A lot of casual moviegoers out there could walk down the street and pass right by Reggie Bannister without knowing how popular he is in the cult horror circles. In fact, Reggie Bannister is a legend and a horror rock star with many fans, having starred in Don Coscarelli's low-budget but wildly popular Phantasm franchise, which began in 1979. Since then Bannister has become a B-horror staple with eerily awesome roles in The Demolitionist, Wishmaster, The Mangler Reborn, and the now cult classic Bubba Ho-Tep.

In 2007 Reggie briefly re-teamed with The Demolitionist and Wishmaster director Robert Kurtzman (From Dusk Till Dawn, Vampires, Devil's Rejects), one of the best make up and special-effects artists of the past 20 years, for the mutant zombie horror film The Rage. As we all prepare to give thanks, The Rage is being served up on the holiday horror table on November 27 as part of Monster HD's "Thanksgiving Day of the Dead" marathon along with the airings of George Romero's classic Day of the Dead, Resident Evil, Pet Cemetery 1 and 2, Bride of Re-Animator, and all three Return of the Living Dead movies.

To celebrate the early undead thrills before horror fans sink their teeth into flesh of the turkey variety, we caught up with the The Rage's Uncle Ben, Reggie Bannister, for an exclusive chat about horror on Thanksgiving, why movies become cult classics, the evolution of CGI and technology, and the new holograms that CNN has been using to beam people into the studio like Star Trek

THE DEADBOLT: Hey, Reggie. It looks like it's going to be a scary Thanksgiving.

REGGIE BANNISTER: Oh sure, man. I mean, this is a fun thing that Monster HD is doing on Thanksgiving day and I just thought it was a hoot to be able to take the time and talk to all of you guys.

THE DEADBOLT: With Monster HD's "Thanksgiving Day of the Dead" special, it seems like there's a weird six degrees of separation thing going on. Since Uncle Ben had to contend with the crazy birds in The Rage, the vultures could’ve easily been a few deranged turkeys.

BANNISTER: [laughs] You know, that’s a good analogy. Actually, I probably wouldn’t eat either one since I’m a vegetarian. So it was kind of weird for me to play a guy that just has to eat flesh all of the time. But it was a lot of fun.

THE DEADBOLT: So what is it about the horror genre that keeps you coming back for more?

BANNISTER: Actually, my first film that I ever did was with Don Coscarelli, and Don was kind of in the vein of - Well, the first film was called Jim, the World’s Greatest and it had Gregory Harrison in it. I don’t know if you remember him, he played Trapper John in a series for a while and he was in a bunch of other features and stuff. And that was his first film and his first film with Don. Then Angus Scrimm was in it and that was his first film with Don and it was my first film with Don. That picture was more mainstream and about a couple of kids, a teenager who had to raise his brother because his father [Angus] was a total drunk and living in hotels and sh*t like that.

So we did that picture and then we did another coming of age picture called Kenny and Company, which you can get on DVD, Anchor Bay has that out. It’s a charming film, and Michael Baldwin was in that film, and that was the first time Michael had worked with Don. Then of course Michael played the kid in Phantasm for the third film. This is all by way of saying that the third film of Phantasm went out and did stupid money [laughs]. It’s a great movie and all four of them have been terrific.

So it kind of set my course, you know, because there was a period of time in there between Phantasm, the original picture, and the late 1990s when I kind of took a hiatus from filmmaking in that I was raising a kid. [laughs] I wanted to make sure that I did it right, so I just did a few films. If you look at my resume, I just did a few films between Phantasm and the late ‘90s. And then after my kid was grown up, I said, "Let’s kick out some jams and quit doing so many day jobs and stuff like that." So now, since 2004 for example, I’ve probably made, I don’t know, 25 films. And generally people remember the Phantasm series, young writers and directors coming up, guys and gals. And they’re like, "Hey, I want Reg in my film." And I read it, and if it’s interesting and a good story, I like the character, and they can pay me, I’ll do it.

I took financial core in 2004 and that’s really helped as well. Financial core, for those who don’t understand what that is, I’m a union member. I’ve always been a union member of SAG, but there’s a status you can take with them so that you can work union and non-union films. And this is my day job and my wife and I own a production company and she’s a special effects artist and we just have a lot of stuff going on that’s entertainment. Actually, we have a 501 T3, where we live in a small mountain community in Southern California called Crestline and we teach kids how to make films.

THE DEADBOLT: Sounds great. It must be nice to give back.

BANNISTER: Yeah, it’s pretty neat. We get mentors up here and mentors for directors and the production side as well as cast. I generally handle the acting end of it and we have intern for projects. We have several of them interning right now on a project that we’re co-producing right here on the mountain. So it’s been neat since I’ve been able to throw myself into it and really go for it. And the reason I do so many horror films is because so many people that want me in their horror films. It works, you know? It’s kind of hand in glove.

THE DEADBOLT: What’s your take on the new generation of horror movies we’ve been seeing in recent years, like the Saw films or the Asian remakes?

BANNISTER: Well, you know, that’s kind of two different categories. The new stuff, obviously it’s really focused around physical torture, which is kind of offsetting to me a bit. The psychology of it is certainly there, but it’s just raw, unadulterated terror, and I understand that. That’s a thrill ride a lot of people like to take. But I think it has a lot to say about life right now, this generation and what were going through. We’re in two wars. You know, horror films always do well in wars, I don’t know if you’ve been following that, but it’s kind of an escape to take the thrill ride without actually having to see the horror of war. So I understand where it’s coming from but it is a bit disturbing to me.

On the other hand, if you’re talking about remakes, I’ve thought about it a great deal. I understand that the studios, they buy a title for example like Day of the Dead - Day of the Dead is going to be coming to DVD soon in a remake. And they have that title and go, "Well, let’s throw this original stone back into the pool because people don’t remember that picture and the original stone being the original story, pretty much, straight up. And we’ll throw that original stone into this quiet pool and we’ll make a bunch of ripples and a bunch of money.” I understand that. But I think there’s more creative ways to do it than most of what I’ve seen. I thought that Romero’s Land of the Dead was excellent. I enjoyed the hell out of that, and so they haven’t always missed. [laughs] You know, they’ve maybe been 50/50 and I think that’s giving them a little...

THE DEADBOLT: From your view, what makes a film an instant cult classic? Take The Rage and any number of films, do you think part of it is because people know who's involved, like yourself and Robert Kurtzman?

BANNISTER: [laughs] Well, certainly it helps. I mean, there’s a certain amount that helps just by his name and that he’s doing another picture. I’ve done three pictures with Bob. One was The Demolitionist, the second one I did was Wishmaster, which I thought was an excellent picture, and then this is the third one, The Rage. Just a little history on my relationship with Bob - I met Bob and Greg Nicotero on the set of Phantasm II. They were just getting into - they had started their company together, I believe, and they were just getting into special effects and puppetry and stuff.

They were really good. And, of course, we had several special effects people. Mark Shostrom was on it and somebody else handled the spheres. But, yeah, I just took a real great liking to Bob and Greg and they were big Phantasm fans. They were just beside themselves to be able to be working on that picture. So at that point they were talking about making their own pictures and they were going, "We gotta have you, Reg, in our picture." So I said, "Hey, give me a call." So the first opportunity that they had was with Bob’s The Demolitionist. Nicole Eggert was in that and there were other people who were really good. Tom Savini was in it, actually. At any rate, I did that one and had a great time. So when he called me on The Rage I just went, "Yeah, send me the script. You know, whatever you want to do boss." So it was a terrific experience.

THE DEADBOLT: So, in the realm of crazy lab experiments, how do you feel about something like "The Rage" happening in the future because of the advances in technology?

BANNISTER: It wouldn’t surprise me. Nothing really surprises me. You know, when I was watching the elections and - Do you remember them beaming people into the CNN studio?

THE DEADBOLT: Yeah, that was pretty cool. Weird, but cool.

BANNISTER: I mean, they were talking to each other, right? And the person was standing there - I understand that one of them couldn’t see the other one - but there was one that could see, one that was there, and one that couldn’t. But, hey, that’s just a matter of time. So that all happened in Star Trek back in the ‘60s. If you look at sci-fi stuff, what are we doing today? It was thought of by visionaries years ago, like nuclear subs. 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea? Come on! I have no clue if it’s going to happen. But I think if it’s in the human consciousness it can happen.

THE DEADBOLT: Which do you prefer, old school make-up and blood or CG?

BANNISTER: I really like in-camera gags and I really do organic gags as much as possible. I know that now CGI is so available, and there’s so many good CGI guys around - CGI used to be the most expensive gag to do and now it can be the least expensive gag to do. The whole film industry has changed immensely. When Don and I first started working together, you had one option of a camera to shoot with. That was a 35mm camera. Buying that film and processing that film, where you have to take, physically, that film from "get" to "got" is an amazing amount of money. It can cost you and I haven’t looked at it in a long time.

Like I said, we have a production company. We haven’t budgeted for a 35mm film in a long time. We’ve mostly been shooting in front of Red Eye and all of the other HD, Sony, and we even worked in front of that big one that Lucas built for the last Star Wars. That was an interesting camera to work with. But I haven’t looked at a 35mm budget for quite some time. The last time I did look, we were looking at shooting a picture that we were doing a budget for. And when we were asked if we could do a lesser budget, we took out the 35mm to shoot in HD and we took out over $200,000.

THE DEADBOLT: I spoke to Don Coscarelli last year and your name came up a lot. Basically, he said he’d put you in every one of his movies if he could. So, what’s the latest on Phantasm V?

BANNISTER: [laughs] See, Don thinks of me as his good luck charm. And he was really kind of pissed because he didn’t put me in Beastmaster, for example, because that wasn’t a happy experience for him and he just kind of sold out of that and moved on. But Phantasm V, when you’re dealing with a picture like this there’s something sort of mystical about it. It has a tendency to garner favor from people that really can’t get enough of it and they just can’t wait for the next one to come out.

But if you look at the history of Phantasm, there were ten years in between the first one and the second one. We did the second and third with universal, so that was a back-to-back deal. Then the next one wasn’t until 1993. It’s an open ended story because it’s life, and it’s the lives of these certain characters that keeps unfolding. You don’t know where they’re going to end up, they don’t know where they’re going to end up, you don’t know where the story is going. And so paradigms like that have a tendency to spawn rumors and hopes. Even if you go on IMDB right now it says that we’re working on a feature as we speak and we tried every way possible.

I mean, I think we all tried. Don tried and I know that we tried to get that rumor quashed because we’re not. I mean, we’d like to be - That would be fun to be working on a feature right now but we’re not working on a feature. So that’s where that’s at. And that’s not to say that that won’t happen, or that won’t happen sooner than later, because I personally think it’s just a matter of time before this movie gets another shot. At least with the characters as they are. I think it’s possible they could make Phantasm films after I’ve croaked and probably after Don has croaked as well. But because the paradigm is so fascinating and truly wonderful, it’s a story of - there’s a lot of love in it. There’s brotherhood, family feeling, and - I don’t know, it’s just a good story.