Savini’s two-volume Grande Illusions coffee table books were well earmarked when I was growing up, and his status as a genius and artist is etched in concrete the world over. The on-set footage is priceless, but it’s the tours of his old workshop and mask collection that are the material I studied as I was watching this.
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There are testimonials from many figures he worked with as well as friends from the horror convention circuit, including Doug Bradley, Bill Moseley, Tony Todd, Danny Trejo, Corey Feldman, Alice Cooper, Greg Nicotero and Howard Berger (both students of Savini Nicotero is a producer on the film), Tom Atkins, Danny McBride, Robert Rodriguez, and plenty of archival interviews with Romero. By the end of Smoke and Mirrors, we feel we know what makes Savini tick, what inspired him creatively, and what went into every decision he made about jobs he would pursue.
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We do a deep dive on Savini’s creative parents and siblings, how his time as a military photographer during the Vietnam War completely changed his life and influenced his approach to gore effects, and how his personal life (many marriages, kids, grandkids) impacted his professional life in both positive and negative ways. But as the film digs deeper, we realize that for a time, acting was Savini’s first love, from stage acting in high school in Pittsburgh and even professionally for many years, to film roles in such works as Knight Riders, From Dusk Till Dawn, Land of the Dead, Machete, and even The Perks of Being a Wallflower (set in his hometown of Pittsburgh).