Hello everyone. I am the (piss) artist formerly known as Capn Dallow, now returned as capncnut with approval from the staff. Nice to be back. Please let me chime in on the apparent and alleged deception of Mr. O'Rear.
Until last week, I hadn't even heard of the guy. At first, I was willing to give him the benefit of the doubt until two good friends, Lee Karr (thxleo) and Jim Cirronella (Dubious Comforts), alerted me to the fact that this man might not be genuine. Lee, who I have known for a few years now, is an authority on Day of the Dead as far as I'm concerned, is presently writing a book on the subject, has gotten me signatures at conventions off his own back and sends them to London where I live, at zero expense.
I admit that I was active in the Facebook outing of O'Rear on a page called Dr. Logan's Chop Shop, which was my standing behind someone that I trust 100%. It was respectfully asked that the man provide us with proof of his working on the movie, which he is still unable to do. It was then asked that he at least tell us which scenes he was in so that it officially goes on record and his presence on set could be verified by others who were in the same scene. Again, he is still unable to provide us with this information.
He claims to have been a Florida zombie, has signed merch with this as the subtitle, and says Joe Pilato and Gary Klar can back up his claims of working with them in Florida. One problem with this: Joe Pilato and Gary Klar never set foot in Florida and were only on set at the Wampum Mine in Pennsylvania.
A friend of mine called Lisa (she may register here as DOTDFan) posted a photograph of her glorious poster, which has pretty much every signature from the cast and crew of Day of the Dead on it. It also bears Mr. O'Rear's signature, which has the subtitle of "stunts and zombie". A scan of this poster can be made available. I am willing to bite my tongue and accept that he was maybe a zombie - hell, any regular Joe can wander in on set and get made up - but stuntman? That is a highly questionable and ballsy claim.
So this Facebook thing escalates and instead of trying to silence us with cold hard facts on the matter, O'Rear and his followers resorted to name-calling and insults, notably Yojimbo, where cruel comments were made about his looks and his character. I hear the Chop Shop administrator was also made fun of and it resulted O'Rear's account going down for a few hours.
All of a sudden the Tom Savini page posted and seemingly backed up O'Rear's claims. I was genuinely shocked, and considered sending O'Rear a personal apology for doubting him. However, I had to be sure and politely requested that Savini acknowledge the stuntman claims to put the thing to rest conclusively. I replied only once to his post and this landed me no less than five warnings at Facebook (I have it on good authority it was O'Rear and Savini themselves), as posted below along with my single request to the Savini page.
We've received one or more reports that the following content you posted violates Facebook policies. We have not yet taken any action:
"Mr. Savini, my name is Brett and I have been a lifelong fan. I have your signature on many pieces of memorabilia and am very good friends with one of your students, who is quite the budding make-up artist himself. For the sake of putting this to rest, I respectfully ask you to confirm whether Mr. O'Rear performed stunts in Day of the Dead. Any reply is greatly appreciated. Thank You. "
I would like to ask all of you, what part of this message would violate the terms and conditions of Facebook? On the third warning, I filed an extensive report and received an email from a Facebook admin that I had NOT breached guidelines and the situation would be looked into. A scan of this message can be made available also.
Now again, I ask, why not provide hard facts instead of resorting to harassment and attempts at silencing someone who has done little more than request the truth? I know for a fact that if I was Mr. O'Rear I would do my balls-out best to shut up my accusers and come out smelling of roses. Not only that, if I was friends with Savini I'd have him verify my stuntwork too, which is the claim that brought this entire debacle to light in the first place.
I am also friends with an acquaintance of O'Rear's who told me that he told him that he was on the elevator during the scene where Miguel committed suicide. That is a CROCK! Also, O'Rear's Wikipedia page has since deleted Day of the Dead from his biography. Fortunately Google image search offers the user a chance to view any webpage in cached form and I have a screengrab of the film still being mentioned in his bio as of May 8th, 2012.
I have now got word that Lee Karr has received an email from Savini who apologised to to him and stated that he does not remember O'Rear being in the film or making him up as a zombie. This is pretty damning evidence. Karr has posted these emails at From Dusk 'til Con at the expense of his friendship with Savini. It has been said that the stunt co-ordinator Taso Stavrakis has also called "bullshit" on O'Rear's claims, so I gather.
Adding all this to previous revelations made, I am entirely convinced that Mr. O'Rear did not appear in George A. Romero's Day of the Dead and is defacing people's merchandise. How would you guys like it if I scrawled on your poster with a Sharpie? Naturally I will not state this as concrete fact - I'm not that stupid - and will gladly kiss his ass if he proves us all wrong.
Oh, and I'm not just back to discuss this matter, I will be a regular and friendly contributor. 
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Originally Posted by kortick
Sad to hear that someone has nothing better to do than screw over fans. 
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