Name: Tom Savini's "Day Of The Dead" Horror Effects | David Letterman
Uploaded: 2024-10-23T15:00:18.000Z
Description: Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Tom Savini's "Day Of The Dead" Horror Effects | David Letterman' from Letterman on Comedy Buff. Published 2024-10-23. Transcript available.

Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Tom Savini's "Day Of The Dead" Horror Effects | David Letterman' from Letterman on Comedy Buff. Published 2024-10-23. Transcript available.

Now, every time you're on the show, isn't it always Day of the Dead?
No, no.
It always seems like it's Day of the Dead.
I think we may have been talking about it a long time ago.
Yeah, but isn't there a whole series of dead movies like that?
Day of the Dead, Night of the Living Dead, Dawn of the Dead?
Grunch of the Dead.
Yeah.
No, Day of the Dead is the next one that opens in July.
And roughly, what's this about?
Folks who are not really dead, they are dead, they...
Yeah, they're zombies and they come back from the dead, right?
They're just dead people walking around.
All right, okay.
And some of the effects that we'll see tonight are in that film?
That's right, yeah, these are all from Day of the Dead.
All right, let's get right to it and show us what you have tonight.
Okay, this is a severed head here.
Oh, jeez.
I know you like these things.
Oh, God.
This guy here.
Oh.
And he looks around.
Now, this guy was alive in the film, he plays a character, he's Greg Nicotero.
And what was it, some kind of a garden tractor accident?
Tipped over on an incline or something, didn't he, Tom?
I don't want to give that away, but it's similar to that, yeah.
Oh, my God.
But anyway, his head has obviously come off, but it's still alive.
He's still living, yeah.
He's still living.
You can sustain a head wound like that and be okay.
About the only thing you really need to do by way of first aid is just kind of
cover that wound a little.
Well, then, and go right back to work.
You're...
Just put that on.
Boy, is that horrible.
How long did it take you to make that?
Oh, gee, I don't know.
About five or six weeks, I think.
And latex?
Yeah, foam latex.
This is glass eyes, acrylic teeth.
You know, it's a little brain here.
Now, when you say a little brain, what did you use to make the brain?
This is also foam rubber.
Now, is that cast from an actual brain?
Yes, yes.
Oh, no, it's not.
Yeah, yeah.
Carolina Biological Supplies.
Remember then we got skeletons from them?
Carolina Biological Supplies.
Right, right.
We got skeletons from them.
And what we did was we ordered a model of a brain and cast it, and there it is.
It's a division of Spiegel, isn't it?
The fine catalog company.
So you didn't actually have a real brain.
You had a model of a brain.
We did order some, and they came in a little jar, and we were part of the set.
Now, what do you do with the actual brains that you get?
I don't know what they did with them.
They probably got rid of them afterwards.
I don't know.
I'd check that if I were to.
If you're working with those people, find out what they're doing with those
brains.
Well, let's see this next guy.
This is who.
Okay, this guy.
He was decapitated.
Let's turn him on.
There.
Oh, good Lord.
He also looks around.
His eyes open.
He was decapitated from the upper lip up, and he's still alive.
Who wants Jell-O?
Well.
Now, have we seen this guy in a movie, or will he be in the movie?
No.
All of this is coming in Day of the Dead in July.
Uh-huh.
Yeah.
Wow.
And again, some kind of ugly decapitation.
Yeah.
A shovel.
A shovel gets him right across the head, and it pops his head off.
This is one of the edible things we had.
See, zombies eat people, so one guy had to walk around chewing on this.
Uh-huh.
And again, this is actually fairly, this is not that complicated, I would guess,
except
for the detail work of this.
Well, this was in the cafeteria one day, so we just stuck it in.
Oh, it was not.
It was.
It was.
Okay.
It was some turkey.
Okay.
Now, this.
Another friend of mine.
Now, he gets his eyes, like, gouged out.
Like that.
And they rip his, uh, they rip his head off, but it's also.
He gets his eyes?
Oh, brother.
Honey, have you seen my car keys?
God.
So, we're going to, we're going to set your hand on fire.
Oh, you want to do that here?
You want to do, going to set my hand on fire.
So, first I need, uh, let's see, this hand, if you don't mind.
This hand right here.
Okay.
This is a fire gel that's like, this is what's going to protect your hand.
Let's get this goo on here real quick.
It's a fire retardant.
What is it made of?
I don't know.
It's a secret formula that, uh, this company in California puts it on.
And it is fire retardant.
It smells like it might have alcohol in it, though.
Wouldn't that burn?
Uh, I don't know.
I don't know.
We'll have to see.
Oh, there's, I better get this bucket of water up here in a minute.
Okay, another couple seconds with this here.
Okay.
Now, you missed a spot.
You've got a hole right there.
Get it plugged up.
Let me cover your thumb, then.
How about putting your thumb close together with the rest of your hand, right?
We'll just put a nice big blob in there.
Doesn't make much difference.
It'll be a charred stump in a minute anyway.
I brought a, I brought a charred stump in the table.
All right.
Okay.
Now, this better work.
I understand, I understand this was not rehearsed.
Okay.
Now, you, you've got to keep your hand still, okay?
Let me get this bucket of water here.
Now, whenever you feel that it's getting too hot, just dump it in here, okay?
Well, let's move the bucket a little closer.
Okay.
Okay.
All right.
This is just a little bit of rubber cement.
That's plenty.
That's plenty.
Of course.
All right.
Let me get this.
That's enough.
Okay.
This is not a cookout.
That's too much.
That's too much cement.
This time.
I'll take some rock.
You see, now we might get into that bottom layer there.
All right.
Now, look.
Try to, try to stand it as long as you can, okay?
Here we go.
Ready?
All right.
Ow!
Jeez!
Your chimney!
Look, no, no, look at this.
No, no, Tom.
You see this?
This is all charred hair.
Look at that.
There's something burning.
Yeah, there is something burning.
I smell hair.
Stand it as long as you can.
Good idea.
Have you ever broken a body over somebody's head?
Well, look.
You can break this over my head, if you like.
It's a breakaway bottle.
Stand it as long as you can.
Well, you didn't do it very long.
Well, I couldn't because it was quite painful because of it.
Well, we didn't rehearse it.
Is this the real guy?
All right.
Now, we may come back.
No, no.
We're going to go away to a commercial.
We're going to talk this over.
You may be back.
You may not be back.
Okay.
We'll be right back, folks.
Okay.
We're back.
We'll be checking in with the Staten Island Ferry in a couple of minutes.
Now, Tom, what went wrong there?
Because I actually did get burned.
I think maybe some cement poured down there in the garden.
And whose responsibility was that?
I'm afraid it's me.
All right.
So, but normally that would be a wonderful effect.
Oh, sure.
You can set a guy up in flames for, like, minutes with this stuff, you know?
Yeah.
Okay.
Now, now what are we going to do?
Okay.
Other stuff to show us?
Yeah.
Why don't we start with this guy here?
This is a...
Brother.
Good Lord.
So, this is a very realistic tongue, man.
Stop playing with his tongue.
Now, this is one of the first zombies in the film.
He walks around.
He's a hand puppet.
There's a guy with his hand up in there, and the head looks around.
Let's see.
What does he do?
He looks around a little bit.
Uh-huh.
See?
What's this do?
Well, that's a blink that doesn't work.
Okay.
He, uh...
God.
He frowns.
Okay.
Yeah.
I think, uh...
Let's see.
I think his jaw opens, too.
Here it is.
Now, what happened to this guy?
I think he was hit...
Oh!
Well, we assumed that he was hit in the head with a shotgun blast.
Uh-huh.
Yeah.
He's the first guy.
The titles appear across his chest, and he just looks around, you know?
Okay.
All right.
Okay.
Now, another guy gets his arm chopped off with this, uh, machete.
See?
First, the machete hits the real guy's hand, so the hand can move around.
Then we cut to, um...
Actually, this is first.
A fake arm gets hit with the machete.
Then we cut to this, where the hand is actually moving, and the machete is in.
Mm-hmm.
Then, um, the arm is separated from the stump, and then the stump bleeds all
over the place
like that.
Then they cauterized it.
They burned it closed, and we had this one.
Who burned it closed?
Uh, the characters in the film.
They take a torch, and they move it over to the character.
In the movie that this happens to, and then they cauterize it.
We'll take care of you.
Yeah.
They burned it.
Yeah.
Uh, this is, uh, another hand that kind of, uh, we used, I forget where we used
it.
Cuisinart went nuts, I would guess.
Uh, let's see.
Here's, uh, here's a heart.
Uh-huh.
You know, a gelatin heart.
Let me see that.
And again, this has just been modeled after the real thing.
This is not...
Yeah, we sent away for a model of a heart, cast it, and then made this, uh...
Is that...
So that's actually the heart of an adult, uh, human?
This is about the same thing?
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
It's supposed to be the size of your, of your fist.
That looks, uh...
Okay.
Like it.
What else is down here?
Let's see, um...
Um, I think we're out of goodies down here.
We've got the deck here.
That's it.
Well, why don't we, um, slice your arm open, then?
Okay.
Okay?
All right.
I need you to...
I need your sleeve rolled up, and again, we're gonna play...
Excuse me.
Is there a matter of if we cover this thing up?
Okay, so, um...
Dave, can I have tickets for the show?
No.
I'm sorry.
We...
We don't.
Why don't you go down there and catch a bus?
Okay, um...
I think we need your jacket off.
I need my jacket off.
Okay.
I need my jacket off.
Cash, I hope this works as well as the fire.
So do I.
All right.
You want to roll out that sleeve, please?
Okay.
And a minute.
And what are you gonna do?
You're gonna slice...
I'm gonna slice your arm open, right?
Let's hold it out about...
Let's step that way, please, and hold it up to about there, okay?
Now we need to take a single-edge razor blade.
Okay.
Now this was rehearsed, wasn't it?
Okay, we have to take off that little protective thing.
Okay, you can see that that's a nice little razor blade.
Wait a minute, it is.
It's a real razor blade.
Yeah, it's a razor blade.
Okay.
Now, if you'll hold out your arm here, we'll...
Take it and...
I think, uh, I think we hit an artery, uh...
I'm not sure, I'm not...
Now, now how am I gonna look in a short-sleeved shirt?
Anyway, uh...
And that's, that's unbelievable.
Now, can you show them how you did that?
Sure, sure.
Real quickly.
What I did was I held up the razor blade so that you and everybody else looked
at the
razor blade while I just picked out this baby ear syringe filled with blood,
and, uh...
But again, it's not real blood, it's something made to look like blood.
Yeah, it's a formula that we use for blood.
Yeah, yeah.
And the effect was, you know, it, uh, looks like it came out of your arm.
Yeah, well, that's very impressive.
And the movie comes out, uh...
July.
July.
Well, thanks for coming in here and messing up the place, Tom.
I'm sorry.
Nice to see you again.
I hope you're right.
Uh, we got applause for station identification, but we'll be, uh, right back.