Makeup, wig, cackle. Witchy ways at Universal Orlando
ORLANDO, FLA. — “Scare-actor” Laura Law once frightened a patron so badly at Universal Orlando Resort’s Halloween Horror Nights that the woman peed in her pants.
Graceful and mild-mannered, the 31-year-old actress didn’t come across as someone who could have such an effect when she arrived recently for her transformation into the Wicked Witch of the West for the 28th year of Universal Orlando’s celebration of all-things-horror. Law has been a “scare-actor” for five years.
She was already in her purple tights and black dress, her red hair was in a ponytail and her green contact lenses were in by the time she plopped down in a makeup chair. A black smock protected her dress as makeup designer Eric Garcia prepared to work his cosmetic witchcraft on her pale face.
“It’s fun to be creepy and scary, right?” she said.
Halloween Horror Nights is an all-hands-on-deck affair at the Orlando, Fla., theme park resort, as well as at Universal theme parks in California, Japan and Singapore. This year, the Orlando Halloween celebration will have 10 haunted houses, several recalling slasher films or pop culture from the 1980s, including a house modelled after the Netflix hit TV show “Stranger Things.”
Halloween Horror Nights lasts for 36 nights, but it’s planned for more than a year. Each haunted house is a small, temporary attraction, elaborately designed and themed, built with studious attention to details and populated with “scare-actors” who chase but never touch the thousands of patrons passing through each night. This year’s Halloween celebration opened in mid-September. “I don’t think anybody does it bigger or better than we do,” said Patrick Braillard, creative development show director at Universal Orlando.
In the makeup chair, Garcia applied glue to Law’s face. Next came a rubbery prosthetic that Garcia placed over her nose and forehead. Its whiteness gave her a “Phantom of the Opera” look and its shape gave her a hook nose and textured skin.
Garcia then placed on a white, pointed chin prosthetic and started painting her face with white and flesh colours using a small