When I was a kid I developed a nerdy fascination with movie special effects and make-up.

There was a point at which I tried (and failed) to build a dinosaur model out of wire, rubber and papier-mâché, in the style of Ray Harryhausen’s much-loved stop-motion monsters. (Quite why I bothered I don’t know as I never owned a movie camera which would potentially have enabled me to animate it!)

I had slightly more success trying to apply gory movie make-up scars with a mixture of gelatine and food colouring. I then proudly displayed the results to my mother, who after screaming was less than impressed and instructed me to wash it off immediately. There was maybe a brief point at which I harboured an ambition to forge a career as an sfx guru or movie make-up artist, but that moment swiftly passed.

I did however buy several books on the subject, which I still have. I particularly like Film Tricks, which goes into quite a lot of detail about how the effects were achieved in a number of horror movies.  Horror maestro Tom Savini (who came up with the gore effects in the original Dawn of the Dead, amongst many others) features prominently, as does Rick Baker, probably the most famous of contemporary movie make-up artists. Baker famously came up with the transformation effects for An American Werewolf in London, and is featured here in this behind-the-scenes still applying zombie make-up onto co-star Griffin Dunne.