You are now listening to post-mortem with Mick Harris, where the most influential

voices in horror cinema will spill their guts, literally literally to the renowned horror director, writer and producer.

Now here's your host, Mick Garris.

I first met William Malone, okay I can't really call him anything other than Bill, way back in 1977.

I was answering phones for George Lucas's Star Wars Incorporated at a scruffy little former doctor's office a few blocks away from

Universal Studios. Yeah I was answering phones for the production company and

operating the R2D2 robot at personal appearances including the Oscars that

year. Bill was working at the Don Post Studios and created the licensed Star Wars Storm

Trooper and Darth Vader masks that became outrageously popular.

He was also a fledgling filmmaker at the time. I met Tom McLaughlin in about

1981 or 82, right around the time he made his first feature one dark night, and I was doing

publicity at Universal for their genre movies like The Thing and Halloween too.

Tommy had been an actor and a mime for years and his father had been a carney.

You can see him breathing fire in the classic freak show movie from the 40s Nightmare Alley.

I've been friends with Bill and Tommy for years now and we have so much in common.

We were all in bands and actually Tom's band, The Sloths, reformed several years ago and are more popular than ever.

We were all horror fans from childhood and we all had the same popular culture touchstones in our lives.

I never expected to be so lucky for us also to work on

so many of the same projects together and apart. Tom and I created a series called

She Wolf of London together and co-wrote an amazing story script for Bob Zamechus.

We all directed episodes of Freddie's nightmares.

Bill and I did tales from the crypt, and when I was producing a short-lived series for Stephen

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