 Thanks for checking out this movie review. This is for the 2015 documentary film Smoke and Mirrors the story of Tom Savini and this apparently is the first time that there's been a documentary on Tom Savini who when you think about it, it's kind of crazy It's taken this long because of how important this one individual has been to the horror community and horror film the horror industry I mean, let's go over it director actor stuntman Special effects obviously the last thing is what he's most known for and really pushed the envelope and have gotten us to the point That we are today pretty much without him I don't know if someone may have stepped up and kind of filled a little bit of that place but he was the guy pretty much along with some others like Rob Boteen and and Sorry, Greg Nick Taro and a few other ones, but anyway, let's get into this individual film This when I was watching and I got as a screener copy from shutter So thank you shutter for allowing me to have this ahead of time. It is hitting shutter Monday December 16th, which when I'm dropping this video is in two days. I would recommend people check it out This is a no, I mean, it's a no spoilers review, but I'm gonna say a few small things about Tom Savini himself in his life. So that's a little spoilery, but for the most part, there's tons to the documentary I'm not spoiling the whole movie Watch it, especially if you're a Tom Savini fan But actually even if you're not if you're just a horror genre fan in general You should watch it because he's so important to the horror genre that You know, you should you should know what impact he's had and it's it's an interesting story So it was directed by Jason Baker who's actually worked in special effects before So good on him. He hasn't directed a whole lot and actually Unfortunately, I think it kind of comes through a little bit in this actual film There are a bunch of kind of technical issues with the film But once you get moving with it You you start to not really realize it because you get so wrapped up in the actual story of it The other thing to keep in mind is this is a very low-budget film So keep that in mind It is important to keep things like that in mind when you're watching the films You can't expect everything to be Hollywood budget quality I mean if this was a documentary that had like a hundred thousand dollar budget or more you could expect a lot more from it now I don't know what the total budget was for it But I do know that he got $1,638 on Kickstarter through a campaign for it. I think it was backed by like 54 people or something like that And he was only asking for a thousand dollars to make this documentary So it is very low-budget so keep that in mind when you watch it that does come through But you know, it's not really what this documentary is about It's not about you know making things look super cool and all about the directing of it everything It's about the content and it's about Savini himself and he is interviewed in this at length and that's what Makes this documentary worth it It's all about Tom Savini telling his stories directly from his mouth and that's what you know has so much power here My favorite big names in this there are a bunch of big names in this who show up my favorites Doug Bradley shows up in it Greg Nicotero George a Romero Tony Todd and Sid Hagg. Those are my favorites. There are other ones that I like But I just I didn't want to name all of them. I just wanted to name some of my faves. So there they are There's kind of like this weird Set up in the beginning where they're kind of like this is a warning this is all about Tom Savini's life and buh-uh and It's staged it's scripted and it feels like it doesn't go with the film And it feels like it's just a very weird way to start everything and I don't think it works. It's too over the top. It's too Normal filmy, you know, they're trying to be too theatrical with it and this is not theatrical It's a documentary like they're they're very different things. So I don't think that was a good choice to open it like that It doesn't fit and it feels odd I like the start where they're actually just they're kind of going through Showing pieces of real from films that Savini's been on Ben in and sets these been on so it kind of shows him doing everything It shows him, you know doing some acting some stuntman stuff is putting a special effects together Things like that. I like that and it's kind of a montage of that now The music is over the top and that's one of the things in general for this film Is it the music isn't the greatest it is very kind of cheesy corny cheapy Over-the-top music a lot of the time but at some point you just kind of aren't even really hearing it so much And you kind of get over that One of the things I really liked in this is that Savini called theaters houses of magic Which I've never heard anyone say that and you know It's not like anything earth-shattering but when he said that I was just like oh, that's I really think it's cool that he kind of puts it that way and for me personally like I kind of feel that way For me going to the theater is a way to step out of reality and to Hold yourself captive to escape reality and watch an entire story because you can watch movies at home But it's not the same because there are always things there to distract you You know someone needs your attention you get a phone call There are always you know things that need to be done around the house So you're thinking about that and you're like oh i'm watching this film But I should go do some laundry or I need to clean up this or you know make dinner Whatever when you go to the theater you're captive you can't go anywhere else You can't do anything else you can't answer your phone or text on it Well, I mean you can but you definitely should not people hate you for that including me I really hate you for that if you do it in the theater So it's just more of an actual experience. It is magic in a sense. So I like that He said that It's always cool to get the story of how someone like Savini was influenced throughout his life And like I said like that's the strength of this documentary is that they got Savini They got him to sit down and and be interviewed and he just he talks You know, he gives his story. He talks about his feelings about things the good things he went through the bad things He went through how he's been influenced throughout life Very interesting You know how important Savini has been to horror, but it's important to have films like this as a reminder for future generations Yes, I've known for a long time Savini is a big name. He's very important But you kind of forget those types of things you forget to what degree Until you sit down and watch something like this and then you're reminded Yeah, this person is super important and he and usually even more so than you even realized because you can't Sit there and always remember everything a person's done. So It's really cool to sit down and watch this and and I feel like also sitting down and watching something like this Is paying homage to that individual and giving them respect saying, you know I'm willing to devote this portion of my life to learning about his life Because of my respect for who he is and what he's done And I think a lot of people should watch it for that reason Tom's level of creativity with a low budget is unbelievably inspiring in this film And that's kind of one of the points they make at in in one section And you know, he talks about it. It's just basically like, you know, he kind of came from Not having a whole lot. So he always had to do a lot with a little and that's how he approached doing special effects And when you start like seeing that in his work, you're just like, wow, you know The amount of creativity that came out of such few resources is pretty amazing There's an awesome part in here when Tom Tom, sorry Tom Tom talks about His experience with directing his remake of night of living dead Which I've read about so many times being such a horrible source spot for him in his life Because he had such high hopes for it. He loved the project and Things didn't pan out the way they were supposed to and the reception Wasn't wasn't that great. So it's a source spot for him. But I love the portion of this where he talks about it and he gives you the information On what was supposed to be how it was ideally supposed to come out And I love that he gets that chance to kind of reclaim it in the sense by letting everyone know through this documentary That this was a division. This is what you're supposed to get out of the film Unfortunately, you didn't get that because You know, the studios is one of the big things. That's what happens It's great to hear Tom had an awesome time making the film from dust held on And that's a personal thing for me. I love from dust held on. I feel like that's a film that gets Panned way too often. It is one of my favorite Tarantino films I know it's kind of weird to say, but I love it and a lot of people hate it because it's this mix It's like the whole first half of it is a different film than the last half of it And it feels like the vampire stuff just comes out of nowhere Well, I think that's genius because if you were experiencing experiencing that In life, that's how it would be. You wouldn't know that the vampire invasion is coming It would just happen and you'd be like, what the hell? Then you deal with it. So I love that film and Savini and it is great So it was awesome to hear that he kind of gushed about, you know, being involved with that film I love that he had a good time with it There's a big piece of information in this film. I'm not going to talk about it I'm just going to say there's a big piece of information that Tom Savini gives towards the end That was the first time he had said it Kind of publicly was in doing his interview with us So I don't know if since this documentary has been around since 2015 I don't know if that information has already gotten out. I had not heard it before but You know, at least watch it for that, I would say Uh, it makes you think about the inspiration Importance of people like Tom Savini Who then kind of keep the horror industry going with inspiring other more More and equally and a little bit less talented people Who step into the genre because they see someone like Savini they can use him as a role model and say man That's awesome. He does a great job I'd love to be able to be like that and it just kind of pushes people and then You know by having someone like that who can be an awesome role model And one of the ways he does that is he created his special effects school Which is a huge thing. How many people do that? Um, it's great because it churns out more people to keep this industry going that obviously he has a lot of Love for because he spent a lot of time with it Um, they have this one They have a few problems I'm I'm going to the after the actual documentary just talking about some of the technical problems But then I'll talk about some of the good stuff because that's how I want to end it because overall I enjoyed the film So one problem they actually have is there are a few Interview portions in the beginning where they don't actually give you names of people Now I know who the people are but not everyone's going to know that so that's just like a small thing There are a few times when the audio is a little bit rough There was one time where you could tell they grabbed a segment of interview with Savini That was actually through Skype and it doesn't sound that good So that kind of throws you off But then there's also when they're interviewing different people the audio sounds different So like there's one that sounds kind of muffled There's some that audio sounds perfect So it's just audio inconsistency, which you know, I chalked that up to a it was a low budget and b this individual Jason Baker doesn't have an extensive Amount of experience with doing you know with directing film. So, you know, it's forgivable for sure Like I said, the music I didn't really like the music use in this But like I said, you just kind of get used to it and get over it the audio fluctuations You can tell it's a low budget film Um, and you have to keep that in mind. That's the thing Keep that in mind and just understand That no matter what budget someone has the fact that they do a film Is what's important and the fact that Jason Baker pulled it together I'm sure he put a lot of work into this and he was able to get Tom Savini for this And all their people to be interviewed like that's a lot of work And it's all it feels like it's all for the love of Savini and who he is and what he's meant to the horror genre and that is what's Amazing about this film and it just oozes of that and I love it for that reason I love that aspect of it. Is it the greatest documentary I've ever seen? No Is it one? Is it up there? No, it's but is it good? Yes It has its flaws, but like I said, you got to remember it's a very low budget You got to forgive it for those things. It is edited. Well, that's another thing the editing with it is quite well done So that's a big plus um Like I said, what makes the documentary it's Tom Savini It's all the focus on him. Honestly, if you didn't if you got just no one else interviewed for this It still would have come out quite well because Savini is very Engaging and I don't know you just get lost in in how he tells his story And that's a great thing um So I just put a thing at the end It's always cool when you see someone like this or you hear from someone like this who You you see similarities between them and yourself and and that's just kind of cool and inspiring So I just kind of wrote down a few similarities between Savini and myself um He said something about being super conscious about the size of his nose when he was growing up If you if you didn't notice. Yep, I can uh I can feel him on that one been there Uh, he was a drama geek. I was a drama geek in high school I I what I didn't do a whole lot of actual like state stuff on the stage I was more of like a techie behind the scenes, you know set stuff and audio and things like that um Journalism he did journalism in college. I did German journalism in high school and post college Involved with film. I mean, obviously he's like crazy successful involved with film I have been involved with film not just doing, you know, my reviews here But I made some some short films writing script writing. I did some directing acting Editing all that stuff and he likes cats You get that at the end. He's got two cats at the moment who are really cool He's a cat dude and I am also a cat dude because people have watched enough of my Videos know that my cat roams around during this and will yell and whine because she's not getting attention from me. So and actually I do have to throw this out there because It connects in a sense while I was watching the documentary my cat was sleeping in my lap So she was around for the Tom Savini documentary. So I have to this is one of those films that when I give the five star reading I have to do it twice because I have to do it as looking Extremely objectively if I didn't know what the budget was or anything, how would I Rate this film? So if that was the case, I would give it two out of five stars because there are a bunch of technical issues the audio thing Um, yeah, all that stuff But if I'm taking into account the low budget I'm going to give it a three and a half stars For sure and that's my personal rating for it too is a three and a half stars Because obviously I know it was low budget and I really liked the film So I would definitely recommend it to people like I said on shutter December 16th, which is this Monday and uh, yeah, definitely check it out. Once again. Thank you shutter thank you Jason Baker for making this because Like I said, I can't believe someone didn't already do a documentary about Tom Savini. It's such a no-brainer But then this also raises a point that there are a bunch of other icons out there or like quasi icons within the horror community that Should have documentaries done about them. So hopefully things like this inspire other people to do the same thing So thanks everyone for checking this out. Uh, please do me a favor hit that subscribe if you like anything I do That's the best way to repay me. You can put some comments down here um, if you just want to talk about Savini or if you want to You know talk about your feelings about the film after you see it whatever you can do a like But the big thing is to subscribe. I really appreciate that. Anyway, thanks for checking this out and until next time Keep it brutal