

Nightmare Factory (2011)
The story of how one Pittsburgh boy’s fascination with monsters drove him to the very top of the Hollywood food chain. In 1989, Greg Nicotero, much to his parents’ chagrin, quit medical school and headed for Hollywood to pursue a dream of making monsters. Together with gore masters Howard Berger and Robert Kurtzman, Nicotero went on to create KNB EFX Group, one of the most prolific makeup effects studios in the world. After twenty years as the “go to guy” for the world’s most successful horror/sci-fi films, Greg Nicotero is the first one directors like Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez call.
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You won't be disappointed!
From my favorite movies..
It’s not bad or unwatchable but despite the amplitude of the spectacle, the end result is underwhelming.
Story: It's very simple but honestly that is fine.
This documentary offers a behind the scenes look at the life of Greg Nicotero, a celebrated special effects makeup artist in Hollywood who I know of solely from The Walking Dead but was surprised to learn how many other movies he's been involved with. His Oscar award winning production team (KNB Effects) is basically responsible for any make up and creature effects seen in the last 25 years.Greg himself tells his story here in a "Behind The Music" kind of way. Starting at the beginning with teenage home (monster) movies, his childhood influences, how he got started in the business, the 80's metal-hair days and including tons of behind the scenes footage from movies he's worked on and interviews with assorted directors and actors. Horror, fantasy, zombie, gore and animatronics, If your a horror fan than you'll love this, actually even if your not, its super interesting seeing behind the scenes into so many popular movies. 07.13
This film is about KNB Effects and the guys who created this successful company that specializes in special effects and makeup in films. The best part of the movie is the first half--when it focuses on a few guys who had a love for horror films and horror effects when this sort of thing was in its infancy. Starting with a break from George Romero (of the Living Dead films), the men progressed to better and more spectacular projects as the years passed. And, not surprisingly, they began to receive awards and recognition for the things they created for movies--things that had never been seen or done before that time. I loved this first portion of the film. Afterwards, however, the film lost a bit of focus and then bounced around a little--showing various special effects tricks, more interviews with the men and never really maintaining as tight a focus as it had before. Now isn't to say this part is bad--it's just that by comparison the film lags a bit.
Nightmare Factory (2011) **** (out of 4)Excellent documentary taking a look at the special effects of Greg Nicotero, Howard Berger and Robert Kurtzman, the team that would make up KNB. The documentary takes a look at the early history of special effects, which included the work of Lon Chaney and works itself up to Tom Savini and his ground-breaking work on DAWN OF THE DEAD and Friday THE 13TH. From there we hear from Nicotero and how he got involved with DAY OF THE DEAD, which led to one big film after another. NIGHTMARE FACTORY does a wonderful job at not only telling you the story of these three men but it also gives you a much better appreciation of the work they do. It's strange to think that so many great make-up artists were overlooked in previous decades but thanks to DVD commentaries, featurettes and movies like this, these artists are given their due, which is great. The documentary also features interviews with the likes of John Carpenter, George Romero, Quentin Tarantino, Frank Darabont and others. These men talk about their appreciation of the KNB group but also comment on the horror films that meant so much to them as children. The best thing about this documentary is that there's plenty of behind-the-scenes footage of the team at work on various films like EVIL DEAD 2, PREDATORS, KILL BILL, PIRANHA and The Walking Dead television show. Fans of horror films will certainly want to check this out.
Just seen this at a horror festival (like, literally a few hours ago at the end of a very long night of other films) and was blown away at how absorbing I found the whole thing from start to finish. It's always fascinating to listen to anyone talking about any subject they are honestly passionate about, but these guys just appear to be a history of horror from 1980 to the present day in and of themselves, as well as an impressive gamut of non-horror films from the last 20 years. The directors they have worked with, the projects they have worked on, and the skill they bring to the craft are all on show in this brilliant bit of documentary filmmaking and make it worth watching whether you are interested in the craft, history, or just expanding general horror knowledge. I'm deducting one mark simply because I would have liked more detail on the evolving mix of traditional model making and CGI in new horror films even though it was touched on, as well as a bit more detail on some of their past projects that have since become genre set-pieces or examplars of the craft, but that may have made a 3hr doc and may not have been the directors intention. But besides, utterly compelling, even to someone who did not expect much and was exhausted at the viewing!