"Bobby, leave Doug alone. He's a democrat. He doesn't believe in guns"-
Big Bob, The Hills Have Eyes, 2006
Bottom Line: Isn't that just like a Democrat? Brings a knife to a gun fight.
Wes Craven's remake of his own 1977 The Hills have Eyes, directed by Alexandre Aja, is out June 20th on DVD from Fox Searchlight and just in time for Summer popcorn season. That is, if you can keep the popcorn down while watching this visceral and audio assault that made my dog freak and climb in my lap as soon as the movie began.
Not since "Goodfellas" have I seen such a blood drenched opening before the title credits sequence. Don't get me wrong, for the genre, it's very good.
Craven's story was based on the legend of Alexander "Sawney" Bean and his wife "Black Agnes", the murderous cave-dwelling Scottish clan of Ballantrae.
Bean was a fictional character that most UK historians postulate was a politically driven Anglo invention. Sawney was a flesh eating Scotsman who sired a tribe of like minded kilt wearing cannibals, established in local folklore through clever 18th Century media "seeding" by mud slinging English Jacobite spin-meisters of that time to demonstrate the purported savagery of the Scots - in contrast to the superior qualities of the English.
Cut to modern day America. Enter the Carters, an affable American family driving a gas hogging SUV, Airstream in tow, traveling through New Mexico (actually, Morocco). The family gets ambushed in a staged car accident after getting bad short cut advice from a squirrelly gas station owner into an area closed off from the public since the nuclear testing of the 1950's. Underscoring their ideological differences, "Big Bob" - father and "Doug" - son-in-law, set out in opposite directions to get help, leaving the rest of the family alone.
Bad idea. Those hills have eyes, after all.
The real "stars" of this film are not in the cast of actors, but Howard Berger and Greg Nicotero and their team, special effects makeup designers and creature creators from KNB EFX, who spent over six months the makeup and design for the mutant family in The Hills Have Eyes. Berger, recent Oscar winner for "The Chronicles of Narnia", and his partner Nicotero have amassed a skilled group of artisans in the special effects makeup community, responsible for 400 plus movies.
Not just traditional makeup artistry, prosthetic make up design is makeup "heavy lifting", involving other unique skill sets from traditional film makeup crafts, including 3-D design, animatronics replication, sculpting, and puppeteering, casting and molding techniques.
Berger added, "You also need an unconditional love of monsters, makeup and film. We love them, and that is really what drives us to do the best we can."
When asked why it seemed the overwhelming majority of effects makeup houses are owned and staffed by men, Berger replied. "I think men are attracted to this field more because we are more willing to be geeks and squids, but we do have a lot of women working for us like the head of our fabrication dept., Beth Hathaway and her team Clare Mulroy, Dawn Dininger and K.L. Sully. They're all great and such an important part of the team. We've had women in the mold department, foam room, sculpting and on set - Oscar winner Tami Lane (Narnia) is always by my side."
With the volume of projects that Berger and Nicotero work on, Berger noted, "Obviously we can't both be on every set, so we have to divvy up the shows and supervise whatever we can handle, but during prep we both are extremely involved in how we go about designing an effect or makeup, so it is completely collaborative all the way."
Berger elaborated on the details of how involved the work was for his team. "Though the KNB team shot in Morocco, a talented crew worked in the shop here in Van Nuys, California to create all the actual prosthetics, puppet and mutants required for the film. Jim Leonard supervised the mold department they were responsible for al the life-casting of the actors playing the mutants and molding all of the sculptures produced by the artists."
Once one department finishes their work, the next department at KNB begins their handiwork to add layers to the final product. "Once the mold work was completed, they would fall into the hands of foam rubber Supervisor, Ben Rittenhouse, who's specially formulated system was used to create the numerous appliances required for each day of mutant application while we were on location" said Berger.
There is still more work for the special effects artists before the movie can begin.
The creature making fun continues. "In the mechanical department, Dave Wogh and Jeff Edwards built several radio controlled and cable operated versions of the mutants and their victims for specific gags and effects. Many others on "The Hills" special fx makeup crew lent their talents from foam fabrication under suits worn by the mutants to alter their body size and shape to the hair department that gave each mutant their own individual stylish hairdo. "As you can see, it takes many chefs to create the 'monster stew' required for this film" said Berger.
KNB's dental prosthetics technician, Grady Holder, outdoes himself. Most everyone in "The Hills" cast has some seriously distressing dental malformations and cruddy, realistic overlays.
The other KNB artists that worked with Berger and Nicotero were lead designer Scott Patton, Clare Mulroy, Karl Derrick, Jake Garber, Kevin Wasner and Matteo Silvi. Greg Nicotero states, "It was a very involved process and we knew that the more prep we did beforehand, the better the results would be."
KNB's work is always adapting due to changes in technology, and restraints on their actual prep time. When asked how the workflow for his company was evolving, Berger noted, "I think the greatest leap as been made in how fast and how inexpensive we have to do things these days. Also the fact that directors today want more practical effects on set instead of CGI. I feel this is the new magic trick, the combination and proper use of both mediums, makeup effects and computers, as the audience has stopped watching an effects sequence and let's the film and experience ride as it was always meant to be."
There is top notch collaborative work on display in this movie. The visual effects supervisor, Jamison Goei and his group layered the excellent KNB EFX makeup's with their own twists on the actor's faces, through digital manipulations, slightly warping the features of mutant "Ruby" (the red hooded girl).
In total, they labored on over 130 visual effects shots for "Hills". The coup-de-grace was digitally recreating the atomic village in their computers, with the interiors sets expertly decorated by the outstanding art department; production designer Joseph Nemec III, art director Tamara Marini and set decorator Alessandra Querzola.
DVD Stats: The Hills Have Eyes -2006
Beauty and Makeup Update
Taking the advice of Heba Thorisdottir (currently on "The Nanny Diaries" as Scarlett Johansson's personal artist) and some other well-connected makeup artists, I finally booked a facial at the Arcona Studio in Los Angeles to see if they could work any magic on me.
Chanel Bratcher, vice-president and key facialist (the late Arcona was Bratcher's mentor) at the studio gave me my first Arcona enzyme facial. Chanel's regular list of clients is a jaw-dropping celebrity roster. Without giving away too much, think Julia, Diane, Mandy, and on and on.
Her A-Listers have Chanel flying back and forth from Los Angeles to New York frequently and points in-between. Arcona Studio is slated to open their new salon doors in Santa Monica some time this summer.
After two treatments so far, my skin - according to my dermatologist who made notes when he saw me last - looks "twenty years younger than my chronological age."
Not too shabby. If you are reticent like I am about injecting anything into your skin and want to try other methods of rejuvenation, please try their signature facial contouring session.
Some key products along with their "Basic 5" line-up that are amazing are the "Triad Pads", "Eye Serum" and "Tea Tree Mask" that everyone can benefit from.
The Hills Have Eyes (unrated) is now available at Amazon . It is available for pre-order at AmazonUK for a June 26th release. Visit the DVD's database for more information.
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