Body Snatchers (1993)

Robert H. Solo, who had already produced Philip Kaufman's Invasion of the Body Snatchers, wanted another shot at adapting the original Jack Finney novel to the screen. Solo told Fangoria about why he was disappointed with Kaufman's film, despite its positive reception.

'The '78 version wasn't a breakthrough film financially. Critics liked it, but it was aimed at thinking adults, and they don't go to the movies a lot.'

Solo's second attempt to film The Body Snatchers went through several scripts and prospective directors; Stuart Gordon was assigned to direct, until he had to abandon the project to work on 1992's Fortress. The job instead went to Abel Ferrara.

In the press at the time, it was noted that Ferrara was an odd choice, as he was more known for crime thrillers such as Ms. 45 or King of New York, as opposed to Stuart Gordon who, what with having directed Re-Animator and From Beyond, seemed like a much better fit.

The film's makeup effects were handled by the Burman Studio, possibly due to Robert Solo remembering Thomas Burman's impressive work on the 1978 film. Thomas Burman himself was not 'hands on' with the production, only personally supervising some gags.

Barney Burman was credited as supervising on the production, with the team consisting of Rob Burman, Jake Garber, Andrew Kenworthy and Nancy Howe-Kenworthy, Scott Stoddard, Nik Carey, Gregy Polutanovich, Hal Miles, Joseph Coswell, and Mark Killingsworth.

Ferrara's inexperience with directing special effects caused some issues with the Burman Studio, as Thomas Burman remembered. 'Abel didn't have a strong vision of the special effects. I love the guy, ad we didn't fight or argue, but at the same time he didn't have a clear vision of what he wanted from us, so it's hard to say what's going to end up in the finished film. He really wanted to see what we could do and then decide. But that's a problem, because you often find yourself painted into a corner, and effects aren't very flexible.'

This resulted in much of the Burman Studio's work makeup being cut from the final film, such as the deformed facial appliances on performers playing dying pod people. An elaborate appliance was made for the demise of R. Lee Ermey's role as a pod person, but the only trace are thumbnail images on the Burman Studio's archived website.

The Burman Studio team also worked on the scenes where humans shrivelling into dust, and pod people melting away. These were achieved with latex 'skins' that had the air sucked out of them , causing them to collapse on camera.

Unlike the previous two Body Snatchers films, this time the 'birth' of the pod people would be shown in detail. Several different puppets were made, each in a different stage of the pod persons development (some fetus-like, some almost 'fully grown). Burman explained;

'(We made) effects that show what's happening inside the pod as the replicas are developing, which is something that wasn't done in either of the earlier versions. In those, you see the pod replicas from the outside as they're forming, and you see them emerge when they're complete. For the pods themselves, we tried to create something that was ominous and unfamiliar-looking, yet organic. We tried to go in the direction of things that looked like a distortion of something you might find here on Earth, rather than something that screamed 'outer space'.

(I truly hope that someone out there has any more images of the assorted puppets and pod birthing effects from the 1993 Body Snatchers, as according to Rob Burman much of the Burman Studio's archives were lost.)

The pods themselves were designed by the Burman Studio, but there was another problem: the Burman Studio was based in California, while the film was entirely shot on location in Alabama. The pod props had to be constructed on the set by Matt Marich and Star Fields.

The workload for Marich and Fields was massive, as Fields remembered. 'Originally they wanted fifty pods. Then they decided they wanted a hundred, just to fill the trucks. But once we hit a hundred, the producer just said, 'Keep going.'. Tom (Burman) designed the prototype, and they wanted different sizes, so, going off his design, Matt sculpted the rest.'

'We're making about 70 'hero' pods which can be used for people carrying them. We're spending a little more time on these pods. They're going to be dressed with all sorts of mud and moss. The pods turn somewhat translucent in their most mature stage. They grow to 3 or 4 feet. Burman's handling the heavy effects makeup. The pods turn somewhat translucent. We're also making about 75 of the rigid lightweight foam ones becuase when the're harvesting them, they have big nets and so we had to make some light enough to be carried.'

The pod props themselves were made out of an AB urethane-type foam, but the paints were actually dangerous! Marich explained, 'It's a pretty toxic paint that we're using because we wanted to be sure that once we start working in the swamp that it doesn't rub off. Heck of a buzz from it. We had to go home early a couple of days.'

Sources

• Fangoria #118
  
• Cinefantastique Vol. 24 No. 2
  

The X-Files (1993) - Season 6 & 7

Continued from The X-Files - Season 5

When production of The X-Files moved to Los Angeles, the series' makeups were overseen by Cheri Montesanto-Medcalf, who would act as the series' makeup department head right up until the end of its original run in 2002.

X-Files was not Montesanto's first brush with horror, as she had previously did makeup work in 1982's Fear No Evil and 1988's The Lady in White. Montesanto explained how she got the X-Files job in an interview with Classic-Horror.com.

'I had worked with one of the producers, (Bernadette) Caulfield before. I worked for her for fifteen years on and off. Bernie’s specialty was TV movies.

She introduced me to one of the executive producers of X-Files. Well, I was working on a television movie at that time, and I guess he was looking for people to do character makeups and prosthetics.

I flew to Utah to meet him and Rick Schroeder to do a makeup test. I guess they were a little surprised when they saw me, because as soon as I walked in the room I got the feeling that they thought, “She won’t be able to do this.”

I guess they thought that a man would do it. You know, I’m an ok-looking girl, and here I come in with my red lipstick on, and everything. Well, anyway I did the makeup test and they loved it.

After that, I just went on and did some other things. In fact, I was working on Forces of Nature at the time. Bernie called me and said that she was working on X-Files and that they really wanted me to do the series.

I was kind of like, “You know, I’m doing a movie right now, and I really don’t know if I want to do TV.” I had never really done a television series. I told them, “I’m sorry, I’m not available.” She said, “They really, really want you to do this. They saw some of your film reels and they really want you.”

I said, “I’m sorry, but I’m working right now. The only thing you could do is to have someone else start it and then I’ll come later.” She said, “No, you gotta start it.”

I talked to some of my friends in Los Angeles and they were saying, “You gotta do it. It’s huge. Everyone in Hollywood would love that job.”

I was like, “I’m working on a movie right now, though. I can’t just leave.” To make a long story short, I ended up getting heat exhaustion while I was in Georgia on the movie, and I had to leave anyway. So I had to take the job at X-Files. It was all meant to be I think.'

While Montesanto was head of the X-Files makeup department, her 'hands on' duties mostly were on 'straight makeups', such as the burn makeups in 'Two Fathers', the 'de-aging' makeup on William B. Davis in 'One Son', and the period-accurate 1940s makeups in 'Triangle'.

The special makeup effects - ie mutilated corpse props and creatures - were contracted to John Vulich's Optic Nerve Studios, whose previous television experience included Babylon 5 and Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

'The Beginning'

The season's opening episode is a bit of a mess in terms of crediting the makeup effects, partly for its recycling of one of Amalgamated Dynamics' (ADI) 'long clawed alien' suits from the feature film X-Files: Fight the Future.

The alien costume that appears for most of 'The Beginning' was almost certainly loaned from ADI. It can be assumed that Optic Nerve was allowed to use the ADI suit's mold to cast a 'hollow' copy for the shot of it shedding its skin underwater.

The skin shedding shot would require closeups of the 'long clawed alien' hands and back flaking away as the Grey underneath is exposed, and to further complicate matters this shot would be done underwater.

Vulich explained; 'We have an alien with the skin of another alien on top of it, and have it dissolve underwater on cue. We got an actress, Wendy Cook, who I had worked with on Cocoon when I worked at Greg Cannom's. She was very waif-like, very skinny.

We just did makeups on her, very minimal makeups, just finger extensions and coloured and airbrushed her to look like the Grey alien. We had one of our guys who was scuba certified, I think Greg Solomon. He was in there with a squirt gun underwater, actually squirting the pieces of the (ADI aliens') skin off on cue, which worked surprisingly well'.

The final shot of the fully fledged Grey was realized as a puppet, shot underwater in a water tank. However, the episode credits Thomas R. Burman for the special makeup effects, and the below image was taken from an archive crawl of the Burman Studios website.

What makes matters more complicated is that the Grey alien's design was one that Optic Nerve used for later episodes with Greys as well. So who originally made it? I reached out to Rob Burman, who puppeteered the Grey alien on the shoot, and he had this to say;

'(Burman Studio) may have inherited the mold from Optic Nerve for the alien. They didn’t have the job long enough to have made it in shop if I remember correctly. So probably no sculptors at The Burman Studio (made the alien)'.

So, perhaps Burman Studio was called in to help out Optic Nerve given their considerable experience with puppetry? Or perhaps Burman Studio made the puppet from an Optic Nerve sculpt? The latter is more likely, as the design was echoed with the Grey masks made for 'One Son', 'The Unnatural' and 'Field Trip', but I can't be sure.

'Dreamland'

The Burman Studio also worked alongside Optic Nerve on this episode, fabricating the puppet body meant to represent a couple fused together after exposure to alien technology. These photos were posted by Rob Burman on Instagram.

'How the Ghosts Stole Christmas'

Optic Nerve made the Mulder and Scully corpse dummies, as Vulich explained; 'We had to do mummified corpses, one of Scully and one of Mulder. For this, we requested the lifecasts (of Gillian Anderson and David Duchovny) that Toby (Lindala) in Canada had originally made of them previously for some other makeups he'd done.

From that we made clay replicas of them, and just carved away at their faces. We wanted to retain a subtle amount of their features. Initially in a meeting with Chris (Carter) he wanted them to be initially recognizable as them. Then he wanted them to be kind of a 50/50 thing where when you first saw them you didn't quite recognize them.

Then, you kinda see 'Oh! That is them!', so we had that dramatic beat. Which worked well from a dramatic standpoint, but from a design standpoint made it difficult for us to find that balance.'

'Terms of Endearment'

A demon suit was required for the opening sequence, realized as a fully sculpted foam rubber suit and prosthetic facial appliance. This demon is only seen more clearly thanks to being used on the cover of Fangoria #186, where many images in this article originate from.

'Two Fathers / One Son'

Despite being the episode that won Montesanto-Medcalf her first Primetime Emmy Award, much of the makeups were never seen! Montesanto-Medcalf's 'de-aging' makeups on William B. Davis as a younger verson of the Cigarette-Smoking Man were seen as unconvincing, and so much of the footage involving him was left on the cutting room floor.

Another suspected casualty is this makeup supposedly for 'Two Fathers', as quoted by a Fangoria issue. The same photo is on the website of Optic Nerve Studios' successor, Alchemy FX Studios. Yet I don't remember this in the episode, and it isn't from Babylon 5 or Buffy.

Was this mystery alien possibly meant to be Optic Nerve's update of the Toby Lindala alien hybrid makeups seen in '731'?

Optic Nerve also handled the shots of the faceless aliens having the faces ripped off in the follow-up 'One Son'. The effect of the faces ripping off was achieved by creating a specialized appliance,that was two masks on top of each other, separated by a layer of gelatin.

The Grey aliens that appear in 'One Son' were achieved in a similar manner to those seen back in the second season's 'Duane Barry'; children wearing masks, finger extensions and painted onesies. Director Rob Bowman recalled;

'It was freezing cold outside. The hangar doors didn't open very quickly, so they waited in their coats and sweaters with their mommies and daddies. When we yelled 'action' they peeled off all their outer layers, handed them to their parents, and ran inside'.

'Arcadia'

Optic Nerve's Ubermenscher monster suit was, much like the bug monster that Lindala-Schminken made for the previous season, instantly derided by cast and crew, and all footage involving it was digitally edited in post-production.

David Duchovny himself recounted on Reddit how embarrassing the shooting experience was; 'We had a bit of a crowd watching, just because we weren't locked up in a McMansion, and I hadn't seen the monster. I shot my reactions of being terrified first and girding myself to battle it, and then the poor guy came out in the monster suit.

Michael Watkins had the best line because I said "That's not a scary looking monster" and he said "He looks like the guy who fucked Mrs. Butterworth." '

The Ubermenscher suit earned many other unflattering nicknames from the crew, such as 'Gumby on steroids', 'Mr Butterworth', 'Fecal Fred', and 'The Shit Monster'

Assistant director Bruce Carter gave this thoughts as to why the Ubermenscher suit was unsuccessful; 'The problem was that although the basic concept was good, no one could really envision what this strange bast - a psychologically manifested compilation of garbage - should look like. Should it be a conventional monster, a creature that has somehow grown muscle and sinew through the force of Gene Gogolak's personality? Or should it really be made of garbage, covered with banana peels and coffee grounds and old bedsprings?'

Vulich explained how the suit was made, 'It was basically a foam rubber suit. We poured urethane foam on it to give it a sort of bubbly appearance, then glued on some shredded rubber and coated it with gunk. Roger Morrissey wore the suit.'

The altered 'bubbly' suit head behind John Vulich.

'Trevor'

Optic Nerve made a gruesome dummy head for this episode, depicting a man whose entire face had been burned open. The prop currently exists in the X-Files Preservation Collection.

'Milagro'

Optic Nerve also supplied the beating heart props for this episode, which were fitted with mechanisms that allowed them to 'beat' on camera. Yet again one of these props currently resides in the X-Files Preservation Collection.

'The Unnatural'

Optic Nerve made a Grey mask with animatronic mechanisms, said mechanisms controlling the masks mouth and eye movements. Walter Phelan wore the Grey mask, with neck appliances and finger extensions, blended in with grey makeup.

'Three of a Kind'

Optic Nerve made the prosthetic appliances for this episodes autopsy scenes.

'Field Trip'

I'm not sure if the similarly mechanized Grey mask worn by young Cody Weselis in this particular episode was a reuse of the masks made for 'The Unnatural', or a new mask made from the same mold. It was worn with finger extensions and a sculpted chest appliance.

'Hungry'

Optic Nerve designed the makeup worn by Chad Donella's turn as the brain-eating mutant Rob Roberts. The makeup was a head appliance with specially sculpted ears, a forehead appliance and nose appliance, and completed with shark-like dentures and contact lenses.

A pair of false ears were also made for the shots of Roberts removing his disguise. Vulich explained the aim of the makeup's design.

'The character had to be passable as a human being and the disguise had to look slapped together. The makeup was complicated in its level of subtlety. We had to get something that was a dynamic monster, but at the same time, we had to do a little tweaking so that he would look like a human being.'

In another interview, Vulich elaborated, 'The hardest part about (the makeup) was hiding his ears. We had to hide his ears underneath a bald cap, and still put (false) ears on top of that, without making his ears look giant. There's a lot of little tricks, every illusion we could pull to make it not look like huge giant ears, we did.'

(A gross detail; the shot of the brains on the cooker did not use rubber props, but actual cow brains! No wonder they were frying so well...)

'Rush'

Yet another grisly dummy head was made by Optic Nerve, this time depicting the fate of a sheriff whose face had been caved in. In the actual episode, fake blood was used to make this appear far more nasty. This prop yet again resides in the X-Files Preservation Collection.

'Orison'

This episode was a sequel to the second season's 'Irresistible', featuring the return of demonic serial killer Donnie Pfaster. Optic Nerve had to recreate Toby Lindala's makeup design for Pfaster's demon shape. Bryan Blair wore the makeup.

To recreate Lindala's design, Vulich requested Lindala send him photographs. Before receiving the photos, Vulich also searched the internet for photos of the demon's appearance, often finding them hosted on X-Files fansites!

'Brand X'

A grisly half-dissolved dummy head was made by Optic Nerve for the episode, as well as dissected autopsy prosthetics. The innards prosthetic currently resides in the X-Files Preservation Collection.

Optic Nerve of course also supplied the 'mundane' gore for the sixth and seventh seasons, such as severed heads for 'The Amazing Maleenie' and 'Biogenesis'.

Sources:

• The End and the Beginning: The Official Guide to The X-Files Volume 5 (Andy Meisler, 2000)
  
• Assorted 'Behind the Truth' featurettes.
  
• Classic-Horror.com 'Cheri Montesanto-Medcalf Interview'
  

Continued in The X-Files - Season 8