Nova CarltonCINEMAS

You may not know the name Steve Johnson, but if you grew up watching horror movies in the ’80s and ’90s, you sure as hell know his monsters. Videodrome, Ghostbusters, Fright Night, Big Trouble in Little China, Night of the Demons, A Nightmare on Elm Street 4, The Abyss, Species - Johnson spent the golden age of practical effects creating some of the coolest monsters ever committed to celluloid, while working alongside the likes of Rick Baker, John Landis, James Cameron and countless other Hollywood heavyweights. But making monsters was only half the story. Nick Taylor’s RUBBERHEAD: THE LIFE AND MONSTERS OF STEVE JOHNSON charts the spectacular rise, fall and survival of one of Hollywood’s great practical-effects madmen: groundbreaking creatures, impossible deadlines, mountains of cocaine, a marriage to scream queen Linnea Quigley and enough self-sabotage to make you wonder how he found the time to actually make any movies. Funny, candid and surprisingly moving, RUBBERHEAD: The Life and Monsters of Steve Johnson is both a celebration of the glory days of practical effects and the portrait of an extraordinarily talented man who discovered that sometimes the hardest monster to wrangle is yourself.