Zach Galligan Talks Waxwork!
Zach Galligan is a beloved fave in the horror genre for his work in 80s classics such as Waxwork and Gremlins and their respective sequels. But he’s still active onscreen to this day and he sat down to talk with us about some of his upcoming projects – as well as the newly remastered release of Waxwork / Waxwork II on Blu-ray.
Dread Central: So, is there new stuff on the discs aside from the remastered picture?
Zach Galligan: Yes. There is a brand new audio commentary that we cut in mid-August in Atlanta, Georgia. Tony [director, Anthony Hickox] lives in London and they flew him over, I live in Atlanta, everybody convened down here at a place called Crawford Media Services, where they do the looping and dubbing and ADR for Walking Dead and it’s funny because we actually ran into Jeffrey Dean Morgan in the same studio and put some pictures on Instagram and whatnot and that was kind of fun.
DC: Ooh. Might we see you on an episode of “The Walking Dead?”
ZG: They know I’m down here, so let’s just put it this way: There have been inquiries.
DC: We know everyone had their own style… so how did you and Tony approach the recording of your movie commentary?
ZG: Well, they put it on the screen and we just talked off the cuff. I think we took maybe one break at the halfway point but basically it was uninterrupted stream of consciousness commentary. I hadn’t seen the movie in fifteen years and I certainly hadn’t seen it in the quality it is on the Blu-Ray. Doesn’t it look shockingly better to the old version? I mean, it really does. It looks like we shot it a couple of weeks ago, that’s how fresh and crisp it looks. It still looks dated and it still looks a little 80s, but it just looks so fantastic. So I think it has been a while since we both had seen it and I knew I was going to do the commentary so I deliberately didn’t watch it because I wanted it to be a fresh experience for me and I thought that would be a much more thing for the audience rather than me pretend that I’m surprised, I would actually be really surprised. So what you can expect is some brutally honest self-commentary, I think people will be surprised on our willingness to say what we think is good in the movie and the fact that we are extremely willing to cop to the fact that there are some serious problems in the movie. If you can’t have a sense of humor about yourself as you get into your older years, it’s time to move on.
DC: What’s more, the practical makeup effects still really hold up!
ZG: Well, all I can say is that Bob Keen, who did the makeup and a lot of the special effects, you know I’ve been very privileged and fortunate as an actor to work with some really talented people, especially in the field of makeup. When I did Gremlins 2 I got to work with Rick Baker and you can make a pretty solid argument that Baker is one of the most important figures in film over the last 25 to 30 years. When it comes to geniuses, I probably put Rick Baker at the top of all the people I’ve worked with, along with Spielberg and Joe Dante but Bob Keen is a really top notch excellent craftsman. He was working with a very small budget and especially in the werewolf sequence, I think he does some really outstanding effects, for what I remember as a shockingly small amount of money, so you kind of have to give extra credit to these people for doing such good work considering the budgetary restraints. It’s pretty remarkable.
DC: You’re really on a roll, with classic movies to promote, and brand new ones…
ZG: I would say both of those statements are accurate. Let’s put it this way, I’m doing a fairly well known convention called Rock and Shock in Worcester, Massachusetts and I will be showing, probably close to the world premiere, I think it was shown one other time, of the movie I did with Naomi Grossman and the late Roddy Piper, his last movie, and Noah Hathaway, called The Chair. Now The Chair is a very interesting, cerebral, peculiar psychological thriller/prison horror movie. Since no one has seen it I can’t really tell what the reaction is going to be but I’m going to be screening it this weekend and I’m very curious to see what people think of it. So I’ve got The Chair and I’ve got a couple of other things, there’s something I want to tell you about so bad but I haven’t signed a contract yet, I’m literally a day or two away from finishing all the necessary paperwork but it’s frustrating because if I could just get this deal done a little bit quicker I could tell you something and you’d go oh my god, that’s crazy but I can’t do it.
As for Waxwork and Waxwork II, I think the only thing I would say is if you really want to enjoy the DVD release that I think a really fun way to do it is, take a Friday or Saturday night, whatever night you relax and watch Netflix and chill, and watch both of them back to back with commentary, have a few drinks while you do it and just sit back and laugh and have a good time. That’s really what Tony and I were hoping to accomplish with the commentary, to make everybody just crack up and watch the kind of movies that they love and find out some fun stuff about it and really just laugh your ass off as you re-live these films, and hopefully we succeeded in that.
From the Press Release:
The Vestron Video Collector’s Series unleashes the tongue-in-cheek horror classics Waxwork and Waxwork II: Lost in Time for the first time on limited-edition Blu-ray on October 18th from Lionsgate. In Waxwork, a private midnight showing at a local wax museum turns to mayhem when its soul-sucking wax exhibits come to life! In Waxwork II: Lost in Time, Mark and Sarah, who survived the killer wax museum, must travel to another dimension to combat the still-present evil figure responsible for murdering Sarah’s stepfather. The Waxwork and Waxwork II: Lost in Time Blu-ray double feature includes all-new special features and will be available for the suggested retail price of $39.99.
WAXWORK OFFICIAL SYNOPSIS
Inside the wax museum a group of teenagers are aghast at the hauntingly lifelike wax displays of Dracula, the Wolfman, the Mummy, and other character members of the Horror Hall of Fame. Each display is perfectly grotesque; yet, each is missing one thing… a victim! Admission to the WAXWORK was free, but now they may pay with their lives! One by one, the students are drawn into the settings as objects of the bloodthirsty creatures. They are now part of the permanent collection.
WAXWORK II: LOST IN TIME OFFICIAL SYNOPSIS
Having escaped the fiery destruction of the original Waxwork, Marl (Zach Galligan, Gremlins) and Sarah (Monika Schnarre, TV’s “Beverly Hills, 90210”) face another grueling ordeal in WAXWORK II, when Sarah is accused of murdering her stepfather. Fleeing through the doors of time in a desperate search for proof of her innocence, the two lovers find themselves caught in the eternally recurring battle between good and evil. Together they must stop one of the most powerful and demonic figures of all time — Lord Scarabus.
WAXWORK SPECIAL FEATURES:
- Audio Commentary with Anthony Hickox & Zach Galligan
- Featurettes:
– “The Waxwork Chronicles” (Parts 1–6)
– Vintage “Making of” Featurette - Theatrical Trailer
- Still Gallery
WAXWORK II: LOST IN TIME SPECIAL FEATURES
- Audio Commentary with Anthony Hickox & Zach Galligan
- Theatrical Trailer
- Still Gallery
Categorized:News
