a Lance Smith production THE DWELLER. Its one of those don't go in the basement because something is lurking down there. What I did was come up with a whole upper body prosthetic of the dweller, head, shoulders, front torso and back. This would be worn by the actor (my protege Lino Stavoli) for all the wide to medium shots. For all the extreme close-ups I made a cable controlled duplicate of the dweller. Never doing one of these before... it was quite a challenge. The finished result was very impressive... ..total head movement side to side as well as front to back, eyes moving in all directions, opening and closing of the mouth, snarling lips, fore brow of independent up and down movement. What a task, but so rewarding. I really learned so much on that project. 4) Who is your favorite makeup artist/work you admire?

Well I admire all in the business. Everyone has a unique flavor and approach to their art. Since I have to put a name to one that would of course have to be Dick Smith. Dick of course is the best. He is very generous in the sharing of techniques he developed first. These techniques and product discoveries have become the standards of today. The state of the art of make-up effects would not be what they are today without the generosity of Dick To say the least that is why we have the greatest 2nd generation artist Mr. Rick Baker and now the greatest 3rd generation artist Kazuhiro Tsuji.

Q: Actors are often temperamental... ..have you ever had any problems when doing an appliance on someone?

DOUG: Luckily never. Every actor I have worked with has always expressed a great enthusiasm and interest into what was going to be glued onto them. Yet to directly answer that question my twin brother Dave can be rather impatient in the chair. I've done several tests and Halloween make-ups on him. I guess its one of those sibling/brother things.

Q: You also are a filmmaker--and were the host of a horror show in the Toledo for several years. Talk about how you got into that.

DOUG: Well when I was eleven thru thirteen on ch. 50 out of Detroit was this horror host I used to watch called THE GHOUL. He was on Sat. nights at 11: 30pm. He was the off shoot of the late great Ernie Anderson horror host GHOULARDI who could be seen on ch.8 in Cleveland back in 1964. I never did see GHOULARDI being that I lived in Toledo and he was aired in Cleveland. Not to mention I was so young. But MAN OH MAN I sure loved THE GHOUL... ... .I was his BIGGEST fan. I wanted to be a horror host just like him. As I got into my late 20's horror hosts could not be found on any of the local and not so local TV channels. Toledo needed their own. Well one night with some friends I came up with this idea. Just for fun lets strike up a set in the dinning room and video tape some horror host stuff just for kicks. So with everyone's input we came up with DR SHOCK. The video we shot turned out so good and funny I thought I'm gonna shop this idea around to the local TV stations . The first I approached was this low ball cable ch.48. Well needless to say they laughed me right out of there poorly heated building. I'll quote what the station manager said to me at the time... ..."Our station has no use for this sophomoric toilet humor". Well that didn't stop me... I was determined to make a deal. Next stop Ch.36 WUPW they were this up and coming on the edge new channel in town. They also were UHF. I met with the program director at the time Mr. Dennis Katell. He was from Cleveland and was very familiar with GHOULARDI and THE GHOU. Dennis understood what we were ding and where we were going with this extraordinary program. So several meetings as well as several demos later Mr. Katell finally green lighted this program. Four weeks on Sat. at noon to see how it goes. After two shows the station contracted me for 13 more weeks for Fri. at 11: 30pm. Half way through that it turned into a year contract for Sat. at midnight. The show ran from July of 89 to Sept of 92. Despite our great ratings the station did have to pull the plug. After 186 shows were produced some genius in sales convinced the station manager that these new late night shows called infomercials could bring in more money than DR SHOCK. You know what... ... HE WAS RIGHT! The nice thing about producing those shows was that we did it in our own production facility. No station people eve breathing down our backs. All I did was deliver them a broadcast ready tape on time. DR SHOCK can be seen on THE FRGHT CHANNEL in Boston. A soon to be 24hr seven day a week HORROR CHANNEL. For more info on this you can go to horrorhaven.com

Q: Tell us about your films (what they are about, how long they took to shoot, what you are going to do with them).

DOUG: I'll tell you about the three that my partner Lance Smith and I have directed and produced. These three are going to be put together in an anthology format with DR SHOCH hosting. The three films are horror and last about 20 to 30 minutes. Once this anthology is done our company AFTER SHOCK PRODUCTIONS will try to secure all dvd/vhs distributor avenues to get these unique films out to all horror fans. Film #1 is THE GARDEN TOOL MURDERS . This is a fun hack-em up story situated around Mr. Weedfields Cherry Festival. Lots of blood and gore. This particular film was #1 in the Thriller section on Ifilm.com for several months... at the present you can still see it at Ifilm. Media critic for THE TOLEDO BLADE Chris Borrelli is quoted as saying... ..: THE GARDEN TOOL MURDERS is After Shock Productions Citizen Kane. #2 is DEMONS DAY. This too can be seen at Ifilm.com in the Sci-Fi section. This story involves the cloning of Lucifer and the fight for the rightful owner to the throne in Hell. Portions of this film were shot in HELL-O-VISION. Cool Huh! #3 is in post production as we speak This one is called THE TOWN THAT LOVED PIZZA. This film is the brain child of Lance Otto Smith. It stars up and coming horror icon actor Bruce Hoyt as Obedia. It is loosely based on a true story. The film is about a small town that never ever has had pizza. Two cooks move in and take over this old restaurant and turn it into a pizzeria They only sell meat pizzas and meat pizzas only. Several of the towns' people turn up missing. It turns out that the cooks are using the towns people for the toppings. We through the rule book out on this one. Our films generally take several months to shoot...(Week ends only.) I've never really kept a strong record of the time it took us to shoot until this one. We are at 48hrs. of principal photography and at 32hrs. editing so far.

Q: How did you get your actors?

DOUG: Fortunately AFTER SHOCK PRODUCTIONS is surrounded by a large talent pool. Everyone involved wears many hats. From acting down to production assistant. Now for DEMONS DAY we figured this time lets go for some star power to secure a better audience locally for our sales as well as the SHOCKFEST we put on to premiere our new films. So I approached local radio legends Bob Kelly and Dennis Staples. They for many many years do the radio morning show for WRQN 93.5 as well as The Video Connections commercials locally. Fortunately t hey agreed to star in our film. Bob Kelly plays the scientist that clones Lucifer and Dennis Staples plays his hunchback assistant. Boy did they add life to those scenes.

Q: What was the weirdest thing that happened during the shoot?

DOUG: Well as with all film shoots all kinds of weird things can and possibly do happen. Now on DEMONS DAY we jumped through hoops of fire to secure a private alleyway in down town Toledo. Once secured we began shooting our opening scene and fx sequence. Needless to say we ran out of sufficient daylight to continue the FX sequence. So many hoops of fire later we secured the same alley. We have Scream Queen Nicollette Stavoli lying on the ground on top of some strategically cut visquine to shield her from the many year old accumulated pigeon poop. She has a gaping chest wound from where Lucifer just ripped out her heart. Blood is gushing from her mouth. Lance Smith is standing in for Lucifer . He is holding a beating blood spurting heart. We get ready to start shooting... ..when we start hearing sirens. Someone on the set says ¨I hope those aren't for us¨. I immediately go out to the street to see what's going on. What I see is something straight out of Starsky and Hutch. I see this siren blaring Police car do a U-Turn while some other vehicle almost slams into the side of it. The Police car proceeds up the street to me and slams to a halt right in front of me. At the same time another Police car from another direction does the same thing... and wouldn't you know it a full fledged fire truck. I'm thinking HOLY SH".$%/T . Well everything turned out OK. One of the Police teams stuck around to watch us shoot. The rookie was really into it while the older more seasoned cop was steadily growing more impatient with this whole false alarm. All this occurred because some bag lady walked by got scared and called 911. Thank goodness we were on private property with permission of course.

Q: What do you think of the current state of independent filmmaking?

DOUG: I think the lid has just completely blown right off. With DVD upon us, digital technology, computers, and DV cameras, Ifilm.com as well as Shockwave.com... ..and we all know about THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT. Everyone is making movies. Some are really really bad. That's why AFTER SHOCK PRODUCTIONS is committed to making the funnest and best Horror films we can with the budget that is available to us.

Q: Are you going to be working on another film? (talk about any future projects, et cetera)

DOUG: Yes Lance and I have planned two films already. we go into production once our anthology is completed. The first is BULLET FOR A VAMPIRE. At this time that is all I can tell you about it. The second is CREATURE FROM QUARRY HOLLOW. This film is going to make any summer camp monster legend look like Mr. Rogers. Just to add... ..we are toying around with the possibility of doing a sequel to THE GARDEN TOOL MURDERS.

Q: Anything you want to add? (email, website, et cetera)

DOUG: Yes. If anyone out there is interested in distributing our films or needs an FX artist for one of their projects you can reach me at dgamea at buckeyeinet.com If you would like to view our films or find out more about AFTER SHOCK PRODUCTIONS and DR SHOCK you can go to our web site and Thank-You very much Gravedigger, it was a real pleasure to be interviewed by you. Thank-You


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