STUART GORDON

Lovecraft master…

STAGE FRIGHTS

Before making his name in horror cinema, writer/director Stuart Gordon (1947-2020) was recognised for his work in avantgarde theatre. He was arrested for obscenity following his 1968 stage version of Peter Pan, a Vietnam War allegory that culminated in a psychedelic light show projected onto its naked cast. He juggled stage and screen for the rest of his career, producing a stage-musical version of Re-Animator (1985) in 2012.

H.P. SOURCE

Helming no fewer than five adaptations of the author’s work (from Re-Animator to 2001’s Dagon), Gordon was the go-to guy for bringing cult author H.P. Lovecraft to the screen. Though only loosely faithful to Lovecraft’s words, the adaps stay true to their unnerving spirit. Bringing subtext to the fore, Gordon’s films throb with kink. ‘My argument is that there is a tremendous sexuality about Lovecraft and a fear of sex, taking the reproductive act and turning it into something monstrous,’ the director said.

REPEAT PERFORMERS

Genre icons in their own right, two of Gordon’s key collaborators were Jeffrey Combs and Barbara Crampton, who co-starred in three of the director’s movies, starting with Re-Animator. ‘I feel like he gave me the best role of my career,’ says Crampton of From Beyond (1986). Meanwhile, Gordon’s most frequent cohort Combs starred as Edgar Allan Poe both in the director’s play Nevermore and his Masters of Horror episode The Black Cat (2007). ‘It was a lovely kaleidoscope,’ Combs says of their partnership.

SCIENCE PROJECTS

Gordon diversified with sci-fi films Fortress (1992) and Space Truckers (1996). And before illness forced him to drop out, he was set to direct Disney hit Honey, I Shrunk the Kids (1989), whose concept he devised with close collaborator Brian Yuzna. Comparing Kids with Re-Animator, Gordon said: ‘I think these films are about dreams. And the horror about dreams is that you have to be careful, because sometimes they can wind up becoming nightmares…’

EVERYDAY STRIFE

‘I don’t think there’s such a thing as normal,’ Gordon said of what would be his final movie, Stuck (2007), a dark comedy about a man (Stephen Rea) who becomes trapped in a car windshield after being accidentally run down. Between Stuck and crime thriller King of the Ants (2003), the director proved he could find horror in the mundane. ‘Violence should horrify,’ he claimed. ‘If it doesn’t, there’s something wrong with it. It should not be seductive.’