FRIDAY THE 13TH and SPFX Makeup

Friday the 13th is the most ideal excuse in the world to make a post in homage of Jason Voorhees, the hockey-masked (after the third film, anyway) killer zombie who drowned at Camp Crystal Lake due to the negligent sexcapades of the horny teenage camp staff.

I first watched Friday the 13th when I was about four years old. I loved it, knowing that the film was all fantasy and not real. Because of this, I became completely enamored with the how behind the special effects in the film.

I learned about combining corn syrup with red food coloring to make "blood". About foam latex prosthetics, monster masks made out of silicone, rubber mask paint, skin paints, prop making, animatronics... on and on.

For as long as I can remember horror films have been an obsessive well of endless fascination for me, worsened by the day I got my hands on a magazine called The Monster Make-Up Handbook by artist Dick Smith (The Exorcist, The Godfather, Taxi Driver, Scanners, The Hunger...), which was initially created and distributed in 1965. This later led to finally putting together my first mini-makeup kit and making my first facial prosthetic when I was 18 - primarily made out of liquid latex and toilet paper.

With Friday the 13th, FX Artist Tom Savini created the initial little kid zombie Jason (and, rumor has it, it was his idea to have Jason in the series at all) - and who also worked on another childhood favorite, Creepshow.

Aside from discovering Dick Smith and Tom Savini, I also became completely enamored with Rick Baker, who did the werewolf transformation scene in An American Werewolf in London, makeup for Michael Jackson's Thriller, Harry in Harry and the Hendersons, donned the gorilla suit and played the title role in the 1976 remake of King Kong (which makes me blubber), did makeup for The Howling, Videdrome... on and on.

Anyway, rambling aside, in homage: