MastersFX's Horror and Sci-Fi Creations

Fulfilling a Boyhood Dream of Making Gore for Fun and Profit - Los Angeles Times
With body parts, slimy creatures and ghoulish effects, Todd Masters leaves his mark on films and TV shows.
By Richard Verrier - Times Staff Writer
April 23, 2006

Quotes:
>>Inside his shop of horrors, not far from three naked, bloated bodies propped against the wall, Todd Masters proudly displays his latest creation: an impaled head.

For a scene in the upcoming horror flick "Snakes on a Plane," Masters and his colleagues have rigged the silicone head with a giant syringe that will pump a blood-like corn syrup mixture through the ear canal.
[snip]
When it comes to creating gruesome physical effects — as opposed to those created on a computer screen — few have an edge on MastersFX, the company Masters founded two decades ago.
[snip]
Their numbers have dwindled over the last 15 years, falling from about 30 companies to fewer than 10 as filmmakers have relied more and more on digital effects.
[snip]
Masters' warehouse contains countless boxes of foam and silicone body parts. There are dismembered torsos, intestines, skulls, noses, leg stumps, human hair, even brains — leftovers from an operation scene in Stephen King's TV miniseries "Kingdom Hospital."<<

David W. S., if you're reading this, e-mail me. My e-mail address is at the end of my columns.

When I was a teenager, I really got in to all of this stuff along with my partner-in-crime, Francisco M. (Hey, Francisco, if you're reading this, I want you to e-mail me, too!) Francisco and I made stop-motion films in junior high school that featured comparitively crude versions of this kind of work - in clay. They were titled, descriptively enough, "Laserfight" and "Laserfight II". Todd helped us out on the sequel. We also did the annual Halloween thing of applying bloody make-up effects to ourselves to give the kids a show as they came to my house for trick-or-treating. We coined a term for our art, but I'm not publishing that here yet.

Alas, writing and theme park design had more of a hold over me especially in high school, where we didn't have filmmaking classes. My family home ended up being sold and Francisco went back to Chile with his family, so I had to find new places to help out on Halloween.