John Harrison (director)

John Harrison (born 1948) is an American filmmaker, musician, and composer,[1] best known for his collaborations with director George A. Romero and for writing-directing the miniseries adaptation of Dune.

John Harrison
Born1948 (72-73 years)
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States
Alma materEmerson College
OccupationDirector, writer, composer, producer

Early life and career

Harrison was born and raised in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He graduated from Emerson College in Boston with a BS in Theater Arts. For several years after that, he performed on the road with his band Homebrew before moving back to Pittsburgh to take a master's degree in film and television from Carnegie Mellon University. At the same time, he joined blues guitarist Roy Buchanan, with whom he toured across the US and internationally for four years. He was also featured on several of Buchanan's albums, including That's What I'm Here For (1974), Live Stock (1975), and A Street Called Straight (1976).

In 1973, Harrison and his friends, Dusty Nelson and Pasquale Buba, formed a film production company eventually named The Image Works to produce commercials and industrials in the Pittsburgh area. This partnership eventually led to the production of the film Effects (1980), which Harrison produced and performed in as the character Lacey Bickle. In 1974, Harrison began a long collaboration and friendship with filmmaker George A. Romero. Harrison performed as Sir Pelinore in Romero's Knightriders, then became his 1st Assistant Director for both Romero films Creepshow (1982) and Day of the Dead (1985).

Harrison also composed the scores for Creepshow and Day of the Dead (1985). He also played the "Screwdriver Zombie" in Romero's classic Dawn of the Dead (1978). The music that was composed for the score of Creepshow was also featured in the fake trailer for Thanksgiving in the film Grindhouse (2007).

After Creepshow, Harrison moved to Los Angeles to continue his writing and directing career. He wrote, directed and composed the music for multiple episodes of the Tales from the Darkside TV show. He was then tapped by producer Richard P. Rubinstein to direct Tales from the Darkside: The Movie (1990) for Paramount, which won the Gran Prix du Festival at Avoriaz, France (1991). Harrison's collaboration with Rubinstein culminated in the Emmy winning TV miniseries, Frank Herbert's Dune (2000), which Harrison wrote and directed,[1] and Frank Herbert's Children of Dune (2003), which Harrison wrote and co-executive produced.

In 2001, Harrison receives a co-song writing credit, for the Gorillaz's track "M1 A1", from the album Gorillaz, which samples music (along with dialogue), from the film Day of the Dead. Gorillaz used samples from the same film for another song, "Hip Albatross", a B-side on the international hit "19-2000".

In 2006, Harrison reunited with mentor Romero to co-produce Romero's film Diary of the Dead (2007). His action suspense thriller, Blank Slate, for producer Dean Devlin, which Harrison wrote and directed, aired as a twenty episode mini-series on TNT in the fall of 2008. In 2009, Harrison completed his adaptation of acclaimed horror novelist Clive Barker's Book of Blood, which Harrison co-wrote and directed.

His paranormal thriller miniseries Residue (2015), which he created and wrote, was released on Netflix in April 2015.[2]

Filmography

Films
Year Title Director Writer Producer Composer Notes
1982 Creepshow Yes Also first assistant director
1985 Day of the Dead Yes Also first assistant director
1987 Night Rose: Akhbar’s Daughter Yes Yes Yes Made-for-TV
1988 Scary Tales: Night Elevator Yes Yes Yes Made-for-TV
1990 Tales from the Darkside: The Movie Yes Yes Composed semgent "Lover's Vow"
1990 Memories of Murder Yes Made-for-TV
1995 Donor Unknown Yes Yes Made-for-TV
1996 The Assassination File Yes Made-for-TV
2000 Dinosaur Yes
2005 Supernova Yes Made-for-TV
2005 Painkiller Jane Yes Executive Made-for-TV
2005 Effects Executive Yes Made-for-DVD (filmed in 1978)
2005 After Effects: Memories of Pittsburgh Filmmaking Yes Made-for-DVD documentary
2007 Diary of the Dead Executive
2008 Blank Slate Yes Yes Made-for-TV
2009 Book of Blood Yes Yes
2015 Residue Yes Executive
2020 Dune Executive
Acting credits
Year Title Role Notes
1978 Dawn of the Dead Screwdriver Zombie Uncredited
1981 Knightriders Pellinore
1988 Jack's Back Chooch
2005 Effects Lacey Bickel Direct-to-video film (filmed in 1978)
2008 Blank Slate Thomas Hale Television film

Television series
Year Title Director Writer Producer Composer Notes
1984-1987 Tales from the Darkside Yes Yes Yes Directed 8 episodes / written 5 episodes / composer in 4 episodes
1988 Monsters Yes Episode "The Legacy"
1991-1996 Tales from the Crypt Yes Yes Directed 2 episodes / Written 3 episodes
1992 Nightmare Cafe Yes Episode "The Heart of the Mystery"
1995 Earth 2 Yes Yes Directed 3 episodes / written episode "Survival of the Fittest"
1996 Profiler Yes Episode "I'll Be Watching You"
1996 Kindred: The Embraced Yes Episode "Nightstalker"
2000 Frank Herbert's Dune Yes Yes Television minseries (3 episodes)
2003 Frank Herbert's Children of Dune Yes Co-Producer Television minseries (3 episodes)
2009 Mental Yes Episode "Bad Moon Rising"
2010-2012 Leverage Yes 5 episodes
2015 The Librarians Yes Episode "And the Heart of Darkness"
2017-2018 Superstition Yes 2 episodes
2019 Creepshow Yes Yes Directing 4 segments (written semgent "Lydia Layne's Better Half")

Soundtracks
  • Effects – LaLa Land Records (LLLCD1040), Los Angeles
  • Creepshow – LaLa Land Records (LLLCD1007), Los Angeles
  • Day of the Dead – Taurus Entertainment/Numenorean Music, Los Angeles
  • Tales from the Darkside: The Movie – GNP Crescendo (GNPD 8021), Los Angeles
  • Creepshow – Waxwork Records LP, New Orleans
  • Day of the Dead – Waxwork Records LP, New Orleans
  • Tales from the Darkside: The Movie – Waxwork Records LP, New Orleans

Books
  • Carson, Phil. Roy Buchanan, American Axe (San Francisco: Backbeat Books 2001)
  • Larson, Randall D. Musique Fantastique (London: The Scarecrow Press 1985)
  • Gagne, Paul R. The Zombies That Ate Pittsburgh: the Films of George A. Romero (New York: Dodd, Mead 1987)
  • Newman, Kim. Nightmare Movies: A Critical History of the Horror Film 1968–1988 (1988)
  • Harrison, John. Destiny Gardens, A Novel (Los Angeles: House Bean Boy 2013)
gollark: That seems implausible.
gollark: It uses just one 4-byte key which it XORs with everything and yet people weren't able to trivially reverse it?
gollark: It's reading a key from memory somewhere, doesn't mean it uses the *same* key for everything.
gollark: No sensible cryptographic algorithm would XOR all the data with exactly the same thing, because that would, as you demonstrated, be hilariously insecure.
gollark: Sure. But it would be easy to make it not do that. I could do that, even.

References
  1. Wertheimer, Ron (December 2, 2000). "TELEVISION REVIEW; For the Spice of Life, Literally". The New York Times.
  2. Miller, Liz Shannon (April 1, 2015) "How to Sell a TV Show to Netflix". Indiewire.
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