Do you like a good scare? The flesh-eating zombies of “The Walking Dead” unearthed to scare the press who attended the annual preview of Halloween Horror Nights at Universal Studios Hollywood. You can’t miss out on this year’s Halloween Horror Nights starting September 20th and continues on the 21st, and selected nights through November 2nd, 2013. Halloween Horror Nights is the undisputed leader of horror mazes. The extreme horror make-up, costumes, and the mazes are all to die for. Literally.
John Murdy, the brilliant Creative Director of Halloween Horror Nights, gives us a sneak peak of the most gruesome and scary effects that are planned for this year. New attractions to look forward to for Halloween Horror Nights includes a brand new urban sets section in the studios back-lot for The Walking Dead’s No Safe Haven maze, which is based on Season 3. At the 747 Stage will be the new maze called Black Sabbath 13 3-D, which is based on the band Black Sabbath’s darkest lyrics, “Insidious: Into the Further”. Collaborations with the likes of Ozzy Osburne were necessary for this maze to bring their songs to life. New scare-zones include The Purge and Curse of Chucky. With these brand new attractions in mind, you can assume it will be the sickest and most horrific Halloween Horror Nights to date. Be prepared!
We step inside the Assembly Line Drawer, which is a giant room for costumes and the Extreme Horror Make-up sessions by extreme horror make-up artist Larry Bones and his team. The Scalps and Skin Grafts, Lunatic Ravings, and 8 make-up sessions called Today’s Victims are an assembly of artistic and talented professionals. The skilled professional artists, costume designers, and make-up artists all of whom creates the illusions of horror.
We start with The Scalps and Skin Grafts where artists tease wigs, combs wigs, and brush wigs, soften, and color skin grafts to prepare for the make-up artists. Next, Lunatic Ravings is where the graphic artists illustrate original concept art of each character on Photoshop. In the middle of the room are displays of costumes from Curse of Chucky, Killer Klowns, Black Sabbath 13’s Lucifer, The Purge, and a costume designer painting a bloody red color onto the Black Sabbath 13 3-D’s War Pig.
At the Today’s Victims booths, about three booths are the Light horror-makeup sessions for guests of this press preview event and the last five are the Extreme horror-makeup sessions for the five “Walkers” of today. The Extreme horror make-up session begins with a first process where medical prosthetics is prepared beforehand at the The Scalps & Skin Grafts. Then the professional make-up artists will apply the medical prosthetic on the actor’s face and then apply powder to remove the stickiness from the actor’s face. Then they use the airbrush to brush-in and blend the prosthetic to the natural skin and they can add as many colors as necessary to achieve a realistic oozing burn wound or a slashed throat.
During the Halloween Horror Nights, the professional make-up artists are constantly busy and are only allowed a 25-minute session with each actor. A regular normal session would last as long as 2-3 hours depending on the type of wound they are depicting. All of these actors keep a routine skin-care with top of the line skin products to maintain their normal skin condition. Moisturizer is key!
After the 25-minute Extreme make-up sessions, all the actors are ready to creep out the guests as the flesh-eating “Walkers” from the Walking Dead!! Guests will definitely be spooked at this year’s Halloween Horror Nights at Universal Studios Hollywood! Keep your eyes peeled for these creatures!!
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