Gross Horror, All on the Fly

Award-winning special- effects makeup artists Cheri Montesanto-Medcalf and Matthew W. Mungle have scared the devil out of audiences with their gruesomely realistic makeup designs. But while the two can dish it out, they certainly can’t take it.

“I like watching movies, but I do cover my eyes when something gross comes on,” says Montesanto-Medcalf.

“The same thing,” Mungle says. “If I cut myself, I can’t stand the blood.”

The duo work their makeup magic on Fox’s long-running sci-fi show “The X-Files,” creating fantastic demons, slimy aliens and other creepy-crawly things that have become a trademark of the series.

Montesanto-Medcalf, who is in charge of all makeup for the series, has won three Emmys for her work on “The X-Files”; Mungle has won one and received an Oscar for his work on 1992’s “Bram Stoker’s Dracula.”

Sitting in their expansive makeup trailer on the Fox lot in Century City, they are surrounded by their creations--sculptures of demon heads that were featured in a recent episode and the head and torso of a man whose face happens to be deformed. He debuts in Sunday’s installment.

“His face gets crushed, and flies come out of [it],” Mungle says matter-of-factly.

The two won an Emmy for last season’s “X-Files” episode called “Dead Alive,” which featured a scene in which a man sloughs off his skin while he takes a shower. “We shot mainly from the waist down,” Mungle says. “We used layers of gelatin that were made up very thin.... Once hot water hit it, it started breaking down.”

“It broke up in pieces and went down the drain,” Montesanto-Medcalf adds.

Each became interested in makeup at a young age. Montesanto-Medcalf’s parents were hairdressers and did makeup for commercials in New York. “I always liked to make things pretty and ugly,” she says. “I was 17 when I did my first movie; it was called ‘Fear No Evil.’ It was a movie with demons and devils and high school kids.”

Mungle grew up on a dairy farm in Oklahoma, where he thrived on watching vintage horror films like “Frankenstein” and “Dracula.” “The one movie that really got to me was ‘The Seven Faces of Dr. Lao.’ It won the Oscar for makeup. And then, of course, ‘Planet of the Apes’ came out. I started doing my own makeup. I was hired at the local theater, and I would dress up and kind of promote the movies that came in.”

His first movie was the Tippi Hedren film “Roar,” and he got his big break as a makeup artist on Tim Burton’s “Edward Scissorhands.” Besides winning an Oscar for “Bram Stoker’s Dracula,” Mungle was nominated for his work on “Schindler’s List” (1993) and “Ghosts of Mississippi” (1996).

They say they have not had to rethink their work on “The X-Files” because of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. “I am able to separate [the tragedy] because this is fantasy,” Mungle says. Besides, he adds, “There is only so much blood you can do on television.”

The show’s hectic schedule doesn’t allow Montesanto-Medcalf and Mungle much time to prepare the special-effects makeup.

They get an advance script about eight days before filming begins, when they have what’s called a concept meeting with creator and executive producer Chris Carter and executive producer Frank Spotnitz.

“We usually get a full script, if we are lucky, the day [before] filming,” Montesanto-Medcalf says. “As we are filming, we continually get pages and changes.”

Montesanto-Medcalf and Mungle work closely with the computer-generated special-effects team. In a recent episode in which a disturbed man vomits seemingly gallons of liquid, for example, the makeup duo put the pump appliance filled with the liquid on the actor, and the computer-imaging team erased the tubes that came out of his body and went across the room.

Montesanto-Medcalf uses a lot of organic material in her work. She recalls an episode when she was using dates to depict the brain inside a man’s skull. “The director came in to talk, and he saw the plate of dates and he was talking to the actor, and I noticed he just started eating a date. I said, ‘He’s eating the makeup!’”

The two have also created wonders with figs, rawhide dog bones, spaghetti, ham and egg whites. And those pointy ridges that were seen on the backs of alien super-soldiers in several episodes? They were made with fingernails.

“As crazy as it gets, it’s fun and a challenge,” Montesanto-Medcalf says. “Some of our best things come out at the last minute when you have to come up with something on the spot.”

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“The X-Files” airs Sundays at 9 p.m. on Fox.