Back in 2006, Fangoria stepped onto the London set of The Deaths of Ian Stone for a day to witness the making of a truly relentless nightmare by Stan Winston Productions, Odyssey Entertainment, and Isle of Man Film Commission.
The crew was warned to cover their ears just before director Dario Piana shouted "Action!" across the eerily empty office building, quickly disappearing under a black sheet. In the next instant, a pitch-black creature picked up her helpless victim and effortlessly threw him through a series of plate-glass cubicle dividers. Her evil face, contorted and shrouded in a mane of raven hair tousled by demonic winds, delivered a pivotal line of dialogue. This was Medea—a manipulative shadow goddess and Harvester who, along with her nightmare tribe, served as the ultimate nemesis to the film's tragic hero.
To celebrate The Deaths of Ian Stone ahead of its 20th anniversary—following its premiere at the After Dark Horrorfest (8 Films to Die For)—we're looking back at its making through Alan Jones' original coverage in Fangoria #271.
Jump To Section
- How Many Deaths of Ian Stone Are There?
- Preparing the Project for Location and Filming
- Dario Piana Directs The Death of Ian Stone
- Jaime Murray’s Transformation Into Medea
- The Design Behind the Harvesters
- Performing With and Without FX Suits
- Finding the Emotion Behind the Horror
How Many Deaths of Ian Stone Are There?
A lot. On numerous days at the same time, clocks stop, and something terrible kills all-American jock Ian Stone (Cloverfield's Mike Vogel) in nasty ways. The only catch is, he won't stay dead. Ian continually wakes up in a new life and a new place, with familiar faces appearing in differing roles, to find the death cycle endlessly repeating. Someone must know what's happening. But will Ian find out before his fiendish pursuers succeed in offing him for the last time?
(The Deaths of Ian Stone poster from 2007's 8 Films to Die For - After Dark Horrorfest. Image courtesy of Odyssey Entertainment, Isle of Man Film Commission, Stan Winston Productions.)
Lensing during summer 2006 on location in London and the Isle of Man, Dario Piana and the Deaths of Ian Stone team are utilizing the disused Safeway building to stand in for the faceless workplace Ian wakes up in after being mowed down by a speeding train. "I'm in my businessman persona today," laughs Vogel, the sole American in the cast, as he steps away from the expertly choreographed carnage. "This is a dream job, as I play everything from a hockey player and a cab driver to a heroin addict and then something else I really can't talk about. I couldn't wait to sink my teeth into the roles. One moment I was here for the premiere of Poseidon [in which he played Christian, boyfriend of Kurt Russell's daughter], wishing I could work in England; the next I'd been offered the Ian part and was back in London fulfilling that fantasy."
(Work-in-progress Harvester head sculpt from The Deaths of Ian Stone.)
(The Deaths of Ian Stone's T2-style blade-arm.)
"I thought I'd done my horror movie with the Texas Chainsaw Massacre remake," he continues. "It did well, and I had no desire to repeat myself. But when I read The Deaths of Ian Stone script [by Brendan Hood], I saw it in Jacob's Ladder terms. I'm a huge fan of that Adrian Lyne movie and liked the similar tone here-what's real, what isn't, which life is Ian's reality, if any. For the first few of Ian's lives, the audience will be puzzled over what's going on. It's my job to make those lives as abstract as possible, so they don't put two and two together too quickly. Stan Winston is a legend in the horror world, so you take a project more seriously when you see his name attached."
(Mike Vogel as Ian Stone fighting with Jaime Murray as Medea on the set of The Deaths of Ian Stone. Photo by Nick Wall. Image courtesy of Odyssey Entertainment, Isle of Man Film Commission, Stan Winston Productions.)
Preparing the Project for Location and Filming
The Deaths of Ian Stone is a Stan Winston Production, with Stan Winston Studio providing the creature FX and Stan Winston Digital handling the CGI finessing. Producer Brian J. Gilbert explains, "My part of the Winston company was set up to specifically put together packages that would incorporate the type of physical effects the studio has been famous for [Aliens, Jurassic Park, etc.] and what the digital side is becoming known for [Fantastic 4 et al.]. The economic sense behind it all was to create synergy between each division so we could generate our own material, with all three departments working hand in hand. Eight Below was the first example of that."
(Prepping industrial mixers for foam latex to make prosthetics for The Deaths of Ian Stone.)
(Work-in-progress fiberglass molding one of the Harvesters from The Deaths of Ian Stone.)
Gilbert, who previously served as a producer on Wrong Turn and Skinwalkers, describes this new project's genesis: "The spec script came to us four years ago from writer Brendan Hood just after his They had been produced, and we developed it with him. Brendan's imagination was bigger than the financing we could access to transfer his vision to film, so we had to bring the scope down a little to a comfortable budgetary level. Odyssey Entertainment [whose credits include the Phantom of the Opera musical feature] was very responsive and helped us secure tax credits offered by the British government and a strong partnership with Isle of Man Film. The latter offered us great opportunities, as part of our story takes place in a creepy hospital, and they had a disused one perfect for our needs. Overall, it was a fantastic deal."
(Joey Orosco sculpts one of the Harvesters for The Death of Ian Stone.)
(Richie Alonso works on the head sculpt of Michael Dixon's Harvester character.)
Gilbert landed his director early on as well. "Dario's agent is a good friend and had been telling me what an amazing commercials director he was," the producer notes. "By coincidence, Dario had contacted Stan Winston Studio about doing the creature effects for Werewolf, an ill-fated Fox 2000 project that had been earmarked for his feature debut. While we were discussing that, he read The Deaths of Ian Stone script and responded positively to its tricky parallel lives construction. When Werewolf ground to a halt again, he happily came on board."
(Work-in-progress of a life-size Harvester body sculpture for The Deaths of Ian Stone.)
Dario Piana Directs The Death of Ian Stone
One of the world's most successful and award-winning helmers of TV advertising, the Milan-born Dario Piana, had been offered major studio blockbusters in the past. "But I wanted to enter the filmmaking arena proper with a genre title, because I love horror so much," he says. "I started my career as a comic-book illustrator [The Deaths of Ian Stone was meticulously storyboarded in its entirety before shooting began], and the script's fantasy elements intrigued me because the monster mythology is brand new. The creatures pursuing Ian are not just hideous demons from the dark; they are a tribe with their own behavior and style. They are Hannibal Lecters in monstrous camouflage, putting Ian in weird situations every day for maximum suspense on his and the audience's part. I see it as my Hitchcockian horror movie."
(Hiroshi Katagiri sculpts one of the Harvesters' hands for The Deaths of Ian Stone.)
(A pair of Harvester arms from The Deaths of Ian Stone, ready for painting.)
"I was also attracted to the script because it was 90 percent based on character and mood," Piana continues. "And it was a fairy tale in creepy disguise. It's about this gang of intelligent, powerful, and primal creatures addicted to the drug of fear and how terrified of going cold turkey they are-until they find a substitute. I want to make it crystal clear that I'm not making a 90-minute commercial. I've had a long career because of my ability to be as cinematic as possible without following trends like smoky shafts of light. The only real trick I'm using is simplicity, because the story is so strong anyway."
(Wig on a Harvester head sculpt for The Deaths of Ian Stone.)
So strong that neither Gilbert nor Piana felt that big star names were a necessity. "The cast was chosen because they were right for their roles," Piana says. "There was no other consideration." Gilbert agrees: "We wanted an ensemble who could act with the utmost believability, because it was going to be stylistic fun and unlike anything else seen before." Alongside Mike Vogel and Jaime Murray, The Deaths of Ian Stone also features Christina Cole, Michael Feast, Andrew Buchan, Michael Dixon, Marnix van den Broeke and Jeff Peterson.
(A Harvester's head after molding for use in The Deaths of Ian Stone.)
Jaime Murray’s Transformation Into Medea
Murray's Medea is one of the showiest parts in the picture, and the actress giggles, "I woke up the morning of my audition wondering what a really evil person would wear in her human disguise. So I went for the black leggings, black T-shirt, heavy belt, and big boots rock-chick look. My actual costume turned out not to be too far from that, so I got it right!"
(Medea's head sculpt as a work-in-progress for The Deaths of Ian Stone.)
(Details: Medea's head sculpt for The Deaths of Ian Stone.)
Once she was enlisted for her venom-tipped elegance, Piana gave Murray a list of films to watch as reference. "I'm not a horror aficionado," she admits. "But I watched Jacob's Ladder, The Jacket, and Underworld to get what Dario was after, as they are in a similar realm. Underworld was more about seeing how Kate Beckinsale moved as a supernatural being. I took that on board and also how charming Anthony Hopkins was in The Silence of the Lambs. Those were my main guides."
(John Rosengrant, Shane Mahan and Chris Swift sculpt Medea and one of the Harvesters' bodies for The Deaths of Ian Stone.)
(Lindsay MacGowan regards Medea's life-size sculpture as a work-in-progress for The Deaths of Ian Stone.)
Medea's Harvester getup was the main reason Murray wanted to take part in the movie. "I could lose myself in the suit and prosthetics," she says. "The four-hour makeup allowed me to gain power and evil, especially with the helmet headpiece and flowing hair. There was no way I wanted a stunt double to have all the fun. No question, the process is a demanding mind-over-matter experience. At first I went through schizoid feelings, from 'Eek, I'm hot, I can't breathe, I want to go to the toilet' to 'Relax, it's not forever, it's a new experience, you look amazing. You either drag your feet or embrace it, and having Winston veterans Lindsay MacGowan and Shane Mahan in charge is one of the reasons I ended up enjoying the job so much."
(Jaime Murray in Medea prosthetics and suit getting a quick makeup touch-up on set of The Deaths of Ian Stone. Photo by Nick Wall. Image courtesy of Odyssey Entertainment, Isle of Man Film Commission, Stan Winston Productions.)
The Design Behind the Harvesters
"The Harvesters have a lot of Winston family traits," laughs Shane Mahan, who, with Lindsay MacGowan, started their design concepts while finishing off Zathura. "You can see everything from Pumpkinhead to the Predator in them somewhere, but Dario had a huge influence on their final look. He wanted shadowy creatures, so that the ambient lighting of cinematographer Stefano Morcaldo could make them work in both darkness and daylight.
(Testing one of the Harvesters' suits without wig for The Deaths of Ian Stone.)
The overall feeling Dario wanted to evoke was the classic image of death. The Harvesters have been around since the beginning of time, and Dario felt their profile and their T2-style blade-arm appendages should echo the Grim Reaper holding his scythe. That gives the Harvesters a believable mythological lineage, and the scythe impacted their flip-out switchblade bone design."
(John Cherevka and Trevor Hensley work on some Harvester blade arms for The Deaths of Ian Stone.)
(Molding one of the Harvester blade arms for The Deaths of Ian Stone.)
(Joey Orosco paints the Harvester blade arms for The Deaths of Ian Stone.)
(The ready-to-use Harvester blade arms for The Deaths of Ian Stone.)
"The long hair was Dario's idea too," Mahan continues. "Originally, it was a digital smoke effect that wafted around Medea's head. Everywhere she went, there would be this hovering drift of smoke. It looked cool in test footage but was clearly going to be very costly. The digital budget had to be cut to make financial sense, and this was one of the casualties, until Dario suggested windblown long black hair. It was a simple solution, but the best one, and it adds a lot of supernatural life to the scenes. The Deaths of Ian Stone is not a remake, a homage, or a '70s throwback; it's a modern horror/thriller mystery, and Dario's unique design elements ramp that up."
(Tests for a Harvester suit to be used in The Deaths of Ian Stone.)
(The Harvester suit and Medea suit for The Deaths of Ian Stone.)
Performing With and Without FX Suits
Playing the Head Harvester is Marnix van den Broeke. "Medea is our queen," explains the 6-foot-7-inch Dutch actor, who portrayed the werewolf in Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. "I'm the head of her troops disguised among the main cast ranks, and who cannot be revealed. I have to feed myself with fear, or else I cannot exist. The irony being that I'm scared of not getting my fear fix, which drives me to kill Ian, thereby preventing him from knowing his true secret. There's a neat CGI visual being added when we touch our victims: a spiderweb effect appears on our skin as we fear-feed. I'm a trained dancer, so Dario cast me because I could bend my shape and movements to suggest a sinewy sensitivity. Jeff [Peterson], who plays my second-in-command, is a martial artist and stunt coordinator, so his approach is entirely different. Neither Harvester has any dialogue, making us a good body-language contrast; I'm the silent type, he's the fit, strong fighter."
(John Cherevka works on a Harvester suit for The Deaths of Ian Stone.)
(Ready-for-testing Harvester suits for The Deaths of Ian Stone.)
Van den Broeke is black-muscle-suited up, as he's involved in a major sequence chasing Ian during Fangoria's set visit. The scene ends up in a hospital records room, where he nearly kills nurse Jenny by mistake. Casino Royale Bond girl Christina Cole plays Jenny, and explains, "There are six different versions of her, and each is degraded by the experiences Ian goes through. At first, we see her as the perfect partner Ian wants to be with forever. Increasingly removed from her girlfriend status, she becomes an office associate, a nurse, and a waitress - my favorite - because this life-changing persona takes her character on the huge arc of knowing what's exactly going on."
(Christina Cole as Jenny and Jaime Murray as Medea in The Deaths of Ian Stone. Photo by Nick Wall. Image courtesy of Odyssey Entertainment, Isle of Man Film Commission, Stan Winston Productions.)
Cole doesn't have any prosthetics to wear, which she is very pleased about. "I watch Jaime getting made up for hours without any envious feelings at all," she says. "I still get the excitement without that boring lead-up. I've been jumping out of windows and other action work set on a subway train. So, I'm happy being involved on the stunt side of things without having to go through the prosthetic pain. And Mike Vogel is just a dream to work with. We are both very immature and have a great love of toilet humor, so on numerous levels we've got on famously."
Finding the Emotion Behind the Horror
"To work well, horror must have a great idea behind it and terrific actors to punch it across," Vogel chimes in. "The underlying story in The Deaths of Ian Stone is one of redemption. It's the age-old story that has been told a million times before, yet given a different spin. It isn't Jacob's Ladder, Groundhog Day, or The Butterfly Effect, but there are vague similarities to each of those in our devious idea with an ultimately moving message. We couldn't be less about gross-out horror camp if we tried. And what makes it uniquely tick further is having a European director take the reins for an even stranger atmosphere."
(Jaime Murray as Medea fighting Mike Vogel as Ian Stone in The Deaths of Ian Stone. Photo by Nick Wall. Image courtesy of Odyssey Entertainment, Isle of Man Film Commission, Stan Winston Productions.)
"There is a gore element in the picture, because the story lends itself to it and the hardcore audience begs for it," says Piana, who swears he will tackle either the elusive Werewolf or the futuristic chiller Snakeskin next. "But it was never my intention to make a splatter movie for the sake of it, despite the dismemberment and assorted bloody moments. The emotion, the suspense, and the weirdness are all being conjured up by the starkly terrifying reality of the odd situations, not the special effects. I promise you the jolts are there, but it frightens me too much when I think about expectations. I'm doing the subject my way, the only way I believe it should be done, for the most horrifying impact.
- Blog excerpted from Fangoria #271: A Day in The Deaths of Ian Stone by Alan Jones
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Courses with the creators of The Deaths of Ian Stone (2007):
- Special Effects Sequence Design with Shane Mahan
- Hybrid Characters: Blending Practical & Digital FX with John Rosengrant
- Hybrid Character Design: Practical to Digital with Chris Swift
- Making Creature Eyes with John Cherevka
- Advanced Creature Teeth: Prosthetic Dental Appliances - Part 1 with John Cherevka
- Maquette Painting Techniques with Trevor Hensley
- Character Hairwork: Hair Laying for Prosthetic Makeup with Aimee Macabeo
- Hairy Creatures Series - Introduction to Hair Knotting with Michael Ornelaz
- Preview How To Make A Fat Suit with Dawn Dininger
- Creature Costume Basics with Amy Whetsel & Dawn Dininger