Title: Behind the Mask of the Horror Actor
Author: Doug Bradley
Price: RRP 10.99 GBP

Synopsis: Actor Doug Bradley, who portrays Pinhead in Clive Barker's Hellraiser films, gives his own unique and personal guide to cinema monsters and the men who portray them, including legends Lon Chaney and Boris Karloff, and unforgettable creatures like The Wolf Man, Frankenstein's Monster, The Phantom of the Opera and The Hunchback of Notre Dame. He also examines the many roles the mask has played throughout time, and the physical rigours that actors who play monsters must endure. Coming up to date, he meets the actors behind modern-day monsters Leatherface (Texas Chain Saw Massacre), Freddy Krueger (Nightmare on Elm Street), and Jason (Friday the 13th). Plus, of course, Bradley recounts the making of the Hellraiser movies in detail, revealing just what it's like to actually be the man behind the mask.

Review: Adapted into a book from his own lecture Bradley proves himself to be a wonderfully articulate writer who here provides a neat and factual study of the most famous ghouls in horror movie history - and the men that brought them to life. He also looks at the make-up artists who pioneered and advanced special effects make-up in Hollywood from the silent era up to the nineties. So what we get is a glimpse into the films and lives of icons such as Lon Chaney snr/jnr, Boris Karloff, Charles Laughton, Jean Marais, Vincent Price, Christopher Lee, Gunnar Hansen, Robert Englund, Kane Hodder, the guises of ‘Michael Myers’ and finally that of Pinhead himself. He looks at each man’s experience both in terms of endurance (through the make-up’s application) up to the effect playing the creatures had on their lives/careers. Each is tackled in a timeline so you get a feel of the changing face, as it were, of the ‘horror movie’ with the advancements in technology and science blurring the line between fantasy and reality: actor and creature. It also examines the relationships between the actors and their make-up artists. Some had some ‘interesting’ run-ins!

Bradley begins his own acting biography by juxtaposing it with the experience of other actors at the different times in his life. For example, he talks about Gunnar Hansen when he was staring to act seriously in the early seventies; Robert Englund when he gets to the disbandment of the theatre company he created with Clive Barker and Kane Hodder when he discusses Hellraiser circa 1986. Good structure. He also talks about his relationship with Clive Barker and how it shaped his approach to acting. His experiences on Nightbreed, Killer Tongue and Proteus (and even his stint as an impromptu make-up artist on Hellraiser III!) are also mentioned and given no less attention then the original Hellraiser chronicles. This makes the book seem even and the only crime is that he didn’t (couldn’t?) go into more detail sometimes.

Why should you buy this book? It combines two of my favourite subjects (history and horror movies) and subsequently I absolutely loved it. It’s a well-written, well-structured and absorbing book with a great structure that serves as a fascinating overview of the men, and the cultures, that shaped the ‘masking’ trend. This book was published in 1996 but has been recently re-printed, in July 2004 hence this review showing up now. So, if you enjoy reading about how it all began, how things changed and how it moulded those that are associated most fondly with it then I can’t recommend this higher. As a pocket-sized companion it’s excellent.

3 out of 5 chainsaws!!!

-- | Amazon (30% Off) |