Note: Peter Jackson's 1991 movie Braindead (a.k.a Dead Alive in some countries) was my first big film job. Up until then I'd done only live shows, TV series and TV commercial work.
My dress was sticky with blood, the heels were difficult to run in, and the slime was dripping over my left eye. Being a transvestite zombie stuntman was a difficult job, but somebody had to do it.
After more than a decade of stunt work for live shows (ranging from car stunt spectaculars at Auckland's Western Springs stadium to smaller western fights and shoot-outs) and television work (everything from being bowled over by hundreds of litres of water for a fresh fish commercial to becoming a human fireball for a music video clip) I was facing my most interesting challenge.
Wearing a dowdy blue dress, matching shoes, a slip and tights, plus a zombie mask, I was doubling for actress Elizabeth Moody after she is hit by a tram and crashes through a Four Square grocery shop's glass front door.
It was a tram and a Four Square corner store rather than a Big Red bus and Woolworth's supermarket, as Peter Jackson's new horror film Braindead was set in the nostalgic Kiwiana of the fifties.
Ruefully eyeing my dress as more blood and goo was smeared on it I vowed to talk to costume designer Chris Elliott later (the mask made this impossible at the time).
Blue was really not my colour (I had a matching blue rinse wig). Perhaps a little black top with matching leather mini, black stockings and heels would be more fetching?
Now the days of stuntmen doubling women are long gone, but in New Zealand (circa 1991) there was a drastic shortage of female stunt doubles.
Hence my predicament. I had to run, hit a mini trampoline with both feet and crash through the glass door to land on a pad on the shop floor. There was a very restricted landing area, and I had to be careful not to land on several cameras, lights, and crew people that surrounded the pad. The building was a kite making shop that had been taken over and converted by the film company.
Peripheral vision was non-existent due to the latex zombie mask. The shoes hurt my feet and were the cause of my greatest concern - that I would slip or they would rip and catch in the mini tramp - causing me to crash though the door too low. This would ruin the shot, as I'd be missed by the cameras. There was only one go at it as the spare panes of breakaway glass had broken in transit.
Though the glass was not real, the breakaway plastic material it was made of could still make a nasty cut. It is normally necessary to shield the face with the hands and arms or by twisting sideways and using the shoulder when going through breakaway glass. In this case, the zombie mask was an asset. I didn't need to worry about getting a cut face.
The most difficult part of this type of stunt is overcoming the basic psychological fear in all of us. You see what looks like real glass and have to remind yourself that it won't really cut you to ribbons.
At the last minute the ante was upped. Did I know I had to go through at just the right spot to get the "Open" sign hanging in the door around my neck? I did a double take. Were they serious? In one take? Luckily it was just a joke. In the magic of editing the sign is added around the neck as the zombie mum slides across the floor in the next shot.
At the final moment I took a deep breath, focused on my target (as best I could through the tiny eye holes) and sprinted as fast as possible in the shoes towards the mini tramp. I jumped on it, sprung forward, smashed the wooden framework and glass with my arms, twisted to the side and landed in a break fall as a shower of glass and wood fragments fell on me. A perfect take.
Over the next six weeks I performed several falls down stairs, crashed through other windows, fell though a roof and swung across a room on a wire cable, had a jug smashed over my head, and fought a kung-fu priest in a cemetery at midnight on Friday the 13th.
Many of the stunts on Braindead were single person ones. As I was doing double duty as stunt coordinator and stuntman, this saved the production company money. I would co-ordinate the stunt I was performing. I doubled for several different actors - mostly Tim Balme (Lionel) and Elizabeth Moody (playing Lionel's domineering mother who turns into a zombie).
For a couple of stunts involving both Lionel and his zombie mother, I recruited Tony Wolf to play the mother. He is a skilled stage combatant and martial artist and was proportionally of the right build and height to double the mother when I doubled Lionel.
In one scene Tony (in the zombie mask and the dress) grabbed me and we both crashed through a breakaway glass window on to a solid marble floor. I had to fall through backwards and land flat on my back on a solid marble floor with Tony landing on top of me. The window we were going through was very short and I had to crouch over Tony with his head tucked into my chest to fit through. We had to crash through exactly on a verbal cue from actor Stuart Devenie (playing the priest delivering a sermon at the funeral) - just as he said the word "resurrected". Oh, and there was only one set of breakaway glass (which had already started cracking) so we had one chance at it!
I relied on a judo break fall technique and a motor cross full back protector. I had to make damn sure my he had stayed up and didn't hit the marble floor, but also Tony and I had to be careful that we didn't bash our faces together as he landed on me. All went well and we finished in the correct landing position for the actors to continue from in close-up.
In another tricky stunt Tony and I tumbled together down the main staircase in the house set for a scene where Lionel's mother attacks him. Stair falls are more dangerous than they look. Each contact with a step is a point of impact on the body. it is necessary to totally pad elbows, knees, shins, shoulders, hips, etc. to avoid nasty injury. And, as with hard backward landings on marble floors, it is vital not to bang your head at any point. One hard knock to the skull could cause serious injury. Therefore the stunt double must be able to plan their fall path and duplicate it each time they rehearse or film the scene.
It is often necessary to film a stunt more than once - either to get different angles or for retakes if a problem renders the first take unusable. As an example of a wasted shot, in one scene a contemporary car drove past after slipping through the cordoned off street entrance.
We did the double stair fall twice for the camera after several rehearsals. The first time they filmed, the camera bumped a piece of set as it was moved on a track during filming. I also did a couple of single stair falls - one in my stickiest, blood soaked costume - that of Nurse McTavish.
My stickiest moment almost came when smashing through the glass panelled front doors of the house set. In a practice run through I discovered one of the door handles was at exactly the right height and position to hit me in the groin! A deft bit of carpentry removed the danger. A good example of not being able to overlook the smallest detail when doing stuntwork.
The entire two storey house set was built inside the main studios at Avalon TV. Despite laying protective cardboard on the carpet, a trail of fake blood gradually built up as it dripped from the costumes as zombie extras and actors walked back and forth between the set and the dressing rooms, lunch room, green room, and toilets. Eventually the blood soaked cardboard stained the carpet underneath and it had to be replaced!
There was a very interesting fight scene in Braindead. Actor Stuart Devenie played a kung-fu priest who fights two bodgie (like biker) zombies after he hears a disturbance in the graveyard at night. It was eerie walking up dimly moonlit pathways between grave sites to the shooting area. Made all the spookier by one of the filming nights being Friday the 13th!
The fight was staged on a wide path where we had enough room to avoid unintentionally landing on tombstones and graves when kicked or thrown through the air. Tony and I doubled the two bodgie actors (one of these was Jed Brophy who also has a role in The Lord of the Rings series). A kick boxing champion named Damon de Berry doubled for the priest.
Weeks earlier we had met at the location (during the day!) with the actors, the cameraman and Peter Jackson. Stuart (the priest) was away from Wellington at that time, so we sent him a videotape of what we worked out for the fight so he could study it. The fight was worked out by all of us, based on the story boards, and working within the limitations of the location.
On the afternoon before the first night of filming we all rehearsed the fight on the patio of Stuart's hotel room. Then I showed Stuart selected fights from Jackie Chan and Bruce Lee movies to psych him up.
The finished fight sequence is a mix of techniques. In some shots all three actors are fighting. In many close-ups, Damon's foot is kicking repeatedly near an actor's head. In others damon is kicking Tony or I, or flipping us with the impact. Stuart also got to use the Irish whip and a few other moves I taught him on Tony and I.
Eventually, after hours of rehearsal, and cold nights of filming (with the delicious consolation of hot coffee and sausage rolls), the result was a spectacular two minute fight.
One of the most unusual stunts in Braindead is when Lionel falls through the attic floor and hangs upside-down from a hole in the ceiling with electrical flex caught around his ankle. Tim Balme did much of the arduous hanging scenes himself. I did the fall and some bits were he was pulled up higher and swung across the room.
I still vividly recall the first time I was hauled up. A parachute harness was sunder my clothing and a steel cable attached to this was rigged up into the studio rafters by special effects technician Steve Ingram. This meant my body weight was evenly distributed across my shoulders and thighs rather than all from my ankle.
As I was slowly winched up, my body started to spin in lazy circles around the leg with the cable running up it. My stomach felt a little like I was on a ship at sea. looking down I noticed a crew person spreading sickly sweet-smelling fake blood over fake severed arms, legs, and heads piled on the floor just below my face.
For the next ten minutes it took all my willpower to retain my lunch (roast potatoes, meat, gravy, mixed vegetables, with fruit salad and ice cream for dessert).
It was at that moment I knew I really was working on
a
Peter Jackson movie.