Career
Cramer's first feature film role was in 1980, [2] when he starred in the horror film New Year's Evil . [3] His first big role came in the 1984 cult comedy film Hardbodies , in which he played Scotty Palmer. His other big film was the 1988 cult classic Killer Klowns from Outer Space . Other film roles include appearances in Mach 2 (2001) and Follow the Prophet (2009).
Cramer's first television role was in the 1982 made-for-television movie Desperate Lives as a teen drug user. He starred in the daytime serial The Young and the Restless as the psychotic stalker Shawn Garrett from 1985-1986. He later returned to the show in 1996 to play Adam Hunter, a love interest for Ashley Abbott. [4]
Cramer has made guest appearances on episodes of The Facts of Life , Rags to Riches , and Murder, She Wrote .
Cramer turned his attention to writing, producing and directing, performing all three duties on the short film "Say Goodnight, Michael". The film won numerous awards, including the Grand Jury Award at the New York Independent Film and Video festival.
In 2008, he created and executive produced the VH1 series Old Skool with Terry and Gita, which aired in over 40 countries internationally.
From 2011 through 2013, Cramer was the executive vice president of Envision Entertainment, their chief creative executive on 10 movies during that span.
Cramer is the President of Landafar Entertainment, an independent film finance and production company. Films they have executive produced include Lone Survivor , And So It Goes , November Man and How to Make Love Like an Englishman (2015).
In 2021, he returned to acting, where he played a supporting role in Nicolas Cage film, Willy's Wonderland.
The evil clown, also known as the creepy clown, scary clown or killer clown, is a subversion of the traditional comic clown character, in which the playful trope is instead depicted in a more disturbing nature through the use of horror elements and dark humor. The modern archetype of the evil clown was popularized by the DC Comics supervillain Joker starting in 1940, and again in 1980s by Pennywise from Stephen King's It. The character can be seen as playing on the sense of unease felt by sufferers of coulrophobia, the fear of clowns.
Harry Dean Stanton was an American actor. In a career that spanned more than six decades, Stanton played supporting roles in films including Cool Hand Luke (1967), Kelly's Heroes (1970), Dillinger (1973), The Godfather Part II (1974), Alien (1979), Escape from New York (1981), Christine (1983), Repo Man (1984), One Magic Christmas (1985), Pretty in Pink (1986), The Last Temptation of Christ (1988), Wild at Heart (1990), The Straight Story (1999), The Green Mile (1999), The Man Who Cried (2000), Alpha Dog (2006), Inland Empire (2006), Rango (2011), The Avengers (2012), and Seven Psychopaths (2012). He had rare lead roles in Paris, Texas (1984) and in Lucky (2017).
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Gene Wilder was an American actor, comedian, writer and filmmaker. He was mainly known for his comedic roles, but also for his portrayal of Willy Wonka in Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory (1971). He collaborated with Mel Brooks on the films The Producers (1967), Blazing Saddles (1974) and Young Frankenstein (1974), and with Richard Pryor in the films Silver Streak (1976), Stir Crazy (1980), See No Evil, Hear No Evil (1989) and Another You (1991).
Stephen Fisher, known professionally as Fisher Stevens, is an American actor, director, producer and writer. As an actor, he is best known for his portrayals of Ben in Short Circuit (1986) and Short Circuit 2 (1988). He is also a documentary filmmaker, winning the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature for The Cove (2009). He also directed the documentaries Crazy Love (2007) and Before the Flood (2016).
Killer Klowns from Outer Space is a 1988 American science fiction comedy horror film written, directed and produced by the Chiodo Brothers and starring Grant Cramer, Suzanne Snyder, John Allen Nelson and John Vernon. It is the only film written and directed by the Chiodo Brothers, who also created the practical effects and makeup. It concerns evil extraterrestrials who resemble clowns arriving on Earth and invading a small town in order to capture, kill and harvest the human inhabitants to use as sustenance.
Charles Robert Band is an American film producer and director, known for his work on horror comedy movies.
Peter Berg is an American director, producer, writer, and actor. His directorial film works include the black comedy Very Bad Things (1998), the action comedy The Rundown (2003), the sports drama Friday Night Lights (2004), the action thriller The Kingdom (2007), the superhero comedy-drama Hancock (2008), the military science fiction war film Battleship (2012), the war film Lone Survivor (2013), the disaster drama Deepwater Horizon (2016), the Boston Marathon bombing drama Patriots Day (2016), the action thriller Mile 22 (2018), and the action comedy Spenser Confidential (2020), the latter five all starring Mark Wahlberg. In addition to cameo appearances in the last six of these titles, he has had prominent acting roles in films including Never on Tuesday (1989), Shocker (1989), The Last Seduction (1994), The Great White Hype (1996), Cop Land (1997), Corky Romano (2001), Collateral (2004), Smokin' Aces (2006), and Lions for Lambs (2007).
Richard Christian Matheson is an American writer of horror fiction and screenplays, the son of fiction writer and screenwriter Richard Matheson. He is the author of over 100 short stories of psychological horror and magic realism which are gathered in over 150 major anthologies and in his critically hailed hardcover short story collections Scars and Other Distinguishing Marks, Amazon #1 bestseller Dystopia, and Zoopraxis. He is the author of the suspense novel Created By. He also authored a magical realism novella set in Hollywood titled The Ritual of Illusion, and was the editor of the commemorative book Stephen King's Battleground. Matheson also adapted the short story which was made into an iconic episode of the TNT series Nightmares & Dreamscapes: From the Stories of Stephen King and won two Emmys.
Crimewave is a 1985 American comedy film directed by Sam Raimi, from a screenplay he co-wrote with the Coen brothers. It stars Reed Birney, Sheree J. Wilson, Paul L. Smith, Brion James, Louise Lasser and Bruce Campbell, with the latter also serving as a co-producer. An unusual slapstick mix of film noir, black comedy, Hitchcockian suspense, and B-movie conventions, Crimewave portrays bizarre situations involving a nebbish everyman (Birney) entangled in a murderous plot while pursuing his love interest (Wilson).
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Suzanne Snyder is an American former actress.
Hardbodies is a 1984 American sex comedy film about three middle-aged men who hire a younger man to help them pick up women at the beach. The film was directed by Mark Griffiths, and stars Grant Cramer, Courtney Gains and Gary Wood. It was followed by a 1986 sequel entitled Hardbodies 2.
John Alberto Leguizamo Peláez is an American stand-up comedian, actor, and film producer. He has appeared in over 100 films, produced over 20 films and documentaries, made over 30 television appearances, and has produced various television projects. He has also written and performed for the Broadway stage receiving four Tony Award nominations for Freak in 1998, Sexaholix in 2002, and Latin History for Morons in 2018. He received a Special Tony Award in 2018.
John Massari is an American composer and sound designer. He is perhaps best known for scoring the cult classic Killer Klowns from Outer Space.
The Telluride Horror Show is a film festival that takes place in the mountain resort town of Telluride, Colorado.
Willy's Wonderland is a 2021 American comedy horror film directed by Kevin Lewis from a screenplay written by G. O. Parsons. The film stars Nicolas Cage, who also served as producer, along with Emily Tosta, Ric Reitz, David Sheftell and Beth Grant. It follows a quiet drifter who is tricked into cleaning up an abandoned family entertainment center inhabited with eight murderous animatronic mascots who are possessed with the souls of a cannibalistic killer and his colleagues.
Catherine Caylee Cowan is an American actress. She is best known for her roles in Sunrise in Heaven (2019), Willy's Wonderland (2021), Spinning Gold (2022), and Frank and Penelope (2022).
Kevin Lewis is an American film director, screenwriter, and producer. Best known for his drama crime film The Third Nail (2008) and his action comedy horror film Willy's Wonderland (2021), his body of work spans many film genres and multiple decades of cinema.
