Fright Night Part 2 (1988)

The bulk of Fright Night Part 2's special effects were handled by Bart Mixon's Make-up FX Unlimited, the creature effects department of Gene Warren Jr.'s Fantasy II Film Effects. Mixon was delighted at the opportunity to work on the film; 'I turned to a page (of the script) and then it said 'Regine suddenly turns into a monster from hell', (...) I thought to myself, 'A monster from hell? This is going to be fun'.

The film's makeup effects workload was so big that Mixon had to assemble a large team consisting of temporary freelancers; 'At one point, a lot of people were available (...) But by the time I found out we would be doing prosthetics too, many of the people I wanted were working elsewhere. I started with a core group and was able to get other people for short periods of time.'

Mixon's core team were Brian Wade as key sculptor, Aaron Sims as key painter, Jim McLoughlin as key modelmaker, and Norman Cabrera. The freelancers were Gabe Bartalos, Barney Burman, Brent Baker, Matt Rose, Bill Sturgeon, Joey Orosco, Gregor Punchatz and Richard Snell.

Bartalos recounted how Mixon managed to keep such a large team from stepping on each others toes; '(...) Bart took advantage of everybordy's artistic abilities. Everybody on the crew was given one specific effect that was their own and then offered the oppurtunity to float and help out in other areas. Everybody knew what everybody was good at, so we didn't have to waste time feeling each other out.'

During production, director Tommy Lee Wallace kept an eye on the effects, as Mixon remembered; 'To a certain extent, it wasn't surprising (...) This was my first time keying a major effects film, and he probably felt he had to keep an extra eye on me. Tommy also didn't want this to be an all-out effects movie, which was part of the reason why he constantly suggested changes. None of that bothered me. It was his movie, and I was more than willing to give him what he wanted to make him happy.'

Similar to Chris Sarandon's Jerry in the first Fright Night, Julue Carmen's vampiress Regine would also undergo various transformations by way of special makeup effects. The first consisted of a facial appliance glimpsed briefly in the film, where Regine's face would adopt a more guant, chiselled appearance. Surprisingly, this makeup was difficult to realize according to Mixon;

Tommy Lee Wallace wasn't sure what he wanted (...) He kept saying 'Max Headroom' and I kept saying, 'What's that mean?'. As to how the makeup was designed, Brian Wade recounted; 'We came up with three appliance pieces, a lowered brow with an overlapping nose piece, a U-shaped cheek piece and a jaw piece that fit under the cheek and went from temple to temple.'

When it came to realizing Regine's 'monster from hell' guise, once more Wallace stepped in to alter the design according to Wade, 'Our initial reaction was to go with something wild with yard-long ears and spines coming out of the arms. (...) The teeth were going to be really monstrous. But the director's input, and the fact that the creature had to bear some resemblance to the finished giant bat puppet, resulted in reduction of the ears and teeth. What we came up with is good, but we could have come up with something totally wild.'

The final version of the monster Regine suit was sculpted by Bill Sturgeon, with Norman Cabrera sculpting the feet. The suit's hand appliances were fitted with finger extensions, with a prosthetic tongue and jaws also attached to the mask. Gabe Bartalos said, 'I also painted the nails and punched in the hair (...) It was an easygoing situation. Everybody worked on different things and had a lot of fun.'

Regine transforms fully into a bat creature form similar to the one Jerry adopted in the first film; two puppets were constructed, the first being a stopmotion miniature sculpted by Brian Wade, and built over an armature fabricated by Mike Joyce. The stopmotion sequences were shot at Fantasy II, and animated by Justin Kohn.

The original intention was to have just the stopmotion miniature bat, but Mixon recalled how this changed, 'Originally, the sequence was designed with only the stop-motion puppet in mind (...) Little by little, it evolved into a giant wing tip and then a full-sized bat seen crashing through the floor'.

The full-size bat puppet was molded by Jim McLoughlin and Brent Baker, and sculpted by Matt Rose, Brian Wade and Aaron Sims. The shot was achieved via the puppet being placed on a rod and pushed towards the camera.

Regine's death, where she is exposed to sunlight and her skin burns off, also was a heavy part of Mixon's workload. The first stage of Regine's death, were her skin bubbles as it is exposed to sunlight, was achieved via various puppet heads. McLoughlin described the process;

'We made a series of dummy heads, (...) The first dummy head had mechanics, jaw movement, fangs growing and brow movement, which I built into it. A series of tubes were also attached, which allowed us to pump trichloroethane to swell the head's latex skin. Gelatin burn makeup was applied to a double's hands to help bring the scene to life.'

The lifecasting process used for the dummy head (and earlier facial prosthetic was not an enjoyable experience for Julie Carmen; 'The six hours required to required to get the neck and face piece on was hard enough, but the actual molding of the mask was a killer (...) When the plaster began to harden, I got totally claustrophobic and started to panic. The only thing that saved me was that I meditated and gave myself up to the weight of the plaster. But I was so freaked that I went home that night and cried'.

'A few minutes after I stopped crying, the phone rang (...) 'There was a problem with the mold, and they wanted to know if I could come in early the next morning to do it again'. When recounting her experiences to Fangoria, Carmen jokingly stated she would add a clause to her contracts against ever having latex applied to her body again.

The puppet head mechanics were reused for the second stage of the melting sequence, where a burnt corpse prosthetic appliance was placed over the mechanics, with a gelatin 'skin' appliance also placed over it. When the puppet was set on fire, the gelatin appliance would melt on camera, exposing the skeletal prosthetic underneath.

The second-stage Regine dummy - minus the gelatin skin!

The second stage Regine dummy's gelatin skin.

A full prosthetic bodysuit was made for Regine's final moments, utilizing the same sculpt for the head as the second-stage dummy prop. The prosthetic suit was worn by Dinah Cancer in Julie Carmen's place, and took three hours to apply. The prosthetics were sculpted by Mixon, McLoughlin, Sims and Punchatz, and had torches applied on various regions to make it appear more burnt.

The melted Regine head sculpt.

Aaron Sims said of the melted suit, 'We tried for a droopy, melty look when we were sculpting the corpse body (...) At one point we even showed a nipple melting away, but for whatever reason, that shot did not make the final edit'.

Mixon's team handled the rest of the film's other vampire-related effects, such as the melting dummy effect of Russell Clark's Belle and the burnt makeups and dummy head (out of which water would gush from its throat) of Merrit Butrick's Richie, after he is splashed with holy water. Cabrera said of the prosthetic's design;

'We decided to go for a more puffy swollen look, kind of like what Dick Smith did in Spasms (1983), (...) Facial appliances were creatred to reflect what the head would look like after tubes were attached, and trichloroethane was pumped through the foam latex appliances, which resulted in that swollen bloated look'.

Mixon said of his team's work on the film; 'We've done a couple of things on this film that haven't been done before, especially with our approach to the Ritche effects (...) To a large extent, however, what we've done is traditional. It's primarily a lot of dummy heads and appliances, stuff that's been done before. We knew going in what would work, given the time and money we had, and we went with those things.'

Fantasy II was stretched thin with all the vampire effects, yet more makeup effects were needed for Jon Gries' werewolf Louie and the bug-spilling death of Brian Thompson's Bozworth. The Louie and Bozworth effects fell to Greg Cannom and his Cannom Creations crew, consisting of John Vulich, Larry Odien, Earl Ellis, Keith Edmier, Matt Falls, Loren Gitthens, Janice Barnes, Mitch Devane and Linda Notaro.

Gries would have a 'wolfman' hairsuit with facial prosthetics in most of his scenes as a lycanthrope; though in some scenes only the facial prosthetics were worn with a different, skin-coloured paintjob. The facial prosthetics resemble the first-stage transformation prosthetics that Cannom designed for the 1987 Werewolf series.

Cannom wanted to have Louis undergo a werewolf transformation sequence echoing Evil Ed's from the first film, but this was cut at the last second; 'The scene started with a real wolf, but because the real wolf looked so cute, they cut it completely out along with the transformation that follows. It's too bad, because there was a great shot that went from a paw stretching out to a human hand with a great wolf-bat look'.

The 'wolf-bat' facial prosthetics are only briefly glimpsed in the final film, realized as a latex mask. The dummy head was created, cast from the same moulds as the prosthetic, for when Louis has roses ignite in his mouth, as it would be too unsafe to light flames inside the actor's mask!

Cannom was fairly pleased with the finalized Louis werewolf with some caveats; 'The suit could have been trimmed more, and the face was a little too dark for my taste, but that's what happens when you get the suit back from overseas (...) at noon and it has to be on the set at 5:00. (...) From what I've seen, it looks pretty good'. Less pleasing was how his Fright Night Part II werewolf transformation was cut out so soon after Werewolf's cancellation, just as he was about to realize an ambitious transformation sequence for the show.

'I had a great werewolf transformation sequence planned for the new season (of Werewolf). It was a full-body werewolf transformation with no cuts. Eric's face and back would would stretch completely out and his body would have filled out from his face all the way down his back. As far as I know, nothing like that had ever been attempted before. Hopefully I'll find another project to use it in one day. (...) I'm fed up with werewolves'.

Sources:

• Fangoria #76 (August 1988), 'A Hard Day's Fright Night' by Marc Shapiro.
  
• Fangoria #77 (September 1988), 'Fright Night Part 2 Bares Its Fangs' by Marc Shapiro
• Fangoria #78 (October 1988), 'Monster Invasion' compiled by Anthony Timpone

Bram Stoker's Dracula (1992)

Note: I would like to thank Matthew Mungle for kindly sending me some of the images used in this article, as well as hosting others on his website. W. M. Creations Inc.

Francis Ford Coppola's guiding principle for his opulent retelling of the Dracula story was that there would be no use of computer-generated effects. All the special effects in the film would be optical illusions, matte paintings, miniatures and, of course, prosthetic makeups.

Coppola explained his reasoning, 'I thought that since this was a film about passion, about timeless love and those mysteries, it would have more soul if the effects were not super-technological, but more works of magic and illusion. We tried to do all the special effects as they would have been done (in Dracula's time period) - with double exposures, mirrors, all the 'naive effects' and not even get into the modern, computer-generated type of visuals'.

Michael Lantieri, who supervised the special mechanical effects, elaborated on Coppola's mission, 'We decided to invent nothing on this film. Usually on movies, especially effects movies, people like to talk about doing things for the first time and inventing cutting-edge techniques. We took a completely different approach — we tried to be more or less on the cutting edge of applying older methods in the most creative way we could.

This way, we were not in competition with anything like Terminator 2 or computers or dazzling opticals — we didn’t want to be compared to that kind of filmmaking. We wanted our effects to blend in and not lead. Dracula wasn’t supposed to be an effects film; we weren’t going to be grandstanding anything. We wanted the effects to be a natural part of the picture so that they wouldn’t detract from the story we were trying to tell.'

The special makeup effects on Dracula were designed and supervised by Greg Cannom, with Matthew Mungle doing the makeup application. Cannom's makeup team included Steve Prouty, Glen Hanz, Mitch Devane, J. C. Logan, Roland Blancafor, Larry Odien, Todd Tucker, Mike Measimer, Londa Notaro, Mat Falls and Rob Watson.

Cannom's team had to make sure the prosthetics they designed complemented the wigs designed by Michele Burke, who handled the film's 'straight makeups' and hair. The aged Dracula's 'bun' hairdo was one of the many wigs designed by Burke for the picture.

Cannom's team handled all the vampire prosthetics, including the minimal appliances such as the fangs and contact lenses. Gary Oldman, who starred as the titular vampire, required a special set of prosthetic fangs for a shot of his canines elongating on camera.

This specialized teeth appliance was designed by Larry Odien, who explained, 'Typically, people have used flexible teeth that are stretched down. I don’t think that’s been very successful. I wanted to do it with rigid acrylic teeth, in a completely self-contained piece.

What I made were long fangs, but they retracted underneath a foam latex appliance that was shaped like Gary Oldman’s gums. When you looked into his mouth, you would think you were seeing his gums, but it was actually this foam piece. It was tissue-thin. I had to make everything as tight as possible so that it wouldn’t bulge out of his cheek or anything like that. The fangs were activated by a spring wire device that Gary could operate himself with his tongue. He would press the appliance and the fangs would come down'.

Gary Oldman in contact lenses and acrylic teeth. 

 

Another deceptively simple appliance was made for Sadie Frost as the vampire Lucy Westenra. While Frost's Lucy makeup in all her scenes was 'straight makeup', the shot of her spitting blood at Anthony Hopkins' Van Helsing was a special makeup effect.

Cannom explained, 'We built a device very similar to what Dick Smith did in The Exorcist. Larry Odien rigged a little mechanical fan which we put in Sadie’s mouth to really spray the blood as it came out.

We made a whole bit piece that actually clamped and pulled her mouth back. I fixed it so that we could release it at times to give her face and mouth an occasional rest. Then we put a foam appliance over her face to conceal all the rigging. It worked really well.'

Notice how Frost's cheeks seem built up?  

 

That's the makeup concealing the tubes carrying the fake blood! 

 

When Dracula is introduced, he is a wizened, sickly looking old man. Cannom explained to Cinefex how the aged Dracula's prosthetic makeup was designed.

'We decided to do the makeup of an eighty-year-old man. I sculpted and designed the makeup, while Mitch DeVane, my lead sculptor, finished off the detail work. The makeup had fourteen foam rubber appliances and took about four hours to apply. Gary Oldman wore finger extensions and back-of-the-hands prosthetics.

I wanted a translucent quality to the skin, so I airbrushed some dark blue-gray veins which were layered into the makeup. When the makeup was shot, there was no filtering used and they got very close with the camera — which is a difficult situation with makeup.

But on film, the veins appeared deep in the parchment-color skin, which was yellow-toned and very fair. Gary also wore old-age contact lenses that were made by Dr. Morton Greenspoon and Dr. Rick Silver.'

Several more prosthetic makeups was designed for and applied on Gary Oldman, including early stages of his bestial transformations. An oft-overlooked makeup was the wolf-like makeup he briefly sports in some scenes. Mungle explained;

'The (makeup) is a young wolf look that Greg came up with - a simple appliance, with a forehead and a facial piece. It gave Gary a wolflike appearance, but he still had the skin tones of a human. He looks like this when he returns several times to Lucy's room.'

A full face appliance was made for shots of Dracula reverting to a 'middle' shape between his human and beast forms. The appliance was altered with slightly different paintjobs and wigs. A blood-spurting throat slitting appliance was also applied for Dracula's final fight.

All the makeups took their toll on Oldman, according to Mungle, 'He broke out in a rash because he kept the makeup on for so long. With any actor, if you keep them in makeup for 12 to 14 hours, and they start to sweat, you're going to have skin irritation.'

Just like in the novel, Dracula is able to transform into a wolf; in essence he is a werewolf. While the shots of him in wolf form were mostly achieved with a real (adorable) wolf, Coppola opted for Dracula to have a more humanoid wolf-monster form in certain scenes.

Cannom explained to Cinefex how he came up with the design for Dracula's werewolf form;

'I tried to design the wolf suit with batlike overtones. I wanted him to look naked, but still animal-like. I kept the design true to the shape of Oldman’s body, but enhanced his shoulders to make them bigger. The face was very batlike and he had a huge wig on.

Linda Notaro, who does costuming for me, built the suit out of spandex using a very pale skin, which was Dracula’s coloring. Stuart Artingstall — who worked on Greystoke and Gorillas in the Mist — did all the hair work on the suit. He tied it right into the spandex so that it looked like the hair was actually growing out of the skin.'

More complicated was the bat-like monster that Dracula transforms into for his initial confrontation with Van Helsing. Cannom explained how the bat monster was designed;

'I wanted the bat creature to be the most horrifying of all the makeup effects. Unfortunately, I only had three weeks to build the suit because of the shooting schedule. I really could have used three months. One of my sculptors, Glenn Hanz, sculpted the body with help from Matt Falls; and I worked on the face and ears.

I wanted it to look like there were holes in it, as if it had been worn out or eaten up. The body was sculpted and we made extended vampire bat arms with mechanics that moved the thumbs about a foot out from his hands. Stuart Artingstall tied all the hair.

To me, the face was just a little too much; but at that point, Francis said he really wanted a more horrific look for the movie, so I thought, ‘What the hell?’ I had tried to be very subtle up to that point. We did some beautiful, blood-red contacts for that shot, too'.

Cannom with the initial batmonster maquette 

 

Inside the bat monster suit was Gary Oldman himself, who had to read his lines while inside. Cannom recalled how Oldman's performance helped sell the monster;

Gary did some amazing things within the confines of the various suits he wore. Usually, when you put an actor in a suit, they don’t know what they’re doing and you have to show them how to move around by really overacting in it.

But when Gary got into these suits — both the wolf suit and the bat suit — he was incredible. He would do things with his stomach so you could really see his breathing. He would move his shoulders and elbows and really work the suit like I’ve never seen anybody work one. Even his voice changed — it was all spitting and slobbering. He was just brilliant.

Despite enduring heavy makeups and creature suits, Oldman was a good sport according to Mungle, 'Gary was never harsh with Stuart Artingstall or me; we took care of him on the set. He was just an incredible actor, and fun to work with. This is going to do a lot for his career.'

Cannom's team also handled the film's gore; in addition to Dracula's throat slashing and Lucy's blood spitting (both mentioned earlier in the article) were three severed head props depicting the fate of Dracula's brides. These grisly props were auctioned.

More complicated were the beheadings of Lucy and Dracula, which required blood to pour out the neck stumps. Larry Odien constructed the Lucy beheading puppet, which Cannom elaborated on in Cinefex;

'It was beautiful. It looked exactly like her. People wouldn’t get near it because it was so frightening. We were able to make her eyes open and close and move around — I even tracked the lower lid.

We had rigged everything so the actors could stake Lucy and blood would shoot out of her heart. At the same moment, she would open her eyes and start to scream. Anthony Hopkins was supposed to come over and hit her with a giant kukri knife and chop off her head while she was screaming.

At first, the shot was designed so the knife would be pulled from the side across her neck, where a groove was made to guide the blade. But then the shot was changed so that the knife would come straight down on this tiny split in the neck, which was tough. It’s almost impossible to hit a little crack only about an eighth of an inch.

It had to be shot quite a few times because they kept missing the mark. Finally, on one take, it was actually perfect. The knife went right in and chopped off the head, and blood went flying everywhere. It was a great effect.'

The Lucy beheading puppet. 

 

The Dracula beheading prop. 

 

Sources:

• Gorezone #25 'Old FX for a New Count' (Bill Warren, 1993)
  
• Cinefex #53 'Heart of Darkness' (Janine Pourroy, 1993)