My pick for this week’s Criterion Channel movie club was a no-budget short, Zorgon: The H-Bomb Beast From Hell, from 1972.
Why a short? After everyone has had a movie pick, our Friday night film club has a short-film festival, as it were. Before starting a new cycle of picks, we have an interstitial week where everyone suggests a short film, typically no longer than 15 minutes.
The silent Zorgon runs about 9 minutes, so it gets right to the action. Someone — or some thing — is killing people in a Southern California valley. When the police aren’t acting quickly enough, neighbors band together to find the killer. A la Scooby-Doo, the villain is a throwback humanoid with legs that awkwardly split into feet and tentacles.
According to IMDB, the movie was a class project for director Kevin Fernan, who also played one of Zorgon’s first victims. (It also appears that this was his only film production.)
Yes, I know it’s schlocky, but I’m charmed by the movie. You can’t help but smile knowing that everyone involved in making the movie was having a ball.
One of the first movies that I watched on the Criterion Channel was Equinox, which a number of the Zorgon crew also worked on.
In his book, You Won’t Believe Your Eyes! (2013), Zorgon cast member Mark Thomas McGee wrote about a screening of Equinox at The Egyptian on Hollywood Boulevard on July 12, 2006. It coincided with the Criterion Collection DVD release of Equinox, which he wrote and co-directed.
“What tickled me the most was what I learned that night about our film,” McGee wrote. “It had been an inspiration for a lot of the people who were there that evening. They got into the business because of it. They looked at our film and said to themselves, ‘Hell, if they can do it, so can I.’ ”
Sounds familiar.
Back in the ’70s, using that same motivation, we made short, silent films like Zorgon and the original version of The Equinox. Some of ours were live-action; others were stop-motion animation; most involved monsters, aliens, robots, and the like; all on glorious Super 8mm.
Equinox would turn up regularly in how-to film zines, such as CineMagic during the 1970s, as an example of what filmmakers could accomplish with a very low budget, using forced perspective, practical effects, stop-motion animation, and compositing.
Those movies and articles inspired us to explore film techniques, make our own films, and have a ball doing it, just like the Zorgon crew.
Speaking of the crew, did you know that three members of the Zorgon cast and crew are Academy Award nominees? And one of those took home nine Oscars out of 11 nominations?
Rick Baker won nine for makeup in films including An American Werewolf in London, Ed Wood, Men in Black, and How the Grinch Stole Christmas; David W. Allen had one nomination for special effects; while stop-motion master Jim Danforth had two.
By the way, a great reference for similar, schlocky movies is The Psychotronic Encyclopedia of Film (1983) by Michael Weldon (if you can find it at a reasonable price these days).