Gary Sherman

Writer, director and producer Gary Sherman is one of the most important and individualistic genre auteurs. He left an indelible mark on horror cinema, mainly with his cult classics Death Line and Dead & Buried, in which he pushed the boundaries of violence on film and infused them with abundance of originality and social criticism.

After studying design and photography at the Illinois Institute of Technology, he spent a couple of years making music clips and short movies, as well as being highly active in the 60s Civil Rights movement. He directed his first feature film, documentary The Legend of Bo Diddley, in 1966. In 1972 he made his live action debut with cult horror Death Line, shot in UK with a star-studded cast led by Donald Pleasence and Christopher Lee. The British Film Institute called it "The Most Significant Directorial Debut of the Year". It took a 9-year wait to get his second live-action feature, but the gory shocker Dead & Buried (1981), written by Ronald Shusett and Dan O’Bannon (who also wrote Alien just two years before), exceeded all expectations and became an immortal genre classic. This was followed by two action films, gritty crime thriller Vice Squad (1982) with Wings Hauser, which has also gained cult status, and Wanted: Dead or Alive (1987) with Rutger Hauer in the leading role. Sherman returned to horror with visually magnificent Poltergeist III (1988) and tense thriller Lisa (1989), after which he concentrated on work for TV. Despite many fans who tried to convince him to return to the horror genre, most notably Academy Award winner Guillermo del Toro, he did so only once in 2006 with the experimental mockumentary 39 - A Film by Carroll McKane.

He has also lectured Graduate and advanced undergraduate classes in Directing and Producing at Columbia College Chicago, at Tribeca Flashpoint Academy and at University of Wales at Aberysthwyth. At this year’s Grossmann, along with a regular Master Class, he will also have a special Master Class on visual effects in Poltergeist III, while we will honour him with our Honorary Vicious Cat award for special achievements in fantastic cinema at our closing ceremony.