October 12, 2015

When it comes to pulling off a successful horror film, let alone a gorefest as Mike Mendez’s TALES OF HALLOWEEN segment FRIDAY THE 31ST promises to be, you’d better have a good FX artist on staff! And thankfully, Erik Porn is one of the best in the biz!

The seasoned FX artist has worked both in TV (TEEN WOLF, TERMINATOR: THE SARAH CONNER CHRONICLES, SCREAM QUEENS) and in features (THE CRAZIES, CHROMESKULL: LAID TO REST 2, PINEAPPLE EXPRESS) but is also a huge genuine lover of the horror genre.

This particular project has him teaming up with several other well-known and respected FX artists to pull off Mendez’s crazy vision of what exactly happens on FRIDAY THE 31ST. We caught up with him on set for the full scoop! BEWARE! MILD SPOILERS AHEAD!

Blumhouse.com: So, here we are on the set of Mike Mendez’s segment FRIDAY THE 31ST! How’d you come to be a part of this segment?

Erik Porn: Mike (Mendez) and I go way back and I’ve never worked with him before. And I just really wanted to work with him, because he’s a really cool, great guy. And he also got Jerami Cruz who is an old friend of mine from way back when. And I was excited to work with Erik Fox who’s a hell of a nice guy too. It was a cool opportunity to collaborate with a lot of interesting people and get to work with Mike finally and see what he’s like on set.

BH: You mentioned a lot of FX artists coming together for this segment. I was told this was about a 6 minute short that was going to require a lot of “blood” and FX work! What were your thoughts when he pitched the idea to you and you heard what you were going to be up against?

EP: When he first pitched it to me, I thought he wanted me to do everything! I looked at him like, “dude! I can’t put it all together by myself!” But he said, “well, I’ve got guys handling these parts and those parts.” So it all came together that certain people had molds for certain things. Erik brought in all his cool dummies and stuff to dress the set. It was cool, because I could focus specifically on the demon girl.

BH: So was that your main responsibility on this, the demon girl?

EP: Yep. And I did two arm chops too. One of which I borrowed from Jason Collins at Autonomous FX. I mean, we’ve recycled a lot of stuff because the budget is so incredibly low and ambitious what they’re doing. It’s kind of crazy, but at the same time, Mike’s going to figure it out. We’re going to figure it out.

BH: What’s your inspiration for the look of the demon girl? Did Mike have an idea of what he wanted, or did you guys work on it together?

EP: At first I sculpted something that was very ALIEN-like. Had a Giger vibe to it. And Mike saw it and said, “no, no. It’s too busy! Do this!” And he sends me a picture of Bruce Campbell from EVIL DEAD 2, which is really cool for that project! But I didn’t want to go that cartoon-ey for this. So I kept it in that sense, but still tried to make it a little bit more realistic in terms of the anatomy, because in EVIL DEAD 2, it’s exaggerated. They extended the brow and the chin and cheek bones. It fits perfectly for EVIL DEAD and it’s an iconic make-up, but I didn’t want to copy that. So I did something similar but added as much as I could.

BH: Is it fun being on a set with Nick (Principe) again (who plays the killer), because it’s probably been a while since you’ve both worked together?

EP: It has been fun and it has been a while! I think the last time we worked together was either the FEAR CLINIC web series, or maybe CHROMESKULL? This has been just like old times. It’s like, what’s up! Let’s do this! It never felt like, “oh hey, 3 years have passed!” We just got right back to work.

BH: Can you tell me anything about the killer that Nick plays in this? It seems as though he’s getting more than he bargained for with the demon girl!

EP: I like that! It’s kind of like FRIDAY THE 13TH, but if Jason was all of a sudden like, “oh shit, I wasn’t expecting to get my ass kicked!” When I first saw the animatics, I thought this was going to really be a lot of fun. I told my business partner about it and said I’m going to go off and do this project and he saw the animatic and after the first 3 minutes of the animatic, he’s like “‘oh this is just the same thing as a FRIDAY THE 13TH movie. I said, ‘just watch!’ And then it shifts and he goes, ‘now that’s really cool! And funny! I like that!’”

BH: Well, if you know Mike, you know that he’s a funny guy, doesn’t take things too seriously and loves horror/comedy.

EP: That’s what I liked about this segment!

BH: So being a horror fan yourself and having worked on so many projects, do you get the opportunity to work on things like this often? A horror/comedy hybrid that’s just fun? Do you like horror/comedies as well?

EP: I love horror/comedies! And I think it’s underutilized these days. Everyone’s trying to be so serious these days. And look, I like that too. I liked THE CONJURING. I liked ANNABELLE. But I like going back to the idea of, we’re going to hit you with a laugh, we’re going to hit you with a scare, and we’re going to hit you with another laugh. It’s like being on a roller-coaster. It’s cool. I like the way he’s doing this.

TALES OF HALLOWEEN opens in select theaters and will be available on VOD October 16th.