Monster Makers - mill valley writer casts spell on cable
By RICHARD FREEDMAN, Vallejo Times-Herald staff writer

Marc Hershon has many memories of Halloween. Not all of them good.

Under the dark cloud of the Zodiac killings in the 1970s, a city-imposed curfew apparently escaped Hershon and his adolescent buddies.

"We got picked up by a cop who took us into the police station and scared the hell out of us with dire threats of juvenile hall," Hershon recalled. "Then he just drove us home where we had to face the unrestrained wrath of our respective parents."

All these years later, Hershon has reversed the curse of Halloween with a financial and creative vengeance.

The Mill Valley scriptwriter's "Monster Makers," featuring veteran actors George Kennedy, Linda Blair and Adam Baldwin, debuts tonight on the Hallmark Channel.

As a former comedy performer, Hershon would be the first to agree it's all about timing.

"Hallmark was hurting for a Halloween project and they pretty much loved the concept," Hershon said. "The acceptance level was high."

"Monster Makers" is about a boy, Tim Stoker, who discovers an old black-and-white monster movie from 1951 called, "Monsters on the Loose." Processed on experimental film stock and locked away for more than 50 years, the movie had never been released.

When Tim and his friend, Tina, watch the movie on Halloween night, a power surge results in the three monsters featured in the film getting out. Also released from the movie is Sheriff Jay Forest, portrayed by Baldwin.

Hershon basically relied on his improvisational skills to pitch the movie to producer Steven Squillante.

"We'd just finished editing the Christmas movie ('Santa Jr.') and he asked me if I had any ideas for Halloween 2003," said Hershon, on coming up with the storyline for "Monster Makers."

"I literally roughed out ideas for the three monsters right then and they're pretty much as they now appear in the final film," Hershon said. "If anyone doubts the value of improv training, let this story be a lesson."

Not that Hershon was oblivious to the ghoulish genre.

"As a kid, I loved monster and horror movies and was a big fan of Dracula, Frankenstein, the Mummy and the rest," Hershon said. "And I was fascinated in particular by really bad monster movies."

Hershon said he put himself "in the mindset of a low-budget filmmaker of the era who wants to cash in on the success of the better-produced films of the time."

So Hershon created the three monsters - "Manikan," a "dime-store rip-off of the idea of Frankenstein's monster," Verman the Rat-Man, and Revenant, the Living Ghost, "a conglomeration of The Invisible Man, Dracula, and any number of random spooky specters."

The film took 24 days to shoot in March and April in Redlands, about 20 minutes west of Palm Springs. "We needed a small town that could be pretty much 'Anytown, USA,' and Redlands fit the bill pretty well," Hershon said.

The restrictive schedule prevented Hershon from much socializing with the featured performers, he said.

"There's not a whole lot of time to clown around," Hershon said. "The movie is usually done very much out of sequence so that each location can be used all at once and then you move on. I think that cuts down the lag time that lends itself to pranks on the set."

Hershon did manage to rent "The Exorcist" so the two child actors playing Blair's kids in the movie could see the actress' benchmark 1973 performance.

"They had a whole new respect for Ms. Blair the next day on the set," said Hershon, remembering when he saw the film as a young teen.

"It was terrifying," Hershon said. "Nowadays, the movies seems pretty tame."

Hershon, who did his best Quentin Tarantino/Alfred Hitchcock impression by making a cameo appearance in his own movie, said he was left scrambling with three days left in production. Scenes needed to be added to bridge continuity gaps and to assure that the film was the exact 88 minutes needed.

"So, I had two-and-a-half hours to write four scenes," he said. "Fortunately, I was able to assure the scenes met the flow of the scenes around them and a couple of them are among the funniest scenes in the film."

Humor in the Halloween movie shouldn't be surprising, considering that Hershon cut his comedic fangs as general manager of The Comedy Underground club in Seattle.

Back then, Hershon was tossing around ideas with actor/stand-up Franklyn Ajaye and the two soon signed a deal with Universal.

"We had nine weeks to not only figure it out, but also to turn the first draft in," Hershon said. "We got it done in time and it was well-received, but it was a time travel comedy."

It turned out that Universal was already working on another time travel comedy called "Back to the Future."

"That was the last we heard of our little effort," Hershon said.

"But the sale of the script got me into the Writers Guild of America and bamboozled me into thinking that selling a screenplay was really easy."

Along the path, Hershon was a radio show producer, comedy club booking manager, and improv performer.

"I also got married, but that didn't take so well," he said.

Hallmark, however, has taken to Hershon's work. The TV network is looking at a script for a Valentine's Day broadcast that should air in 2005, the writer said.

"If 'Monster Makers' does well, they will likely ask me to do more for them," Hershon said.

"The trick is to see if any of that 'heat' can translate to sales in the world of feature films."

Unfortunately, with each success, Hershon has friends who naturally have great script ideas.

"It usually goes something like this," Hershon said.

" 'Hey, I've got a great idea for a script! Let me tell it to you, you write the script, we'll sell it and split the money.' "