By Samantha Nicklaus
Imagine this, you’re sitting in your living room with a cozy blanket keeping you warm, you have popcorn in your lap, candy beside you, and one of your favorite scary movies is playing on the TV. And after your hundredth time watching, you finally wonder, “how in the world did they do the makeup like this?” The very easy answer is special effects makeup. But what exactly is special effects makeup? Well, it’s the process of using prosthetic sculpting, molding, and casting techniques to create advanced cosmetic effects such as fantasy creatures, injuries, and the type of transformed faces you see in scary movies like in the movie IT.
This sort of makeup artistry is an overlooked one; with all the planning, effort, and time that is put into special effects makeup, it is surprising that it’s not talked about or praised more. Makeup artists who specialize in this sort of makeup style have to be precise each and every time they have an actor sit in their chair for whatever role they’re transforming into—and as a makeup artist, I’ve always been curious about that process. So I’ve been doing my research and we can see those transitions here in this list of classics that relied on special effects makeup.
1. Jennifer’s Body
Starting off with a classic horror/comedy film, Jennifer’s Body, starring Megan Fox and Amanda Seyfried. In this film, we get a lot of bloody scenes with bite marks and gashes in the stomach and on the sides of necks. And then there are the parts of the movie where Megan Fox’s character Jennifer, looks insanely drained and in desperate need of something to eat, and that’s where the bloody parts come in. With the makeup, they used tons of fake blood, Jennifer is usually covered in it throughout the movie after all. But we also have her razor sharp teeth. These are bigger sized denters, custom made by KNB, so that they can fit over her real teeth. Depending on the type of injury and cuts, different materials are used to create them. With these bites, scar wax was used. With a carefully thought out plan, we were able to witness the iconic film that is Jennifer’s Body.
2. Nightmare on Elm Street
Here’s another classic horror film intertwined with a bit of fantasy. Freddy Krueger is a well known character whether you like horror movies or not, and some of that fame can be credited to how he looks. Freddy has a burned face and a haunting presence, but how can that be brought to life? Ding! Ding! Ding! It’s special effects makeup. Freddy’s look was multiple pieces created from foam rubber. There was the neckpiece, chin, and nose that took a total of three and a half hours to apply every day. Robert Englund, the actor who plays Freddy Krueger, said that it was “uncombable, hot, and itchy.” And we owe all of this to special effects artist Kevin Yagher for bringing this character to life, regardless of how uncomfortable it was.
3. Carrie
There honestly isn’t that much special effects makeup to this 70s horror movie. BUT it is another iconic film starring Sissy Spacek, so it needs to be on the list. In this film we have the character Carrie at prom and everything seems fine…Until a bucket of thick, deep red blood is falling all over her from above the stage that she is on. The special effects makeup that was used here was the blood, but it may look differently now than it did back in the 70s. If you did want to dress up as Carrie for Halloween though, all you would need to do is a no makeup makeup look, and don’t forget the gloss. Then you’d need a lot of fake blood to pour over yourself.
4. IT (2017)
Pennywise is a creepy character. He’s evil and has this haunting smile that sets the chilling ambiance we see in the film. Creating Pennywise was a long thought out process by production and then handed off to the artists, Tom Woodruff Jr. and Alec Gillis to make the character come to life. It was clear Pennywise needed to have a bigger head. So the first thing they did was create multiple headcasts of the actor, blocking in clay shapes to see what worked and what didn’t. From there, they needed to start the sculpture and mold, which led them to creating the rubber pieces. The process of seamlessly gluing on the rubber pieces to cover the whole face, was a two and a half, three hour job. The makeup crew had sets of contacts and fake teeth, that was ultimately supposed to give off a creepy, childish look. Gillis says, “It’s not a complex makeup but it is visually striking.”
5. Harry Potter
The most notable special effects makeup in Harry Potter is with Ralph Fiennes’ character Voldemort. Transforming into Voldemort took around three hours. They first shaved the stubble on his head, making sure he was completely bald. Fiennes didn’t have to shave his eyebrows because they used eyebrow blockers that were made from gelatine. The most tedious part of Voldemort’s look was placing the purplish, veiny tattoos from his chest to the top of his head, making sure they were placed in the same spot each time. The completed look for Voldemort was airbrushing and using paint for the pale, almost greyish skin tone.
6. Lord of the Rings
These movies heavily relied on special effects makeup to bring their characters to life. There are Orcs, Uruk-hai, Elves and many more creatures that the makeup team focused on for making skin textures look realistic and making intricate facial features. The simpler ones were the elves. They were of otherworldly beauty so what was done was a subtle iridescent makeup look. But Orcs and Uruk-hai was a different story. There were fake, jagged teeth involved as well as lots of prosthetics. They were applied with adhesive and layering techniques to be able to blend in with the actors skin tone. Prosthetics helped with making a facial feature look more aggressive or a body more muscular, all this depended on the environment and species.
7. American Horror Story
Here we have a horror series that is known for its creepy looks and unsettling scenes. Every season there is a new theme, each with crazy special effects makeup being done. The series has been able to accomplish a collection of memorable effects. For starters, we have Sarah Paulson’s double head. This was created with practical effects, the technique of headcasts and sculpting. Connective material was used to create a mix of skin, collarbones, and neck tendons. And the rest was accomplished using visual effects. Then there are looks like Twisty, where makeup effects were entirely used for the mask he wore. When the mask came off, CG was used to show his disfigured face and jaw.
