Bray Wyatt’s Firefly FunHouse was giving us nightmares even before The Fiend started appearing amidst flashing lights and a shrieking cacophony to shove his “HARM”-gloved hand down people’s throat.
Now, in a cool interview Gamespot did with Jason Baker of Tom Savini Studios - the iconic horror movie jack-of-all-trades’ visual effects and design company - we’ve learned a little bit more about the genesis of Wyatt’s act. And a warning that the best/worst may be yet to come.
We already knew about how tattoo artist and designer Kyle A. Scarborough worked with Bray on The Fiend’s mask (Scarborough recently shared that he did the first draft of the lantern we saw at SummerSlam, too). Now, thanks to the Gamespot piece we’ve got more details about all things Firefly FunHouse. Outside of Bray himself, Baker is the person to dish, too - he supervised the creation of not only the mask and lantern, but the props, puppets and set for the FunHouse. He even “helped direct the segments”.
Here’s Baker:
“Firefly Funhouse has consumed my life. I don’t want it to sound like I’m complaining though. I’ve had a blast working on it. It’s like a dream come true.
It’s all Bray’s brainchild. He had these ideas, and we did some concept art, but it wasn’t really hitting home with Bray. So he got a really, really good sketch artist named Kyle Scarborough, out of St Louis, to do some concept art for him. Those sketches were awesome, and we took those and brought them to life.
They’re good blueprints, but we put our own stamp on the mask as well. It comes down to sculpting, logistics, and comfort. If the guy’s going to wear this while beating the living piss out of people, he should be able to see out of it and make sure it’s strapped to his head.”
Like a good magician, though, Baker doesn’t want to give away all the secrets behind the creation of the act... or what’s to come. Like a good showman, he does know how to plant a seed to get us anxious for what’s ahead:
“They need to keep watching because they haven’t seen anything yet. If they think this is the greatest thing to ever happen, they just need to keep watching. It’s going to blow them away.”
I’m giddy - and terrified, but mostly giddy - with anticipation.