HNN Interview: Rick Jones (Horrify Me)

HNN Interview: Rick Jones (Horrify Me) by Matt Boiselle

Ever heard the phrase: “If I even had AN OUNCE of that guy’s talent…” – well, I’ll tell you no truer words could be spoken, especially if you’re a student of horror gore and FX, then I’ve got quite the treat for you – read on for an exclusive interview with Rick Jones, who in my opinion has got to be one of the greatest practical blood-splattering, gut-spilling, skull-cracking, zombie-transforming, viscera overlords to ever set foot in the carnage arena. I’ve been a fan of this man’s work for quite awhile and I want to thank him immensely for taking a few minutes out of his insanely busy schedule to drag us into the depths of depravity…actually his work studio, but you catch what I’m throwing so read on and PLEASE, fasten your splash-guards tightly as you are surely going to get soaked.

HorrorNews.net – Rick, thanks for taking the time to talk with us. First off, can you tell us a little about yourself and how you came to get started with Horrify Me?

Rick Jones: So, one day I sat and invented the entire concept of Horrify Me from scratch because I’m a creative genius…. would be an awesome story for my ego if it were true. But this isn’t even close. I didn’t even think it up, Horrify Me just sort of happened to me by accident. But I’ll come to that part. A quick rewind: I’ve been a lifelong horror fan since I was very young. A very, very long time; probably when I was still a lone sperm cell living on a ball, that’s how long. I grew up watching horror movies, playing with horror makeup, and collecting models and toys. I was also very arty and creative so you can only imagine the sort of disturbing childhood doodles I used to do. I’ve always had a very creative career, part of which was designing book covers. This was how Horrify Me started. I was hired to do a book cover for a horror novel called Blog of the Dead, which I did. We had so much fun on that job that it inspired me to get back into horror makeup and start a little Facebook page showing off my work, just me and some friends fooling around. Loads of people do the same, it’s hardly innovative. Then, one day, something happened and it literally changed everything: I got a random message from a stranger asking how much I charge “for one of those horror portraits”. At first I was baffled by this, I didn’t even take it seriously, but he wanted it and so I took his money and slapped some zombie makeup on him and shot some basic photos. It happened again, and again. A friend of mine suggested I start it up as a little side business, horrifying people. Horrifying people!! What a great idea! Why the hell didn’t I think of this 20 years ago? Why didn’t I actually think of it at all? I’m sure you know the rest by now, the studio business, the books, the awards, the fantastic opportunity it’s given me to work in artistic horror. It turns out, that one little book cover job back in 2014 changed my life so profoundly and completely that I still can’t quite comprehend the monument of that moment. So yeah, Horrify Me is the greatest idea I never had! And I’m still amazed at the incredible reactions and successes it’s had over the last 12 years.

HorrorNews.net: When you’re designing an extreme gore effect, where does it usually begin for you—real-world anatomy, imagination, or something driven by the script?

Rick Jones: My ultimate source of reference is old 80’s horror movies which I grew up watching. I do not concern myself with medical reality or real anatomy, but just stuff that looks cool in a gory photo. A great example I can give you relates to some of my old autopsy portraits in which I photographed people laid on a table having their (fake) guts ripped out. I’ve been challenged online several times by people who actually do this kind of job for a living because the blood is too red, or corpses don’t bleed like that, or the organs would liquify in real life – but for me it’s about visceral gross artistry and effects rather than copying reality. I rely on fantasy physics, like with some of the more extreme shoots I do, people tend to be posing (so the character is alive) with more large wounds than any human can realistically survive, but they look disgusting and cool and that’s the only criteria I set myself. I suppose the short version of this answer is simply this: If it looks cool then it’s a goer.

HorrorNews.net: Your work feels very tactile and “real”—what are some of your go-to materials or techniques for achieving that?

Rick Jones: Thank you, in this AI age that is now a more meaningful compliment than you might realize. I use all kinds of materials. Obviously I use a lot of industry standard things like latex rubber, silicone, and various acrylic products, the same as most people in this line of work. I do make use of all kinds of other unusual things though. My fake guts are strips of carpet foam wrapped in clingfilm and dipped in fake blood, they look sensational and cost virtually nothing to make. I use all kinds of makeup, but unconventional materials too such as dirt, literally picked up out of a field, fire ash, torn tissue paper, kids paints, food products, anything that can add interesting textures and color forms. I do have an interest in textures, maybe this is what you picked up when you noticed the images feel tactile?

HorrorNews.net: What’s been the most complex or difficult effect you’ve ever pulled off, and what made it such a challenge?

Rick Jones: There are two actually, the first of which was the original Bride of Pinhead. She was a professional art nude model, and was luckily very patient with the process. It took around 16 hours to paint her, draw a carefully measured grid all over her body (twice because the first attempt wasn’t quite right), and then attach fuck-knows how many pins to her. Those pins would wobble, fall off, slip, it was an endless battle getting those shots, but we made it work and I’m very proud of the result. The second was She-Wolf. I had been inspired by the way Rick Baker worked on An American Werewolf in London, when he hand-laid all that body hair to David Naughton over many hours during the transformation sequence. I wanted to give it a try just to see if I could do it. It took three of us roughly 12 hours to hand-apply all that hair, piece by piece, following natural growth patterns and it was a tough task. I’m glad I can now say that I’ve done it, and I don’t fancy doing another one any time soon, haha!

HorrorNews.net: Has there ever been a moment on set where even you thought, “this might be too much”?

Rick Jones: No, I am very clear in my mind about my boundaries and limits. If someone requests a shoot and their suggestions sound like it might be too much then I usually refuse the shoot, but it needs to be REALLY bad for that to happen. And yes, there have been quite a few requests like this, which I refused, but I’ll spare you the disgusting details. There really are some wild fucking sickos out there. There are certain themes I won’t touch (for example I refuse anything that I consider pornographic, I won’t touch rape as a theme of horror, and so on) but if we are just doing gory horror nonsense then I’m happy to keep pushing that boundary and adding fake blood and guts until I run out of the stuff. There have been some moments when my clients thought it was a bit much, but this is my job. You get what you pay for with me. What an interesting question!

HorrorNews.net: What’s an effect you’ve created that looked incredible on camera, but was an absolute nightmare behind the scenes?

Rick Jones: Haha loads! OMG where do I even begin with this one? Most of the big projects fall into this category one way or another. Some projects are a nightmare because of the sheer number of hours they consume, other nightmares might be trying to stop makeup and headpieces falling apart, fangs falling out, constantly re-attaching horns that fall off, trying to hide very long hair round the back of a model because I couldn’t stuff it all into her bald cap, using clips to try and hold costumes together that have been made quickly (and making sure none of them are visible), and spending weeks making something prior to a shoot only to discover it’s a bitch to light properly during the shoot. I don’t think I can single out one specific example for this question, it’s just a regular thing in a creative environment but creative people tend to figure this stuff out as they go.

HorrorNews.net: How do you strike the balance between realistic gore and stylized, over-the-top horror?

Rick Jones: I don’t even try. Everything is just stylized fantasy horror. I think the only thing that makes my work “realistic” is the very nature of just how practical and tactile it all is. As I mentioned earlier, I love adding visual texture to as much as I can, making teeth red and bloody, making sure drool hangs from chins. I love adding dirt and grime to everything. I am basically shooting portraits, but adding all that red gloop and rich texture in such a practical manner just makes everything feel very present. This is probably the qualities that make it feel more realistic, but it certainly isn’t realism.

HorrorNews.net: Were there any specific films or FX artists that pushed you toward this line of work?

Rick Jones: Absolutely, Tom Savini is my guy! When I was growing up I loved all the makeup legends, Rick Baker, Rob Bottin, Stan Winston etc. They will always be the true masters and I’ll always love them as artists, but they were difficult for an aspiring young kid to feel inspired by because much of their work was quite industrial. What I mean is, they were creating complex creatures and animatronics (American Werewolf, The Thing, Aliens, etc). As a kid feeling very inspired by all those horror films, and trying to learn about makeup, Tom Savini was the one I gravitated to because his work looked like something I could actually copy and learn from at that age. He specialized more in the gross kills, gore effects, zombies, that sort of thing, and he was incredibly artful with it. To this day there is just something magical about Savini’s work, its relative simplicity, and just how insanely creative and inventive he was with low budgets and a limitless imagination. When I first saw Dawn of the Dead as a young kid, I was so inspired by Savini’s work that I believe my current work is still in the wake of that same inspiration to this day. You can probably trace the lineage of all my current work back to that one guy.

HorrorNews.net: What’s something people completely misunderstand about creating extreme gore effects?

Rick Jones: Woah, that’s an interesting question. I can answer this but it probably won’t be what you expect. Obviously, everyone enjoys my shoots and fun is part of the process, but the more gross, gory and disgusting the images are, the more funny the shoot actually is. Some of the strongest gory pictures that have come out of my studio, even the ones that have upset people, tend to be the most ridiculous to actually create. So, to answer your question, what people almost always misunderstand about creating extreme gore effects is just how silly and ridiculous the experience is, and how much they end up laughing at the ludicrous things going on around them. There might be some psychology behind this, I dunno, but it’s a fun time.

HorrorNews.net: How much trial and error typically goes into getting a single effect right?

Rick Jones: Honestly, not that much. I’ve been doing this work so long now that I’ve developed a good instinct for how things work. Quite often the trial and error that takes place on a photo shoot is getting the subject lit correctly, which can be challenging on some of the stuff I do. I use chiaroscuro lighting and it can be the most difficult part about my work on certain shoots, but it is essential to get it right, and is actually a vital part of the effect itself. A great effect badly lit results in a bad effect!

HorrorNews.net: If you had unlimited budget and zero restrictions, what’s one effect you’d love to create?

Rick Jones: I like the Devil as a character. I’m not religious in the slightest, I’m a complete atheist, and I certainly don’t worship the Devil or anything like that. To me the Devil is just a fictional character. But I do think he’s a cool character, the ultimate bad guy. If I had zero limits then I’d make the greatest fucking Devil anyone has ever seen! He’d be a deep red mountain of raw bloody flesh, stupid with power, with illuminated orange eyes, rings of fire spiraling around him, and horns ten feet tall all carved into ornate designs of human suffering. I’d give him traditional angel wings, but torn and broken and discolored. And he would have to bear the marks of the seven deadly sins on his body somehow. Yikes, you got me rambling with this one, but yeah if time, money and materials were limitless then it would be something like this.

Readers: if you’re at all interested in checking out Rick’s work, booking a photo shoot or ordering one of his INCREDIBLY hypnotizing portrait books, then get on over to his site at http://horrify.me.uk – I’ve supplied just a few of his beautiful (kind of disturbing that I describe them that way) photos, and TRUST ME when I tell you, that these are the SAFE FOR WORK pics. If you want the really good stuff, make sure to grab one of his books or follow him on Instagram @horrifymeuk.