A Brief History of Movie Special Effects

An American Werewolf in London — Makeup
Horror has been historically good to makeup artists. In the early years, the art was most notably used in F.W. Murnau's 1922 vampire flick Nosferatu, which featured actor Max Schreck wearing facial prosthetics and clawlike finger extensions. The first film to win the Academy Award for Best Makeup, 1981's horror-comedy An American Werewolf in London, is praised for its gritty metamorphosis of man into wolf, which notably isn't hidden by shadows or any strategically placed woodland brush. Prosthetics and robotic limbs were created by FX-makeup genius Rick Baker, who had previously worked on The Exorcist (1973) and the 1976 remake of King Kong.

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