They are responsible for bringing one of the most memorable makeups in recent years to the big screen: Hellboy.  As something of a personal project, they captured Guillermo Del Toro's interest and designed and applied Ron Perlman's demonic makeup.

Matt and Chad aren't content spending their time on just Hollywood movies.  In their free time, they put together one of the funniest, tongue in cheek zombie movies you will ever see.  'When Zombies Attack' is a 30 minute 'Cops' style parody of zombies on the loose.  You have to see this film to appreciate the humor and top notch makeup.  If zombie tipping is right up your alley, you'll thoroughly enjoy their feature.  You can check out the movie from iFilm: http://www.ifilm.com/ifilmdetail/2402880?htv=12

But of course, it doesn't end there.  WZA, has lead to merchandising and another short film based on a zombie puppet show (how great is that!).  Check out the Quicktime puppet show here: http://www.grimmgrottogoods.com/viewshow.html

We caught up with Matt and Chad and got the skinny on Hellboy as well as their future zombie ventures.

LMC: How did you two land the job to do Hellboy's makeup?

CW:  I started hearing Hellboy was going to be made.  I was a already a fan of the comic, so I showed Matt the comic and we both decided it was something we could do at Rick's but it wasn't something Rick was chasing after himself.  I managed to get hold of Del Toro and said we would really like to give it a shot.   Matt grabbed a cast of Ron Perlman and within 3 hours he had blocked out the makeup.

LMC: Why did you choose Ron Perlman?

MR: Oh no one else could have played Hellboy. The character was made for him. When I read the comic, I knew it had to be Ron. This was before we knew Guillermo wanted Ron. At one time there was talk of other actors playing Hellboy, much later than when we did the original makeup and I wasn't interested in doing it unless it was Ron.

LMC: Who dictated the design?

MR: I did a maquette after I read the first comic and it was just terrible, totally wrong idea. Then I read the Corpse which was a real cool Hellboy story and we both worked on a new version of the maquette and I think we got it that time. Then we did a bust.

LMC: Doesn't Del Toro have a makeup background?

MR: Oh yeah, he's really good which makes it so much better, but I tell you every single aspect of that film, he had a hand in. I've never worked on a film where the director was there all the time: costumes, props, makeup. He really is a miracle to film making.

LMC: Was there any interest in doing other parts of the FX work other than the Hellboy makeup?

MR: We wanted to do the corpse too, but we would only have time for the makeup on Ron and his double. It was just huge.

LMC: How were the 2 of you able to go get a film project like that at Rick's shop?

MR: Well, Chad and I have worked together for a long time, back doing Nutty Professor. Once Rick approved it, he could just turn it over to us and not worry about it. In fact, he was giving alot of attention to The Haunted Mansion and didn't have alot of time for Hellboy. We just coordinated it from there.

LMC: You guys team up alot on many projects, how has that been working out?

MR: We just complement each other well, similar likes and dislikes. We definitely have our arguments and creatively we click very well. We have a very good rapport that way.

LMC: Is Rick's shop on hiatus?

CW:  They just started back up on Ring 2 actually.

LMC: What are you doing next movie wise, anything new with Del Toro?

MR: He's going back to Spain to do another movie.  a few years back, he said, ok I'm going to Spain to do Devil's Backbone and I'll come back and do Hellboy. Now, he's off to Spain again to do something else and then he'll come back, but not sure what he will be doing.

LMC: Del Toro really brings alot of energy to the film?

MR: Oh yeah, definitely. It's great to be working with a director that loves the genre and the movies he is making. If it wasn't for him, we wouldn't have just dropped our lives and went to Prague to film for 6 months.

LMC: What lead to you guys doing When Zombies Attack?

CW: It was kind of a side project at the time. We both were playing Resident Evil back then, I guess 6 years ago. We decided to take on a zombie project, just a zombie in an alley or something. Once we figured we had to get a high end camera, lighting, and would have to film it sort of guerilla style, we sort of got turned off to doing it. So we figured we would get a video camera and see what we could do with that. We decided to do a documentary style similar to Cops. We came up with an initial story idea. Started thinking about stories like what would happen if a bear got stuck in a sauna. Let's turn that around and make that a zombie and how ridiculous would that be. We grabbed a guy from the shop, Frank Rydberg, and figured he would make a good cop. Turns out he was such a great actor that everything in that first segment really worked. Then we decided, hey lets make this a half hour and see where we could take it. Then we got a connection to Bernie Wrightson who said he would love to do a zombie in it. We were just floored. We designed a scene for him after his Mementos picture. Now we are looking to extend it further into a TV series. Expand it further with vampires, ghosts paranormal.

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