Have a Cool Yule with a Ghoul!

Merry Christmas and a cool yule to all! I'll be taking a few days off from posting until the first of the year.  It's been a ton of fun sharing all the monster mask goodness the past few months. I look forward to doing it again in '11.

In the meantime, enjoy this super high resolution scan of the Monster World #6 cover featuring the Don Post Strange Frank.

Mad Monsters Presents Monsters Cover

The Don Post Wolfman Mask as seen in the classic calendar photo makes an appearance via the cover of the MAD MONSTERS #1  British Special Edition. More info on the magazine and some great MAD MONSTERS cover scans over at MONSTER MAGAZINE WORLD

Be Something Studios - All Hallows Eve Companion Article

I find it very strange that I've been running this blog for the better part of four months and I have yet to have a single post on Be Something Studios, maker of my favorite mass-produced masks. So tonight it's time to rectify the situation. Here is a brief write up of the history of (IMO) the best mass-produced mask maker from the best mask publication ever... 

I'm not sure when, but at some point in time I found the color photos from the article. If these belong to you, or someone you know, please let me know so I can give proper credit.

Delgado Gorilla Article - Famous Monsters #46

A great article written by Verne Langdon on Carlos Delgado's White Ape created at Don Post studios.  The article documents the saga of the white ape that would never made for the Perils of Pauline.

Don Post Mask Ads - Famous Monsters #46

It just wouldn't be right to post the excellent article above from Famous Monsters of Filmland #46 and leave out these great vintage Don Post Ads from pages 70 & 82.

Black and White Don Post Calendar Mask Ad

Don Post 800 line masks and Creepy & Eerie masks

Henry Alvarez Article - Chiller Theatre #3

Friday's post on the Alvarez sculpted Predator was the inspiration behind today's post. While not a mask maker, Henry Alvarez is a master sculptor and several of his sculpts have been immortalized as latex monster masks. Chiller Theater #3 featured a great article on Henry and his work...

Distortions Ad - Predator & Leatherface

The full page color ad Distortions featured the licensed Predator and Leatherface series... now this is an ad that sent my senses spinning back in 1991! Is it just me, or is it crazy that in a few short weeks 1991 will be 20 years ago? Wow.

Distortions Predator and Leatherface Masks

The Predator series featured 3 different versions of the mask, with the deluxe Predator being the cream of the crop. The deluxe Predator was released in 1990 and was sculpted by Henry Alvarez. This huge mask came with the shoulder armor and had seperatly cast dreadlocks and usually sold for over $300 retail.

The impressive matching hands can be seen in the ad and were sculpted by Dwight Shundo, and featured separately cast blades on the left hand in the ad. The Standard Predator was actually a pretty decent sculpture, but the subpar paint scheme left a lot to be desired.

What made this ad so special was in addition to an already bad-ass Predator it also featured the Distortions Leatherface series! The whole head deluxe edition pictured on the left of the ad was based on the TCM Part III design. In addition to the full head mask a smaller, less expensive, face mask was also offered.

CFX Silicone Masks

I grabbed some amazing photos of silicone mask work while cruising around DeviantArt yesterday when I stumbled upon Crawford-the-Imps home page. These are just two of examples of the many pics up in his gallery:

The DeviantArt link from above has more great photos, and the CFX website offers these killer masks for sale.

While I prefer a nice old school latex mask, there's no denying that if you're going to wear the mask, silicone provides very natural lifelike movement, and these are some of the finest out there. Really nice original designs, the tentacled Deep Spawn is one of the coolest masks I've seen in some time!

 

1993 Death Studios Catalog

In our third post on Death Studios catalogs, we'll take a look back at the '93 line-up which featured a nice balance of new and old.

The impressive new additions included the John Smith/ Harry Inman sculpted "Cerebus", "Boris", "Scarecrow", "Hex" ,  "Ram Demon", "Experiment B-50" prop head, and the wicked rotting demon "Mr. Skin".  In addition the catalog featured 4 movie monsters. "Swamp Witch" by Miles Teves, based of the Meg Knucklebones witch from  the 1985 film "Legend".  The third Death Studios Killer Clown "Shorty". The super creepy "Nosferatu" mask, and finally the "I, Madman" based on the Dr. Malcom Brand character from the 1989 film of the same title.

The catalog also featured some old Death Studios classics with new paint schemes as seen on the second page of the catalog. These include the "Cool Brown",  the purple "Invader" and  the "Albino Vampire".

Here's a pic of the copy of the Nosferatu I picked up back in 1993. Check out the hi-res photo for some of the nice subtle detail that is sculpted into the mask.

If you missed the earlier Death Studios Catalog posts check 'em out here:
'86 & '91 Catalogs 
'92 Catalog

Bump in the Night Masks- The Rue Morgue Ads

While Rue Morgue magazine never really had many articles or ads featuring monster masks, it was a pretty good bet that you'd at least be able to find an ad featuring Bump in the Night Production masks.

Over the past decade, Chuck Jarman's BITN Productions has single handedly produced the largest and most impressive line-up of licensed character masks since the hey days of Distortions and Don Post. Here is a sampling of the variety of small ads that consistently showed up in the pages of Rue Morgue...

Bump in the Night Productions - It's Alive Puppet

Bump in the Night Productions - House of 1000 Corpses Masks (B&W Ad)

Bump in the Night Productions - House of 1000 Corpses Masks (Color Ad)

Bump in the Night Productions - Day of the Dead Masks

Bump in the Night Productions - Killer Klowns Masks

Bump in the Night Productions - Holiday Horrors Masks

Bump in the Night Productions - Army of Darkness Masks

All together that's an awful impressive output of modern horror movie masks!

Monster Mask Ads - Monster Land #1

With all the great articles and ads that pop up through the decades in Famous Monsters of Filmland, it's easy to forget about the good stuff that can be found in Forry's latter endeavor Monster Land.

The cover of Monster Land #1 features some classic aliens, several of which would go on to be offered in mask form. Sixth Finger, Seemore and Willis would show up in Distortions catalogs and E.T. would of course be offered by Don Post.

On a side note, last I checked, Steve Neil may be currently offering copies of Seemore and Willis. There are two excellent threads on the HMA on the finding of the original master copies, and the current revival of the masks.

Aside from the cover, the issue is packed with monster mask ads along with monster feet & hands!There's quite a large selection of Don Post licensed character masks including Star Wars ROTJ, Gremlins, E.T. a few Universal classic monsters, The Last Star Fighter and American Werewolf in London. In addition a Be Something Studios Shrunken Head mask even makes an appearance.

Distortions ALIEN Mask- Horrorshow #5

The Distortions Unlimited Alien mask released in 1980 remains one of the rarest and most sought after Distortions masks ever produced. This write up from Aaron Lewis of Monster Mayhem contains some history on the mask, and a really amazing story of how Aaron obtained his copy.

The article came from Horror Show #5 which featured this great Demon Mask from the Monster Makers on the cover. Issue 5 was chocked full of mask goodness which I post here at some point in the future. Until then, enjoy this ghoulish stroll down memory lane!

Alterian Ghost Factory Haloween Mask Ads

The Alterian Ghost Factory produced Halloween masks and collector quality movie masks during the early 1990s. Tony Gardner ran the studio which was an off shoot of his Alterian Studios FX house. The AGF original designs featured and really nice blend of 80s-90s style gore as well as old-school classics with a definite retro feel.

I removed both of these ads almost 20 years ago from issues of Fangoria magazines and they've lived in a binder with my collection of mask ads until being scanned a few weeks ago.  I have a bunch of late 80s / early 90s mask ads that are finally scanned which I'm looking forward to post here!

Don Post Article - Monster World #3

Monster World #3 featured an article on Don Post entitled "Meet the Man of Many Faces, the Masked Marvel of Monsterville!". The article itself briefly touches on several aspects of Don, and Don Post studios including early motion picture work, the calendar series, lifecasting, and the newly released Munsters masks.

 Here's a close up of the photo of Don Post and Glenn Strange from the bottom of page 18.

Like any good Warren Publication with Captain Company ads, the issue wound down with a full-page mask ad. This one featured both Universal Monsters and Munsters.