The X-Files (1993) - Season 4

Continued from The X-Files - Season 3

Toby Lindala's work on The X-Files continued to revolve around fabricating corpse dummies, such as the frozen body in 'Synchrony'. In fact, there was so many severed head props that Lindala's studio had a 'head tree' of prop heads hanging from the ceiling!

For the episode 'Home', prosthetic appliances were made for the three performers portraying the grotesquely inbred Peacock brothers. A lumpy full face appliance was made for Chris Nelson Norris and Adrian Hughes as Edmund and Sherman Peacocks respectively.

A forehead appliance, along with deformed dentures, was made for John Trottier as George Peacock, with more appliances made for extras in the Peacock family's photographs.

Another deformed facial appliance was made for Karin Konoval as Mrs. Peacock, though I also suspect that a set of dummy amputated limbs were made. Were the dummy limbs operated by Konoval from underneath the trolley? (I wish there was more BTS images...)

A forehead appliance was made for Richard Beymer to depict him slicing his skin off in 'Sanginarium', with the appliance having the appearance of bloody tissue underneath the flap of skin. A melted dummy head was also made for the episode.

Lindala made several corpse props (including a goat body) and fungal infection makeups in 'El Mundo Gira'. A set of enlarged skull makeups were made for Jose Yenque and Raymond Cruz as infected fungus carriers. (Again wish there was more behind the scenes photos...)

The episode 'Leonard Betts' required several makeup effects gags. Firstly was the makeup applied on Paul McCrane to give him a more slimy, almost foetal appearance. The look was achieved via several thick layers of gelation, with a veiny paintjob.

For the shots of Betts regenerating a new body of himself, a cast was taken of McCrane to construct an animatronic puppet. The puppet's 'skin' was rubber, and elastic enough that a smaller dummy head could be forced out the mouth.

The dummy head was puppeteered out of shot, and it took several takes to force it out the rubber mouth. The final effect of Betts emerging was done in post-production, with footage of McCrane in the gelatin makeup shot in greenscreen, and superimposed on the dummy head.

The casts of McCrane were also used to make a severed head prop in his likeness, as well as several burnt corpse props.

A frozen Grey alien corpse was also made for the season's final episode 'Gethsemane'.

Sources:

• Assorted 'Behind the Truth' featurettes.
  

Continued in The X-Files - Season 5

The X-Files (1993) - Season 3

Continued from The X-Files - Season 2

The success of the previous season now allowed Lindala to hire more assistants, as his workload was increasing yet again. By this point, Lindala had moved into a new workship to handle the show's assorted makeup effects, and no longer using his basement!

Lindala had at least seven assistants at this point of the series, with one of them being Mike Fields who sculpted preliminary maquettes, masks and dummy props.

Much of Lindala's work was again on gore effects, such as shriveled husks in '2shy' and 'Clyde Bruckman's Final Repose', mutilated corpses in 'The List', an oil-spewing dummy head in 'Apocrypha' and bug-infested prop arms in 'War of the Coprophages'.

The episode 'Nisei' required a dummy Grey corpse to be made for assorted scenes.

For the episode '731', Lindala's team first had to create several burn makeup appliances for the extras playing disfigured prisoners. The most elaborate one was worn by Colin Cunningham as Escalante, due to his character having several speaking scenes.

'731' and 'Nisei' also required makeups for the extras playing human-alien hybrids. As the alien extras would only be seen at a distance or wearing hazmat suits, the hybrids were realized as pull-over latex masks, with some gored chest appliances.

The mask molds for the Grey aliens in the later 'Jose Chung's From Outer Space' episode, as well as the previous season's 'Duane Barry', were reused to create some disposable masks. These tattier masks were given a paintjob to resemble a human skin-tone.

'Jose Chung's from Outer Space' was a heavy episode in terms of the makeup effects. Several Grey masks were sculpted, and blended with the performer's painted torsos. The look was completed with finger extensions and painted spandex leggings.

(The Grey mask moulds were reused for background extras in '731', as well as parody Grey masks in the Millennium episode 'Somehow, Satan Got Behind Me' a few years later.)

Also in 'Jose Chung's From Outer Space' was the ogre-like Lord Kinbote. According to visual effects designer Mat Beck, 'He was kind of a homage to these stopmotion Ray Harryhausen monsters. We didn't have time to do a real stopmotion puppet so we put a guy in a suit.'.

Prelimary maquette of Lord Kinbote.

Inside the Kinbote suit was stunt coordinator Tony Morelli, was was asked by Lindala to wear the suit thanks to his tall size. The suit was hard for Morelli to wear, being heavy, hot and hard to breathe in, and yet Morelli had to spend ten hours inside it!

The Kinbote suit's head had servo mechanisms to control the eye, which could blink on camera. To make the suit taller, the legs were stilts, with Morelli's actual feet being inside the suit's knees. Walking with the stilts attached meant Morelli more or less walked on tip-toes.

It was Mat Beck who achieved the effect of Kinbote's movement, which resembled stopmotion animation via camera trickery; 'By varying the camera speed and playing with the shutter, we were able to make it look like it was a badly-done puppet.'

Sources:

• 'F/X EFFECTS LINDALA'S SPECIALTY', Vancouver Sun, October 1997
  
• Assorted 'Behind the Truth' featurettes.
  

Continued in The X-Files - Season 4

The Twilight Zone (1985 & 2002)

(And also the ill-fated Twilight Zone: Rod Serling's Lost Classics TV movie)

The release of Twilight Zone: The Movie spurred a television revival of the original series in 1985; one thing that complicates writing about its special make-up effects is the fact there aren't really any special makeup credits on the episodes!

For the episode 'Nightcrawlers', a makeup credit was given to Jack Wilson; but was this Wilson's work, or was he just responsible for the 'normal' makeup and someone else handled this?

Another case of a strange crediting is the episode 'Teacher's Aide', where Adrienne Barbeau slowly becomes more gargoyle-like. Jack Wilson is again credited for makeup, but then IMDB has John Logan credited for special makeup effects as part of The Burman Studio?

Things get more complicated with the title monster of 'Gramma' which clearly was a special makeup effects job, but there was no credits on the episode! Jeff Farley (@obscureartifacts on Instagram) clarified to me that this was the work of James Cummins.

To quote Farley's direct message, 'From what I understand, the entire episode had been shot (or was nearly wrapped) and they were having trouble with the concept of the “Gramma” character. They planned on not showing much from what I recall being told and were using a rather large performer in an old-age makeup… I don’t know at all who did it and production realized that they were in trouble as it wasn’t working at all. They knew they needed a more extreme version and I’m not sure how James was contacted or even considered for the job. They could have had numerous bids from other places and James just happened to place the best estimate ($35,000.00 from what I recall) for the week-and-a-half’s work. James did a design as I recall… he was very good at that.

The entire creature was a suit and cable-controlled head with gloves to cover the performers hands. I was immediately placed on working on hand sculptures and then put onto something else as required. I did a little of everything. As far as crew goes; Bryan Blair, Brian Wade, Larry Odien, Dirk von Besser and myself. There may have been one or two others. The foam fabricated suit was done a few blocks from James place… all in my neighborhood and I wasn’t aware up until then. After Dirk & I made the core for the head mold, that was sent off to The Burman Studio to run & bake the foam latex pieces.'

(Farley suggested there was no 'special makeup effects' crediting due to the rushed schedule, and for the other episodes, they could not have been crediting due to budget reasons, as individual credits cost money. I would like to thank Farley for at least solving this mystery!)

Meanwhile, the demons of 'Personal Demons' were a series of latex masks; again, there is only a 'make-up artist' credit for Charlene Roberson, IMDB reveals that the masks were the work of veteran maskmaker and special makeup artist Rick Stratton.

More prosthetic demon masks were made for 'Dead Run', albeit partly obscured by the riot helmets they wore; Lance Anderson was credited for the creature makeup, making this the only episode included here with any special makeup effects credited *in the actual episode*.

Note; The first photo was provided to me by Lance Anderson via email; gloves were seemingly also fabricated for the performers playing the demonic prison guards.

The insect aliens in 'A Day in Beaumont' were realizd as masks and gloves; again, only IMDB gives a clearer picture, as again these were the work of Rick Stratton apparently.

The demon in 'Crazy as a Soup Sandwich' was realized as a prosthetic makeup, with heavyset eyes and a ridged forehead. Again, there is no actual makeup artist credit for this, so who made this?

A few years after the 1985 series finished, yet another attempt was made to revive Twilight Zone's legacy, with the 1994 pilot movie Twilight Zone: Rod Serling's Lost Classics and was a flop. Several zombie makeups, courtesy of Jim Beinke (working under Alterian) were made for it but until I find a good enough copy, there's no screenshots for now!

The series was rebooted again in 2002, but the only episode with special makeup effects work was the remake of the original series episode 'Eye of the Beholder'.

Oddly, this episode has no special makeup effects credit, but the episode's IMDB page states that the makeups were handled by Toby Lindala and Mike Fields. Due to the 2002 revival being filmed in Vancouver, this is likely.