About the Blog

What is this blog about?

As the title should give a hint, it's an archive of makeup effects. Mostly a visual archive, but also an informative one as well. 

It's been a lot harder to find visual references for especially 'monster' effects in recent years, especially with the rise of crap wikis or clickbait. 

And even a bad film - and quite a few of the films covered here are bad - often has talented people working on them. Each article attempts to tell their story in their own words.  

What do you mean by 'makeup effects'?

It's a bit much to get into, but as of now, 'special makeup effects' encompasses 'out of the kit' makeups, sculpting, prosthetic appliances, masks, creature suits, puppetry and animatronics.

So you mean 'special effects'?

Well, not really. Quite often it's a matter of what's in a name.

'Special effects' means how you get your on-screen chaos - car explosions, gusts of wind and squibs. 'Visual effects' used to mean back in the day matte paintings and miniatures, but these days mostly refers to CGI. 

'Makeup effects', generally, is a transformative artform; how to turn a person several years older, or with a deformed visage, or into a totally non-human creature.  And when puppetry or suits are in the equation, how to keep the illusion of unreality going even further.

So...is this all about makeup?

No. This isn't a blog for 'straight makeups'; this is more for the really elaborate or fantastical stuff.

So for example, an alien that was only achieved via facepaint, contacts and a wig would not be highlighted. 

Similarly, most 'typical' gore or violence makeups - cuts, bruises, burn wounds, a squib coated in makeup, so on - would also not be included.

This isn't to imply that that isn't the result of hard work, it's just thinking of how much to cover on our end!

So there's no CGI stuff on here?

Generally yes. While some CGI 'creature effects' films are included, these are generally from the early 2000s when computer-generated effects usually required physical maquettes to be scanned, and the field had more of a connection to practical miniature effects.

Is this a monster blog?

Yes and no. The focus originally was on 'monsters', but the scope expanded for a few reasons.

Generally, yes the bulk of this blog is focused on 'creature effects', as thats what the bulk of special makeup effects has went to realizing; monsters.

However, having it be just styled on 'monsters' opens up semantics bullshit on 'what is a monster', something we really can't be arsed with.

Add in that often gore makeups, surrealistic transformation makeups, and disfigurement or disabled makeups will be included quite often. None of these are 'monsters'. 

With disabled makeups in particular; Christopher Tucker's makeup effects work on The Elephant Man is perhaps some of the best in film history, but it would be purely bad taste to have the word 'monster' over an article on a film dramatizing a real person's life.

And really, the focus of the blog was always to highlight artist's work, and it's deeply unfair to exclude that based on some pedantic criteria. So a more general approach was preferable. 

Is this a gore effects blog?

Again, yes and no.  

While elaborate gore makeup effects are included, generally it has to be in a film or series already with unique or fantastical makeup effects.

There's also the matter of how increasingly grisly many productions have became in recent decades. Even outside the horror genre, as medical dramas, crime thrillers, and war films are now regularly full of gruesome, gorey makeup effects. We would be here forever! 

So while there will be articles on certain slasher films, don't expect articles on the Saw, Final Destination or CSI franchises any time soon.

Do you specialize in genres? 

A little bit.

The focus is indeed on the horror, science-fiction and fantasy genres, but that's mostly because that's where the bulk of creative makeup effects lies in. It's no coincidence that the peak of makeup effects was the 1980s and 1990s, which saw a surge in genre productions.

But then there's specific non-genre films which were seminal moments in makeup effects, and thus are also included on the archive.

Why can't you review the movie?

Because this isn't a review blog, end of. 

If you want to know more about a film, then IMDB or Letterboxd should be your next stop.

Similarly articles will not have any individual warnings on gruesome imagery. Again, this is a mostly horror-focused blog, and grisly or uncanny visuals should be expected regularly.

Why don't you focus as much on more recent movies or shows?

Because there's a lot! While a fair few recent films are highlighted, there's more fun in writing about the films and shows of yesteryear.

Where do you get all these images from? 

For the most part, many of them are already publicly available; online promotional photos, screenshots of behind the scenes featurettes, and scans of magazines such as Fangoria, Cinefantastique, Cinefex, Starlog or Gorezone. 

Quite a few others are found from the social media accounts of various makeup artists, and for some cases have been kindly sent to us by the makeup artists personally after contacting them. We are always thankful for their help!

And as a last resort, screenshots from the films or episodes themselves are used too, if there's little or no behind the scenes images that screenshots are the only way to go, but the language of filmmaking often means it's not the best view of a makeup or creature suit!

No ownership is claimed on *any* images on the blog, and this entire project is just a hobby project for fun. Or at least scratching an obsessive itch.