Ghoulnextdoor.com
(Frequently Asked Questions about Night of the Living Dead and Bosco™)
Q. What was the skull at the top of the stairs made of? I read they used tennis balls for the eyes.
A. Tennis balls!?!?! Those would make some really big,
fuzzy eyeballs! The skull and the eyes were "donated" by an extra who was
continually late to the set. He had to be punished. *wink*
The thing I never understood was why the ghouls ate her face but not her body. Silly ghouls.
Q. What were you really stabbing into in the scene where you killed your mother?
A. I was really stabbing a pillow. Marilyn
Eastman was nowhere near me at the time.
Q. Do you own the trowel that you used to kill your mother?
A. No, a friend of mine owns it and he has promised
me that he will NEVER SELL IT. Ya hear that, Dave? NEVER! Not even to Dennis!
(Sorry, Dennis- nothing personal.) If you're so inclined, you can click
here to see the trowel. And Dave.
Q. Why is the trowel bent?
A. The trowel was bent so it could be placed inside Marilyn's dress and appear as though it was sticking out of her chest.
Q. Do you have any of the props from the movie?
A. Well, I don't own the trowel; that has already been established, much to my dismay, and some other friends of mine own the bandage I wore on my arm. I do still own the music box which provided the sound for the music box shown in the film.
The beautiful, old Zenith radio around which the farmhouse refugees huddled is a family heirloom, purchased by my grandparents in the 1930s, and was in my dad's possession until his death. I don't know what has since become of it. He owned many of the other props used for the film, including the telephone, the coat tree, the tire iron Duane used to puncture John Russo's forehead, and one or more of the clocks used in the TV station segments.
Some time after my dad's death, there was an auction on eBay for an item being touted as "the telephone" from Night of the Living Dead. The seller had evidently picked it up at an auction of my dad's belongings -- an auction I'd been unaware of, but that's another story. I bid on the phone, but had to let it go because it went too high. But, the Universe works in mysterious ways. A friend sent me frame captures from the film, and when I carefully compared them with the auction photos, I discovered that it was not the same phone after all. I'm happy I dodged that several-hundred-dollar bullet, but the "winner" wasn't so lucky.
My dad had an unfortunate tendency to "memorialize" or "authenticate" many of the props he owned by engraving them or affixing permanent plaques to them. I was told by a friend, himself a serious prop collector, that in doing so my dad greatly diminished the value of those objects. Someone probably should have taken away his engraving pen.
Q. Did your parents ever worry that the film may have negative effects on you?
A. No, they knew that I understood the difference
between fantasy and reality. I saw everyone being made up and I knew that
they were just actors. I'd been watching horror movies since the day I was
born, anyway. I think my mother took some flack for it, though, and on a
couple of occasions she had to defend her decision to allow me to be in it. She told me about it years later. Read more FAQs.
Death a way of life
Half eaten corpses rising
Devouring mankind.
~Mike Stinski