Frank Henenlotter

Frank Henenlotter (born August 29, 1950) is an American film director, screenwriter and film historian. He is known primarily for directing horror comedies, especially Basket Case (1982), Brain Damage (1988), and Frankenhooker (1990). Despite being known as a horror filmmaker, Henenlotter has expressed a preference for being classified as an "exploitation" filmmaker, stating in 2010: "I never felt that I made 'horror films'. I always felt that I made exploitation films. Exploitation films have an attitude more than anything – an attitude that you don't find with mainstream Hollywood productions. They're a little ruder, a little raunchier, they deal with material people don't usually touch on, whether it's sex or drugs or rock and roll." Early life Henenlotter was born in New York City in 1950. In a 1982 interview with Fangoria, Henenlotter recalled 1946's Valley of the Zombies as being the first film he remembers seeing, which he watched on television around 1958. He also remembered seeing The Wolf Man (1941) on TV at an early age, as well as The Tingler (1959) in a theater at age nine. Around age 14, Henenlotter began making films on 8 mm. Career Henenlotter's films were inspired by the exploitation and sexploitation films he loved, such as those that played on 42nd Street in New York City in the 1960s and 1970s. His first 16 mm short film, The Slash of the Knife, was completed in 1972. It was at one point intended to be screened alongside a midnight showing of Pink Flamingos in New York, but this plan was abandoned due to the former reportedly being deemed too offensive (later speaking to Fangoria, Henenlotter stated, "Can you imagine a film too offensive to play with Pink Flamingos?").