Best Make-up – 1983

My Nominations: Videodrome. Liquid Sky. Return Of The Jedi. Krull.

No official picks this year, but plenty of potential nominees. This is peak post Star Wars and post Conan, meaning many many cheap and cheery copy-pastes and a few higher budget efforts. There are so many of these in 1983, and of course so many of them are terrible, but at least had some entertaining effects and Make-Up work. Sadly, they’re not up to par with the best of the year’s work.

Which leads nicely into Krull. Hokey even a few years later, it nevertheless was brimming with ambition and was a showcase for the makeup and effects team who (including Nick Maley of Star Wars fame) crafted an array of creatures to make the imaginative world feel real. The little seen but influential cult film Liquid Sky is most often remembered for its visuals and soundscapes. However, the Makeup would come to be a highlight of ’80sness’ and the bridging of the gaps between emerging underground scenes and imagined futures.

You can’t avoid Return Of The Jedi here, with an opening 30 minutes containing more work and skill than most other films of the year combined, and yet it can’t be my winner. There can only be one winner here, and that’s David Cronenberg’s infamous Videodrome, and an example of what the Body Horror genre could be if given a decent budget and a strong cast. This was always one of those films you heard about in whispers on the school yard – it didn’t matter what the plot was, but that it contained a bit where a guy hides a gun inside his belly. Talking with the older brothers and sisters and friends would give tantalizing insights concerning other such delights within, ironically mirroring the voyeuristic nature of the story. The visuals are just as impressive once you see them for real, and they still hold up today.

My Winner: Videodrome

Let us know your winner in the comments!