Artists In Horror Movies: Prosthetic Makeup

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The goal of adding prosthetic makeup to actors in horror movies is to transform them to look terrifying and inhuman. Special effects artists achieve this goal by adding artificial blood, making the audience fear something not happening, and sometimes even painting the actor with clown makeup. This creates the illusion that the actors, playing the role of someone the audience should be afraid of, are not normal causing the viewer to feel uncomfortable and soon fearful of the unsimilar character. First, to be able to create these horrifying reconstructions, prosthetic makeup artists need to be educated in how to apply the makeup realistically. A major factor contributing to forming open wound makeup is liquid latex. The makeup artist applies…show more content…
12 percent of American adults are afraid of clowns (source 2). The most common cause of children being afraid of clowns is the fact that the features are often over exaggerated and therefore unfamiliar. Writers of horror movies understand this and know to add clowns into their movies to cause more horror movie finatics to watch it (and ‘Why we crave horror movies’). Makeup artists help this motive of scaring audiences by making the appearance as amplified as possible. The actor’s face will be painted a white showing they’re completely different than the audience with no pigment whatsoever. Noses will be made huge with a big spherical sponge which is firetruck red. Eyes will be given colored contacts to either make them look like there is no pigment in the iris or to look foggy as if the clown is blind, but yet can still use his horrific senses to find children to terrorize. Black will be painted on both eyes in a vertical diamond just as though a ravenous creature has scratched at the eyes; the eyes being the door to the soul. The eirie face paint on these characters and seemingly soulless features invite everyone to be terrified of what should be a friendly companion to little…show more content…
[stephen king’s paper for why we watch horror movies]. There is a tv show called ‘Brain Games’ on the National Geographic Channel. The host would go through many experiments for how our brain works; one experiment was called ‘The Rubber Hand Experience’. The customer who was participating sat in a chair with their hand on the other side of a blind while a fake rubber hand and sleeve was placed on the participant’s body. A paint brush stroked both the rubber hand and real hand at the same time, the person only being able to see the rubber hand. After a few moments of watching the rubber hand be touched with the paintbrush and feeling it as if it was their own, the participant soon would begin to believe the rubber hand was the true hand attached to their body. The investigator then took a hammer and crushed the rubber hand; the participant would jump or cry out, their brain telling them their hand was actually hurt. The investigation proved that a person’s brain can be tricked sense pain when, in fact, nothing is really happening to the subject. Makeup artists take advantage of this with the realism of the effects. They can use latex and props such as a pencil and make it look as though the pencil has been stabbed into an actor’s neck. If the audience had ever been poked with a sharp pencil, their brain can tell them momentarily they’ve been stabbed by a pencil in their neck. The viewer may even get
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