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Fantastic Flesh: The Art of Make-Up EFX (V)

“So, given that we never asked for it, and Starz still delivered a documentary on The Art of Make-up EFX. It’s hard to complain too much about what’s missing or what’s glossed over. In the best moments, FANTASTIC FLESH offers a unique glimpse behind the lens into a magical place where hardcore film fans and (of course) kids who grew up on too many monster movies would love play.”

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On October 7, 2008, Starz Originals will debut a new documentary as part of an ongoing STARZ INSIDE series hosted by film critic Richard Roeper. This entry, FANTASTIC FLESH – THE ART OF MAKE-UP EFX comes just in time for Halloween.

Focusing for just under an hour on the history of Make-up design, the film touches on forebears like Lon Chaney (PHANTOM OF THE OPERA) and Jack Pierce (FRANKENSTEIN) before turning itself into something of a KNB EFX lovefest. Now, I dig on the KNB guys as much as the next horror junkie kid who grew up reading magazines that featured the latest and greatest splatter creations. The same kid who would grow up and get a subscription to Make-Up Artist Magazine and a considering abandoning a traditional college setting for the Industrial Design Technology program at The Art Institute. But, in an hour focused on the “Art of Make-Up” I would have like to see a bit more about the mechanics of the so-called “art”. Instead what we get is a lot of coverage of films that KNB worked on, along with a sprinkling of Rob Bottin’s THE THING, a touch of Rick Baker’s AN AMERICAN WEREWOLF IN LONDON and a dash of Dick Smith’s THE EXORCIST. If you think this documentary is catered toward horror fans—I wouldn’t bet against you.

FANTASTIC FLESH does a bit of research on the importance of what Chaney, Pierce and Smith brought to the table with their work but mostly the film feels like a highlight reel for the “best of make-up” over the past 80-years. It can’t go that far into the field in only 54-minutes and since the film has no narration to drive the story (Roeper only appears at the beginning to deliver a stilted introduction). What we get is a series of talking heads discussing appliances and techniques that they love and the history of make-up only as it correlates to the specific person relating the tale.

Now, don’t get me wrong, the talking heads on display here are (almost) all top notch. We get insights from Joe Dante, John Landis, Wes Craven, John Carpenter, Frank Darabont, Robert Rodriguez, Quentin Tarantino, Eli Roth, Frank Darabont, Mick Garris, George Romero and effects gurus including Dick Smith, Tom Savini, Greg Nicotero, Howard Berger and Rob Botton. But, it’s not the “who’s on screen” that amazes or the “who they talk about” that blows your mind. It’s who’s not there and who’s is not talked about that puzzles.

Where is Rick Baker? The man has 11 Oscar Nominations and 6 wins. He’s the most decorated make-up artist in history. We hear about Baker’s legendary transformation sequence in AMERICAN WEREWOLF IN LONDON and his work on Tim Burton’s PLANET OF THE APES (where the Make-up was the only part of the film that didn’t suck!) but we don’t hear anything about the true life designs that have garnered the man most of his accolades. The “real life” stuff that Baker has inarguably mastered—specifically old age applications—is hammered home during a segment on Dick Smith. And, with all the respect in the world, Dick Smith does it better than anyone—I’m sure Rick Baker would agree. So, why not interview the man and get his perspective on it. The other name that is conspicuously absent (although it is mentioned once) is Stan Winston. Winston—as I’m sure all of you know died earlier this year—also has 9 Oscar Nominations and 4 wins. Though Winston is considered more of a creature creator than a make-up artist, this documentary does not seem to make that distinction too prevalent, specifically with its focus on Rob Bottin’s work on THE THING. I don’t know when this feature was shot, but if it was before Winston died then I wonder if he was approached, and if not, why not. If the doc was shot after Winston died I can’t imagine that he was far from the other interviewee’s minds. Still, it’s more noticeable that Winston is not discussed in light of his recent passing.

Ultimately, no one can expect Starz to manufacture the be-all-end-all of special effects documentaries in an hour. But they do manage to cull a grandiose collection of names and faces to commemorate some of the exceptional work that has been pioneered in the field. I was specifically excited that—although the documentary touched on CGI—it mainly focused mainly on practical effects and in camera work—it’s too be expected given the hands-on approach and extensive careers of the principal cast.

So, given that we never asked for it, and Starz still delivered a documentary on The Art of Make-up EFX. It’s hard to complain too much about what’s missing or what’s glossed over. In the best moments, FANTASTIC FLESH offers a unique glimpse behind the lens into a magical place where hardcore film fans and (of course) kids who grew up on too many monster movies would love play.

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Five Serial Killer Horror Movies to Watch Before ‘Longlegs’

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Pictured: 'Fallen'

Here’s what we know about Longlegs so far. It’s coming in July of 2024, it’s directed by Osgood Perkins (The Blackcoat’s Daughter), and it features Maika Monroe (It Follows) as an FBI agent who discovers a personal connection between her and a serial killer who has ties to the occult. We know that the serial killer is going to be played by none other than Nicolas Cage and that the marketing has been nothing short of cryptic excellence up to this point.

At the very least, we can assume NEON’s upcoming film is going to be a dark, horror-fueled hunt for a serial killer. With that in mind, let’s take a look at five disturbing serial killers-versus-law-enforcement stories to get us even more jacked up for Longlegs.


MEMORIES OF MURDER (2003)

This South Korean film directed by Oscar-winning director Bong Joon-ho (Parasite) is a wild ride. The film features a handful of cops who seem like total goofs investigating a serial killer who brutally murders women who are out and wearing red on rainy evenings. The cops are tired, unorganized, and border on stoner comedy levels of idiocy. The movie at first seems to have a strange level of forgiveness for these characters as they try to pin the murders on a mentally handicapped person at one point, beating him and trying to coerce him into a confession for crimes he didn’t commit. A serious cop from the big city comes down to help with the case and is able to instill order.

But still, the killer evades and provokes not only the police but an entire country as everyone becomes more unstable and paranoid with each grizzly murder and sex crime.

I’ve never seen a film with a stranger tone than Memories of Murder. A movie that deals with such serious issues but has such fallible, seemingly nonserious people at its core. As the film rolls on and more women are murdered, you realize that a lot of these faults come from men who are hopeless and desperate to catch a killer in a country that – much like in another great serial killer story, Citizen X – is doing more harm to their plight than good.

Major spoiler warning: What makes Memories of Murder somehow more haunting is that it’s loosely based on a true story. It is a story where the real-life killer hadn’t been caught at the time of the film’s release. It ends with our main character Detective Park (Song Kang-ho), now a salesman, looking hopelessly at the audience (or judgingly) as the credits roll. Over sixteen years later the killer, Lee Choon Jae, was found using DNA evidence. He was already serving a life sentence for another murder. Choon Jae even admitted to watching the film during his court case saying, “I just watched it as a movie, I had no feeling or emotion towards the movie.”

In the end, Memories of Murder is a must-see for fans of the subgenre. The film juggles an almost slapstick tone with that of a dark murder mystery and yet, in the end, works like a charm.


CURE (1997)

Longlegs serial killer Cure

If you watched 2023’s Hypnotic and thought to yourself, “A killer who hypnotizes his victims to get them to do his bidding is a pretty cool idea. I only wish it were a better movie!” Boy, do I have great news for you.

In Cure (spoilers ahead), a detective (Koji Yakusho) and forensic psychologist (Tsuyoshi Ujiki) team up to find a serial killer who’s brutally marking their victims by cutting a large “X” into their throats and chests. Not just a little “X” mind you but a big, gross, flappy one.

At each crime scene, the murderer is there and is coherent and willing to cooperate. They can remember committing the crimes but can’t remember why. Each of these murders is creepy on a cellular level because we watch the killers act out these crimes with zero emotion. They feel different than your average movie murder. Colder….meaner.

What’s going on here is that a man named Mamiya (Masato Hagiwara) is walking around and somehow manipulating people’s minds using the flame of a lighter and a strange conversational cadence to hypnotize them and convince them to murder. The detectives eventually catch him but are unable to understand the scope of what’s happening before it’s too late.

If you thought dealing with a psychopathic murderer was hard, imagine dealing with one who could convince you to go home and murder your wife. Not only is Cure amazingly filmed and edited but it has more horror elements than your average serial killer film.


MANHUNTER (1986)

Longlegs serial killer manhunter

In the first-ever Hannibal Lecter story brought in front of the cameras, Detective Will Graham (William Petersen) finds his serial killers by stepping into their headspace. This is how he caught Hannibal Lecter (played here by Brian Cox), but not without paying a price. Graham became so obsessed with his cases that he ended up having a mental breakdown.

In Manhunter, Graham not only has to deal with Lecter playing psychological games with him from behind bars but a new serial killer in Francis Dolarhyde (in a legendary performance by Tom Noonan). One who likes to wear pantyhose on his head and murder entire families so that he can feel “seen” and “accepted” in their dead eyes. At one point Lecter even finds a way to gift Graham’s home address to the new killer via personal ads in a newspaper.

Michael Mann (Heat, Thief) directed a film that was far too stylish for its time but that fans and critics both would have loved today in the same way we appreciate movies like Nightcrawler or Drive. From the soundtrack to the visuals to the in-depth psychoanalysis of an insanely disturbed protagonist and the man trying to catch him. We watch Graham completely lose his shit and unravel as he takes us through the psyche of our killer. Which is as fascinating as it is fucked.

Manhunter is a classic case of a serial killer-versus-detective story where each side of the coin is tarnished in their own way when it’s all said and done. As Detective Park put it in Memories of Murder, “What kind of detective sleeps at night?”


INSOMNIA (2002)

Insomnia Nolan

Maybe it’s because of the foggy atmosphere. Maybe it’s because it’s the only film in Christopher Nolan’s filmography he didn’t write as well as direct. But for some reason, Insomnia always feels forgotten about whenever we give Nolan his flowers for whatever his latest cinematic achievement is.

Whatever the case, I know it’s no fault of the quality of the film, because Insomnia is a certified serial killer classic that adds several unique layers to the detective/killer dynamic. One way to create an extreme sense of unease with a movie villain is to cast someone you’d never expect in the role, which is exactly what Nolan did by casting the hilarious and sweet Robin Williams as a manipulative child murderer. He capped that off by casting Al Pacino as the embattled detective hunting him down.

This dynamic was fascinating as Williams was creepy and clever in the role. He was subdued in a way that was never boring but believable. On the other side of it, Al Pacino felt as if he’d walked straight off the set of 1995’s Heat and onto this one. A broken and imperfect man trying to stop a far worse one.

Aside from the stellar acting, Insomnia stands out because of its unique setting and plot. Both working against the detective. The investigation is taking place in a part of Alaska where the sun never goes down. This creates a beautiful, nightmare atmosphere where by the end of it, Pacino’s character is like a Freddy Krueger victim in the leadup to their eventual, exhausted death as he runs around town trying to catch a serial killer while dealing with the debilitating effects of insomnia. Meanwhile, he’s under an internal affairs investigation for planting evidence to catch another child killer and accidentally shoots his partner who he just found out is about to testify against him. The kicker here is that the killer knows what happened that fateful day and is using it to blackmail Pacino’s character into letting him get away with his own crimes.

If this is the kind of “what would you do?” intrigue we get with the story from Longlegs? We’ll be in for a treat. Hoo-ah.


FALLEN (1998)

Longlegs serial killer fallen

Fallen may not be nearly as obscure as Memories of Murder or Cure. Hell, it boasts an all-star cast of Denzel Washington, John Goodman, Donald Sutherland, James Gandolfini, and Elias Koteas. But when you bring it up around anyone who has seen it, their ears perk up, and the word “underrated” usually follows. And when it comes to the occult tie-ins that Longlegs will allegedly have? Fallen may be the most appropriate film on this entire list.

In the movie, Detective Hobbs (Washington) catches vicious serial killer Edgar Reese (Koteas) who seems to place some sort of curse on him during Hobbs’ victory lap. After Reese is put to death via electric chair, dead bodies start popping up all over town with his M.O., eventually pointing towards Hobbs as the culprit. After all, Reese is dead. As Hobbs investigates he realizes that a fallen angel named Azazel is possessing human body after human body and using them to commit occult murders. It has its eyes fixated on him, his co-workers, and family members; wrecking their lives or flat-out murdering them one by one until the whole world is damned.

Mixing a demonic entity into a detective/serial killer story is fascinating because it puts our detective in the unsettling position of being the one who is hunted. How the hell do you stop a demon who can inhabit anyone they want with a mere touch?!

Fallen is a great mix of detective story and supernatural horror tale. Not only are we treated to Denzel Washington as the lead in a grim noir (complete with narration) as he uncovers this occult storyline, but we’re left with a pretty great “what would you do?” situation in a movie that isn’t afraid to take the story to some dark places. Especially when it comes to the way the film ends. It’s a great horror thriller in the same vein as Frailty but with a little more detective work mixed in.


Look for Longlegs in theaters on July 12, 2024.

Longlegs serial killer

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