AMERICAN SCARY: AN INTERVIEW WITH FILMMAKER SANDY CLARK by Nicholas Kaufmann

For decades, they channeled terror and delight through the TV airwaves to thousands of eager fans across the country. They had names like Zacherley, Ghoulardi, Vampira and Count Gore De Vol. They were the horror hosts, and starting in the 1950s on local TV stations they brought classic fright films -- albeit many with a B-grade pedigree -- to wide-eyed children up past their bedtimes and guilty-pleasure-seeking adults ready for an escape from their work-a-day worlds. What set them apart were the healthy doses of humor they employed to lighten the mood for younger viewers and to keep older ones interested if the movie was especially bad. But in the late 1980s, the availability of cheaper syndicated material, not to mention the growing popularity of cable replacing the UHF stations so many of them broadcast on, put a stake through the heart of the horror hosts' reign. They might be gone, but they're not forgotten. Especially not by writer/producer Sandy Clark, who, along with director/editor John E. Hudgens and associate producer/chief archivist Michael Monahan, tracked down and interviewed an astounding number of these cheeky TV ghouls for his documentary AMERICAN SCARY.

As a filmmaker, what was it about this particular subject that intrigued you? Were you always a fan of horror movies, and by extension the hosts who presented them on TV?

I had never heard of them before I started this. That turned out to be an advantage, without a horse in the race as they say, I was able to look at them objectively. We constantly hear that we failed to include the greatest host ever, which obviously is the host that was on in that person's area.

How did you manage to find and convince so many of the original horror hosts to be interviewed for the film? I have to admit, I was surprised to see Vampira and Zacherley in particular. I didn't realize they were still with us!

They were all delighted to appear. In fact, I had a harder time saying no. This moment in time was very special to them all. For many, their later careers were more successful in every measure of the word. They went on to promotions, money and fame, but not as a horror host. Save for Vampira and Zacherley, that time in their lives was the most fun and is the least examined in their careers.

One notable personality missing from the documentary, though she is discussed at length by some of the others, is Elvira. Was she not interested in being a part of the film?

We never could get her in it. We made maybe a dozen attempts.

You also landed quite a few interviews with impressive names who aren't horror hosts: Forrest J. Ackerman, Leonard Maltin, Tom Savini, even Tim Conway! Were people just coming out of the woodwork to express their love for the horror hosts?

Yup. The list of those who wanted to but couldn't includes Drew Carey and Bruce Campbell. At one point, we considered both of them for narration.

The author James Morrow raises an interesting point in the film about how the horror host acts as a modern-day equivalent of the classical guide through the underworld, like Virgil in Dante's Inferno. Do you think this kind of cultural archetype is why the horror hosts resonated with so many people across the country?

Yes, they touch the very foundation of storytelling. They are the Neolithic shaman explaining the lights in the sky. It is a basic function repeated over and over again in every age and every medium. As Dr. Goulfinger said, they are the Greek Chorus. It is primal storytelling.

I never had a local horror host of my own, but as a teenager back in the 1980s I watched Commander USA every weekend on the USA cable network. I loved his program so much I would actually set the VCR to tape it if I wasn't home. So imagine my delight and surprise when he showed up in AMERICAN SCARY! Where on earth did you find him?

Where else, the Internet. He was appearing in an off-Broadway play, so we cornered him and interviewed him on the set. It was a pretty amazing night. He was the closest thing I had to a host as well. Like Zacherley, he has grown into his character. Interviewing him on a stage set of a bar was just amazingly appropriate.

There appears to be a resurgence of horror hosts on the internet, spearheaded by Count Gore De Vol's weekly horror movie webcasts, and on local public access cable, as with Dr. Gangrene out of Nashville. Do you foresee a time when horror hosts will make a national comeback and regain their rightful place on the airwaves?

Yes and no. They'll find a niche, but it will not be commercial TV, which is all about satisfying national advertisers. Large-scale commercial television will continue to reflect the desires of those advertisers and their view of what their customers want. Horror hosts are a fringe phenomena, even in their heyday. They took to the great frontier of television and then stayed right on the edge from VHF to UHF to Cable to Public Access.

On the Internet, you have a constant and renewing frontier. It is very possible for a big name to come out of that, but that is left to the craftiness, charm and talent of the host. I think there is a big opportunity for people to make a big splash locally by combining media and public appearance. There is no reason you can't create a character that has very high local visibility through charity events, PBS beg-a-thons, public appearances, public access cable, and the Internet.

The real question is can you parley that into an income? For fun, it is infinitely doable all across the nation.

You're currently shopping AMERICAN SCARY around for a distributor. How's that going? I suspect there are a lot of horror fans like myself out there who would love to see this documentary and catch up with their own childhood horror hosts!

We're talking with a TV channel right now. We're about ready to just go it ourselves. I could sell a thousand of these fairly quickly. I get several emails a week wanting us to release it. The problem is, as soon as you do, you spoil any future deal. So for now we continue to keep the powder dry.

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Visit the AMERICAN SCARY website for more information and fun, including a trailer.