Michael Deak - Cellar Dweller (Retrospective Interview)
In 1988’s Cellar Dweller, Whitney Taylor (Deborah Farentino) arrives at the Throckmorton Institute for the Arts to pursue her love of horror comics, and create new work influenced by her favorite comic book artist Colin Childress (Jeffrey Combs). Childress’ legacy for creating “Cellar Dweller” was marred by a horrifying incident, when Childress summoned a demon from an ancient book and it manifested itself through Childress’s comic art - killing a local girl. Now, Whitney is set to carry on where Childress left off, creating more “Cellar Dweller” comics. But she soon comes up against snooty head of the institute Mrs Briggs (Yvonne DeCarlo), and unwittingly summons the demonic beast who proceeds to wreak havoc and devour her classmates as the mystery surrounding their disappearances unfolds.
Playing the titular creature is Empire Pictures alumni Michael Deak. Working on many genre classics, Deak continued his extensive career as – amongst other things - an On-Set Supervisor, FX Technician and Puppeteer for the likes of Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers (1988), Bride of Re-Animator (1990), Halloween (2007) and Army of Darkness(1992), as well as making welcome appearances as an actor in over thirty movies including Ghoulies II (1987), Return of the Living Dead 3 (1993) and Spellcaster (1988).
Although the exemplary Cellar Dweller creature was Deak’s first foray into suit performing, he continued to bring creatures to life such as a dusty mummy in Tales From The Darkside: The Movie (1990), a nazi werewolf in Rob Zombies faux Grindhouse (2007) trailer, the sasquatch monster in Abominable (2006), and fan favorite “Gary the Monster” in Little Nicky (2000)!
Project Louder spoke with Michael about working alongside John Buechler and the MMI crew on Cellar Dweller!
Project Louder: Don Mancini’s script was originally more lavish having to be cut down for budget and time. Were you part of breaking down the effects needed?
Michael Deak: Not from the onset, that was probably John Buechler and John Foster. They began building the show when I was on location doing Ghoulies II. How it usually worked on most Empire films, you do your initial breakdown of effects and submit the costs, which were usually more than allotted in the budget. Then would be the discussion of ‘what can we do for this amount’ and then paring down the effects in the script and the rewrites. This process would go right up to and sometimes into the beginning of filming.
We had the same issue with actors, most of whom would be hired days before they got on a plane for Rome, so it left us no time for head casts or anything, so most of the effects we did had to be generic, made so anyone could wear it. There were exceptions like From Beyond and Arena to name a few where there were specific character makeups and the actors were cast in advance. That’s also why Bill Butler and I had more elaborate death scenes in Ghoulies II, we were cast to play those parts from the very beginning which gave MMI time to create the gags. Bill’s bisection was much more elaborate, but most of it was cut to get an R rating.
On Cellar Dweller as the script was being reformed, it was clear one aspect wasn’t going to change and that was the monster. Buechler wanted me to play it, they had my body form from Troll, so they were able to begin building the suit even with me out of town. This gave them more time for detail and I think the better-quality shows on the screen.
Project Louder: You were in Rome shooting Ghoulies II and The Caller at the same time as Cellar Dweller was gearing up. What was the process of getting fitted for the monster suit whilst juggling jobs?
Michael Deak: I was not around for the nuts and bolts of the building of the suit, I was off on location, in fact for a 3-4 year period working for MMI, I had no permanent address, living on location or couch surfing when I was in Los Angeles. When I did return to L.A. that’s when they were able to do fittings and adjustments to the suit. Then a few weeks later off to location again to begin shooting.
Project Louder: Were there any memorable moments with the Italian crew on the set of Cellar Dweller?
Michael Deak: One day during filming, one of the Italian production people came running onto the set, interrupting filming and shut everything down and ordered all the actors into the office building where their dressing rooms were and told the MMI crew to go to our temporary shop on the back lot and don't be seen. No further explanation was given, and I was still in the monster suit as they rushed us away from the sound stage. We got back to our shop, the Italian crew member shut us in and told us not to come out until they came back for us. We all looked at each other (Buechler, Butler, Chet Zar and myself) not knowing what the hell was going on. I told them to get me out of the suit immediately, figuring if we were under some sort of attack, there was no way I could make a run for it as Cellar Dweller. This went on for a while and was pretty tense. I half-jokingly began making Molotov cocktails out of old Fiuggi water bottles. After, what seemed like a pretty long time, someone came back for us and said it was okay to come out. We found out that some official from the Italian government came by for a surprise visit and production did not file away paperwork for them to have any foreign workers, meaning we were there illegally and in order not to be fined or shut down, they figured it was easier to just hide all the Americans.
Project Louder: Most kids fell in love with Yvonne DeCarlo watching her on TV as Lily Munster. I hear she was quite a character on the set of Cellar Dweller.
Michael Deak: I never had any issue with her on set, and for the most part she was there doing her job and. In fact, I think we all had a certain thrill working with Lily Munster and I thought the fact she was in The Ten Commandments was pretty cool. Bill [Butler] had issues with her that he's written about in the past, but everything I saw was kind of amusing. She did enjoy the use of the studio bar, but never came across as if she had been drinking. One time she asked Bill or Chet, “Young man, could you get me a glass of tonic”...then holding up two fingers and spreading them against the glass as wide as she could...”with a little bit of Gin”. She also had a blanket she carried around with her on set and once one of them sat on it and she strongly informed them “Young man, you're sitting on my blanket”. Every time she would be doing something on set, we would always be humming The Munsters incidental music just out of earshot.
Project Louder: How much of Mrs Briggs transformation into Cellar Dweller was actually DeCarlo?
Michael Deak: None that I recall. The beginning of the transformation was a makeup applied by Bill Butler and Chet Zar on a double for DeCarlo. The rest was shot in miniature weeks later at MMI back in Los Angeles. Very often the actors were hired very late in preproduction which forced us to create effects to work generically on whoever was hired. Also, with such a short shooting schedule, Buechler could not afford to lose Yvonne to hours of makeup application and removal delay.
Project Louder: Another effective gag is the severing of Vince Edwards head. Was that easy to shoot on such a tight schedule?
Michael Deak: If memory serves, we shot that all at the same time, getting all the Cellar Dweller/Vince Edwards shots first, then I would get out of most of the costume and did the blood gags. We had to shoot it in sequence as there was no time to re-set or clean up the blood. That was all a one try shot.
Project Louder: How hard was it, working under the gun?
Michael Deak: On that show we moved incredibly fast. We would be shooting something with the main camera, while on the side be setting up insert shots with another camera. Once they got that one, run over and get the next shot and so on. There was seldom a time when a camera wasn't running. John Buechler was always impressive as to how many shots he could pull off in a day. It would not be uncommon to get 20-30+ set ups in a day. When we shot second unit one night for John's Friday the 13th in LA, we got over 50 set ups and most were make-up/special effects gags or stunts. Years later, I remember being on sets like Tremors 4 in particular where they spent 4 hours on a two shot of people sitting on a tractor with minimal dialogue and nothing else going on and thinking what a waste of time. The only time in later years that we went at a Buechler pace was working with Michael Bay on Bad Boys 2 and Transformers.
Project Louder: John Buechler sounds like he was in his element on Cellar Dweller; happily combining fantastic creatures with comic books.
Michael Deak: Yes, and you are spot on, he was in his element on Cellar Dweller. I think everyone involved on the creative side were frustrated as to how little we could actually accomplish on the time and budget.
Project Louder: How much of a close eye did Charles Band keep on proceedings?
Michael Deak: Bob Wynn was hired on as a producer for Cellar Dweller, dealing with the everyday aspects of production. I don’t remember Charlie being on set at all, I think that he trusted John and didn’t feel the need to be there.
Project Louder: I can only assume Empire’s bankruptcy led to a direct to video premier. Was Cellar Dweller ever set for theatrical release?
Michael Deak: All the Empire pictures we worked on were intended for a “theatrical release”. The way it was explained to me, that any movie that opened, even in one theatre, could legitimately claim it had a theatrical release and the producers could ask for more money for the video sales. More than once I have gone to cast and crew screenings with the general public in attendance for a “one night only” showing.
Project Louder: The heyday of Empire Pictures was extraordinary, but what do you take away specifically from Cellar Dweller after all these years?
Michael Deak: Besides some of my friends who like mockingly introducing me as Mike “Cellar Dweller” Deak? Cellar Dweller was truly a cornerstone of my salad days and launched my suit performer career. It also strengthened the bond between Buechler, Butler and me that had started a couple of years previously and lasted until John’s untimely passing. During those final days, the three of us relived stories from those days, and despite the grim circumstances, we all were laughing our asses off.