Interview With Special FX Artist “Evil” John Mays
Written by The Dhampir
Special effects makeup artist and gore maestro John Mays is mostly known within the horror community as “Evil” John Mays…and it’s not hard to see why. His effects are all done from scratch and he uses no pre-made prosthetics to create his disturbingly realistic effects work.
Evil John has worked on many low-budget, independent films where he is based in Texas, including Sitters Four, ZERO ONE, Murder by Mistake, Knight Silver, Savage Spirit, Why, The 15 Minute Rule, Red Victoria, Crushed, Dementia, Unglued, Sundown, and Shroud.
Our own Dhampir (aka Edcrophilia) got to sit down with Evil John Mays and talk about his work on horror films, working with the “Texas Blood” group of horror filmmakers and how he likes to freak out actors with his realistic makeup effects.
Dhampir/Edcrophilia: Well first allow me to Thank Evil John for taking the time to do this interview! And to congratulate him on his work on the film Red Victoria (review)!
Evil John Mays: Thank you very much, although I can only take credit for being there at the right time.
Dhampir/Edcrophilia: Well, let’s start with the obvious question -how did you get into effects?
Evil John Mays: Well in all turned out due to a friend of mine out here in Texas. He had one of the premier haunted houses, Lance Pope, he had Verdun Manor. He turned the haunted house into more of a haunted theme park, kind of like a haunted Six Flags. He trained me for a good portion for what I do. Everything was going along great, but Lance unfortunately died due to not wearing a respirator long enough during his career while doing certain things. When you’re 20 years old, you never think about wearing a respirator, and eventually his liver gave out.
Dhampir/Edcrophilia: That’s unfortunate.
Evil John Mays: What’s really shocking is that he was only several months older than I was. He’d been in this stuff [FX] since his early teens. So it taught me a life lesson; anything with the word “zene” in it, wear a respirator. I got started doing horrific effects through the haunted house industry due to Lance. I practiced under him for a number of years and after he passed, I was contacted by a couple of fellows wanting to do some movie work. Pro bono stuff. Got into that and found that I really enjoyed it, it took my technique to another level. When you do something in a movie, people will fast-forward and rewind and any flaw you’ve got, they’ll see it. So I’ve taken great pains to get everything as good as I can get it, because the camera is not very forgiving.
Dhampir/Edcrophilia: Ok, aside from Stan Winston, which is the obvious choice for any effects guy, who are your influences as far as effects go?
Evil John Mays: Well, you named him right off the bat! Stan was the person I most regret not meeting in my lifetime. When he passed, last year, I was very upset because it was one of my goals in life to meet him. Of course, you can’t not bring up Rick Baker; I’ve always loved his werewolf creations. You’ve got [Tom] Savini who is a master of everything. Those guys, everyone has to look towards them, they’re the masters of influence in this area [effects].
Dhampir/Edcrophilia: Let’s discuss Baker a moment. His work on An American Werewolf in London forced the American Film Academy to create a new category: “Best Make-up”.
Evil John Mays: Exactly, he’s got enough clout and prestige with the directors in Hollywood that they really have to pay attention to him. Whereas I get the impression that Stan Winston and Dick Smith, they felt they [the directors] could be “Well, you’re just over there, you’re not really making art for the movies.” but Baker proved that this is a true art and a true industry.
Dhampir/Edcrophilia: Great point! I see that you have some “webisodes” on how to make special effects makeup for Halloween!
Evil John Mays: That was actually one series I did for a friend of mine a few years ago. Boy! I wish I’d worn better clothes and weighed 30lbs less and combed my hair better. (Laughs) I’m glad that it’s out there just for the exposure, but yeah, I look better behind the camera. What I’ve noticed about effects, is that you’ve got to understand what bothers people. I mean, think about regular people. If you’re looking at someone, your eye is attracted to the bilateral symmetry of the face, the left and right side are the same. When they’re not the same, that upsets people. They may not say it, but it does. So my technique is to break up that bilateral symmetry as much as possible. Even looking at the eye, the left side and right side of the eye are mostly similar. But if you break, even that level of the symmetry up, that’s disturbing to people and that’s what I go for. I want it to look realistic, I want it to look like it’s into the skin.
Dhampir/Edcrophilia: Would you say that you’re, as an effects artist, more into wounds and cuts than creatures per se?
Evil John Mays: That has been the calling so far. I’ve done some creature effects, but at the budget level of most of the fellows I’m working with, they can’t afford it. I’ve got some zombie creature masks that I originally started working on and I get feedback from people I’ve shown it to. It’s just that at the independent film the budget’s not there yet [for creatures]. We’re hoping that things will come along in this direction, and I would love to have the opportunity, but wounds and trauma seem to be my mainstay at the present.
Dhampir/Edcrophilia: What about your independent contemporaries like Oddtopsy FX? They’ve been working with minimal budget as well and pumping out some really great stuff.
Evil John Mays: I’m sure they are. But they guys I’ve been working with the budgets are next to nothing. I mean, if the picture has $1,000 to effects, I have yet to come across one like that in my realm. I’m glad for the guys that they’re able to land productions that have money to apply towards materials. Because, basically, in effects, materials are your primary expense.
Dhampir/Edcrophilia: So at this point, you’re primarily working with micro-budget filmmakers like Anthony Brownrigg (interview).
Evil John Mays: Yeah, Brownrigg, David Jeter I worked with, right now at Poor Child Films, Mike Brown. They’re all trying to get the industry going here in Texas. My main goal really is to bring as good effects as I can to the very low budget films. We’ve all seen movies that the script’s good, the acting is pretty good but somebody’s nephew did the effects.
Dhampir/Edcrophilia: A lot of ketchup and water
Evil John Mays: Exactly. If I can’t do it right, I’ll tell the guy and try to steer him in the right direction. Just on this film I’ve been working on, I made a girl look like she was a crack addict at a believable level. It’s just putting this stuff out there for the small budget film that’s my goal.
Dhampir/Edcrophilia: So essentially, you’re working with filmmakers who I’ve coined the “Texas Blood.” These are independent, young and unknown for the most part filmmakers who are making horror and creating this kind of resurgence in indie horror.
Evil John Mays: That’s what we’re cultivating down here.Think about it, there’s a lot of horror history here in Texas. Texas Chainsaw Massacre, we have the films that Tony Brownriggs’ father made, Don’t Look in the Basement and things like that. They were all Texas productions. It seems that as some of our governors came along, they decided that they didn’t want that money in the state and pretty much removed it.
Dhampir/Edcrophilia: You did Savage Spirit with Corey Turner who was also in Red Victoria. Did he bring you into the project with Tony Brownrigg, or did you already know Tony?
Evil John Mays: Cory and I had known each other for years, through different conventions and things here in the Dallas area. We’re a fairly tight-knit group of folks who seem to all drift into the same sort of areas. Horror conventions and such, most of us will volunteer because we just like the people and the genre involved. I’d met Tony several years ago, he sent me the script for RV [Red Victoria] and I begged him to let me work on it. I knew it was good and I knew it was good at a level that we in the small budget community could do. Cory I had actually met at a convention. I’d had some of my materials set up and they were getting set up to start on their second movie Savage Spirit. I showed him my book of stuff, they seemed to like it, they brought me on board and I brought, ginormous, as it’s been put, gallons of blood for them.
Dhampir/Edcrophilia: I really enjoyed Red Victoria and I’ve interviewed Anthony Brownrigg (interview), Arianne Martin (interview) and Ed Landers (interview). Talking with Arianne, her story of what you did to her with that make-up in the first appearance of Victoria.
Evil John Mays: (Laughing) Yeah, she hated me! Oh man! In a loving way, she hated me, I think. It’s just not a comfortable feeling having that stuff put on your face in the first place. I’ve not read that interview, what all did she say?
Dhampir/Edcrophilia: FROM THE ARIANNE MARTIN INTERVIEW; “The very first scene was a whole different story. It was done by the famous “Evil” John Mayes. He did an excellent job. However, that was not skin friendly by any means! It took about a week to get all of that makeup off. I still have nightmares about it.” (continue reading interview). She also mentioned that you were stuffing “pig guts” down her gown.
Evil John Mays: Arianne was just a crack up to work with. When she would get tired, she would just get funny. I would work with her again in a heartbeat, I’m not sure she’d want me working on her again, but she was really fun to work with! And that’s not entirely true…it wasn’t “pig guts”, it’s a blended form of tripe! I’ve preserved it and used that stuff in several movies now. I freeze it, because the texture of that stuff would be very hard and expensive to duplicate. I’ve got this stuff preserved with salts and coloration it was all food grade when I started out, but it is a texture all its own. Now what she’s talking about was the base make-up that Tony had made for her. It was a grey color, and that stuff was fairly tough on her skin from what I understand. She had to be in it repeatedly and I’m sure she was finding little bits of grey and not all of it washed off.
Dhampir/Edcrophilia: I know that Ed Landers he’d said that it wasn’t that bad having the blood and the guts poured all over him.
Evil John Mays: One of the things about that is that in one of the scenes, is I’m cracking him up as he’s laying there. Because having a stinging cold liquid and feeling it drip around and then having these bits placed on the cuts in the shirt and things, it’s a weird sensation. He was just busting up constantly, because it’s the kind of fun that only a four year old boy can understand. If you know what I mean. (SPOILER ALERT) That scene where Ed is dead in the bed near the end of that movie. That is always my favorite scene especially when I’m watching in a theater. I will wait for the audience to see that, and always I’ll hear a gasp through the entire crowd and I know that it sold. It tells me that they weren’t expecting it and it threw them for a loop and their mind is buying what they’re seeing on that screen.
Dhampir/Edcrophilia: It’s an extremely successful shot, because it’s not shown for very long and what you see is very explicit for those few seconds.
Evil John Mays: Right, and I think that’s [a mistake] that a lot of horror movie makers did over the years, you know. I paid umpteen hundred dollars for this effect; we’re not just gonna put it in front of the camera for 15 or 20 seconds. That doesn’t help, horror works best on the realm of theater of the mind. So you give it to the full screen fast enough to enter the mind, let them think they saw one thing, when you may have shown them something slightly different. In their minds [the audience] they’ll focus on what really grabbed them. So having a quick scene that’s deep and penetrating and disturbing makes for a successful horror film. In Tony’s case, he had a really great script.
Dhampir/Edcrophilia: On the heels of what you just said, do you think that the Saw films and maybe the Hostel movies go a little too far with their effects?
Evil John Mays: To be honest, yes, because if you’re not careful, horror becomes parody. If it’s going to be parody, then it’s not gonna scare people. A lot of times, if you look at the Saw movies especially the later ones, they’re digital effects. I personally don’t like digital effects. I think that unless you’re doing something like Lord of the Rings, where you can’t make work in the real world, then go digital. Nothing against the digital art, but I think it lacks the texture, the quality of the shadowing that you get truly get shooting it live on set.
Dhampir/Edcrophilia: There were a few digital shots in RV, but they seemed appropriate considering what Tony was doing and the budget he had. What did you think of those?
Evil John Mays: I think he did a good job! The one, in particular, where the severed arm is pointing at the contract or the script that he’s writing. That’s something you kind of have to do to remove the person. One of the other ones, I think I could have gone ahead and staged, but I think he was just trying to enhance things he’d already shot, but I think he did a good job. The eyeball scene in particular, that’d be way too expensive to try to do on this size budget and I think he did an excellent job of doing that. That’s the kind of thing where I don’t mind having a digital shot at all. I think he did a beautiful job!
Dhampir/Edcrophilia: So you prefer practical effects to digital nine times out of ten?
Evil John Mays: In most cases. Where there comes too much of an expense, you kind of have to figure out that breaking point. It takes a great deal of time to get all those pictures in there to do a big scene. A tight shot like the finger in the eyeball, that was perfect! It would have been difficult to duplicate, trying to do it live. You would have to build a prosthetic head and make it photo-realistic. The digital way is much better, in that case.
Dhampir/Edcrophilia: Of the effects that you’ve done thus far, what would you say is your favorite, if you have one?
Evil John Mays: Well, effects wise, my favorite scene would be the scene I did in Savage Spirit, where a head gets squashed by a garage door. The scene is that, you’ve got this guy crawling towards a garage door on his hands and knees, he’s all cut up and bloody, he’s just about to make it out and the garage door drops on his head. Squashes it like a grape and I had an effect head and cannon rigged up, one of my blood cannons to shoot out about a quart and a half of ejaculate matter, blood, brains and bone at about 120psi. Which came out just below the garage door and it kinda shook the door as it came through. It’s my favorite scene of the entire movie.
Dhampir/Edcrophilia: Sounds great and gory! You’re in Texas and you’ve worked with Tony, is there anyone else in the “Texas Blood” you’d like to work with? Mel House (interview), Stacy Davidson (interview), Josh Vargas (interview), Robert Luke (interview) or Pat Keith (interview)?
Evil John Mays: I think it’s be great to work with any of them. Like most of us working indie right now, we all have day jobs, films aren’t paying the bills right now, so most of the low budget guys, we’re all in the same boat right now, so we’re all trying to do things on nights and weekends, when we can all square things away. If one of those guys dropped me a phone call, a letter or knocked on the door I would be more than happy to talk about it.
Dhampir/Edcrophilia: What about Texas Frightmare Weekend? It’s a convention but also a great venue for the independent film makers to get together and network, meet each other and such, do you ever attend it?
Evil John Mays: I attended last year, and this year myself and one of my cohorts is setting up a booth called “The Gore and More Store”. We’ll have a chair set up and be doing live make-up effects on people, putting on scars, wounds, horns if you want, stitches. You can check it out on Myspace. There are photographs of the types of things we’ll be doing at the convention. Basically, think of it as face painting by the Manson family! It’ll be, you sit in the chair, tell us what you’d like to get done, flip us ten or twenty bucks and we’ll make you nasty for the day. It’s all silicone appliances, custom built there on site. Not only will you walk away looking quite professionally done and very violent, you can also take care of the appliance and reapply it later with the appropriate adhesives.
Dhampir/Edcrophilia: You should have one of the busier booths.
Evil John Mays: That’s my hope, with the booth cost at Frightmare, we’re really gonna need to do some business! (Laughs) It’s one of those things where you have to do two or three people to have them as walking advertisements to get the point across. The funniest photographs I have are like little kids, 12 or 13 years old, little boys and little girls with a bullet hole in the middle of their head! I think it’s hysterical!
Dhampir/Edcrophilia: Do you think that the younger generations are becoming desensitized to make-up effects due to these “torture porn” films?
Evil John Mays: They’re not desensitized; I just think that they realize the difference. In the same way that the Tom & Jerry cartoons, a generation back, you couldn’t hit a cat with a book and squish it flat. They know that there’s a difference. They know that if they see it on TV in the context of a movie and not the news that it’s for fun, not for real. Which requires you to be very judicious in trying to scare people. Take a look at the Frankenstein’s monster films of the 50′s. At that time, those were outstanding horror in their day, now you see them and it’s “They’re kinda cute.,,”. That’s kind of fascinating, you’re not scared by them anymore.
Dhampir/Edcrophilia: But do you think that these “torture porn” films push for reality so hard that some of the reality is lost? Back in 1984 when I first saw An American Werewolf in London I truly believed that David Naughton was turning into a werewolf. Now, effects wise, there’s not too much that’s believable.
Evil John Mays: Well, that is still one of the best depictions of a full change; it’s one of my favorite movies. Though, as we’ve all matured and gained knowledge of the process, kind of like knowing the magician’s secrets. You can see where he’s stuffed the handkerchief, see where the little ball has been hidden in his hand. We’re becoming very knowledgeable of how things are done, so you have to be very judicious. You have to be very scientific and very accurate in how you do things. Otherwise you become parody!
Dhampir/Edcrophilia: Do you find yourself studying a lot of anatomy books, or medical references of actual wounds and trauma?
Evil John Mays: I do indeed, you can’t beat the old Grey’s Anatomy cutaway book showing the different layers of skin and bone. Actually I keep a quick cheat sheet that they have for nursing students in my portfolio book and I can reference it to make sure that I’ve got everything completely balanced up. If I need to find out, is there an actual bone under this position I’m working on? I can go look at that. For facial trauma it’s good to go and look where the major cranial nerves and veins are. Maybe I’m the only one who’s been paying attention to that, but I’m hoping that as time goes on, that maybe people will look at that and realize that I had a pretty decent idea of what I was doing.
Dhampir/Edcrophilia: What are your upcoming projects?
Evil John Mays: There is a movie called Shroud we worked on, it’s a western and they’re looking into distribution right now. We’ve got a short called Murder by Mistake that is looking to hit the festival circuits. The one I’m currently working on which is Dirty Red and we’re filming currently.
Dhampir/Edcrophilia: What kind of advice would you give to aspiring make-up artists?
Evil John Mays: (Laughing) First; Keep your day job for right now, don’t go off and try to do this as your main job, unless you like being poor. Secondly; volunteer for films and just get in there and play – find out what works. You can go to Mr. Savini’s school and some of the other schools you’ll learn a great many things but it’s kind of like when you’re a kid and you play with Play-Doh. You learn how to sculpt. When you’re doing horror, you play with goo and see what it looks like on somebody. There’s no training tool as good as just getting in there and doing it and seeing what works. Rather, there’s no better training tool.
Dhampir/Edcrophilia: Describe yourself as you relate to a film?
Evil John Mays: Well I like to think of myself as the actor with no voice. You can put the greatest effects on somebody that you can make, but if they can’t sell the effect then it doesn’t, no matter what I do to somebody. I’m counting on them to sell the effect. That’s what I tell them if they’ve got this big old bruise on their face, if they look like their face has been burned or smashed in they’ve got to sell it! I’m just the guy dressing them. The actor has to make them [the audience] believe it’s there. Make them believe it’s real. Everyone I’ve worked with has done just an outstanding job of doing that. I try to make sure that they understand that the make-up that I’m putting on them is not the star of the scene, they’re the star of the scene. They have to make it work.
Dhampir/Edcrophilia: I don’t think I’ve ever heard it put that way, it’s an interesting way of looking at it.
Evil John Mays: I’m only as good as the actor is willing to let me be. It’s the actor that they [the audience] are coming to see. I generally enhance the actor and tell the actor what’s going on. If the actor is not comfortable with what you’ve out on them then they’re not going to be able to believe in the effect and sell it. So you have to involve them in the process. I try not to have anyone in the chair for more than an hour because they get uncomfortable and at the level we’re working at right now. I don’t need to have someone in the chair three and for hours. I try to put on the effects as fast as I can because I want them to stay in the moment.
Dhampir/Edcrophilia: Have you ever put anything on an actor or actress that when they saw the finished product it disturbed or bothered them?
Evil John Mays: Almost always. A lot of times I’ll be working in a rather confined area that they are in a chair and I’ll be taking photographs in the process. They aren’t always aware of what’s going on. I’m currently working on this girl, her character is a crack addict. The main thing is to blotch her skin out and make her lips stained and withdrawn and cracked up, things like that. When she saw it, and she’s a very pretty girl, she was very disturbed at what I had achieved. Where, for everyone else on set it was just a gas. They’ve lived in the urban environment and they know what a crack addict looks like and I pretty much nailed it. Another girl, her face was burned by a gas grill it really kinda shocked her, because she was not really in a horror temperament. She wasn’t the girl you see going to see the Friday the 13th movies. She was the type of girl who would go see more family-friendly types of films. When she saw this and realized it was her underneath it, it really kinda creeped her out. Which really helped her sell it in the scene because she was so knocked off balance by it.
Dhampir/Edcrophilia: Have you ever done any effects that when you got done you looked at it and were impressed by your own work?
Evil John Mays: I end up running into that a lot and what it is, is kind of like, I live on the “Happy Accident”. I’ll try something and I work with very small brushes and Q-tips and things. Try to go for a very organic approach. When I see something going in the right direction I’ll start to pursue it and at the end, I’ll say “Hey! That’s pretty good!”. I just hope I can duplicate it on the next day’s shoot. That’s always what it boils down to. I try to do that every time. I don’t want to come off as being arrogant in the process. If I look at my finished process and say to myself that this is the best job I could have possibly done and I’m very happy when I finish up, then I’m good with that. If I look at it and it’s not the best job, I’ll go to the director and say “Look, I need to take a step back.” or “I need to get your input on this cuz I’m not getting it right, not getting the results that I wanted and I want to make sure we’re on the same page with this.” Being honest with your producers and directors and making sure that what you have in your mind and what’s in theirs and what you’re putting on their actor, really is the key to success.
Dhampir/Edcrophilia: Outstanding! Is there anyone whom you’d like to give a shout out to?
Evil John Mays: Anyone willing to patronize our movies and my lovely wife Jan. who has put up with the gore and crap and things I leave all over the living room.
Dhampir/Edcrophilia: Excellent! Well I would like to once again thank you for taking the time to do this interview
Evil John Mays: You’re welcome and thank you.
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