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At the beginning of the lively EPIX documentary "Nightmare Factory," special effects guru Greg Nicotero lays it all out. "We've done 900 movies," he estimates. "We're one of the most prolific, if not the single most prolific, effects company in the world." It's true—just running down their roster of films shows both the scope of their imagination and their value to certain filmmakers. They won an Oscar for their work on "Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe" and oversee the weekly demands of "The Walking Dead" (a show that has Nicotero occasionally directi
At the beginning of the lively EPIX documentary "Nightmare Factory," special effects guru Greg Nicotero lays it all out. "We've done 900 movies," he estimates. "We're one of the most prolific, if not the single most prolific, effects company in the world." It's true—just running down their roster of films shows both the scope of their imagination and their value to certain filmmakers. They won an Oscar for their work on "Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe" and oversee the weekly demands of "The Walking Dead" (a show that has Nicotero occasionally directing as well). They can do it all…or at least cover it all with slimy red goop.
KNB originally stood for the founding members initials–Robert Kurtzman, Greg Nicotero and Howard Berger. About a decade ago, though, Kurtzman decided to move back to Ohio. He still does make-up effects and consulting (he'll be the one responsible for the ridiculous walrus make-up in Kevin Smith's forthcoming horror movie "Tusk") but is no longer part of the company; Berger and Nicotero just decided to keep the KNB moniker for simplicity's sake. (Oddly, the filmmakers don't manage to get Kurtzman on film.)
While Berger is still a major part of the studio, the day-to-day operations seem to be overseen by Nicotero, thus he becomes the focus of the documentary. We learn about his childhood, making Super 8 monster movies and—as a resident of Pittsburgh—obsessing over the zombie films of George A. Romero. Amazingly, a family trip to Rome would see Nicotero and his family sitting at a neighboring table to Romero. Nicotero, unable to control himself, struck up a conversation with Romero and the director invited him to work on the set of his forthcoming zombie epic "Dawn of the Dead," where Nicotero promptly became the protégé of genuine make-up effects legend Tom Savini. He eventually became Savini's #2 dude on Romero's 'Dawn' follow-up, "Day of the Dead." Nicotero's father had wanted him to become a doctor (he's interviewed extensively here). Berger recalls that, after telling his father he would be moving to Los Angeles to follow his dreams, Nicotero's father shot back: "You'll never be anything with long hair like that."
The team, assembled in earnest for Sam Raimi's breakthrough "Evil Dead II," would really come into their own as a company after doing work on the austere Disney drama "Gross Anatomy." The film, about med school students, required a whole host of lifelike cadavers, which the team dutifully dreamed up. It was this attention to detail and realism that scored them the gig designing the mechanical buffalos for Kevin Costner's Oscar-winning "Dances with Wolves" and added to their already varied portfolio.
In the often-dazzling documentary, we see Elijah Wood visit the studio to talk about the company becoming the go-to effects house for his fledging genre production outfit. Wood became friends with the guys when they turned him into a razor-clawed maniac for Robert Rodriguez's garish comic book adaptation "Sin City." The amount of awe and wonder that washes over Wood's face as he walks around the floor of the nightmare factory is positively contagious. These are grown men, getting to do what they love, with a maximum of creative input. Moreover, what they're doing is designing monsters and fashioning severed heads that will double for beautiful young starlets. It's amazing work but it's presented with an earnest matter-of-fact-ness; the guys that do this stuff don't see it for how spectacular it really is.
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