Horror Honor Roll! – JOE DANTE

Meeting a genre pioneer ain’t easy, especially when you have no idea what he looks like.

With many of his films seeming to be a whacky crash-up of monster movies and black-comedy slapstick, it’s fitting the New Jersey-born Joe Dante started out with working for Roger Corman at New World Pictures. Even some of the director’s earliest works such as PIRANHA (1978) and THE HOWLING (1981) align perfectly with Corman’s zesty, low-budget take on drive-in perfection. 

Turning some tidy profits by the early 1980s, Dante earned enough box office clout to garner notice from Warner Bros. First, he gave a ghastly new spin to “It’s A Good Life” for TWILIGHT ZONE: THE MOVIE (1983) before the studio offered him the plum chance to finally command a bigger budget. The result was GREMLINS (1984), an out-of-the-box summer blockbuster that made everyone (even yours truly) suddenly decide they needed a mogwai in their lives–and yes, I still have mine.

I know a lot of younger people won’t get this, but there was a time when we as moviegoers had no idea what directors looked like. You’d read articles in newspapers or magazines about an exciting new genre film but never once catch a glimpse of anyone outside the principal actors. Keeping that in mind, you can understand my surprise when I met Joe Dante by accident. 

Let me explain. 

In the late 80’s, I was a gawky teen attending my first horror convention. It was like Disneyland for disenfranchised nerds so, naturally, I was in my element and totally in awe of everything. One of the first stops I made was at a table that was reserved for Gary Brandner, author of “The Howling”. Having seen the film, I thought Brandner would be a neat person to meet. Soon after, a man sat down at the table and, with not a single other nerd in sight, I was able to easily stroll up and ask for an autograph. He was very kind and asked my name before jotting for me “To Dylan from Joe Dante” before drawing a quick and surprisingly accurate mogwai beside which he added, “ + Gizmo”. My mouth dropped open when I realized the switcheroo. Not only was this instead the director of THE HOWLING, but also the first time I had ever seen him. 

And with that, Joe Dante inadvertently became the first movie director I ever met. Not a bad start, eh? 

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