(DOP ON MANY 1980s HORROR CLASSICS FROM GREAT FRANCHISES OF THE ERA- HELLRAISER/RETURN OF THE LIVING DEAD/CHILDREN OF THE CORN – AND DIRECTOR OF MOVIES IN THE DUNGEONS AND DRAGONS FRANCHISE)
By Peter Thorndike, writer/director of Gerry’s final feature, Plaguepits: The Torture Dead, starring Nicholas Vince (Hellraiser) and Bill Hutchens (Human Centipede) – a retro zombie/slasher choc full of practical SFX, which resurrects the vibe of the golden era of gore. It releases next year.
Chances are you’ve seen a dozen Gerry Lively movies. His style as cinematographer is unmistakable. The way he filters light through glass or smoke – the “lovely shafts” as he put it – or his technique of painting with highlights and shadows to formulate sinister landscapes, and emphasise the enigma in an actor’s face.
Everyone’s familiar with the poster for Return of The Living Dead 3, which presents that genre-defining image of Melinda Clarke with splinters of steel skewering her sensuous skin: the epitome of S&M horror iconography in its day. But few know that it was the cinematic genius of Gerry Lively which framed it and shot it and put that skeletal tree and blood-shot moon in the background.
His was the same visionary eye which illuminated Pinhead and the Cenobites in Hellraiser III and Hellraiser IV, and legions of memorable movie monsters before and since. His relentless lens followed Jeffrey Coombs through a brooding labyrinthine library in Necronomicon. Watched while David Warner showed doomed visitors around his atmospheric and deadly Waxworks.
So, it was not for nothing that this virtuoso of light and shade was nicknamed The Prince of Darkness because of his eagle eye and magician’s flourish. Given all the above, I knew he was the man I wanted for my debut feature.
I was told that he was in semi retirement. That he was no longer considering projects. That a screenplay would have to be truly exceptional for him to take it on, or even read it in the first place. “He’ll read mine” I said. “He’ll read it and he’ll love it!” Pure idiotic bravado, of course: the currency of every first time director ever born. But whaddya know. The Gods smiled on me. He read it. He loved it.
I had had enough experience with DOPs to become wary. All too often, these were pedantic, uptight characters whose ability with a lens was in direct inverse proportion to their ability to interact with other human beings. I’m being extremely diplomatic and charitable there. Gerry was a breath of fresh air: a refreshing reminder that it’s the true professionals, the true artists, who perform creative and complex tasks with grace and humour and make it all seem so light and joyous, while the whingers and the pedants make every molehill into a mountain as they laboriously trudge up the steep sides on their high horses.
Gerry was that rarest of individuals: someone who is exactly what they appear to be. In Gerry’s case that meant a truly humble, generous spirited artist. A gentleman in every sense of the word.
On those occasions when he offered me a word of advice on how to make this or that scene better, he never once pulled rank or attempted to be ostentatious about his far greater experience. In an industry stuffed with overstuffed egos, Gerry Lively literally had none. There was a serenity about him, something emphatically not naive, yet somehow childlike: a beguiling lightness which gave a warm glow to everyone who encountered it.
I never saw him angry, never heard him raise his voice or utter a negative word against anyone. As well as our time onset, we socialised after hours. And without exception he was courteous and warm to alI. In addition to all this, there was his mischievous, almost schoolboyish humour, which unfailingly lifted the tension of unforgiving schedules or austere conditions (the English countryside in autumn can be damp!)
When we parted finally for him to fly back to LA, I said to him “Gerry, making this movie with you has been one of the greatest experiences of my life”. And it was sincerely meant.
During the ensuing post production process we kept in constant touch, and always with a view to making more films together. I wrote a couple more horror feature scripts, which he read and liked. Schedules were discussed. Locations considered. But life, as someone once observed, often spoils the script.
Sad though it is that we will never get to make more movies together, at least I had the honour of meeting and working with Gerry and having him as a friend. And although it’s an honour I would never have wished for, it is an honour that the fates decreed that my debut feature should be Gerry Lively’s moody and menacing swansong.
I know he’ll be watching over my shoulder as the edit is finalised. And I know he’ll be watching when it is released. And – who knows – perhaps at that first screening I’ll hear a gentle, good-natured ghostly chuckle in that cultured accent I remember so well:
“De – light – ful … De – light – ful …”
