The Chiller Theater in New Jersey is doing a charity auction May 2nd - 4th, 2008, and I’ll be contributing 2 pieces from my collection a warcraft mask and a skeleton. The skeleton was used in ad campaign of Fox’s Bones. Fox’s Bones and World of Warcraft are in no way affiliated with this auction. These items are my personal property that has been used by their productions. Other items up for auction can be seen here. Stills from the ad showing the skeleton and the actors together can be seen in the below links

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I’ll also be contributing a World of Warcraft Ork Mask and the mold for making more latex Ork masks. See the finished Ork mask here .

The charity is a benefit for horror host and novelty horror music legend John Zacherley, the cool ghoul. The fund raiser is a surprise, so if you know Zach, don’t tell him!

Zach is the last of the great original horror hosts, 90 years old and still as sharp as a stake through the heart. He fell ill around Christmas and while he’s out of the hospital now, this auction is to raise the cash for his hospital bills. Along with other hosts like Vampira who passed earlier in the year, Zach helped create the campy mix of ghastly puns and ghoulish gore that is often imitated, never equaled to this day. While the honors for Vampira came mostly post-humous, this is a chance to honor a legend of the undead while he’s still alive.

As well as a character actor and horror host, Zacherley produced an unrivaled assortment of novelty horror records in the 50’s and 60’s. Often backed by the rockabilly surf style of the Dick Clark Five, or spooky organs, Zacherley’s horror limerick songs are one of the founding forces of todays Psychobilly genre Give a Listen to some selections here, and then go ahead and buy the album here. We’re trying to get the dude paid after all.

Zacherley’s music and television persona has been a huge influence on all of us here at Dapper Cadaver where his music can regularly be heard in our in store mix. We’re thrilled and honored to be able to help him out however we can. We hope whether you love Zacherley, Bones, Warcraft, or other horror swag you’ll be able to make a bid and help this delightful old ghoul out.

We just got back from the Halloween Costume, Haunted Attraction, and Party show in Las Vegas. Eileen and I had a great time and even made the paper.

From the Las Vegas Review Journal

The four-day convention includes more than 700 exhibitors and is expected to attract about 10,000 attendees from 47 countries.

In 24 years it has grown from a small event in Chicago with about 20 vendors to today’s incarnation, a multiday costume, prop and gore extravaganza for an industry worth about $7 billion.

“Something like 20 percent of people in the U.S. will attend a haunted house,” said Joe Thaler, chairman and CEO of TransWorld Exhibits, the company that runs the Halloween show. “It can be very valuable.”

Mutilated bodies, full-length Sasquatch and Yeti suits, trampy nurse and superhero outfits are among the highlights of the Las Vegas event. There’s plenty at the show to shock even the most hardened sensibilities.

The firm Dapper Cadaver of Los Angeles showed off a line of vintage medical instruments, mutilated and vandalized corpses and a collection of faux human and animal fetuses stored in jars.

Dapper Cadaver owner-artist BJ Winslow said he’s been fascinated by macabre preservation techniques since childhood.

“Even when I was a little kid and I had a toy I was no longer interested in I would stick it in a jar, fill it with fluid and put it on a shelf,” Winslow said. “My mom still has some of them.”

About a year ago I sold blood and police caution tape to the prop master for what was then called “the latest Coen brothers film”
It’s great to see they really put the blood to good use!
This is an awesome movie. Part Western, part horror, part indie.
The villain is such a bad ass.

My penis has really gotten around. Traci Lords, Kenneth Anger, and Margaret Cho have all had their hands on it. It was for Margaret that I originally created it, and here’s her review, from Alarm Press

“I went to a special effects specialist, who is a friend of my husband and made a very light yet very realistic flaccid latex penis. It was very hard to find a dildo that was like a flaccid penis!

I needed one that would fit into panties and still look like something when I stripped them off, so it had to be collapsible, and it is — fully collapsible and will stick onto my crotch with double stick tape!

The choreography is simple, just a classic fan dance really, but with a big surprise ending. The audience really doesn’t know what to do. At first I try to seduce them, being very feminine and coy with myself, a very shy, teasing kind of dance. But then at the end, when I reveal I have this very real looking and startlingly plain penis, people really freak out.

I almost cried the first few times that I performed it because the audience reacted so strongly — screaming! People were literally screaming. I love that. So that is my most exciting number right now.”

Screaming for my penis, that’s what I like to see in print.
When asked by Lawrence.com about size, Margaret had this to say
“Q: Why didn’t you borrow Mark Wahlberg’s from “Boogie Nights”?

A: That’s too big. Mine is big, but it’s not big like that.”

Thank you Margaret.

What kind of people have hired things from you?

You’d be surprised. There are obvious ones like horror movies,
crime shows and medical dramas — we’ve worked every Law & OrderOrder, Bones and CSI there is — but then we’ve done stuff for Mad TV, Mind of Mencia, Pimp My Ride, Margaret Cho, and a bunch of
shows you’d never expect to need body parts and gore.

What’s your best-selling item on Dapper Cadaver?

5-month-old and 7-month-old foetus replicas in jars.
People can’t get enough of them. I think it’s something like the pet
chihuahua or baby crocodile syndrome, where people want them
when they’re small, because they’re so cute at that size, but don’t
want them to ever get bigger. Our foetus replicas are great for that,
and we make them so you don’t have to.

How do you avoid getting upset when you have to create realistic corpses?

Actually it’s the other way around. When I’m feeling upset
nothing makes me feel better than creating a corpse.

What’s been the most exciting moment in your career so far?

It’s hard to decide between the time that the SWAT team
evacuated my neighbourhood because of what someone saw going
on at my house, or the time we were filming a lioness tearing up
a guy and she got so excited she broke through the electrified
perimeter fence and ran loose in the Chatsworth hills
with half a body dangling from her mouth. Rangers
and marshals had to chase after her on horseback.

What’s the hardest thing about your job?

When something very specific is needed TODAY and really it’s
a custom job. I once got a call from Jim Henson Studios for
“Muppet-sized bondage equipment” for Witch-Piggy’s dungeon in
“The Wizard of Oz.” The scene was later cut from the film for being
too extreme. They were hoping they didn’t need to get it custom
made. They were just hoping I had Muppet-sized bondage equipment
in stock. I don’t know why they thought I would.

Who or what has most inspired you in your work?

Ray Harryhausen’s swordfighting skeletons from Jason and the
Argonauts were the coolest thing I ever saw as a kid. I wanted to
know how it was done, how it was made, so I started watching special FX shows and behind-the-scenes stuff. I stopped watching those once movies started doing everything on computer. I just don’t get excited by CG, so I do things the old-fashioned way.

BJ Winslow’s store, Dapper Cadaver, is located at 5519 Hollywood
BL, Los Angeles, CA 90028. (323) 962-1924. Log onto
www.bjwinslow.com and www.dappercadaver.com.

Some Things Are Better Left Undead
HORROR PROP ARTIST BJ WINSLOW DRIVES A HEARSE.
PRODUCTS ON HIS WEBSITE INCLUDE “DEAD HALFGIRL”,
“BABY ARMS” AND ”REUSABLE CASUALTY SIMULATION KIT”.
THERE’S NOTHING WRONG WITH HIM

How did you first get involved with this line of work?
Before I did film props I was designing toys, building carnival
games, and working in haunted houses. Ever since I was a little kid I
would hack up my toys, then glue them back together as mutants. I
was that evil evil kid in “Toy Story.” When I moved to LA I was
banging down the doors of prop houses until someone took a shot
on me. My job audition was practically a contest. Starting at 8pm I
was given 12 hours to produce a prop headstone that would impress
the set decorator at Disney. I was provided with styrofoam,
paint and glue, but no tools, so I spent the next 6 hours carving that
headstone with my fingernails. I painted it that night with a brush in
one hand and a hair dryer in the other. I finished at 6am and went
straight to my day job. At 9am I was hired.

Does anything you make give you the creeps?
It’s my business not to get creeped out by this stuff. Everyone
who comes in to my shop is weird, every custom job is strange. At
Dapper Cadaver it’s a constant barrage of odd calls. Pick up the
phone and before you can say “hello” you hear “This is going to
sound like an odd request…” Odd requests are our specialty. I’ve
made a life-like prosthetic penis for Margaret Cho, a realistic severed
pig head puppet that talks, cries and vomits blood for a
coming-of-age film, and the unfortunate “morning after” body for a
man-loves-werewolf show called “The Mating Dance of the Werewolf,” to name a few of my odd favourites. I had a roofer who
wouldn’t work on my shop because, quote, it would give him nightmares, end quote. But I’m at the other extreme. Someone says they need something that looks like someone who had their head blown off with a shotgun and dumped in the bay, then they washed up
after the body was waxy and bloated, and I say “sounds like fun”.

What kind of people have hired things from you?
You’d be surprised. There are obvious ones like horror movies,
crime shows and medical dramas — we’ve worked every Law & Order… (continued in Part 2)

Fear Net just launched it’s new series - “America’s Scariest Home Haunts,” and of course Dapper Cadaver is included. Scream Queen Danielle Harris from the Halloween series came right to Dapper Cadaver for all their hosting segments, and be sure to look for our props in the segways.
Dapper Cadaver owner and lead artist BJ Winslow will also be interviewed in later episodes! Look for it!
Here’s the video
America’s Scariest Home Haunts

I’ve got a new assistant in my shop, old friend and awesome movie expert Matt Babb. He doesn’t seem to freaked out that satan is watching him type.