Brian Rowe
“I was that kid in your class who liked to gross everybody out by sneaking my Fangoria subscription to school, using a pencil with a home-made severed eye impaled on it in English class, or planting a severed hand in the teacher’s desk drawer (for which I was rewarded with a few after-school detentions). I have been making my own Halloween props since I was 8 or 9 years old.
Back then (I won’t say how many decades ago that was!) there weren’t a lot of Halloween props and make-up available in the stores, the way there is now (and of course no internet or YouTube back then either). I had to make everything myself, improvising with every day materials like tan coloured silicone bathroom caulk to make severed stumps, or a rotted corpse made entirely out of old nylons. When I got the book ‘Grande Illusions’ by Tom Savini a new world opened for me: the world of special effects make-up. There were no digital effects back then, so you had to figure out how to create everything with real materials.
Naturally, I went to film school, graduating with honours and with ambitions of becoming a big director (you fool!). While learning about film and TV production, I kept expanding my skills as an FX make-up artist. My fellow students knew where to find me whenever they needed something gross or gory. Working for years in post production, many of my friends and co-workers were independent filmmakers, and I was the one they turned to for props and effects solutions to fit their (often microscopic) budgets. They still call me whenever they are in need of make-up or props.”
You can find Brian on IMDB: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm1935495/
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Desirée Van De Laar
“I spent most of my life in The Netherlands, where I was born and raised. I’ve always been fascinated by Halloween, though at the time it was a very obscure holiday.
When I moved to Canada in 2012, thanks to Brian I was immediately immersed in the horror and Halloween subculture, and creating props and prosthetics. I’ve always been an artist, so the switch was easy – it was just a different specialization. Instead of canvasses, I now work on people. Instead of painting murals, I now paint creatures.
Having not grown up a horror-fan (shock!) often gives me a clean perspective, uninfluenced by typical horror cliches. That combined with Brian’s extensive horror knowledge, gives us a unique approach to each project.”
You can find Desirée on IMDB:
https://www.imdb.com/name/nm7175581/
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Ronnie Van Barr
Ever since I was a little kid, I’ve been obsessed with the horror genre. I still remember my parents getting angry when I tried to find clips of SAW and Child’s Play on Youtube, but that never stopped me. I’ve also been fascinated by makeup since I was a kid, trying all sorts of different styles before finally venturing into creating the kind of horror looks I loved seeing on screen. From then on, I was unstoppable. I watched as many Youtube tutorials as possible, my collection of materials grew, and I spent just about all of my spare time doing special effects makeup on myself and anyone else who would let me.
When I was 19, I finally followed my dream of going to makeup school at CMU College in Toronto. It was there I discovered that along with special effects, I’m passionate about a variety of other makeup styles such as theatre and eccentric fashion. But while I love to experiment with lots of different expressions of makeup on the side, special effects will always have my heart. Near the end of my program, I learned through experience how much I love doing behind the scenes lab work like creating prosthetics and creatures from scratch. Determined that this was my calling, I searched for special effects workshops near me, and I found Locked in the Cellar Creations! I immediately fell in love with their work, and knew I wanted to do whatever I could to get involved. I’ve been working with them since 2023, and it’s been incredible watching the company grow and learning so much along the way.
You can find Ronnie on IMDB: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm15220874/
And on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/rvbmakeup/?locale=my&hl=am-et