Michael Lennick, 1952–2014

Michael Lennick, visual effects supervisor, writer, filmmaker, self described sci-fi geek, and friend of the Criterion Collection, died last week in Toronto. Early in his career, Michael created special video effects for David Cronenberg’s films Videodrome and The Dead Zone. Many years ago, when I asked him to participate in our first DVD release of Videodrome, he in turn suggested that he make a short documentary on the unusual visual effects in that film. I was stunned by the creative and witty piece, Forging the New Flesh, that he ultimately unleashed upon Criterion and Videodrome fans. A short clip featuring Michael himself can be seen here:

Michael later contributed to our release of Robinson Crusoe on Mars, and just last spring we had many laughs working together on a short documentary about the special effects in Scanners, sifting through the varying memories of exploding that famous head. He was thoughtful, warm, funny, and generous with his talent. I will miss him and the future collaborations we had planned, but I hope he is traveling somewhere in outer space on his ultimate science fiction adventure.