Tighten up your uniforms and strap into your Humvees, soldiers. We’re gonna get ourselves into the makeup chair today and have our faces remodeled while our minds are blown by the work of Special Makeup Effects mastermind Rick Baker.

You’ve seen him on the big screen before, much the same way you’ve seen John Williams or James Cameron. Rick Baker has given us creatures to be scared of, and faces to be scared for. From Men in Black to Harry and the Hendersons, from The Wolfman to An American Werewolf in London, Rick Baker has created the most memorable, realistic, and innovative cinematic sequences and looks of the last thirty years. He stands on the shoulders of Jack Pierce (The Wolfman, the original) and Dick Smith (The Godfather, The Exorcist) , and continues the tradition of great movie makeup.

In high school, Baker changed his life goal from wanting to be a doctor to wanting to do makeup for movies. His parents were luckily supportive, and Halloween became the “Rick Baker Holiday” in the neighborhood. But for Rick, Halloween lasted all year long. Naturally, any makeup guy is going to have a “blood and guts” period as a teenager, but this quickly came to an end for Baker when he painted his friend with third-degree burns, and the kid’s father became hysterical at the sight.

Later, Baker located Dick Smith in New York City. He wrote Smith a letter and included photos of his work. Smith took the young Baker under his wing, just as he was finishing up his latest picture, Little Big Man, with Dustin Hoffman. Throughout the 70s, Baker refined his craft on B-movies and even a couple of A-listers, including some uncredited work on The Exorcist, and second unit effects on Star Wars.

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In 1981, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences finally decided to add a Best Makeup Award for the Oscars. The first winner in this category was Rick Baker, for his incredible human to wolf transition design in An American Werewolf in London — clearly the new bar set for human-creature effects work of the last thirty years in filmmaking.

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Baker worked several times with Michael Jackson, most notably on the greatest music video of all time (sorry, Kanye), Thriller (also directed by American Werewolf’s Jon Landis). Later came Harry and the Hendersons, featuring a family friendly Ron Perlman Bigfoot design, and bringing Baker his second Oscar for Best Makeup.

With the 1990s came three more Oscars for Baker — for classic monster makeup and aging prosthetics to make Martin Landau the unforgettable Bela Lugosi in Ed Wood, for redefining a classic film, for redefining Eddie Murphy’s career in The Nutty Professor, and for alien-to-human transitions in Men in Black.

But along with these finer achievements came some minor work, yet no less considerable on any makeup artist’s resume: Gorillas in the Mist, The Rocketeer, Coming to America, Wolf, and even Batman Forever. He won his sixth and record-holding Makeup Effects Oscar for green-ifying Jim Carrey in How the Grinch Stole Christmas, and was able to bring the Oscars to a new low by getting nominated for his makeup work on Norbit. He visualized the imagination of Guillermo del Toro in Hellboy, scared countless Americans out of their chairs with The Ring and The Ring Two, and made Robert Downey, Jr. into a funny Eddie Murphy black man in Tropic Thunder.

Most recently, Rick Baker was able to pay homage and put his own stamp to the original makeup work of Jack Pierce’s classic design of The Wolfman. Luckily, Benicio del Toro is a very hairy man, which no doubt made Rick Baker’s job that much easier. Asked why he would revisit werewolves despite having jumpstarted the genre in American Werewolf in London, Baker said: “It’s The Wolfman. It’s one of the films that made me the strange man I am today. I could do nothing but horror movies and be happy. I hate what’s become of them, with all these slasher films, and any chance I can get to do an old-fashioned gothic horror movie, I’m going to take it.”

Del Toro, 2010; Chaney, 1941

In the same interview, Baker says his favorite monster-movie as a kid was actually Frankenstein. Unversal execs take note, because you have your monster-makeup-man right here. Steal him away before he is obligated to take on Norbit II. Seriously. Even Benicio del Toro threatened him…

At ease.

Sgt. Angle

In keeping with my cohorts’ ongoing obsession with all things Halloween (jack-o-lanterns, the right costumes and the wrong ones, and spooky special editions of our favorite comic-book heroes), I shall present to you a gathering of the obscure and the obscene, a gallery of the nasty and the terrible, and a smothering of grim effects with a dashing of pleasurable points of interest. But rather than give you the obligatory “scary movies list” consisting of Alien, Rosemary’s Baby, The Exorcist (or The Exorcist III), Psycho, Friday the Thirtieth, Nightmare on blah blah blah, take a gander at a few other frightening films. For kids.

First, Little Red Riding Hood and the Monsters.

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Oh, the FX work! Stunning. Instant classic brought to you by K. Gordon Murray, who also brought you Shanty Tramp.

Who else but an adult film producer would know how to reach out to kids about Little Red Riding Hood and her journey through the gauntlet of monsters? Only this guy could do it:

Rico Suave.

But look, this isn’t the place to complain about pedostaches kids movies or “adult” movies. Let’s move on to discuss the best costumes you can possibly pick this Halloween, or any Halloween, while you gather with friends and loved ones and watch creepy exploitation movies which were made for kids. There are two kinds of costumes: The recognizable flair — your Batman, Superman, Spider-man, Catwoman, WonderWoman (please don’t unless you can), etc. — and then the more obscure references. Let’s go for the flair first:

There’s always time for love.

The Au-Naturale. Inspired by some great actresses over the decades, actresses who repeatedly become great assets to their films. I’m talking Kate Winslet, Diane Lane, Sharon Stone. Come to think of it, just plop on a short white dress and halfway through your Halloween fright-night, let the beaver loose. You’re still IN COSTUME, technically. Oh, and Dudes, you too can wear the ultimate embarrassment moneysaver costume as that naked guy from An American Werewolf in London.

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Want creepy? Okay, how about the reference to one of the most eerie film classics of all time, Fritz Lang’s “M”. Released in 1931, the film tells the story of a German city with a child-murderer on the loose. Since the police can’t seem to get the job done and catch the killer, a group of criminals hunt the man on their own, in order to restore the usually lax police force. The Killer is played by Peter Lorre, who is branded with an M in chalk on his back shoulder at a late point in the movie, thus forever marked as child killer, and forever hunted. Go for it, you’ll have a story to tell. And probably some bruises to nurse when your night is cut short by a proud parent.

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For the ladies, you want to get creepy you can wear the white dress and carry around a dead rabbit, a la Glenn Close in Fatal Attraction. Or, make it simple and see if you can pull of the human disgrace Winehouse.

So good, I can’t look. Seriously.

Which brings us to heroes. You need a costume that will restore faith in mankind, you need to be sure you pick one of the most beloved heroes of ALL-TIME. James Bond is so yesterday. Indiana Jones has become too legendary. Luke Skywalker is just a cartoon. No, you need the ultimate in good-guys who will take on the world for his city, his community, and his children. You need the Atticus Finch.

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Lookit that suit, the scraggly hair, the thick-framed glasses. It’s a recognizable appearance, heroic in its’ modesty. It’s no wonder that he is the number one hero in cinematic history, in no less a masterpiece than To Kill a Mockingbird.

Be a hero this Halloween.

Be Atticus Finch.

Until next time,

Sgt. Angle