Why do people love to be scared? Those who grew up fascinated with horror films, fiction and art often get asked that question. It's truly something that you can't completely explain, but my guess is that if you're reading this you no doubt have a fascination with it as well.
In SUPERNATURAL HORROR IN LITERATURE, HP Lovecraft\r\nwrote, "The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is\r\nfear, and the oldest and strongest kind of fear is\r\nfear of the unknown."
Indeed, there is no doubt that early man huddled around campfires spinning tales of fear. This tradition of horror storytelling weaved its way through the ages like a serpent, nesting in man's earliest folklore tales and slithering through the early works of Shakespeare and Walpole, finally reaching unheard of heights in the gothic writings of Poe. Poe is no doubt the godfather of the modern horror tale but his tradition has certainly been kept alive by the likes of HP Lovecraft, M.R. James, Algernon Blackwood, Richard Matheson, Ray Bradbury, Robert Bloch and yes, even Stephen King and Clive Barker.
I grew up reading the horror stories of these writers, watching late night creature features and pouring through the lurid and wildly illustrated tales found in the pages of Creepy and Eerie magazine and EC, Dell and DC horror comics. The artists who illustrated these monthly tales of terror, Berni Wrightson, "Ghastly" Graham Engels, Nick Cardy, and Jack Davis just to name a few, highly influenced my artistic leanings. The original Universal monster movies, Hammer Films and Italian gothic horrors of Mario Bava and Ricardo Freda were my favorite movies and through the eighties FX films like "American Werewolf in London", "The Howling", and "The Thing" captured my imagination, so much so that it eventually lead to acareer in creature FX for films.
It was in the pages of Famous Monsters Magazine that I discovered the work of Rick Baker. At the time Rick was (and still is) one of the top creature FX artists best known for the cantina aliens in "Star Wars" and the hyper-realistic apes in the 1976 version of "King\r\nKong" and "Incredible Shrinking Woman". But it was his work in "American Werewolf in London" that changed my life and set me on the path to making monsters for a living. Saving every spare penny for materials and working late into the night, I polished my craft by sculpting replicas of Rick's work and creatures of my own design. I finally gathered enough work (and nerve) to send Rick some photos of my creations. Within the week I received a call from the man himself and I within the year I was packing my bags and moving to California at the age of 20 to work for Rick.
