CS Exclusive: Tom Atkins’ personal Halloween playlist, plus an exclusive Trick clip!
It’s that time of the year when audiences are diving back into the horror genre and as they look for new playlists and typically unseen films, ComingSoon got the chance to catch up with a veteran of the genre, Tom Atkins (Escape From New York,The Fog, Creepshow), to learn some of his favorite movies he’s worked on and his experiences on them, including his latest venture in the genre, Trick, for which we have an exclusive clip! Check out his recommendations below!
Click here to rent or buy Trick on Digital HD!
Trick
“I would go anywhere, anytime, any day to work with Patrick Lussier. This is our third [movie] together. We did My Blood Valentine 3D, Drive Angry and now Trick. I saw the premiere at Scream Fest out in LA and I thought it was wonderful. He was sitting right behind me, and at the end of it, he said, ‘You are a hoot to watch a horror movie with.’ Because I’m just reacting verbally, physically, ‘Oh no, don’t go there. Oh my god. Oh Jesus.’ I love them, I’m a great audience, and I love Patrick and I would go anywhere to work with him and we had a wonderful time up in Newberg, New York. I couldn’t get over how wonderful the town looked, how cinematic it is.
Maniac Cop
“My most vivid memory of doing Maniac Cop is Bruce Campbell and I see each other every once in a while at horror movie conventions. We always laugh and say, ‘What the hell is it with Bill Lustig, the director?’ Bruce says, ‘You were the star of number one and you’re dead in a half hour, out of the window on top of the cab. I was the star of number two and I’m dead in about a half hour buying a magazine at a newsstand, stabbed to death for no apparent reason.’ So that’s our collective memories of Maniac Cop and Bill Lustig. I thought, ‘What the hell? I’m the star of this and I’m dead in a half hour. Give me a break. What’s going on?’ But I guess it served the movie alright. I feel really bad that old Robert Z’Dar died, he was a lovely guy to work with and I saw him over a number of years.”
Tarantulas: The Deadly Cargo
“(Laughs) Me and Howard Hesseman. We were in that together and I think I was a pilot in the army or something and we landed and I got bit by a tarantula on the ankle and I was dead in the first 15 minutes, I think. I do tend to die a lot in these movies. However, I am currently working on a thing called The Collected with Marcus Dunstan in Atlanta, Georgia, and I do not die. I survive. I live through the entire movie.”
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Night of the Creeps
“It is my very favorite of the films I’ve done. Fred Dekker, a wonderful guy, I got to see him twice out in LA while I was out there for it. A tribute day, of all things, for me at Beyond Fest, and then the premiere of Trick on the night. We went to dinner at Russo and Frank, and then he came to the premiere of Trick. We had the best time shooting Night of the Creeps around the USC campus back in ’85 or ’86, whenever we did it. I had all the great lines, and I got to drive my old Merck with skirts, four on the floor around North Hollywood.It was a delight. And I got to meet Shane Black, I had never met him. Fred and Shane are best friends still today. Shane was hanging around the set in North Hollywood drinking coffee, smoking cigarettes, and Fred said, ‘Come on, you’ve got to meet this guy. He’s a friend of mine.’ Shane, he was really sweet and young, like Fred, well, we were all a lot younger then. But he said, ‘I have a movie over at Warner Brothers. They say they’re going to do it. I’d love to have you in it.. Who knows? It’s called Lethal Weapon and I don’t know if they’ll do it or not, but they say they will.’ It worked out and it was great.”
Halloween III: Season of the Witch
“I am tickled at the cult following because we all know the way it was received when it came out and a lot of people were angry because there was no Michael Myers in it. And now, it has grown in popularity. It’s the only one that they show around here in Pennsylvania,. On Halloween time, that’s the one that airs. Not the original, it’s Halloween 3. I like that, but we had a good time doing it and Tommy Lee Wallace did a terrific job at directing it.”
RELATED: Charles Cyphers Returns as Sheriff Brackett in Halloween Kills Set Photo
BONUS: Blue Cross Blue Shield Commercial Outtakes
“You know, when we did that, I was the spokesperson for Blue Cross Blue Shield in Western Pennsylvania for four years. And the first year we did the best of these series of commercials. There’s a wonderful fishing one. But my favorite is the outtake we did in the kitchen, where I was drunk. Numbers of people have seen them, and always comment on how well I play a drunk. We had a hoot. The thing was in the can and the guy said, ‘Do one the way you want, however you want, just for the hell of it.’ There was one in the theater where I sang it, and I don’t know if that’s around YouTube, but we had a great time doing those.”
