Dick Smith

bigger like this is very grand and it's like but it's grand in like the artistic sense like in the avant-garde the avant-garde sense like the surrealist sense as opposed to you know you put you put someone who's like white not a noble name director they'll just kind of make it really big and boisterous and loud and things like that very effects heavy

they kept dick smith on who was the special effects makeup artist who's worked on, like, everything.

He worked on Ghost Story that we covered.

Yeah.

You can tell they're obviously not trying to get him nude.

but this is obviously the best tape they were able to use, so.

Well, so Dick Smith, you know, he's a practical artist, right? And so one of the initial ideas for the- Sounds like

a profession.

uh and uh I just think it really fits into the theme of sort of mayhem makeup.

You know, the transformation of Reagan, like the Dick Smith makeup on Linda Blair is phenomenal.

And the makeup on Max von Sydow to make him look like an old man as Father Merrin is incredible because he was like, what, in his early 40s or something or late 30s when he made it? I've honestly never seen

Exorcist 3.

They were digging props and furniture for the sets out of dumpsters and begging and borrowing from friends.

But the one thing they do have is special effects from John Caglioni and Kevin Haney, who were the great special effects artist, Dick Smith's newest protégés.

And they went on to work on two films that we've covered, so Altered States and Wolfen.

Right.

If you could seance an artistic or athletic hero, who would it be?

think i would like to speak with dick smith he was a very called the godfather of makeup he did the makeup effects for the exorcist but i would love to talk to him i met him once or twice but uh never had an in-depth conversation with him and that so i would love to talk to him again yeah

yeah nice and this one is a little more macabre imagine someone was making a dia de los muertos altar to you what food or object might they leave there to represent you

candy like i have a hardcore like i as much as like i know it's bad for me like

Now, if you if all you've seen of Kurosawa is stuff like Pulse or Cure, like or any of his like more crime, you know, influence stuff like this is far from it.

To give you kind of like a high-level overview of what Sweet Home is actually like, if you combined Poltergeist with Robert Wise's The Haunting, you'd end up with something a lot like Sweet Home, and then you add some significant gore and makeup effects from Dick Smith, one of the titans of practical effects and makeup and monsters at the time.

Yes, absolutely.

But you get Sweet Home.

First come, first serve for a shelf pick for that.

Go listen to our episode on The Haunting.

But with that particular 80s effects push now, while Dick Smith is listed as the you know, I mean, he's there in the opening credits.

You know, they have just like SFX Dick Smith.

Building the machine, the little Cronos device.

What I said is 10 years before, and funny enough, I studied under Dick Smith, who was the Oscar winning makeup effects man that did Amadeus, that did Godfather-

Uh-huh

...

Okay, now this is, I think, what sent me to go find this film as soon as I read this initially because it wasn't so much, I'll be totally honest, it wasn't so much like, oh, here's a movie that may have inspired a video game.

It was, here's a movie that may be inspired by this video game where Dick Smith did the special makeup effects.

And for those who don't know who this guy is, he has done makeup for the Godfather, the Exorcist, Scanners.

Scanners.

That's awesome.

Yeah.

But Dick Smith is a pioneer in practical effects.

Oh, yes.

think that's a spectrum too hotness and magic fine line fine line

yeah um so the makeup artist was dick smith um and he did the godfather the exorcist taxi driver etc etc etc

i think we may have mentioned him at some point and i said like oh yeah i think he invented the stubble cap the stubble gun

oh right yes