Biography

Writer, director and make-up effects artist Alan Ormsby was born on December 14, 1943. He was a drama student at the University of Florida, where he met future director Bob Clark. The pair first collaborated on a tongue-in-cheek low-budget zombie horror flick, Children Shouldn't Play with Dead Things (1972). Ormsby not only co-wrote the script and did the effectively ghoulish zombie make-up, but also gave a deliciously hammy performance as the arrogant and obnoxious theater group leader Alan. Ormsby's then-wife Anya Liffey portrayed another group member; the couple later divorced in 1981.

Ormsby and Clark followed this film with Dead of Night (1974) (aka Deathdream), which was a supremely potent and unnerving Vietnam-era variant on the classic short story "The Monkey's Paw." Next up for Ormsby was the excellent Deranged (1974), which he co-wrote, co-directed and handled make-up effects chores on along with a then-unknown Tom Savini (Savini also worked with Ormsby on the make-up effects for Deathdream). Deranged (1974) was a macabre and blackly humorous rural psycho item inspired by the notorious exploits of serial killer Ed Gein. Other movies Ormsby has penned screenplays for are the delightful teen coming-of-age winner My Bodyguard (1980), Paul Schrader's sexy and stylish Cat People (1982) remake, the uproariously raunchy Porky's II: The Next Day (1983), and the exciting action opus The Substitute (1996).

Ormsby did the genuinely creepy zombie make-up for the spooky Nazi horror doozy Shock Waves (1977) and wrote Movie Monsters, a book on makeup effects, in 1976. He created the popular doll Hugo: Man of a Thousand Faces, which was featured in both The Uncle Floyd Show (1974) and The Pee-Wee Herman Show (1981). He co-wrote and directed the entertaining film-within-a-film segments for the hugely enjoyable slasher send-up Popcorn (1991). He is currently married to actress Hilarie Thompson and has two sons.
- IMDb mini biography by: woodyanders

He wrote a book called, "Movie Monsters", mostly about the classic ones from Universal Studios.

Father, with wife Hilarie Thompson, of son Austin (born 1991). Previously married to actress Anya Ormsby.

Studied drama at the University of Miami.

Retired from the film industry in 2002.

They were fun to make. There was a kind of communal feeling about the process that I haven't experienced since. (on making low-budget horror films with Bob Clark in the early 1970s)