Adam Bernardi - Ghoulies Go To College (Retrospective Interview)
Beginning his career as assistant editor on John Hughes classics Ferris Bueller’s Day Off and Planes, Trains and Automobiles, Adam Bernardi continued his assistant editors role with William Peter Blatty’s The Exorcist III before moving up to Editor with fan favorite, Ghoulies Go To College. Bernardi went on to edit Beastmaster 2 before moving into more mainstream fare with A League of Their Own and Father of the Bride 2, and in latter years bouncing between, shorts, TV and features.
Shot in 1989 and set for a theatrical release in 1990 - until Lightning Pictures lost their distribution arm – Ghoulies Go To College arrived on home video September ’91. Bernardi spoke with Project Louder about director John Buechler’s infectious enthusiasm, taking on the role of main Editor for the first time, and constantly trying to cut around animatronics and puppeteers!
PROJECT LOUDER: How early in the process of Ghoulies Go To College were you brought on board?
ADAM BERNARDI: Every project is different. On Ghoulies I believe I was contacted by Iain Patterson, an acerbic, smart, talented producer who called me out of the blue. I cannot remember how he got my name because this was my first feature film and I never found out who gave it to him. We had a few conversations and then we went to the set to meet John. They had already been shooting for a few weeks, I think. We walked onto the stage, and he led me right to John who was sitting next to the camera in the middle of a take. I believe it was the scene of the college co-ed dancing and taking off her clothes near her dorm window for the boys to see. John nodded to me and quietly pulled over an apple box for me to sit on right under the camera. He got to the end of the take, yelled cut and looked down at me with a salacious grin on his face and we shook hands. He started talking about the movie and what he was looking for. It took me a bit before I realized I already had the job.
PROJECT LOUDER: How was John Buechler to work with?
ADAM BERNARDI: He was cheerful and full of energy; I think that was his nature. He loved to laugh and often at his own expense. That lasted from beginning to end. I think he loved his work, whether it was directing, make-up effects or puppets. He would pontificate on the virtue and purity of being a hack. He saw it as a fine art and how proud he was to embrace this tradition. He always saw the irony in things and loved that.
PROJECT LOUDER: Ghoulies Go To College was shot on 35mm, where did you edit the movie - and on what set up?
ADAM BERNARDI: We cut it in a small, kind of run-down facility on the corner of Pico and Bundy in West L.A. I remember all the walls were painted matte black, like the wings of a theatre. There were a few other editing rooms there. Down the hall Zalman King was cutting “Wild Orchid” or maybe the sequel. He would come into my room from time to time and watch me cut and after a while he’d say to me something like, “Jesus, it’s so nice to see a regular movie. My wife and I are always writing about sex, sex and more sex. It gets so tedious!”
My set up was two KEM Rapid S flatbeds. I used one to search and one to cut on. But if needed I could hard synch them together, pull one picture module and replace it with another track module and we could screen with 5 tracks! That was pretty Cadillac.
PROJECT LOUDER: As this was your first picture was there anything you learnt during the editing process that you didn’t know before?
ADAM BERNARDI: Mostly I had to learn to calm down. I was so nervous, this being my first, that I discovered when I got scared enough, I became an asshole! I was terrorizing my assistants, insisting on perfection and then I’d hear myself and apologize profusely, and then 10 minutes later I did it again. I was out of control. I can only imagine what they thought of me.
PROJECT LOUDER: How much of Ghoulies Go To College’s tone was decided upon in the editing suite?
ADAM BERNARDI: Ghoulies was a pretty straightforward movie, there wasn’t much to restructure or drop, John shot it very economically. One thing I learned was how to treat things that were happening off screen. Sometimes we had to imagine what horrible thing was happening because either he planned to shoot it that way or circumstances prevented him from getting the shot or what he did shoot wasn't working. And again, being my first film, I had to learn to trust my decisions. I couldn’t have asked for a better 1st director than John. We laughed a lot and rarely disagreed.
PROJECT LOUDER: What made Ghoulies Go To College so much more fun that other assignments?
ADAM BERNARDI: John seemed to be egoless. He made me feel like I was his peer in every way. We were a team. Respect wasn’t even a question and it was mutual. Also, voicing all the characters in the cutting room on my Walkman was a joyful experience. We both were frustrated actors, so we went all out and frankly I think we were better than the professionals we brought in. But that’s not their fault, by the time we got to voicing the puppets we were almost out of money and only had a day or two to do it, which was not nearly enough time.
PROJECT LOUDER: Vestron lost its line of credit and Ghoulies Go To College went straight to video after a planned theatrical release. Were you brought on board after this had been decided or did that change after post-production?
ADAM BERNARDI: I don’t know when that changed. I always thought we’d get a theatrical release and was really disappointed when it went straight to video. Until your question I didn’t know that Vestron had lost its line of credit and that was the reason. I thought someone upstairs just didn’t like it, which I couldn’t understand because, in all humility, I thought it was the best of the bunch.
PROJECT LOUDER: Although Ghoulies Go To College was shot in ’89 it wasn’t released until ‘91. Did you edit in ’89?
ADAM BERNARDI: As I recall we edited in ’89 and maybe a little into ’90. I think we spent 5 or 6 months, but I don’t really remember. We never felt pressure to hurry up except in the end when we had to re-voice the ghoulies with real actors. You see, John and I did all the voices while we were cutting. I had a little cassette recorder and, not to brag, we did a spectacular job. But then we had to get SAG actors to voice the final version and we only had one or two days to do it, which was not nearly enough. They did as well as they could, but it wasn't nearly as good as John and me. We did a lot of mumbling like Popeye and it was really funny, but we didn't have the time to get that with the real actors.
PROJECT LOUDER: Obviously, I love the final film but I would love to have heard yours and John's voices! If they hadn't have needed to have SAG actors would the original voices have been used?
ADAM BERNARDI: Yeah, I think we were good enough, except we'd probably have to re-record it as we just used a portable cassette recorder for the scratch track. But then again, that might have added some charm. Who knows...?
PROJECT LOUDER: I would've loved to have heard those recordings!!
ADAM BERNARDI: I'd like to hear them again, unfortunately I don't think we ever made a tape
PROJECT LOUDER: Do you remember much in the way of scenes that didn't make the final cut, for time sake or because Larry Kassanoff wanted to remove them?
ADAM BERNARDI: Gosh, that was a long time ago. I barely remember Larry! I mostly worked with John and Iain Patterson. And it's funny, I don't remember leaving anything on the cutting room floor. Well, maybe, there was a shot of the rat ghoulie walking, John had actually made a fully functional rat puppet and all the pullies and stuff (I don't know what they called it) was coming out its tail, but it was difficult to shoot and the puppeteers were having trouble getting it to have a natural gate. I think we had to lose that. But it might be in there, I haven't seen it for at least 20 years!
PROJECT LOUDER: There is a shot of Rat walking but it's not long. I heard from John that Larry didn't like the over the top murders and some fun stuff got removed. It's probably not a lot - and so far the footage hasn't shown up - but it would be nice to see, or hear about it. A shot of a Griffin O’Neal’s character Blane being hit with a frying pan and his face taking on the shape of the pan with bacon for a mouth and eggs for eyes is a famous one, but the rest... who knows.
ADAM BERNARDI: Oh yes, I remember that. He had approached Ghoulies and all the horror movies he directed mainly as comedy. He'd try to find the most ridiculous ways for characters to die. He also used to boast loudly that he was a hack and proud of it. One day while I was cutting away, he sat on the couch behind me and drew me a beautiful sketch for a poster for the movie. It was very touching.
PROJECT LOUDER: Ghoulies Go To College is a fan favorite in the series. What does the movie mean to you after all these years?
ADAM BERNARDI: Well, as I said before, it was my favorite work experience. It was a joyful process and I think that shines through in the movie. I mean, John did some kooky things in that film, particularly the death scenes – Marcia Wallace being strangled by her own tongue?! He told me once that he looked at horror films as comedies, slapstick. He loved to kill off the characters in a completely unexpected, over the top way so the audience would be horrified, like in his Friday the 13th, and stifling a laugh at the same time. Ghoulies was more obviously a comedy to begin with, so we weren’t limited by believability or realism; they were puppets! Green Three Stooges who loved to party.
So yes, the joy is what I remember the most. And I have to say that Iain was great to work with as well, he gave us all the freedom we needed and as far as I remember, only stopped us when the money ran out.
Editors note. Adam kindly shared the two, hand drawn Buechler sketches for use alongside this interview which, “…John drew for me one day while he was sitting on the couch while I was cutting”