This story appeared in the 2016 photo issue of VICE magazine.
Artist Sue de Beer’s work has strong elements of mysticism and the occult, something she attributes partly to having grown up in Salem, Massachusetts. In her photos and films, which have been widely exhibited and screened, she has also drawn on the macabre, surreal, and darkly funny writings of Dennis Cooper. In this series, de Beer used 1950s monster-makeup guides to recreate, among other things, costumes of zombies and werewolves, which she then shot in what she calls an intentionally unconvincing light.
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Makeup and special effects: Jenn Blum; makeup assistant: Jake Aebly; set building: Jongho Lee and Daeyoung Kim; models: Lucy Gembitsky, Robert Hickerson, Anders Johnson, and Jonathan Rosario at Mint Management
