Behind the masks: Exploring the work of local mask-makers Composite Effects in the movies

Zombies, demons, goblins and clowns. Gargoyles, vampires, werewolves and orcs. These are the creatures that master mask-makers at Composite Effects create to transform their customers.

In a light-industrial facility on Pecue Lane, the company sells its frightfully fun wares and super-realistic silicone-rubber masks to buyers around the world.

Since its 2006 founding, Composite Effects, which also goes by CFX, has built a client list that includes major film and TV productions, individual customers, and amusement parks by Disney, Universal Studios and Six Flags.

CFX’s recent props clients include two Louisiana-filmed TV series, Preacher and Underground.

The company also crafts hyper-real skin and body parts for the medical simulator device market.

CFX owner and co-founder Ken Decker first experimented with silicone rubber when he was an LSU student moonlighting as a makeup artist at The 13th Gate haunted house attraction. Decker grew impatient with the nightly two-hour ordeal necessary to glue a foam-latex mask on the actor playing Pinhead. So he fabricated a pullover Pinhead mask from silicone, a softer material he’d been using for an unrelated project.

“I made the silicone mask we used that year at The 13th Gate,” he says. “It worked out great.”

Decker found more inspiration for the creation of CFX when he joined a special effects crew working on a movie shot in Louisiana.

“Doing that, I realized there was a need in the state for good mold-making services, which didn’t exist here,” he says.

Decker discussed the idea of forming a prop- and mask-making company with his fellow LSU sculpture student Wes Branton. He also suggested they shelve their mutual plans to move to California and work in Louisiana’s growing film industry instead.

“We kicked the idea over beer for the better part of a year,” Decker says. “Finally, in August 2006, we decided to make a legitimate stab at it.”

About four months later, Decker and Branton opened CFX, a two-man operation, on Pecue Lane. The business now employs 22 full-time staff members year-round.

During their first few years, Branton, who’s since left CFX, and Decker watched the mask-making side of their business take off.

“We realized that although we had intended to be a prop company that made masks on the side, we’d turned into a mask company that occasionally made props,” Decker says.

Today, they produce more than 120 styles of masks, selling for an average of $600. Choices include zombie and clown models, and such singular characters as the Gargoyle, Baylor the Cyclops and Mortimer the Rat. CFX also produces masks based on Game of Thrones’ White Walkers and Night King and Hellraiser’s Pinhead.

Halloween favorites this year include clowns painted in the sinister style of Pennywise, the killer clown in the hit movie, It. The best-selling masks at CFX vary month to month.

And with masks appearing in films as varied as The Final Destination, 2 Guns and The Campaign, we’d guess the company still has a few more tricks left up its sleeve. compositeeffects.com

This article was originally published in the October 2017 issue of 225 Magazine.