CREATURE FEATURES

RECREATING HAMMER'S ICONIC TAKE ON FRANKENSTEIN'S CREATURE

- WORDS: ROBBIE DUNLOP

I HAVE A WALL OF inspiration in our bathroom and on it is The Curse Of Frankenstein,” says Academy Award-winning special makeup effects artist Dave Elsey. “There’s even a picture of it in my kitchen!”

He’s speaking to SFX about a set of behind-the-scenes photos from the Hammer horror classic – lurching back to life this month in a lavish UHD Collector’s Edition box set – that capture Christopher Lee’s transformation into the grotesque Frankenstein’s monster.

Elsey – whose credits include The Wolfman (2010) and The Substance – says that making monsters is hard enough, but making iconic monsters is another matter entirely.

“And to prove it, there are very few versions of Frankenstein that come to mind. You usually think first of Boris Karloff and then, for me, the next in line is Hammer’s: Christopher Lee. That was my favourite.” The design of Hammer's original Frankenstein’s monster, he explains, was conceived by the studio “under extreme conditions. They realised early on that they weren’t going to be able to put a lot of money into the creatures, so they needed to hire people who they felt could do it - and could do it at the drop of a hat. And they lucked out with Phil Leakey. They found their monster-maker.”

Elsey regards Leakey - the first person to receive a credit for “Special Makeup Effects”, on Hammer's X: The Unknown (1956) - as a pioneer for generations of artists who followed. “He took it forward. For a very long time, makeup was something quite secretive.