Unearthing Henkendorn's Lizard Of Death

Written By: Ken Hulsey
Sources: Undead Backbrain / Avery Guerra

Sometimes movies, like all good movie monsters, lay around in hiding, waiting for the right moment to pop-up and ravage mankind. Such is the case with Benjamin J Heckendorn's giant monster tribute, "Lizard of Death." The film isn't new, in fact it is almost a decade old, but it has just recently been discovered.

It seems that Heckendorn was a bit of trend-setter, making a retro movie way before they became all the rage. Today just about everyone is making them. Movies that emulate the drive-classics of the 50s and 60s are popping up left-and-right.

The movie actually started off as kinda a joke, the product of a night of fun and drinking. Heckendorn explains, "Like a lot of our movies, the idea for Lizard of Death started at a bar. Back in March of 2000, two friends and I were drinking, and we met the uncle of one of the friends. The uncle was somewhat infamous for driving a tank (on loan from the armory) through the downtown during a parade in the late 70's. After the uncle had left, we started joking about him driving his tank over all sorts of things, like walls of fine China and a bear, smashing it into a convenient bear-skin rug (keep in mind we were drinking:)

Someone then suggested he would fight a giant lizard with his tank. We joked about that for a bit, and then I said the inevitable words "Hey, that would be a good idea for a movie!"

Amazingly enough, when Heckendorn sobered up, the idea stuck.

Being a fan of classic sci fi and monster films helped the director change his mind about making a film set in a modern-day setting. In fact it gave him a rather unique idea for a back story.

"The basic idea was, a bankrupt movie studio made LOD in 1959, but wasn't able to complete it due to lack of funds, therefore making the film very short (and bad). We would "ghost make" this film, putting fictional actors & directors names in the credits. In theory, if someone didn't know anyone or any of the places in the film, it would look like it came from the 50's."

Indeed the film looks like it could have been made in that time period. For Heckendorn, the chance to make a retro-style monster movie was serious business, the director took the time to think about each shot, wanting to add just the right amount of humor to the film without sacrificing the nostalgia.

"As mentioned above, LOD is an emulation, not a parody, of a bad 50's horror movie. For everything "bad" in the movie we had to decide why it was bad. Did the producers not have enough money? Time? A clock on the wall is more likely to just not run/change at all, rather than change with every shot (see "Destination Mars")

The most important source of badness, however, was the writing. I was a huge Mystery Science Theatre 3000 fan back in the day, and I drew upon that as a source. Whenever I put something *questionable* in LOD, I thought "what would the robots say about this?" Often I would put sub-notes in the script to give the actors clues as to what was specifically supposed to be bad about the shot, mostly to make them laugh and help them 'pre-visualize' what we were shooting for. A few bad things snuck through on accident, naturally, such as Mayor Stone holding a bundle of dynamite while smoking a pipe.

The 2 main movies I drew badness "tone" from were "Attack of the 50 Foot Woman" (mostly FX-wise) and the supreme film of crappiness, "Robot Monster". If you haven't seen "Robot Monster", and you're a lover of bad film, SEE IT. If you don't laugh as a "robot" made of a gorilla suit with a diving helmet ambles like a drunken bear across someones backyard in California towards his bubble-spewing "calcinator ray machine" that destroyed Mankind (yet sits on a card table), then something is wrong with you."

Fans have numerous options for viewing "Lizard of Death", the film is available for download or purchase through Henkendorn's website - HERE or it can be seen in it's entirety on Google video - HERE