He concocted the skin-crawling images of the new flesh in Videodrome, transformed Eddie Murphy in Norbit, and then there's Robert Downey Jr.'s unconventional, eyebrow-raising transformation in Tropic Thunder. So with monster week coming to close, let's take a look at some of the amazing creatures he designed before he left the industry behind.īaker's done plenty of impressive makeup work outside of the realm of creature horror. "I like to do things right, and they wanted cheap and fast," he explained at the time. That's the climate that led Baker to retire in 2015. Unfortunately, the industry underwent significant shifts in recent decades with the rise of VFX, which can be melded with practical effects to create even more polished visuals, but are too often used as a paint job in lieu of old-school effects. "When you watched Friday the 13 th, you really didn’t remember anybody that was in the movie. " were the stars of the movies," Savini once said. These brilliant effects artisans were a driving force in the horror industry and during their reign, horror fans were equally as excited to see the latest film from their favorite FX guru as they were to see the latest from their favorite director. And of course, there's the legendary Dick Smith who added his flourish for otherworldy nightmares to the era with The Exorcist and Scanners.īut if you want big beastly monsters or critters from across the universe, it's hard to beat Baker, who changed the industry landscape in 1981 with John Landis' An American Werewolf in London, which earned the first ever Oscar for makeup in 1982. In addition to his iconic work on Maniacand Friday the 13th, Tom Savini set bloody the standard for zombie movies in his grotesquely gorgeous collaborations with George Romero, a tradition that's honored weekly on The Walking Dead by Greg Nicotero (who got his start in the industry as Savini's assistant on Day of the Dead.) Rob Bottin topped his previous collaborations with Joe Dante and John Carpenter with the early 80s double whammy of The Howling and The Thing, both of which pushed the envelope of technical invention in the effects sphere. Over the decades, artists have expanded and advanced horror effects to staggering heights. Horror has long been the premier destination for stunning practical effects work, dating back to the Universal monster movies, which made fantastical nightmares come to life on screen without the tools, materials, and technological advancements that have developed in the near-century since. When it comes to practical monster effects, Rick Baker is still the guy who set the standard.
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