From Beyond The Grave!

Note: Ron Hier, my friend of almost 60 years, died in 2023. Together we created several films and screenplays, and in 2024, his daughter Stephanie held a special New York showing of our first movie from 1970, Blood Creature From Beyond The Grave. Several members of the original cast and crew (cast anyway; Ron was the crew) were in attendance, and the following is adapted from the remarks I made on that occasion.

Ronny and I met in grade 8 and immediately hit it off, as both of us were oddballs interested in all manner of things both within and outside the regular curriculum. We enjoyed films of every kind, especially the early German ones, and finally decided to make our own. Blood Creature was set in the 19th century, but was supposedly made in the 1920s at the same time as movies like M, in which the criminal gangs acted where the weak governments of the time could not, Dr Mabuse and his hypnotic power over the masses, the self-destructive violence of Metropolis, and here in the US, the blatant racism of the early D W Griffiths, all showing the way to the horrors that followed when those same forces conquered Europe in the 1930s and 40s. Of course in 1970 we were well aware of those horrors, and in making a film from 50 years before, kept many of the same elements: the Jewish villain, the hypocritical priest, the victimization of the minority—all feature strongly in the film. If I may be personal, 1970 was supposed to be a new beginning for humankind. Our generation was supposed to be learning the lessons of history to make a different world. Little did we suspect that 50 years later, in the 21st century, that we would still have nationalism, war, poverty, environmental destruction… Well I guess, as they say, times change; people don’t.

Casting

Ron’s mother and grandmother both appear in the tavern scene, and there is a photo on the wall of Ron’s great-grandparents back in the Russian Empire. His sister Joanne played Lascivia, his brother Jeffrey was the dead body, and the family maid was Madame Voula, Queen of the Gypsies. My father was one of the crowd in Old Montreal. Of my sisters, Jenny was the unwed mother, Dikka was the little stone-throwing girl, twins Katie and Suzie played Jesus’s angels and other baby roles. And I was the daemon Baal Rakon, based on Mephisto from the Silver Surfer comics.

The rest of the cast were mainly school and family friends The average age was probably around 19, but they all played different ages brilliantly. David Weigens’ Baron was based on Lon Chaney in London after Midnight, and Alan Yanovsky’s alchemyst on the stereotypical rabbi of the time. Philip Goldblatt was the lecherous, but ultimately heroic, Father Basileus. The actor who played Jesus added an extra ethereal quality by being high on acid that day. But I think the real star was Marty Boodman as Johannes, with his transition from genial singing innkeeper and bootlicker to Hitleresque rabble-rouser, leading the mob to destroy the innocent Gypsies and overthrow the existing order.

Filming

In those days, you couldn’t make a multi-million dollar blockbuster with the phone in your pocket. Ron’s father was a surgeon and had a 16mm Bolex film camera for filming operations, so Ron grabbed it for Blood Creature. I think we paid about $400 for the film, which would be a lot more now. The camera held 100 feet of film, about 2-2.5 minutes before you had to change it. For example, in the tavern when the Baron removes his top hat, Ron ran out of film and had to tell the actor to freeze while he changed the cartridge.

It’s a credit to Ron that we barely wasted any film. We did extensive rehearsals and 19 times out of 20, the first take was the only take. Of course we didn’t really know that, because you had to wait a week for the film to be developed, but we trusted Ron, and he didn’t let us down.

We did the editing on a little lightbox, which let us squint at the action, cut it at (we hoped) the right place, and use special tape to stick the pieces together. The titles were hand-lettered by me on transparent acetate, then filmed against a black cardboard backing. Ron did the opening artwork.

Sound

For the music, Ron’s parents had an extensive selection of albums, including Gregorian chants, classical favourites and Gypsy folk songs, all of which we put to good use. A Pink Floyd fan, Ron also contributed the music for the Dimension of Dreams. Some of the music we picked has become cliché, for example, the Orff piece from the Ritual of Blood was used 10 years later by John Boorman in Excalibur. But we did it first!

The film we used had no provision for sound, so the soundtrack was on a separate reel-to-reel tape recorder, which was played simultaneously (we hoped) with the reel of film.

Locations

Ron’s house was the castle and tavern, mine was the dining room, inn hallway, priest’s cell, and the alchemyst’s lair. The skull was real, as was the foetus. The village of Moclu was played by Old Montreal. The Ritual of Blood was performed at a ruined convent on Nun’s Island. We asked the company who owned it for permission to film there, but they refused, so we did it anyway. Security was rather laxer then than it is now.

In the early 90s, we made a first stab at digitization, projecting the reel on an old sheet and filming it with a VTR camcorder. A couple of years ago, we finally had a professional digital copy made from the original patched-together film. I added the music from the tape, and subtitles in an old-style font. And here it is!

The painting of Ron at the top of this page is by myself.