Tom Savini Had Only Days to Create The Burning’s Nightmare Face

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Tom Savini Had Only Days to Create The Burning’s Nightmare Face

The Burning / 1980s

The production rushed into filming during the summer of 1980 because the filmmakers feared the slasher boom would fade before they could finish. That pressure left special-effects artist Tom Savini with only three or four days to build Cropsy’s burned appearance, forcing him to construct the mask in his dressing room between other effects assignments. Savini later recalled that the cast members were practically lining up to ask how their characters would die, making him feel less like a makeup artist than an assassin. He based Cropsy’s appearance partly on a burned beggar he had seen as a child in Pittsburgh and on medical textbooks about burn victims; because of the compressed schedule, the final design resembled a grotesque facial “melt” more than a medically realistic burn. Savini also deliberately revisited techniques from Friday the 13th, including a throat-slashing effect and a nearly identical axe-smash gag for Cropsy’s death, while director Tony Maylam personally played the killer for roughly 90 percent of the scenes because he could not find anyone else who handled the shears with the precise gleam he wanted.