BUENA PARK, Calif. — Imagine creating a monster from a normal human face — that’s what makeup artist Theresa Lopez does every night for Halloween Haunt at Knott’s Scary Farm.
Lopez, a Riverside, Calif., resident, has 20 minutes to apply makeup to each face of those humans assigned to her, making them into everything from zombies to scary clowns or even (with the help of prosthetics or masks) scary lizard creatures.
The tools of her trade?
An air brush, paint and glue.
“They all have different looks,” Lopez said. “Some are more garish, and some are darker and bloodier.”
A team of 37 makeup artists are employed by Knott’s for the Haunt. Each afternoon, they arrive and get set for the onslaught of humans that all have to be transformed into something sinister for each night of Halloween Haunt.
They start their work at 4 p.m. each night of the haunt, and must have all the monsters ready to stomp through the farm by 7 p.m.
Lopez, like the other artists, usually starts by airbrushing on a base color. In this case, it’s white for Brandon Miller as she changed him into “Squeaker the Clown,” so he can join the Carnevil Scare Zone, where he sneaks up and scares unsuspecting haunt-goers.
“I like the open canvas of a blank face because it gives me the ability to play with it and express my creativity,” she said while painting fake teeth and stitches onto Miller.
The artists might also apply makeup to an actor’s legs and arms, depending on their creature’s looks. Lopez grinned mischievously as she applied brown tones to Miller’s arms and legs, giving his muscles an otherworldly character.
Some of the makeup work is just on the face and limbs of the actors. But for nearly 100 of them, the work of the artist involves blending a form-fitted prosthetic onto the neck of its human wearer to make them into ghastly inhuman creatures. All told, nearly 320 people go through the makeup transformation process, while nearly another 680 simply don masks. All of them have a special wardrobe to fit the area of the haunt in which they work.
Meanwhile, once all the creatures are out scaring up a storm, Lopez and the others keep working constantly on the prosthetics and masks used during the haunt so they look gruesome and ugly each night.
But even though she’s in the business of creating hideous creatures of the night, Lopez isn’t haunted by her work.
“I sleep fine,” she said. “I never have any nightmares about them.
“The only nightmares I have are that I won’t get them all done each night.”
