Sam you have played a zombie in a number of films and even on stage and are an official guest of Zombiefest. First off, I have to know if there is any special trick or knack to playing one of the undead?

Slowly I go step by step by step - slow, man. I hate these new zombies that look like they're running a marathon.

Tell me about your role as Carl Katchalon in your newest zombie flick '12-24' with Tiffany Shepis. Can you give me a plot synopsis?

Well I guess its Christmas with Corpses. I play Karl, an old school cop bitching about working on Christmas Eve. I get to recite 'Twas the Night before Christmas' in a key scene. Tiffany and I get to snuff zombies. I just finished my second film with Tiffany, 'The New Terminal Hotel', along with her fianc'e Corey Haim and Jeffrey Douglas. We still have a few scenes to shoot on '12/24'

What is your predominant memory about filming your role as Dusty in 'Children of the Living Dead' (2001) with Tom Savini?

I first worked with Tom Savini in 'Eyes Are upon You' with Brinke Stevens. Tom also directed me in a Pennsylvania Lottery Halloween commercial with Gus the groundhog in 2005. I was a twisting zombie in that one. Then there's 'Loaded Dice' too. On every set Savini and I end up discussing films. Mostly the old black and white horror films we both grew up with. Abbott Hayes kills Savini in the first reel. I still wish he would have made another appearance in the finale. 'Cold' or 'Children of the Living Dead' also reunited me with photographer Bill Hinzman who filmed me as Deputy Shade in 'The Crazies' back in 1972.

So tell me about 'The Crazies'. What was your George Romero experience?

Well, I was Tony Scott a disc jockey in Beaver Falls when I auditioned with Al Croft for the Deputy Shade part. Once on the set in Evans City we hung around the doctor's office running our lines. At one point I was drunk with power and stood in the street directing traffic with my unloaded gun. My first night on the opening scene a house was burning and the fire department hosed it down. We the actors were almost knee deep in mud from the runoff water that made squishing noises between our lines. I pulled up in a police car and jumped out into the mud to say "Sheriff they're setting up roadblocks!" Then I drive away in reverse with the siren on. I just loved that sound.

Not long after 'The Crazies' wrapped I interviewed George Romero for Cinefantastique Magazine as Tony Scott. I believe that was Romero's first national interview. The issue is worth big bucks now. My nephew Greg has just read the new script for 'The Crazies'. He says the Sheriff and Deputy are the stars in this one. He didn't tell me who was casting but don't you think it would be neat for deputy shade to return in a cameo?

That would be very cool. However, you are in another remake. You just finished filming the 3D 'My Bloody Valentine' remake for Patrick Lussier and starring Jaime King. What plot variations or enhancements if any can we expect from the 1981 slasher classic?

The plot is similar to the original, but 'My Bloody Valentine' is vastly improved by the variations orchestrated by Patrick Lussier, the director of 'Dracula 2000'. What we got in 1981 was spurting blood and screaming ladies in lingerie. This new one takes off the kid gloves and the underwear in delivering gory creative killing coming at you in 3D including new uses for a shovel.

As an actor are there many or any special considerations or techniques to keep in mind when filming in 3D?

As an actor I try to focus on the scene and the other actor and try not to think about the camera and lights all around us. It's twice as hard with this process that has two cameras filming simultaneously.

What was the best part about filming it?

Being a lazy actor I guess the best part was that I was a day player. One long day and night, a couple of lines as a bartender and whooossh....I was out of there. That's how I roll. Seriously the cast and crew worked from sunset till dawn painstakingly filming in an actual coal mine. You didn't know it was underground cinema?

You also worked alongside Richard Gere in 'The Mothman Prophecies'. What was your impression of him?

On the directors cut of 'The Mothman Prophecies' director Mark Pellington comments that the man on the bridge, Sam Nicotero was a DJ in Charleston W, Virginia and was there when the point pleasant bridge collapsed in December 1967, and I was. When I auditioned Pellington sat me down in his office for an hour video taping what I recalled about that night. When I met Richard Gere on the set it was a frigid night in Kittanning Pa. We ran our lines while the weird Mothman music permeated the scene over huge loudspeakers. Gere was anxious to meet me as an eyewitness to the real disaster. It was so cold we both spent hours warming up in our vehicles between takes. There I was again a day player with a few lines, lines we recited dozens of times before the sun came up. I told him Days of Heaven and Bloodbrothers were my favorite Gere performances. That was before he did his next film Chicago.

I want to hear about another recent horror movie you've completed called 'The Screening' with Debbie Rochon and Amy Lynn Best. Any idea of what we can expect from that production?

I was practically the star of 'The Screening' before the final cut found me cluttering the cutting room floor. Most of my gory scenes were eventually deleted .When Cameron Romero asked me to play Rupert Borgia I was flattered and excited. The whole movie is about the Borgia snuff films and a revival film fest where the audience actually mimics the murder and mayhem they are watching. As we speak 'The Screening' is on a dusty shelf in suburban Pittsburgh if it isn't released in 2009 it will have to escape.

Would you like to say something about any of your other film projects to www.racksandrazors.com readers?

One of my fondest day player memories takes me back to 1992 when I got to improvise a scene with Jack Nicholson in Hoffa. Director Danny Devito told me "You don't want this guy in your store." We did 5 or ten different takes, me behind the counter of a dry cleaners and Jack as Jimmy Hoffa wants me to unionize. Nicholson had just become a father and confided to me that he would name the boy Ray. He was incredibly generous, helping me when I said "I heard all about Krogers'. He told me they had changed the name to Kreegers or something like that. We swore and shouted at each other for twenty minutes with the results being a mere 20 seconds in the film. When Nicholson made his exit from the dry cleaners front door for the last time he looked in the big plate glass window and gave me big thumbs up! Devito instructed the assistant director to "give this guy gold" . It elevated me from a $50 extra to twelve hundred for the night.... and I still get residual checks (cigarette money) now and a screen credit as man at counter.

Any other projects you would like to mention?

I've done quite a few projects this year 'My Bloody Valentine 3-D', '12/24', 'The New Terminal Hotel', 'Green Man', 'The Fallen' and 'End Game'. Still shooting 'End Game' with Olympic gold medalist Kurt Angfle and Jenna Morasco - a killer on the loose story and again I'm a cop. 'The Fallen' is one of the most pleasing scripts I've read in years written by Sam Lawther and directed by festival award winner Brad Grimm. It's a post apocalyptic tale that takes time to tell the story of a father and son's last days together. In 2009 preproduction for 'In Self Defense' should start. It's another father and son story based on a real event in 1975 about the Wetzel family. Brad Thornton will play Roy Wetzel, We have yet to find the actor to portray the father Willy Wetzel. I play Judge Nichols. It's based on a novel I wrote over thirty years ago. We have a page on my space, 'In Self Defense: The Film'. We're putting the finishing touches on the screenplay now.

You have also performed in the stage version of 'Night of the Living Dead'. What was that experience like?

Well it was enough just to have Bill Hinzman, the original Zombie from 'Night of the Living Dead' lurking in the theatre aisles, where he chased his daughter Heidi through the make shift cemetery to the house on stage where the exteriors shots of the original were projected during the show. It was a really neat experience. I played a scientist except for the night the father couldn't make it. I took over and was shot from the stairs on stage right, landed on the table on my back, and hit it so hard the legs broke and I slid off stage to the floor uninjured.

Back in the 1950s they had a series of films 'I Was a Teenage Frankenstein', 'I Was a Teenage Werewolf', etc. If there was a film version of the Sam Nicotero teen years it would be called 'I was a Teenage ______________ because________________________________.

'I Was a Teenage Sailor'. I joined the navy when I was 17

Sam, do you recall the first movie you saw that made you sleep with the lights on?

'Freaks'.

We're pulling the car into the Sam Nicotero Drive In. What three horror movies are on the triple bill for tonight and what goodies are they going to be serving up at the concession stand?

'House of Wax' the Vincent Price version in 3D, 'The Exorcist', hell; I was a choirboy and 'The Shining'. The snack bar will sell junior mints, Ju Ju Fruits that you hold up to the screen to see its colors and popcorn, Yoo Hoo drinks and real Coke.

What scares you in real life?

Real death.

Thanks Sam.

Did I tell you about my time in Tombstone, killing scorpions in Maureen O' Hara's bathtub a block from the O K Corral?

Like I said, this guy has some amazing stories.