Horror is big business at the box office, pulling in $400 million a year, and a young Burnaby man is cashing in on movie goers love of a good scare.
Whether it's a severed hand or a bloody corpse, Kyle Huculak has made it for the big screen in his latex and silicone workshop in his garage.
“I wake up every morning thinking, ‘alright, let's go make some monsters,’" he said.
Huculak crafts silicone zombie masks and blood-spurting body parts. He says the keys to a great ghoul are slime, teeth and blood.
Sculpted monster hands sell for $650 a pair and Huculak already has a half dozen on order from customers who’ve found his creepy creations online.
“I was getting hundreds and hundreds of people a day being like, ‘wow, can I buy this?’ And I would say ‘of course you can.’”
But the real money is in the movie props. Huculak's custom creations have been sold to a few dozen film productions and they’re not cheap. A bloody torso prop sold for $1,800 and creepy body parts can rent out for $100 a day.
When it comes to horror movies, special effects can turn a low budget production into a real money maker. One of Huculak’s ghoulish creations is about to make its debut this Halloween in a new scary film shot in Squamish.
"They can spend a few thousand dollars, but they can make a giant creature that pretty much sells the movie itself right there,” he said.
Huculak also offers special effects makeup services to the general public. He says Halloween is such a big deal for him, people start planning in August. Huculak charges $50 an hour and can create anything from a stake in the forehead to a giant scar.
