Chuck Jones Gore

Today I'd like to highlight an unsung hero of mine... Rob Bottin.

Bottin first got his start in the mid to late seventies as a teenager working for effects guru Rick Baker, who he hisself got his start from the master, Dick Smith (no not that Dick Smith). Bottin's first big break came when he created the ghost effects and played the lead baddie in John Carpenter's The Fog. His previous minor work for Joe Dante and Mike Finnell (Pirahna, Rock N' Roll High School) then helped him get the job of creating the werewolf effects for:

Robert Picardo puppet in The Howling
At the same time, his mentor, Baker, would be contracted to do An American Werewolf In London, allowing audiences to compare their styles. They couldn't be more different, Baker achieved an almost medical realism with his wolf, while Bottin's, well, as you can see, I've dubbed his style 'Chuck Jones Gore' - it's a much more over the top style, hyper and bulbous, animated and cartoon like. Bottin has never gone for reality based work and instead developed a unique style almost straight out of the gate. This is one of the reasons he never won a makeup Oscar - too much of his work was mechanically based. That was not to say it wasn't outstanding.

Rick Baker's work in An American Werewolf In London for comparison
While Baker would continue to develop his wolf and ape creations, Bottin would next push himself to such a high level of artistic achievement (and make himself really quite medically sick in the process) - that some would say he has never bettered himself personally and quite possibly movie magic has never been as original and imaginative in these halycon pre-CG days. The movie: John Carpenter's The Thing (note how I'm doing the right thing and keeping the possessary titles Carp's loves so much). In The Thing, Bottin took the cartoon violence a step further and created a monster so unique, so daring, audiences just couldn't cope with it, even though the most disturbingly violent moment in the film (not provided by Bottin) is the sight of people cutting themselves to obtain blood samples.

Charles Halloran puppet in The Thing
Bottin's style merged particularly well with Joe Dante's own cartoon sensibilities and then continued to forge a relationship across a number of films (all which feature cartoon monsters and/or cartoon transformations) including:

Twilight Zone - The Movie

Bob Picardo in suit in Explorers

Bob Picardo? or puppet? in Innerspace
Bottin also forged a lasting relationship with actor Robert Picardo. They first worked together on The Howling with Picardo playing the serial killer/werewolf Eddie Quist and continued on through Explorers as Picardo played several aliens, Innerspace in which Martin Short transforms into him, culminating in Bottin's second creative high point, Ridley Scott's Legend, where Picardo plays the swamp hag:

Bob Picardo as Meg Mucklebones in Legend
Bottin's favorite type of work seemed to involve animated sculptures of grotesquely distorted people - a perfect example with his work for The Witches Of Eastwick - the highlight scene which was unfortunately all but removed. However, I have a couple of stills below of what might have been.

Rob Bottin and Veronica Cartwright puppet for The Witches Of Eastwick

The resulting special effect cut from The Witches Of Eastwick
The third and probably most recognisable achievement of his career was creating the suit for Paul Verhoeven's RoboCop. Although many makeup effects artists are associated with gore, Bottinn hadn't really tackled this until RoboCop, which provided some juicy gore effects. Bottin would go on to work on the two sequels also.

Peter Weller in the RoboCop suit

Peter Weller puppet devised for the death scene in RoboCop
Verhoeven opened the door for Bottin and gore, and would go on to do Total Recall and Basic Instinct. Total Recall at least provided the opportunity for Bottin to do a range of effects, from straight makeups to puppets to gore. He even worked with Picardo again, providing a sculpted taxi driver in his visage. Bottin would win his only Academy Award for Total Recall, but I consider this a poor effects film and certainly not an example of Bottin's potential.

Ronny Cox puppet in Total Recall
Other projects which followed included some gore and makeups for two David Fincher films, Se7en and Fight Club, plus creatures for Mimic, Deep Rising and Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. Bottin appears to have slowed down in recent years, his last two productions being Serving Sara and Mr. Deeds (both 2002).