 |
Rick Sloane | |
|---|---|
| Born | August 22, 1961 Los Angeles, California, U.S. |
| Occupation | Filmmaker |
Rick Sloane (born August 22, 1961) is an American cult filmmaker. He is credited as writer, director, producer, Film editor and cinematographer of much of his own work. He directed the B-movie film Hobgoblins, which was featured on an episode of Mystery Science Theater 3000 .
Rick attended Hollywood High School in Hollywood, California. At the age of 18, Sloane was inspired by the ultra-low-budget film Hollywood Boulevard . This film was also the directorial debut for Gremlins director Joe Dante, another of Sloane's inspirations. Mary Woronov, one of the stars of "Hollywood Boulevard," agreed to take the lead in Sloane's first feature, Blood Theater , made when he was 21 years old.
Sloane also produced fake trailers for non-existent Grindhouse style films such as Chainsaw Chicks, Amputee Hookers, Nightmare of the Lost Whores and Clown Whores of Hollywood. Sloane was working with 20th Century Fox to promote The Rocky Horror Picture Show and these short films were first shown at The "Third Annual Transylvanian Convention" held in Anaheim, California. It was also the launching of the Rocky Horror sequel "Shock Treatment". Sloane himself organized and produced one of the earliest of these cult conventions in 1981. The event was videotaped and aired on syndicated television that same summer as part of the syndicated special "Rocky Horror Treatment" and later that fall in a segment on NBC, in one of televisions original reality shows, "Real People".
His lesser-known but bigger-budget films include Marked for Murder and Good Girls Don't.
Sloane fulfills many of the roles in his filmmaking; he is a writer, director, producer, editor and cinematographer. Rick retains creative control over his films by self-producing them. He has never directed a film that he didn't write the script himself. By 25 years old, he directed his first three feature films, Blood Theatre , The Visitants and Hobgoblins .
On August 13, 2014, Rick appeared on Ken Reid's TV Guidance Counselor Podcast.
Sloane's third feature Hobgoblins is in the genre of such films as Gremlins and Critters, albeit on a far lesser budget. The plot consists of a young security guard who must track down diminutive creatures who kill people while making their fantasies come true.
Hobgoblins also received attention when it was later shown on Mystery Science Theater 3000 . The episode, as usual, made unrelenting fun of the movie and of Sloane in particular, with Tom Servo attempting to use time travel to assault Sloane for making the film—only to give Sloane inspiration for making the movie—at the episode's conclusion. MST3K writer Paul Chaplin later commented on Hobgoblins, saying, "It shoots right to the top of the list of the worst movies we've ever done." [1]
Critics lambasted the film, with efilmcritic.com calling it "Jim Henson's worst nightmare.". [2] A sequel, Hobgoblins 2 has been released by Shout Factory in June 2009, wherein the same puppets and costumes are reused from the first film, and the cast is composed of new actors who resemble the original cast.
The original Hobgoblins is simultaneously being re-released on DVD in widescreen, including director's commentary, and a new documentary, "Hobgoblins: The Making of A DisasterPiece." The documentary includes interviews with original cast members Tom Bartlett (Kevin), Kelley Palmer (Daphne), Steven Boggs (Kyle), Billy Frank (Nick), Tami Clatterbuck (Fantazia), Darran Norris (Club Scum M.C.), Kenneth J. Hall (puppet fabricator), and Rick Sloane (writer and director).
The 6-part Vice Academy series, which aired on the USA Network throughout the 1990s, was intended as a sexy spoof-on-a-spoof of the popular Police Academy movie series. Sloane replaced the usual mixed group of odd-ball characters with a sexy cast of females, including Ginger Lynn Allen, Linnea Quigley and Elizabeth Kaitan. The plot features female police cadets in training to join the Hollywood vice squad. Their assignments include infiltrating a child porn operation, and going undercover to join and break up a prostitution ring.
As usual, critics were savage: Sandra Brennan of Allmovie said, "This tale wavers on the fine line between erotic comedy and soft-core porn with a definite leaning toward the latter." [3] However, Sloane contends that there is no actual sex and only ten seconds of nudity in the entire film.
Critic Nathan Shumate commented, "Knowingly insipid to the point of being grotesque... It's a bad, bad, stupid movie, but somehow it fails to grossly offend, mainly because it doesn't try that hard." [4]
Reviewers have been ruthless in their criticism of both Sloane and his films. J.P. Harris writes in his review of Hobgoblins:
"Aside from the no-talent acting, everything else in Hobgoblins can be blamed on Rick Sloane, who wrote, produced, directed, edited and photographed this weak comedy." [5]
Rocky is a 1976 American sports drama film directed by John G. Avildsen and written by and starring Sylvester Stallone. It is the first installment in the Rocky franchise and also stars Talia Shire, Burt Young, Carl Weathers, and Burgess Meredith. In the film, Rocky Balboa (Stallone), a poor small-time club fighter and loanshark debt collector, gets an unlikely shot at the world heavyweight championship held by Apollo Creed (Weathers).
Manoj Nelliyattu "M. Night" Shyamalan is an American film director, producer and screenwriter. He is best known for making original films with contemporary supernatural plots and twist endings. The cumulative gross of his films exceeds $3.3 billion globally.
Leonard Michael Maltin is an American film critic and film historian, as well as an author of several mainstream books on cinema, focusing on nostalgic, celebratory narratives. He is perhaps best known for his book of film capsule reviews, Leonard Maltin's Movie Guide, published annually from 1969 to 2014. Maltin was the film critic on Entertainment Tonight from 1982 to 2010. He currently teaches at the USC School of Cinematic Arts and has appeared regularly on Turner Classic Movies, and hosts the weekly podcast Maltin on Movies. He has written articles for The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, Variety, Playboy and TV Guide. He served two terms as President of the Los Angeles Film Critics Association, and votes for films to be selected for the National Film Registry.
An American Werewolf in London is a 1981 comedy horror werewolf film written and directed by John Landis. An international co-production of the United Kingdom and the United States, the film stars David Naughton, Jenny Agutter, Griffin Dunne and John Woodvine. The title is a cross between An American in Paris and Werewolf of London. The film's plot follows two American backpackers, David and Jack, who are attacked by a werewolf while travelling in England, causing David to become a werewolf under the next full moon.
Frank Árpád Darabont is a French-born American filmmaker. He has been nominated for three Academy Awards and a Golden Globe Award. In his early career, he was primarily a screenwriter for such horror films as A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors (1987), The Blob (1988) and The Fly II (1989). As a director, he is known for his film adaptations of Stephen King novellas and novels, such as The Shawshank Redemption (1994), The Green Mile (1999), and The Mist (2007).
Barbara Linnea Quigley is an American actress, film producer, model, singer, and author. She is best known as a B-movie actress, and is often referred to as a "scream queen" due to her frequent appearances in low-budget horror films during the 1980s and 1990s. Born in Davenport, Iowa, Quigley first pursued her career in the late 1970s, shortly after moving to Los Angeles. While working at Jack LaLanne's health spa, she was encouraged by her friends to try modeling, and also began taking acting and guitar-playing classes. After appearing as an extra in various films, Quigley got her first acting role in the Charles Band-produced film Fairy Tales (1978). She continued receiving small parts, mostly in B movies. Her first bigger part was in the 1981 slasher film Graduation Day. Quigley followed with more films such as Savage Streets (1984) and Silent Night, Deadly Night (1984).
Gremlins 2: The New Batch is a 1990 American comedy horror film, and the sequel to the 1984 film Gremlins. It was directed by Joe Dante and written by Charles S. Haas, with creature designs by Rick Baker. Zach Galligan, Phoebe Cates, Dick Miller, Jackie Joseph, and Keye Luke reprise their roles from the first film; Belinda Balaski also returns, this time playing a different character. New cast members include John Glover, Robert Prosky, Haviland Morris, Robert Picardo, and Christopher Lee; additionally, the film features Tony Randall providing the voice for one of the gremlins. The story continues the adventures of the creature Gizmo, who spawns numerous small monsters when wet. In the first film, Gizmo's offspring rampaged through a small fictional town. In Gremlins 2: The New Batch, Gizmo multiplies within a skyscraper in New York City after his owner dies. The new creatures thus pose a serious threat to the city should they be able to leave the building, and the story revolves around the human characters' efforts to prevent this disaster.
Joseph James Dante Jr. is an American film director, producer, editor and actor. His films—notably Gremlins (1984) alongside its sequel, Gremlins 2: The New Batch (1990)—often mix the 1950s-style B movie genre with 1960s radicalism and cartoon comedy.
Richard Miller was an American character actor who appeared in more than 180 films, including many produced by Roger Corman. He later appeared in the films of directors who began their careers with Corman, including Joe Dante, James Cameron, and Martin Scorsese, with the distinction of appearing in every film directed by Dante. He was known for playing the beleaguered everyman, often in one-scene appearances.
Jon Moritsugu is an American cult-underground filmmaker and musician. His movies are satiric, protopunk deconstructions of popular genres and formats with scabrous and pointedly garish results. The New York Times describes them as "funny, anarchic, provocative and exhilarating". Influenced by the nihilism of Jean-Luc Godard and Guy Debord, Moritsugu's films are often defined by their "lo-fi" aesthetic and were initially shot on 16mm film for a gritty, visceral quality. He states that he often "pay(s) less attention to narrative flow and storyline and put(s) more emphasis on sight, sound and spectacle" to create a movie that is "like a live punk/hardcore show." The works themselves are often absurdist comedies that feature actress, co-writer, stylist, and wife, Amy Davis. Perhaps best known for his cult film Mod Fuck Explosion, Moritsugu's films have been screened at Sundance, Cannes, Berlin, Toronto, Rotterdam, Venice, USA Film Festival, New York Underground, Chicago Underground, MoMA, Guggenheim, Whitney and numerous other festivals and museums. In 2001 he received the Moving Image award from Creative Capital.
The term midnight movie is rooted in the practice that emerged in the 1950s of local television stations around the United States airing low-budget genre films as late-night programming, often with a host delivering ironic asides. As a cinematic phenomenon, the midnight screening of offbeat movies began in the early 1970s in a few urban centers, particularly in New York City with screenings of El Topo at the Elgin Theater, eventually spreading across the country. The screening of non-mainstream pictures at midnight was aimed at building a cult film audience, encouraging repeat viewing and social interaction in what was originally a countercultural setting.
Paul Bartel was an American actor, writer and director. He was perhaps most known for his 1982 hit black comedy Eating Raoul, which he co-wrote, starred in and directed.
Lawrence George Cohen was an American screenwriter, producer, and director of film and television, best known as an author of horror and science fiction films — often containing police procedural and satirical elements — during the 1970s and 1980s, such as It's Alive (1974), God Told Me To (1976), It Lives Again (1978), The Stuff (1985) and A Return to Salem's Lot (1987). He originally emerged as the writer of blaxploitation films such as Bone (1972), Black Caesar, and Hell Up in Harlem. Later on he concentrated mainly on screenwriting, including Phone Booth (2002), Cellular (2004) and Captivity (2007).
Neil Marshall is an English film and television director, editor, producer, and screenwriter. He directed the horror films Dog Soldiers (2002) and The Descent (2005), the science fiction action film Doomsday (2008), the historical war film Centurion (2010), the superhero action film Hellboy (2019), and the adventure horror film The Reckoning (2020).
Hobgoblins is a 1988 American low-budget independent comedy horror film directed, written, and produced by Rick Sloane, who also served as cinematographer and editor. The plot concerns small, often considered cheaply designed and made hobgoblins.
Fred Olen Ray is an American film producer, director, and screenwriter of more than 200 low-to-medium-budget feature films in many genres, including horror, science fiction, action/adventure, erotic thrillers, crime dramas, and holiday films.
Blood Theatre is a 1984 American independent slasher-horror comedy film directed by Rick Sloane and starring Mary Woronov, Johnathon Blakely, Jenny Cunningham, and Joanna Foxx.
Hobgoblins 2 is a 2009 direct-to-DVD sequel to the 1988 science-fiction film, Hobgoblins. Written and directed by Rick Sloane, the film was released on DVD by Shout! Factory on June 23, 2009. The sequel was made to look identical to the original film, and utilized 35mm film and composite effects, look-alike actors, some of the original costumes and the same puppets.
Vice Academy was a series of six comedy films, which aired on the USA Network throughout the 1990s, particularly on their Up All Night programming block. Created by director Rick Sloane of Hobgoblins fame, the cast included former porn star Ginger Lynn, scream queen Linnea Quigley, Elizabeth Kaitan and Julia Parton.
Gremlins: Secrets of the Mogwai is an American computer-animated fantasy comedy television series. Serving as a prequel to the 1984 film Gremlins and its 1990 sequel Gremlins 2: The New Batch, the series is set in 1920s Shanghai, East China and tells the story of how 10-year-old Sam Wing met Gizmo, a young Mogwai. It was written and executive produced by Tze Chun. Steven Spielberg, Darryl Frank, Justin Falvey, Sam Register, and Brendan Hay also serve as executive producers, with Joe Dante as consulting producer. In February 2021, ahead of the series premiere, the series was renewed for a second season.
