FX Master John Carl Buechler Has Passed Away and His Influences Are Still Felt to This Day
Yesterday, the horror world was rocked by the tragic news that FX master John Carl Buechler had passed away after a battle with Stage 4 prostate cancer. He was only 66 years old, far too young by any standard. And while his passing hurts like hell, it’s specifically in times like this that we can look back at his body of work and recognize just how profoundly he shaped many of us with his creations.
Buechler’s work truly began in the early ’80s, where he focused on a wide variety of genre films, such as Deathstalker, Mausoleum, Forbidden World, Sorceress, Android, and The Dungeonmaster. These were formative films for a great many of us because they laid the foundation of our appreciation for practical FX, great makeup designs, and the ways those skills elevated a film from being just a story to becoming a real, fleshed out world.
Thanks to Buechler’s talents and his eye for detail, something undoubtedly thanks to his work as an FX master and makeup designer, he was able to transition several times into the role of director. His films Troll, Friday the 13th Part VII: The New Blood, and Ghoulies Go to College are beloved entries in franchises that have become horror staples.
He was also instrumental in several Empire Pictures releases, such as Robot Jox, From Beyond, and one of my personal favorites, Arena. He also worked a few times with horror icon Robert Englund on 1989’s The Phantom of the Opera and 1991’s Freddy’s Dead: The Final Nightmare.
Buechler’s makeup and FX credits may stop in the early 2010’s with 2011’s Monsterpiece Theatre Volume 1 but the horror mastermind had five movies planned for the future, ranging in genre from horror to fantasy to noir thriller. Cleary, Buechler was a man who loved the world of cinema and all that it had to offer. It’s a playground for the imagination, something he had in no short supply.
Our hearts are broken for his family and friends in this tragic time but we take solace knowing that his work will live on forever, always ready to be discovered and appreciated.
Thank you, John, for all your hard work over the years. Thank you for the creatures you created and the worlds you brought to life.
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