Stuart Gordon – a True Master of Horror

I was happy to meet Stuart Gordon at Fantasia film festival in Montreal, 2010. My interview with him is coming soon to Rue Morgue's special edition book, HORROR MOVIE HEROES (together with interviews I did with Jaume Balaguero, Sergio Stivaletti and Christopher Lee). Here's, briefly, why I love & respect Stuart Gordon.

Stuart Gordon has a unique talent to unite the things which are either considered too disparate (like sex and horror) or those which are rarely blended with such an unmitigated success (like horror and humor). Nowhere is this mixture so successful as in his debut, Re-Animator, a timeless classic which is at once sick, depraved, hilarious and utterly what-the-funny. Many directors aimed for that particular rainbow, but only a few (like The Return of the Living Dead /1985/ and Braindead /1992/) can parallel the insanity and unpredictability of Re-Animator's inspired splattstick.  

Unity of opposites? Hell, yeah! Rooted in literature and theater (where his productions were nominated for many important awards), Gordon mastered B-movie entertainment of the horrific and provocative kind. The same man who conceived the gleefully sadistic The Dentist (1996) also wrote the kiddy fantasy hit Honey, I Shrunk the Kids (1989). 

With equal wit he adapts Lovecraft and Mamet (in Edmond, 2005); he is as inspired by the most outrageous fantasy of From Beyond (1986) as he is by the gritty reality of Stuck, 2007 (based on a true event). From the depths of the Charles Band and Brian Yuzna produced exploitation he is struggling to be political, socially conscious and subversive.

Gordon represents the true spirit of the independents which reigned in the bygone (?) days. His ability to join the unjoinable and make it enjoyable is all but forgotten in this day and age where young horror directors can barely concoct a story worth telling – far from imbuing it with wit, energy and subtext like Gordon so effortlessly could. 

As such, he is both a relic from the past and a lasting inspiration to all those who can see beneath the surface right into the bloody beating heart of B-moviemaking.