While a Halloween costume establishes a character, makeup sets the mood for the night. A clown transitions from happy to horrific with a smear of white paint and a smudged red grin. Stitches become grotesque with a little eyeliner, red eyeshadow, and fake blood. Our actors at Field of Screams Maryland take their looks to the next level each night to produce a truly terrifying experience for all who dare to cross their path.
The Foundation of Fear: Creating Your Base
Consider your face a blank canvas for your Halloween look. While your eyes and mouth will attract the most attention-more on those later-your face makeup ties the whole masterpiece together. Most eerie looks start with a pale, ashen foundation, to evoke a dead or haunted feeling. You can create this by using white face paint, cream, or your choice of light-tinted foundation.
Adding Gore and Grotesque Details
After you’ve created your base, ratchet up the fear and gore factor by adding gashes, rotting flesh, or stitches. To start, spread the latex over the area you’d like to have your wound, then rip small strips of tissue paper to layer over the latex. For stitches, draw a line with liquid eyeliner, then add branches to create the stitches. The more curved and crooked the lines, the better-this is a botched job, after all. Highlight the stitches with white eyeliner, which makes them appear more pinched and raised on the skin.
Specific Techniques for Realistic Wounds
Slit Throat Effect
Looking to go with "old school slasher movie victim" as your vibe this year? This tutorial is actually a pretty easy way to make yourself look like you came straight out of a horror movie. Start by layering liquid latex and tissue on your neck, then cover it with foundation. Cut a slit in the latex with scissors (beware your neck, though!), and fill the slit with blush, red makeup, and fake blood.
Unzipped Face Illusion
And the award for "creepiest optical illusion on the planet" goes to: This half-unzipped face. Give your face a base coat with primer, then glue a zipper onto your face using spirit gum. Apply fake blood to the "unzipped" portion (the gorier, the better), and use black eyeshadow to make the skin look more "rotten." Use the same black shadow all around your eyes to make them look as terrifyingly undead as possible, then get ready to make people realllly uncomfortable every time you enter a room.
Chelsea Smile
When it comes to creepy Halloween makeup, bloodier is always better. This slasher-style smile is created exclusively using special FX kits. Start by applying liquid latex where you want the smile to go, and layer ripped tissue and even more latex to make your skin seem realistically ripped. Then, blend a skin-colored shade of makeup along the outline you've created and set it with powder. Insert a makeup brush between the latex and your actual skin, then use scissors to cut the tear in your face. Finally, paint the wound with red and add as much fake blood as you can stomach.
Horror Smiley
Reader, beware: This is one of those things that you'll never be able to unsee. Start by covering your hair in a skullcap, and essentially plastering your face with liquid latex and tissue (we didn't say this would be a "comfortable" look to wear out for the night). When it dries, use flesh-colored makeup to cover the white, and paint some black slits around your eyes. Take a pair of scissors to cut out your "new" mouth, and paint that black, too. Blend the contrasting tones using red makeup, then draw on some black stitches. And the best part? It only technically requires making-up half of your face. Start by covering one of your eyebrows with a glue stick, and applying liquid latex. Draw a line down the center of your face to separate the "real" you from the "demon" you, and use red and berry shades from a face paint palette to cover one side, then, set the look using eyeshadow. Use black eyeshadow to contour around your eyes, nose, cheeks and eyebrow, and add some highlighter to give your face a more sunken look. To make things extra creepy, add a white-colored contact, but be sure you're purchasing it from a reliable source so you know it's safe.
Sewed Shut Mouth
Make sure you eat or drink before heading out, because, well, sewing your mouth shut makes doing either one of those things pretty challenging. Coat the lower half of your face with liquid latex, tissue, and cotton wool, layering it on to achieve your desired thickness. Apply foundation on top of the liquid latex, and blend blush on top of your mouth to give it a bruised effect. Cut your mouth line using scissors, then paint the area underneath with black and red SFX makeup. Color the skin flaps with red, and rub on some fake blood to make things look seriously disgusting. Finally, poke some holes in the latex, and "sew" your mouth shut using thread.
Haunted Eyes: The Windows to Your Soul (or Lack Thereof)
Haunted eyes can add serious oomph to your fright night costume. Whether you’re aiming for the sunken-in eyes of an asylum patient or you’re seeking the horrifying whited-out eyes of someone possessed, the right makeup can get you there. Another simple, but no less scary, trick for terrifying eyes is to wear colored contacts.
Creating Sunken and Possessed Looks
For a sunken-in look, contour around your eyes with dark eyeshadow, and highlight the inner corners with white or a lighter shade to create depth. For possessed eyes, use white face paint or a white cream makeup to cover your entire eyelid and under-eye area, then add black around the edges for a stark, unsettling contrast.
Mouths That Make a Statement
Mouths can be the ultimate centerpiece for a range of costumes, from clowns to vampires to tortured souls. The more rotten and bloody the mouth, the higher the shock value. Just make sure to use non-toxic makeup and avoid ingesting anything that’s not edible.
Killer Clown Grins and Rotten Teeth
If you’re going as a killer clown, perfecting a manic, bloody grin is key. Finally, for a lower-lift mouth makeover that’s still scary, try painting your teeth a sickly greenish-gold with non-toxic “rotten” tooth paint, or go full-on freaky with black tooth paint.
Big Teeth Effect
Glue on oversized top and bottom teeth with liquid latex, then paint the inside area with dark red makeup. This creates a monstrous and unsettling smile.
Teeth for a Terrifying Smile
Halloween is hands down the best day of the year, so it makes sense that you'd be all smiles! Even if said smiles are looking bloody/scary/etc. Start by applying a skullcap, then use a pencil to draw the outline of the smile, making sure that your eyes and mouth are inside the line. Cover the outside of the smile with liquid latex, then lift the edges to give the smile its torn look. Color the inside of the mouth with matte black paint, then stick on your fake teeth-which are made out of acrylic nails that have been sharpened to a point-using spirit gum. Paint the white liquid latex ivory, then go nuts with the fake blood. Give yourself a light spray with black hairspray, and you'll be the happiest (and creepiest) creature at the party.
Beyond the Face: Hacked Hands and Other Terrors
Scary Halloween makeup doesn't have to be limited to your face. Making your hand look like it's been hacked off requires spirit gum, cotton balls, and whole lot of red face paint. And the actual bones? Made from Q-tips!
Creating a Hacked Hand Illusion
To create a convincing "hacked off" hand effect, use spirit gum to adhere cotton balls to the area where the limb appears to be severed. Shape these with makeup to resemble bone and flesh, then liberally apply fake blood for a gruesome finish. Q-tips can be used to create the appearance of splintered bone fragments.
The Nun: A Truly Terrifying Transformation
Considering the trailer for "The Nun" was so scary it had to be taken off the Internet, this look will undoubtedly warrant some major reactions on October 31. To fully recreate the terrifying nun IRL, start by gluing down your brows with a glue stick and painting them white, then craft yourself a fake nose out of putty. Next, paint your entire face in white, and line your eyes with some intense black. Contour your nose, cheeks, and forehead in black, too, and finish it off with some black lipstick. Finish off by giving your skin a spritz of black hairspray.
The Nun Valak Halloween Makeup Tutorial
If you're feeling rather uninspired by all of the mermaid, unicorn, and fairy Halloween beauty tutorials that have dominated the Internet this year, you're in luck. Scary Halloween makeup - or, more accurately, terrifying Halloween makeup - is alive and well on YouTube, where artists have managed to use special FX makeup to transform themselves into undead creatures straight out of your nightmares. While you likely won't be able to recreate these horror movie-worthy looks using stuff you've got lying around in your makeup drawer (unless you've got an excess of fake blood and liquid latex leftover from the last time you decided to dress up like a hellscape demon), thanks to these tutorials they are possible to DIY. And luckily, there's plenty of time before October 31 to start practicing your SFX skills. Pro tip? The more fake blood, the better.