PART TWO: The Shoot

GREYWIZARD: How was George Kennedy signed up to play Bill Crafton?

JIM BERTGES: Our casting agents found that he was available and willing to do the part, with one stipulation, we had to find a part for his real life daughter
in the film as well. Shannon Kennedy played Tara, one of the two sunbathing
bimbos. I was told later that George was unhappy that his daughter was the
one who had her head pulled off by Bigfoot, but she wouldn't do the topless
scenes like Michelle Bauer would, so that had to be her fate.

G: What was George Kennedy like to work with? Did this Oscar-winning actor show any negative feelings that he was down to appearing in movies like this?

JB: He was likable, affable and fine with the work. He didn't put a lot into it, but he got a check and his daughter got a part and that's all he was
thinking about. He did a number of "movies like this" at that time and I'm
sure he was glad to have the work.

An interesting note about George involves his stuntman, Bob Terhune. This
was George's regular stunt double who matched him in size and stature, but
their hair was quite different. As Bob put it, "George has really unique hair." We didn't have money for a George Kennedy stunt wig, so the problem was solved with a yellow hat. Which leads us to George's ad-libbed lines about why he wears that yellow hat out in the wilderness. Also, during the shoot, George forgot his watch on his last day of shooting. Since he'd been wearing the watch in all his previous scenes he needed one to wear for that last day. Fortunately our special effects director, Mark Wolf, was wearing an identical watch and "loaned" it to George for the shoot. George finished his work, bid everyone farewell and left with Mark's watch. To this day Mark Wolf swears that George Kennedy owes him a watch.

G: How much was George Kennedy paid for how many days of work?

JB: Getting a star with a name to sell your movie on doesn't come cheap. George was paid $5000 a day for three days work.

G: What was the budget of Demonwarp, and how long was the shooting schedule?

JB: Remember this was 1987 and the money came from a home video company. The entire budget for Demonwarp was $225,000. That included the previously mentioned $15,000 for George Kennedy's services and another $6000 to John Beuchler for his foam rubber monsters (only one of which was used) and an additional undisclosed sum to Beuchler for his original script. As I recall, we shot Demonwarp in 10 to 12 days which didn't include a couple of extra days for pick up shots.

G: Where was the movie shot?

JB: Our outdoor locations and the cabin were at a location in the Santa Monica mountains in Topanga Canyon called Kelly's Gulch. The cave sequences (both interior and exterior) were done at Bronson Caverns in Hollywood. The spaceship interiors with the alien were done at a dinky little studio in the middle of Hollywood. And the shots of the zombies making repairs to the ship were done at a still photographer's studio on Sunset Bl. in Hollywood.

G: What factors dictated the major changes to the locations and events that had previously been set by the script?

JB: As you can imagine, our biggest enemy was the budget. As a writer, I knew I was working with a limited amount of money and was purposely cautious about going overboard. So there weren't too many major changes. We couldn't afford to dig stake pits for Crafton's traps, so we rented bear traps and made do with them. There was a spot at the location that was to be used as a pond for the girls' skinny dipping scene, but when it was further investigated it was discovered that the "pond" wouldn't hold water. We didn't have enough money to line it with plastic, so the scene was re-written. So, Bruce came up with the marijuana patch idea and re-did the scene.

In the script, I wanted to hint that Bigfoot was out in the countryside gathering up items to help repair the crashed space ship. This was to be shown where the SUV was trashed, the dash board was supposed to be ripped out and wires, switches and gauges were to have been removed. In the cabin, light fixtures and other technological items were to be removed. And, finally, when Jack enters the cave he was supposed to pass a variety of discarded technological items from various time periods. Stuff was to range from mining equipment to car parts to the guts of old radios and TVs. This was supposed to show that this stuff was being collected for a long period of time for the repair of the ship. All we could afford to rent were some old circuit boards, we weren't allowed to tear the cabin apart and the SUV was borrowed so the best we could do was to lay some odd wires over the engine.

Of course, the spaceship sets left something to be desired. And our alien,
well... The Beuchler creature that was originally intended to play the alien was a squat, tentacled Invaders from Mars reject that was supposed to be used in a forced perspective shot to make it look huge. We went another route. Our make up guy, Bruce Barlow, had an existing alien mask in his bag of tricks that looked pretty nice and I think he also had one alien hand to go with it. Once again, we didn't have enough money for Bruce to make the rest of the alien suit, so our alien ended up in a podium like structure with his "scorpion like tail" protruding from a hole in the bottom and a jerry-rigged mechanical claw on his other hand. Nobody ever asked why the alien never came out from his podium or why he had that garden tool for a hand, so I guess that worked. Our explanation was that the alien was injured in the crash those many years in the past and lost his hand.

The one other major change involved substituting a real actor for Beuchler's
mummy puppet. The role of the Priest or Preacher in current time was to be
played by the puppet which consisted of a head and torso. His hands and arms
were to be played by an actor and his head operated by a puppeteer. It was
just plain easier to put a live actor in that role and John Durbin had a great time hamming it up.

One other illustration of just how low a budget this movie had is our exciting climax. We didn't have the money to stage an explosion at Bronson Caverns to show the destruction of the evil space ship. However, our production manager had just finished a job for Fred Olen Ray where they had staged just such an explosion. We were able to buy stock footage of the blast from Fred. It's really low budget when Fred Olen Ray has more money to make his movie than you do.

[As well], in the script I just wanted the movie to end. These people had been through an ordeal, it was over and I wanted that to be the end. No zombies popping out of the bushes, no Bigfoot in the back seat as they were driving home, no alien popping out of Jack's chest. It was just supposed to be "Are you all right?" and "I'm glad that's over." Then Jack and Carrie walk off into the sunset. Movie done. Well, that was not to be. Our director, "One Take" Emmett Alston, allowed David and Pamela to improvise their last lines in the film. They decided it would be funny to bicker over who got them into this mess. "You're the one who wanted to go camping......etc.." and they argued as they walked out of the scene. OK, that's fine, IF, you shoot coverage of the ending the way it was written, but no, there was only one take. We couldn't use the end. We couldn't go back to the location to re-shoot. We couldn't dub over their dialogue. It was all crap. So, I had to come up with something to wrap it all up. Yes, the "it was all a dream" is a bad cliché. That was not meant to be the meaning of that scene. It was not that the whole preceding story was just a
dream, but that Jack was re-living it in his dreams. I probably didn't make that clear in the dialogue, but Jack does say "I can't stop thinking about Tom and Cindy and what happened". Then, to be clever, I tossed in two more waking up from a nightmare bits. At least I tried. The whole thing kind of balances out the movie. We have three beginnings; the preacher, the cabin with George and his daughter and the kids in the car. So we have three waking up from a dream endings as well.

G: What was the atmosphere like at the shoot?

JB: From what I understand it was pretty good. For all his faults, Emmet was a
workman-like director, he got things done and kept things moving. He let his
actors work out things for themselves and the were happy about that. We had
a competent cast of young actors who had a good time, that is except our leads. David O'Neill was very serious about his acting played his role in that manner (this made him a kind of anchor for the movie because he was so
serious in such a ridiculous situation). Although he never said it to her face, he hated acting with his co-star Pamela Gilbert. Her only claim to fame at that point was her appearance in Playboy and David referred to her as "that housewife" when talking about her acting ability. Watch their "love" scene with this in mind and notice how David scrupulously avoids doing anything pleasurable. Other than that it was a fun set and a quick shoot. Even George Kennedy had a good time.

G: Here's a question most people probably don't think about in low-budget productions: What was the catering like? Cheese sandwiches and generic cola?

JB: Our Production Manager was in charge of the Craft Services table and she
made many trips to the wholesale grocery store to keep it stocked. We didn't
have tons of expensive food, but it was there when people were hungry or
thirsty. I think they even sent out for lunches a couple of days. Low budget
is low budget, we had "real" sodas, but no catering company.

G: What did you manage to contribute to the movie during the shoot?

JB: Not much really. I was still working at Design Projects, getting the type
set for all those other guys low budget projects. I was able to visit the
set several times, but as anyone knows, the writer is never consulted. I
made more contributions later, during the editing process.

So what happened after the shoot? Find out in part three!