Island Briefly: Special Effect

Fox Henderson turned me into a demon. And I liked it.

Text by Meredith Morrison
Photography by Fox Henderson and Ancelene MacKinnon

Think all demons are evil, destructive creatures that like to suck out brains? Well, you’d be wrong.

Trust me, I know. I was one.

Thanks to filmmaker and special effects make-up artist Fox Henderson, I transformed from mild-mannered writer and editor of G! into, well, a mild-mannered demon. I didn’t develop a taste for brains, or feel the need to terrorize humanity. Instead, I posed in various locations around Charlottetown while Henderson shot photos for his upcoming book, The Secret Lives of Demons.

I have to say, I was a pretty tame. I felt more like a Sears catalogue model than I did an evil minion. But that’s kind of the point.

The Secret Lives of Demons, a book project Henderson has been working on for close to two years, is essentially photographs of demons taken from the perspective demon Karl Wenham. The photos, says Henderson, are taken of demons Wenham knows to prove to humanity that their misconceptions are completely wrong. “The idea is to create what normally would be a boring, mundane photo of a person doing nothing terribly special, just going about some normal routine and make it a little more fantastic by imagining a world where demons are as commonplace as humans,” Henderson describes on this Facebook Page.

There’s a demon playing a piano. There are demons laughing over martinis.  There are demons at work. There are even wrestling demons. Me? I was a contemplative demon taking a stroll through the city. These are just a few of the things demons do.

The project has been a huge undertaking for Henderson, but he loves it. Since starting his own special effects business four years ago, The Monkey Rodeo, he’s been honing his movie prosthetic-making skills, creating numerous demonic characters for short films he writes, directs, and produces. The idea to create his own prosthetics and props came from working on a feature called The Monkey Rodeo: Malice.

“I decided I wanted to do more than just two guys in a room talking so I went online, searched a bunch of prosthetic make-up, and bought I don’t know how much we spent on it, probably about $20,000 in the end,” he says. “We had probably 40 demonic characters throughout the movie and it’s still not done. It was fun but it was really expensive so we thought, let’s just do some short films and I’ll learn how to do this on my own; make my own prosthetics and stuff. And literally, that’s what it was.”

“It’s really expensive to make a one-off prop, but if you make it so you can resell it, it’s still expensive but you can recoup all your costs,” says Henderson, whose clientele range from wholesalers and theatre groups, to convention goers and even live action role players. Funny enough, one of his biggest clients is the company he originally bought the make-up from for The Monkey Rodeo: Malice.

When Henderson approached me to be a part of the Demons project, I jumped at the chance. After all, how often does the opportunity to wear a movie prosthetic come along? My inner demon was chomping at the bit, so without hesitation I agreed to do it.

He tells me the whole process should take roughly four hours from beginning to end. This encompasses application, the photo shoot, and make-up removal. That’s normally how long it takes though for larger pieces, application can take up to two and a half hours. “If you paint and detail them beforehand, that takes a lot of time off of it,” says Henderson. “It’s hard to do detailing on someone’s face, but I have a little face form…it makes it much, much easier because you can move it around with the right angles then you can when it’s stuck on someone’s face.”

Getting started, he applies glue to the back of the face piece and to my face. This isn’t any old glue – this is medical grade, it’s-not-coming-off-anytime-soon adhesive. I gulp, but he assures me it will come off. Eventually. I trust him, not only because he knows what he’s doing but because I have glue on my face and we’re past the point of stopping now.

The prosthetics are made with latex foam, so for lack of a better term, they’re squishy. He lets me touch the ears before applying them onto my own; they remind me of the stuff stress balls are made of. “It’ll probably stretch more than human skin will, which is good because it needs to be,” he says. “It’ll also fold and crinkle which will give you almost a more realistic, flesh-like texture which is great.” The ears, an example of a thicker piece, don’t have much movement to them, but when they’re on, they’re on. “They’ll keep your real ears warm,” he laughs. He wasn’t kidding – the February chill was no match for these bad boys.

After some make-up blending, a few more horns here and there, and some blue paint airbrushed along my hairline, I was ready for my close up. We walked the walked the streets, stopping every once in awhile when Henderson saw an opportunity to snap a photo. By the government buildings, on the rooftop of the Pownal Street Parkade, by the waterfront, on the street – inspiration was everywhere.

Passersby couldn’t help but stare. How often do you see a demon casually walking down the street with purse in tow? No one stopped to ask what we were doing, but Henderson says that’s normal. “It really ranges. Sometimes you get those people who you know they’ve seen you but they try to ignore it as quickly as possible because they just don’t know how to react to it,” he says. “They don’t want to react to it because it’s some sort of practical joke and they don’t want to be a part of it. The reactions have been fairly good overall.

“We’re so casual about it that I can appreciate it might freak somebody out, but to be respectful, we’re not really trying to annoy people or get in their way or anything so we try to keep quiet and just do our thing and move on. We’re not trying to get attention because if you do that, you really just make things difficult for yourself.”

Henderson has enough photos, so we head back to start the process of removing the prosthetics. He applies an adhesive remover to the edges so they start to lift. I ask what’s in it and ammonia is one of the ingredients. You’re going to want to keep your eyes closed, he warns. Um, you think?

Slowly but surely, it starts to peel away from the skin. He cuts off pieces and peels off others. He wasn’t kidding about the adhesive – the entire removal process takes about 45 minutes. The rest of the make-up comes off easily with cold cream. I’m treated to a hot cup of tea from Henderson’s girlfriend, Kim, to cap off the experience.

Yes, demons like to drink tea. At least the ones from PEI do, anyway.

Henderson is currently making new movie prosthetics and props that will be showcased at the Canadian Haunted Attractions Conference in Hamilton, ON, April 13 – 15. The Secret Lives of Demons will be available for sale this spring through The Monkey Rodeo website (www.themonkeyrodeo.com).