Dan O Bannon

A statement from the Writers Union of America, WGA, specified that O’Bannon passed away on Thursday, December 17. His wife, Diane, told the Los Angeles Times newspaper that he was admitted to the Santa Monica Hospital (California). He had been fighting the disease for thirty years.

Born on September 30, 1946, in Saint Louis (Missouri), Daniel Thomas O’Bannon discovered as a child the famous EC comics (“Tales from the Crypt” and other titles) that dazzled him so much that he became passionate about the genre. He studied film at USC, the University of Southern California, where he became close friends with one of his classmates, the ineffable John Carpenter , destined to become one of the most prestigious horror specialists.

After finishing his studies, O’Bannon made his writing debut with John Carpenter for the cult film Dark Star , a parody of science fiction, whose famous smart bomb is well known to fans. O’Bannon himself played one of the characters and supervised the special effects. For this latter assignment he became one of the virtuoso visual effects technicians chosen by George Lucas to bring the world of Star Wars to life . Curiously, he did not focus more on effects, preferring to concentrate on his career as a screenwriter and occasional director.

After a failed attempt to adapt the novel “Dune,” by Frank Herbert , with the bizarre and surrealist Alejandro Jodorowsky , for a film in Europe , O’Bannon returned to the United States where he was hired to co-write the film Star Beast with Ronald Shusett , although later they changed the title to Alien, the Eighth Passenger . “When he was writing Alien , he thought that audiences are much more afraid of what they don’t see than what they do see,” O’Bannon said. The film that Ridley Scott finally directed is considered today a classic of the horror genre.

Married on January 18, 1988 to Diane Louise Lindley, with whom he had a son named Adam, O’Bannon remained attached to the fantastic genre. He wrote Dead and Buried , a terrifying film starring James Farentino , and was one of the writers of Heavy Metal , an adult animated film. In addition to writing Blue Thunder , he was responsible for the script for Life Force and Invaders from Mars , two of the most outstanding films by another horror specialist, director Tobe Hooper . Another of his best works was Total Recall , which adapted a story by Philip K. Dick. His script for Cyber ​​Assassins , directed by Christian Duguay , was also based on a story by Dick .

O’Bannon served as director twice. He was responsible for The Return of the Living Dead , a parody of zombie movies, and The Resurrected , a little-known adaptation of HP Lovecraft ‘s short novel “The Case of Charles Dexter Ward”.