He directed Vincent Price in one of his last films, ‘The Witches’ Village
The American director Jeff Burr, a horror specialist, died on Tuesday 10 October at the age of 60. He directed Vincent Price in one of his last films, ‘The Witches’ Village’, and ‘The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Part 3’. His death occurred at his home in Dalton, Georgia, due to apparent complications due to a stroke. The announcement of his passing was made by a longtime friend, actor Eric Spudic, to The Hollywood Reporter.
After several other directors dropped out, Burr came on board at the last minute to direct ‘The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: Part 3’ (1990) with former professional wrestler RA Mihailoff as the villain. The film grossed $5.8 million on a $2 million budget.
Burr went on to direct ‘The Return of the Killer Toys’ (1993), ‘The Last Showdown’ (1994), ‘Pumpkinhead II: Blood Wings’ (1994), ‘Night of the Scarecrow’ (1995) and ‘Puppet Master’ : Blitzkrieg Massacre’ (2018). Outside of horror, the director directed ‘Eddie Presley’ (1992), a film about an Elvis impersonator starring Quentin Tarantino and Bruce Campbell as asylum attendants, and co-wrote and directed the drama about World War II ‘Straight Into Darkness’ (2004).
Born in Aurora, Ohio, on July 18, 1963, Jeffrey Burr grew up in Dalton, where he became a fan of movie monsters. He attended the University of California, but left after three years to finish a short film, ‘Divided We Fall’ (1982), about two brothers on opposite sides of the Civil War who meet on the battlefield.
Burr made his directorial debut with ‘The Witch Village’ (1987). The director said he went to Vincent Price’s house unannounced with a bottle of wine and was invited in. The horror legend “sat down and talked to me for about 15 minutes, got the script, and that’s how it all began,” he recalled in 2012.
Source-www.adnkronos.com