You have got to get the blood just right
Weta Cave, Miramar, Wellington, Saturday, 11am.
Why do Orcs have minty fresh breath and why do monsters and aliens have different-coloured blood?
The secrets to these pressing questions were revealed to costumed kids at Wellington’s Weta Cave yesterday.
Halloween, or All Hallow’s Eve, reportedly dates back to ancient celtic rituals marking the changing seasons in the Northern Hemisphere.
But for Kiwi kids at the Weta Cave it was all about bringing imagination to life.
Weta Workshop technician Kimmie Sowter has been creating gooey and gory things for film sets for the past six years.
Yesterday, she explained to the eager witches and warlocks that with simple ingredients from the pantry, you too could be bathing in blood or feasting on human brains.
Glucose or golden syrup when mixed with instant coffee gives the texture of oozing blood. A little food dye does the rest. A collective groan went up from the gathered audience as Sowter plunged her hand into her final creation of fake blood, demonstrating how lifelike – and gooey it really was.
Fruit pieces can also be added to the edible creation to make a brain-like goop, she said.
More than just dress-ups, Halloween unlocks kids "imagination, creativity and thinking," Sowter said.
"It is a different world and everyone likes the escape."
She likes to help kids unlock their creativity and experiment for themselves.
What is done in the movies is not out of reach, she said.
For instance, the black stuff oozing out of Orcs’ mouths in The Lord of the Rings?
A a mix of black food colouring and mouth freshener – giving them "minty fresh breath", Sowter said.
And why do monsters and aliens have different coloured blood?
Because "movie ratings only go up if you bleed red blood’’.
Sowter dressed as a skeleton for the day but had stiff competition in the costume stakes.
’Vampire Queen’ Amy Baker, 7, and ’Smiling Demon’ Jacob Baker, 10 from Karori were stoked to make their very first visit to Weta.
It was the siblings "first Halloween in New Zealand" Amy Baker said.
Jacob Baker said he had picked up a dead hand in Croatia and a freaky mask in the United Kingdom.
After the fake blood demonstration he took a little pot home, a memento from his first kiwi Halloween.