ART
through the old lady stuff. Then I’d set closest I could get to slow motion. the Barbie dolls, and I’d find them, like
up the camera in another room and my One of my first films was called Water “Oh!” [shocked gasp], a doll here, a doll



Fluxion
mother would film me as the madman Balloon. It was a disaster film about a there, and there were no heads. Finally
with the acid bottle in his hand, ready to water balloon that destroys a town. I let we found all the heads in a little row.
throw it at somebody. Then I’d go back the camera run with a balloon attached Not in a duffel bag! Yes, that was an

issue
into the first room and we’d film the old to a hose, which filled it up slowly. It was early Barbie-doll movie. Barbie slasher
4
lady. Then I’d slip a note under the door: sitting next to a miniature town of trains movie, actually. Decapitation taboo? No
“I’m gonna get you!” It was the only way and houses. It was kind of a gyp, though, problem. There were no taboos. I think if
I knew to tell a story. because the water balloon got bigger and you de-capped Barbie now there would
bigger and bigger, but the film ran at only be a real hue and cry.
You were re-creating in the camera what 18 frames a second and the actual frame
you had seen on the screen. where the balloon burst, the shutter was So this was your early phase, around 11
On TV, yeah. Close-ups and reaction down. The balloon just vanishes. It wasn’t or so, and then did you keep on, or was
shots and things like that. Because I had quite like the effects I’d seen in movies. there a hiatus?
watched television all my life, since it was I did a Godzilla film where my hand was Yes, there was a hiatus as my grades be-
invented—Twilight Zone, Jackie Glea- in the frame all the time, moving Godzilla gan to plummet during junior high. I just
son, Jack Benny. I was really impressed around. Later on, when I got a camera wasn’t focused on school whatsoever. I
by the early Twilight Zones. To a kid of that could actually do single-frame guess it was grades 8, 7, 9. As a matter
11, 12, they were phenomenal. stuff, I began truly animating things. I of fact I repeated the eighth grade.
Bill Holslag’s first film made in Los Angeles, The Barking Dog, featured Linda Cardoso as a murderous
suburban housewife (seen on the title page). The film had a supernatural component that was amplified in two
films that followed it, Suburban Voodoo and Suburban Voodoo II, giving play to Bill’s penchant for cheap but
ingenious special effects, as seen on these pages.
Were you watching movies on TV also? had a jointed wooden art doll that you Actually, that was an advantage because
They didn’t have movies on TV back could put in any position, and I glued all after that happened I was ahead of the
then. They had King Kong. In New York this foam rubber to it to make it really gang for the rest of my life. For the rest
they had the Million Dollar Movie. Chan- hideous. I’ve always liked the manipula- of my school life, anyway.
nel 9 would run the same film at 3:30 in tion-of-time-and-space part of making In high school I started making movies
the afternoon and 7:30 in the evening, films, condensing things or making them again. I became involved in these orga-
so it would get ten airings. You could happen at a different rate. nizations. Somehow I got dragged into
watch King Kong ten times. Which I did. the goddamn pep rally club, and I started
Didn’t you also do one of the earliest making little films for the pep rallies.
What else did you do with your Barbie-doll films? I’d do films about the opposing team.
Brownie? Yeah, my sister almost killed me. She If their name was the Cougars, we’d
I was fascinated by special effects. I had this Barbie-doll collection, and I get a fake cat and smash the cat, kick it
would make three rocks appear and then forget the circumstances, I guess there around, run it over with a car. I’d show a
disappear, one at a time, bing bing bing. was a Barbie-doll murderer going mock football game with us winning. All
Or I would set up the camera on a tripod around the back yard. All these films in about three minutes.
and hit the little on-off button real fast, took place around the house. That was
which produced an effect that was the my world. This murderer would behead And those got shown, obviously.
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