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By Anthony C. Ferrante, with J.M. Logan and Roy Knyrim
Serving as a special makeup supervisor on franchise movies can sometimes be a difficult prospect, especially when the original FX team is not involved. On Wishmaster 2: Evil Never Dies, KNB, who created the first film's Djinn design, were not available to encore. On their recommendation, however, we hired SOTA FX and J.M. Logan (whom I had worked before on the Dentist films) to handle the extensive makeups. J.M. was primarily responsible for all the Djinn duties, while SOTA tackled the rest of the FX.
While there was talk from the production side of radically changing the Djinn design, it was decided early on that it would be necessary to stay as true to the original as possible while incorporating new ideas from the director Jack Sholder, production designer Alfred Sole and the FX team. KNB was consulted during this stage and was kind enough to lend the old contact lenses, the Djinn's fingertips and actor Andrew Divoff's lifecast for J.M. to work from. Changes to the actual design included streamlining the face so it would conform more to Divoff (at his request) and allow more of his facial expressions to come through. The suit was also totally overhauled to streamline it.
The new suit ended up being two stages. Stage 1 was his more primordial, "unformed" self, mad of two spandex suits layered together and airbrushed. A bonelike understructure was mounted on the inside suit so that the outside spandex would slide over his "bones." This was finished off with a nice coat of slime to make it come to life. Stage 2 is seen later in the movie when the Djinn has nabbed more souls. This was a more traditional foam latex body suit "complete with shoulder spikes to give him a more organic feel," according to J.M.
The final change was J.M.'s contribution of making the Djinn feel more "ethnic." His explanation: "I wanted to add tribal scarring and tattooing to the suit and face for dramatic effect, and also to expand upon KNB's original Djinn facial scars."
Overall, Wishmaster 2 was a challenge, but everyone on the FX team pulled through despite the tight shoot schedule and sheer number of effects required. We would like to thank the KNB boys (Greg Nicotero, Howard Berger, and Robert Kurtzman) for their gracious help, as well as all the additional SOTA personnel who contributed to the production. Special thanks to assistant supervisor Steven Felty, Djinn assistant Paul Logan and Wishmaster 2's wonderful cast and crew. Oh, and of course the great caterer, who kept our bellies very happy on many a late night on set.
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