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Movie Monsters: Monster Make-Up & Monster Shows To Put On
Horror secrets of great movie monsters revealed!
PLUS
*How to make up like Frankenstein or Bride of F., or Dracula, or Countess Dracula, or other fearful fiends
*How to act like a monster
*How to perform murky monster magic
*Script for Monster Shows you can stage or film. . .
It's a whole fangtastic creep of monster tips, straight from a Master of horrifying monster movies!
PLUS
*How to make up like Frankenstein or Bride of F., or Dracula, or Countess Dracula, or other fearful fiends
*How to act like a monster
*How to perform murky monster magic
*Script for Monster Shows you can stage or film. . .
It's a whole fangtastic creep of monster tips, straight from a Master of horrifying monster movies!
- GenresNonfictionHalloweenFilm
80 pages, Paperback
Published January 1, 1975
32 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
October 28, 2008
This is a fun book that I get out every Halloween :-) It has a brief description of some major movie monsters (the classic ones--I think the newest is "Young Frankenstein"), directions for using make-up and face paint to create your own monstrous face, and the script for a short, humorous monster-themed play. The whole thing is informative, creative, and inspiring, but what I like best about it is its sense of fun and love of classic monsters!
October 15, 2007
This book gave me the courage -- at a young age -- to hoist my love-of-monsters freak flag high for all to see. I used to make myself up as Dracula or the Wolf Man and prowl around the Saturday-night neighborhood, growling at unwary pedestrians through the hedges. The book is probably a big reason why I work in the film industry -- it was a look-behind-the-curtain peek at magic world of monster movies.
As a side note, author Alan Orsmby portrayed the obnoxious guy in the 1970's cult classic "Children Shouldn't Play With Dead Things" as well as creating the special make-up for the zombies.
As a side note, author Alan Orsmby portrayed the obnoxious guy in the 1970's cult classic "Children Shouldn't Play With Dead Things" as well as creating the special make-up for the zombies.
January 14, 2009
Ah, memories. I had grand visions of being a film maker in those days. Of course, being in the second grade helped those ambitions. I ended up getting this at a flea market when I was eight because one of the bastards in my class kept it check out from the school library for an entire term just to spite me.
The book itself contains quick blurbs about movie monsters and some dyi movie monster makeup. I must have tried making the papier mache Frankenstein's Monster head seven or eight times. Mom used to get the book out on rainy days and turn me loose. Good times.
The book itself contains quick blurbs about movie monsters and some dyi movie monster makeup. I must have tried making the papier mache Frankenstein's Monster head seven or eight times. Mom used to get the book out on rainy days and turn me loose. Good times.
August 4, 2009
I wrote a will at age 8 which specified that this book was to be buried with me. It was a life-changer! I just found a copy on ebay recently... It's as good as I remembered it being.
May 5, 2013
This was one of my favorite books as a kid, and one of the major reasons I got into monster movies. It is both a film-guide for introducing the most famous of the "classic" movie monsters and a how-to book for turning yourself into a monster and putting on live shows with monster characters. It also includes a brief script for a monster-comedy play, which I liked a lot as a kid, but seems kind of dumb and predictable now. I still had a lot of fun reading the rest of it, though.
The beginning section is "A Ghoulery of Monster Greats," which is a listing of the best-known of the movie monsters: Phantom of the Opera, Wolfman, Frankenstein's Monster, Mummy, King Kong, Dracula (both Christopher Lee and Bela Lugosi are featured), Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Creature from the Black Lagoon, Blacula, and Young Frankenstein, along with a special dedication to "the Man of a Thousand Faces," Lon Chaney, Sr. At the time I first read this, I don't think I'd seen any of the movies, although "King Kong" would've been fairly soon afterward. Most of the classic Universal movies would wait until I was a preadolescent. But, I felt like I knew them, from reading this book and other sources, which may explain my odd relationship to movies and film guides today.
The second section is "How to Make a Monster," and it is a remarkable mix of imagination, enthusiasm, and realistic caution (don't steal your mom's makeup without her permission!), which has just the right appeal to a certain kind of nerdy kid. The author begins with inspiring anecdotes about how, when he was a kid, he used to dress up as Dracula and run around the neighborhood scaring people. There are pictures of him in makeup, probably from the 1950s or early 1960s. He says he went on to work in movies (more on that later), and then gets down to giving some instructions on lighting, shadow, costume, and facial expression as keys to good monster effect, before giving out the recipes. I wasn't really a crafts-kid, and I didn't use the monster recipes so much (if I did, it was with my mother's help), but I loved sitting in front of the mirror with a flashlight and this book, seeing what kinds of spooky faces I could create with light. Even though I was never a budding makeup artist, I got a lot of mileage out of the sheer imagination of this book.
Now, about the author. I always sort of took it for granted that his one great achievement in life was writing this book, but it occurred to me looking at it this time that he might have been a big-time makeup artist, who just happened to write a kids' book. Searching him out on imdb, I almost fell out of my chair when I realized he was someone whose work I had discovered as an adult! Assuming it's the same guy (I think so), this is the writer of the classic gore-comedy, "Children Shouldn't Play with Dead Things," and uncredited co-director of "Popcorn" and "Deranged!" Suffice to say that these are not movies appropriate to the target audience-age of this book, but movies they can grow into.
I guess I have to say thank you, Alan Ormsby, for adding so much pleasure to both my childhood and my childish adulthood.
The beginning section is "A Ghoulery of Monster Greats," which is a listing of the best-known of the movie monsters: Phantom of the Opera, Wolfman, Frankenstein's Monster, Mummy, King Kong, Dracula (both Christopher Lee and Bela Lugosi are featured), Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Creature from the Black Lagoon, Blacula, and Young Frankenstein, along with a special dedication to "the Man of a Thousand Faces," Lon Chaney, Sr. At the time I first read this, I don't think I'd seen any of the movies, although "King Kong" would've been fairly soon afterward. Most of the classic Universal movies would wait until I was a preadolescent. But, I felt like I knew them, from reading this book and other sources, which may explain my odd relationship to movies and film guides today.
The second section is "How to Make a Monster," and it is a remarkable mix of imagination, enthusiasm, and realistic caution (don't steal your mom's makeup without her permission!), which has just the right appeal to a certain kind of nerdy kid. The author begins with inspiring anecdotes about how, when he was a kid, he used to dress up as Dracula and run around the neighborhood scaring people. There are pictures of him in makeup, probably from the 1950s or early 1960s. He says he went on to work in movies (more on that later), and then gets down to giving some instructions on lighting, shadow, costume, and facial expression as keys to good monster effect, before giving out the recipes. I wasn't really a crafts-kid, and I didn't use the monster recipes so much (if I did, it was with my mother's help), but I loved sitting in front of the mirror with a flashlight and this book, seeing what kinds of spooky faces I could create with light. Even though I was never a budding makeup artist, I got a lot of mileage out of the sheer imagination of this book.
Now, about the author. I always sort of took it for granted that his one great achievement in life was writing this book, but it occurred to me looking at it this time that he might have been a big-time makeup artist, who just happened to write a kids' book. Searching him out on imdb, I almost fell out of my chair when I realized he was someone whose work I had discovered as an adult! Assuming it's the same guy (I think so), this is the writer of the classic gore-comedy, "Children Shouldn't Play with Dead Things," and uncredited co-director of "Popcorn" and "Deranged!" Suffice to say that these are not movies appropriate to the target audience-age of this book, but movies they can grow into.
I guess I have to say thank you, Alan Ormsby, for adding so much pleasure to both my childhood and my childish adulthood.
November 5, 2013
Still use it as a reference after 30+ years.
April 21, 2014
Interesting read!
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews