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« Theater Decor, Movie Prices, "Anonymous" Costumes | Main | Gotham Awards: The Tree of Marcy May's Sheltered Descendants »
Friday
Oct212011

Oscars Horrors: Hellboys and Albinos

In this series, Team Experience is looking at Oscar nominated or Oscar winning contributions from or related to the horror genre. Horror has many hooks (and other deadly pointy things) but it's historically lacking in Oscar bait.

HERE LIES... Hellboy's makeup, sent to the grave from Benjamin Button's cradle in the 2008 competition for Best Achievement in Makeup for 2008; aging in reverse buried ageless supernatural creatures. 

Have you ever found yourself wholly confused by what Oscar's makeup branch looks for in a movie? Aside from aging prosthetics, where latex is lathered on to  take movie stars from cradle to grave in bloated biopics, there seems to be no consistency in how they vote. Benjamin Button's aging, which was surely heavily computer abetted, won the Oscar whilst Nicole Kidman's nose in The Hours was ruled ineligible due to computer touchups years earlier.  If you stop to recall that that the subgenre of movies that is most obviously makeup dependent (the zombie movie) has never received one makeup effects nomination it sets the head spinning right off one's shoulders. What are they looking for? It's my dream to corner one of them one days and ask just that question.

The case of Hellboy II: The Golden Army is an interesting one because, though the movie is rife with beautiful prosthetics work, many of the characters appeared in the earlier film Hellboy (2004) for which Mike Elizalde and Thomas Floutz did not receive nominations. Technically makeup work within a sequel must be sufficiently "new" to qualify. Was it the adorable site of Little Orphan 'Code Name: Hellboy' in the prologue flashback? 

The makeup work was so perfect that child actor Monste Ribé could even brush his fake teeth!

Why was the amazing sight of Ron Perlman as the adult Hellboy in 2004 not enough for a makeup nomination? Perhaps we're so accustomed to seeing genre favorite Ron Perlman buried in latex and prosthetics that it's only the site of him without (like in Drive this year) that warrants any double takes and "how did they do that?" wonder!

Or maybe the nomination came from those twin Royal elves Prince Nuada (Luke Goss, pictured) and Princess Nuala (Anna Walton) and their albino skin and weirdly creepy scarring?

Either way I hope the makeup artists or Guillermo del Toro got around to thanking Ralph Bakshi and Frank Frazetta for the Fire & Ice inspiration... "NEKRON!!!!!"

Have you ever seen the Hellboy movies?
Hellboy would sure be a tough costume to pull off for Halloween.

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Reader Comments (9)

I've seen them. I thought the first film was pretty boring but I really enjoyed the second. It is weird that the first film's make up didn't get nominated and the second one's did but the second film definitely deserved its nomination, so I'm not complaining.

October 21, 2011 | Unregistered CommenterDaniel Armour

I love both the Hellboy movies, the 2nd more so. I really wanted to be Abe for Halloween one year, but I wanted to not entirely have to rely on a lot of rubber but it was so much work I gave up and opted for Richie Tenenbaum. One of my friends dressed up as Margot so it was perfect. I've seen some pretty nifty cosplay of the Hellboy characters though, my favorite was an awesome Angel of Death one.

October 21, 2011 | Unregistered CommenterSeeking Amy

I've always thought that was the Angel of Death that sealed the deal for the Makeup nomination.

October 21, 2011 | Unregistered CommenterVictor S

I think this mostly comes down to the fact that there are three really great zombie movies that relied on makeup effects. (Night of the Living Dead, Dawn of the Dead and Shaun of the Dead). Two were made before there was a makeup category. (And I, personally think Dawn would have at least been nominated, if not won, if the category existed in 1978.) Shaun of the Dead was interesting, though not revolutionary in it's makeup design. Running down the category history: Best choice: An American Werewolf in London. (Runner up: Pan's Labyrinth) Biggest mistake: John Carpenter's The Thing not even nominated. (Runner up: Nominating Norbit. Just...nominating Norbit.)

October 21, 2011 | Unregistered CommenterVolvagia

I think it was just a matter of timing and competition competition. The Sea Inside was a critical success, Passion of the Christ was a commercial powerhouse, and Lemony Snicket was more accessible than the original Hellboy. It was a spring release that was out of theaters before summer movie season.

Hellboy 2 was flashier, had a ton of new monsters that appeared in the background, and had the summer blockbuster tag (even if it only grossed $10mill more domestically). Now, Benjamin Button winning for that freaky (and frankly, ugly) CGI work over this and The Dark Knight I can't explain.

October 21, 2011 | Unregistered CommenterRobert G

I always thought the nomination was for the Troll market scene. You see hundreds of monsters all weirder and flashier than the other.

October 21, 2011 | Unregistered CommenterBensunce

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