I would suggest “Horror Effects” only to the most ardent hardcore Tom Savini fans, as “Horror Effects” is mostly about, well, horror effects. Truly, “Horror Effects” focuses mainly on a small portion of Savini’s creative work, as he spends most of his time recollecting working on other films that don’t involve George Romero. Is it perhaps because John Russo is the host of this special? Aw, who knows, really? But there’s a surprising lack of talk about his zombie movies in favor of stuff that Savini has done with his company and what they’ve done on the outside of the US, including a slapstick comedy involving facial prosthetics.
He also discusses the creativity of his special effects company, and how their side projects often help stir their own creativity. Savini even models a mold of his own face in to the Phantom of the Opera, and discusses how he’s fulfilled a lot of his own dreams with his career. There’s a ton of technical information as well, which makes for decent Hollywood insider information. This video is pre-internet, so watching Savini engage in stunt work, and show how he modeled a dismembered arm out of his own as a prank is pure behind the scenes gold.
Savini is generally an affable human being who takes great pride in his young daughter most of the time, putting her on display for Russo who marvels at the iconic monster that he created for “Tales from the Darkside.” There’s also a lot of behind the scenes video involving the crate monster from “Creepshow” (Savini nicknames him Fluffy) and how Romero had a good time with the creature. So much so that there was at least twenty minutes of extra footage of the monster providing expressions and going in to action.
There’s also a nice little tidbit of trivia as Savini reveals he used the Fluffy model for his Halloween episode of “Tales from the Darkside.” Aside from that, there’s a fun anecdote about how he used Fluffy to terrify a bunch of children, and his paralyzing fear of bugs that came in to play when he worked on “Creepshow.” As mentioned, “Horror Effects” is very based on the technical aspect, and displays a limited scope of what Savini has contributed. For die hard special effects buffs, this is a gem of an interview with Savini, but for folks that just want to see more zombies than anything, you might come out disappointed, and I suggest “Scream Greats” instead.