Robert Kurtzman: Legendary FX artist discusses his career making monsters for the movies

Mention the name Robert Kurtzman to any self-respecting horror fan and their eyes will immediately light up. The special-FX maestro, who co-founded the now legendary (and still prolifically active) KNB Effects Group, has worked on everything from Evil Dead 2, Misery and Pulp Fiction, to more recently, Kevin Smith’s Tusk and the recent The Bye Bye Man. Kurtzman has done it all, and after stepping behind the director’s chair for films like Wishmaster, The Rage and Deadly Impact, horror fans often wonder when we’ll be able to see the man helm another feature in between creating and providing awesome-looking FX designs for pretty much everything. Recently, Robert was nice enough to chat with ComingSoon.net for a bit, speaking on recent projects and if he’d be interesting in directing again.

ComingSoon.net: Recently, you did the makeup design for The Bye Bye Man. I’m curious, how long did it take you to go from the initial concept of the design, to shipping it off to go work on the film? Was it a pretty fast process?

Robert Kurtzman: It took about ten weeks. We took a couple of weeks going through the various photoshop and z-brush renderings from a friend of mine, Aaron Sims, that served as a springboard for what were planning to do. Once we got the life-cast from Spectral Motion, who had done some of Doug Jones from the various films he had done with Guillermo (del Toro), we were able to get some clay around it, we were able to start addressing the notes and changes and various things like the scarring. It’s always fun to go through the whole process of a film and the design, it’s a process, it evolves.

CS: Is it always a struggle to not only please the filmmakers you work with, with what they have in their head, while also wanting to really bring what you envision to life at the same time?

Kurtzman: I always work at their behest, so that’s first and foremost. I’m essentially a hired gun, so the filmmakers have the final say, but there’s typically a good collaboration between what they see and what I see.

CS: You’ve had a now legendary career and you’re still going full on. At this point, do you look for certain things to do that stand out and really interest you or are you just happy to have the job that allows you to keep doing what you love doing?

Kurtzman: It depends on the filmmaker. When you have a filmmaker who allows you to try to do something fun and unusual, like Tusk for instance. I had to be involved in that movie because it was something that NOBODY was going to do again. It wasn’t just another vampire or werewolf and something that gets done a lot in movies, so I jumped at that one. I had already done From Dusk Till Dawn and John Carpenter’s Vampires, so I was kind of not wanting to do another vampire movie or even werewolf movie. When Adrian Bogliano approached me a couple of years ago to do Late Phases, I said upfront, “Look, I really want to do something different if I do this one, “ because to make a monster movie, you have try to do something that hasn’t been seen over and over. That’s what stood out to me about Tusk. I knew for a fact that there’s never been a design like that before, so I wanted to do it, it was so out there. (Laughs). I think that’s the key, to find a filmmaker who’s open to what you have in mind.

CS: I’m curious, with the recent Vestron Blu-ray release of Wishmaster, there’s been both of a resurgence of interest in the film and it’s also led to a whole new audience discovering the film. People have been very vocal about loving that movie. Is there any chance we might get you in the director’s chair again, anytime soon?

Kurtzman: It’s been weird, because my last film was Deadly Impact and that was I believe, six years ago or something. I have a couple of things going on. I just produced a movie with Adam Marcus (Jason Goes to Hell) that he directed, called Secret Santa. It’s a fun horror/comedy that we’re going to be hitting festivals with pretty soon. After that, I’m going to reconnect with him and he and his partner are going to produce a movie that I’m going direct, hopefully this year. I’ve always had stuff out there, trying to pitch, but you know how it is, it’s a long process. A lot of times, you hook up with a company who says they have the money and then it never really materializes. It’s tough, but I just love being creative, whether I’m behind the camera shooting or behind the camera doing makeup. I love what I do.