Movies
Makeup Effects Artist Talks Creating New Michael Myers Mask for ‘Halloween’
And by “new,” we actually mean “40 years old.”
Everything we’ve heard so far about David Gordon Green’s Halloween has sounded *really* good to us, from John Carpenter being creatively involved (and likely even providing the score!) to Jamie Lee Curtis returning as Laurie Strode. Nick Castle is even back as Michael Myers, with James Jude Courtney also playing the iconic killer.
But what about the *look* of Michael Myers? Specifically, what is the mask going to look like? Has Michael found a new one, or will he be wearing the very same one from the original, the events of which took place 40 years prior? Speaking with Halloween Daily News, Oscar-winning makeup effects artist Christopher Nelson, a mega fan of the franchise who designed the mask for this year’s film, just confirmed that the mask Michael will be wearing in Halloween 2018 is supposed to be the same mask he wore in 1978; Nelson created a new mask to capture 40 years of wear and tear on the classic.
“The first order of business, of course, was the mask. I have a strong working knowledge of the original mask, and what the second one was about, and all the masks (of the sequels) and who did them and what they looked like,” Nelson told the site. “The point was to get back to the original, and to bring Michael Myers to life again, to bring that character, that feeling that you get – I really approached it more as a feeling than I did trying to copy the original mask.”
He continued, “The film takes place 40 years later, so you’re not going to have that same mask, it’s not going to be this pristine, beautiful thing that it was in 1978. You have to approach it from that standpoint. I had 40-year-old masks that I studied and looked at how they broke down, how they wrinkled, how they did this and how they did that. I also took into account the context of the film. Where is the mask now and where has it been for these 40 years? Without revealing anything, I took that into context. I had hundreds of photos and books.”
“I’m very happy with it. I think it’s going to be cool. I wanted to create the character of Michael Myers, not just the mask. You’re not creating just a mask. You’re creating a character. You’re creating a feeling that you get that does have an expression. The mask does have an expression, but also the mask looks completely different in every single angle it’s ever been photographed at, and I wanted that feeling too. I wanted the feeling that when you saw Michael Myers, it morphs, it changes, it looks different from every single angle, like the original one did. I can safely say we accomplished that.”
Michael returns to Haddonfield on October 19, 2018.
Judging from the unprecedented box office success of Kane Parsons’ Backrooms adaptation, you’ve likely already seen the liminal horror hit that managed to make audiences afraid of empty hallways and bad wallpaper. And now that so many of us have already entered the yellow labyrinth (some of us more than once), the time has come to discuss the spoiler-filled details that make the movie so fascinating in the first place.
And if there’s one element here that makes the Backrooms movie stand out from any previous lore/mythology, it has to be the genius addition of the Still Life entities. Warped recreations of real people that somehow wandered into the Complex, these misremembered creatures are responsible for some of the most disturbing imagery of 2026 – as well as laugh-out-loud memes created by one of the film’s very own concept artists.
However, true to Parsons’ word that the movie would rely heavily on practical effects, each of these distorted monsters was brought to life by real actors under heavy layers of makeup and prosthetics (with the occasional splash of CGI enhancements). While Anora and If I Had Legs I’d Kick You actress Ivy Wolk wasn’t among these performers, despite what Letterboxd might have you believe, the creature cast did benefit from veteran players with plenty of genre experience.
For starters, Alien: Romulus alumni Robert Bobroczkyi (who previously brought that film’s horrific Offspring to life during its most memorable sequence) plays the flick’s main antagonist, the Still Life version of Captain Clark. And though there was some obvious CGI involved in making the character’s peg-leg and nightmarish face more believable, Bobroczkyi’s monstrous performance and his natural 7’7″ frame helped to make that final chase sequence a clear highlight among this year’s genre offerings.
The film’s Texas-Chain-Saw-inspired “dinner” scene also features a freaky collection of less-aggressive Still Life creatures in the form of the Bearded Man, the Red-Headed Woman and, strangest of them all, the cheekily named “Archibald Leland Sutter Still Life” (who earned this title among fans and crewmembers as a reference to his apparent affinity for lamps).
While this was the first major horror outing for both Patrick Baynham (The Bearded Man) and Dana Mahmood (Archibald), Rhiannon Roberts has worked as a stunt performer in everything from Yellowjackets to HBO’s The Last of Us adaptation – which is probably why The Red-Headed Woman is the most active out of Clark’s impromptu “family.” That being said, the Archibald Leland Sutter Still Life is my personal favorite of the bunch simply because his anachronistic outfit suggests that the Backrooms phenomenon might be a lot older than the Async Foundation. I also love how hard he tries to be helpful with that little light of his!
That might be it for the Still Life entities, but I think horror fans will also be pleased to hear that the film’s Found Footage prologue stars none other than Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City star Avan Jogia as Naren Warne – and American Mary herself Katharine Isabelle also shows up in a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it cameo at Mary’s house party towards the middle of the story (though I have a feeling that she originally had a bigger part that was likely cut for time).
At the end of the day, Parsons’ Backrooms may have been an auteur-driven project motivated by the young director’s unique take on the classic creepypasta, but film has always been a collective artform, so it’s fun to see just how many talented performers it takes to bring this kind of supernatural nightmare to life in a way that connects with so many people.
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