If you walk past Corey Castellano's house, don't be freaked by the body parts in the garage. They're not real...really, they're not. But go see for yourself...if you dare.
By JANET ZINK
Published October 31, 2003
[Times photo: Skip O'Rourke ]
Artist at work: A face not even a mother could love is what Corey Castellano, left, is putting on Chris Simmons, turning him into a monkey demon. Castellano is a successful makeup artist with a long list of Hollywood credits.
Before: Chris Simmons looks fairly normal before the makeup work begins.
After: Three hours later, Castellano has transformed Simmons into the monkey demon. Simmons is working in Busch Gardens' annual Halloween scarefest, which is going on now at the amusement park.
VALRICO - The house on Leichester Street looks like any other suburban home with its neutral stucco exterior and well-maintained lawn.
The garage, though, is filled with lifeless bodies. Severed arms and heads are as likely to show up in the garbage as coffee grounds.
No need for fear, though.
The home belongs to Corey Castellano, a makeup artist and creator of freaky faces for TV's Buffy the Vampire Slayer and woundmaker for such films as The Punisher, 2 Fast 2 Furious and Gods and Generals.
Occasionally, the tools of his trade end up in the garbage, and at least once the neighborhood kids found treasure in his trash.
"I looked outside and saw them playing kickball with a head," he said.
When Castellano, 40, moved to Brentwood Hills, he made sure to warn the neighbors.
"I have to mention to them what I do for a living because they're going to see odd things coming in and out of the garage," he said.
Most of his home was tastefully decorated by his wife, Evelyn, who works for a plastic surgeon.
Castellano's office, though, has blood red walls decorated with prints of Lon Chaney and a shelf of silicone zombie heads and blood-spattered faces with lolling tongues. A skull dangles from the ceiling fan pull chain.
Castellano demonstrated his art using the face of his friend, Chris Simmons, 27, as a palette. With his 12-inch Mohawk, Simmons offered ideal raw material.
Castellano used some of the things he had around the house - pointy ears, fangs, a foam face prosthetic left over from the remake of Planet of the Apes, and black contact lenses that cover the entire eye.
"We're going for a monkey demon," Castellano said. "I'm the mad scientist and he's my monster."
The three-hour process started by attaching the prosthetics made of soft, lightweight foam, to Simmons' face using medical adhesive. More adhesive applied with a tiny spatula blended the edges of the attachments to Simmons' skin.
"You're basically spackling the edges," Castellano said.
The longest step required applying several colors of face paint - mauve, beige, purple and brown. Castellano used a standard cosmetic sponge but tore off the smooth top layer with his finger tips to make the sponge bumpy and create a more mottled look with the makeup. Skin, he noted, is a variety of colors.
"It's a form of faux finishing," he said, referring to the popular painting technique.
Castellano painted on a dark color using a small brush to accentuate creases and wrinkles on the mask and Simmons' face.
The principles of monster makeup are exactly the opposite of glamour makeup, Castellano said.
"With that, you want to hide the imperfections," he said. "With something like this, you're enhancing the imperfections."
Makeup in place, Castellano inserted oversized black contact lenses.
Once Simmons put the fangs in, the transformation was complete.
No longer was he a mild-mannered history student.
He was ... monkey demon.
Simmons suffered for Castellano's art. He couldn't breathe under the mask, his neck hurt from sitting still, and the contact lenses were a chore to insert.
"It's worth the discomfort," said Simmons, who works at Busch Gardens' Howl-O-Scream. "It's fun to see people's reactions. It's fun to be something else."
Most of the time Castellano works on Hollywood films and television shows; but at Halloween, he makes up the neighborhood kids and his young nieces and nephews.
Castellano became interested in monster makeup when his father, a fan of Lon Chaney, turned him onto horror films. A seminal moment came when he was about 11 and saw Jimmy Cagney in Man of a Thousand Faces, the story of Chaney. It was then that the thrill of transforming people struck. In high school, Castellano worked on haunted houses and school plays, then moved into local theater.
His first Hollywood gig was on the civil rights film Selma Lord Selma.
From there it's been on to big name films and television shows. Castellano goes to where the work is, usually Los Angeles. Most recently, he traveled to New Zealand to work on The Last Samurai, which stars Tom Cruise.
"What happens when you're a kid or really just getting into makeup, you gravitate toward injury makeup because it's easy. If it's not anatomically correct you can throw blood on it and no one's going to notice," he said.
Fashioning living, breathing creatures is more complicated. Old-age makeup is the most challenging.
"That's where you stretch as an artist," he said.
Castellano said he rarely dons a monster face. Even on Halloween.
