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The OREGONIAN
Monster-maker's dreams turn into ghoulish reality

10/28/80
By Linda Vogt
Photos By Linda Vogt
Correspondent, The Oregonian

He’s been called everything from a monster-maker to a creature-creator, and during the Halloween season his business is haunted houses.

E. Larry Day is a commercial makeup artist and set designer who specializes in promotions, displays, creative make-up and costumes. This Halloween he has created two haunted houses on southeast Powell Boulevard, one at 99th Avenue and one at 77th Avenue.
Day designs the houses, creates all the sets and outfits the inhabitants in ghoulish, realistic masks and costumes.
"Nowadays, with all the bad things going on, kids can't go out and trick or treat like they used to,'' Day said. "The haunted houses give them something fun to do on Halloween. or the week before."
Day gets portion of the ticket sales as payment for his work, but most of the money generated by the two radio station-sponsored haunted houses will go to non-profit causes.
"I like to do the houses because they make money for charity," Day said. "And I do houses only for a charity I support. Of course, I'm also trying to make a living at this."
Day's "House of Terror" at 99th and Powell features the phantom of the opera playing an organ in a cave, a 6-foot Martian, a scene from the film "Night of the Living Dead," and several other ghouls and monsters.
"I like this house because from start to finish, it's my design," he said. "I like to go into a house and figure out the best floor plan to make it really scary. You can use cupboards to hide people in, for example."
In the 99th Avenue house, he created a black maze, and visitors must grope their way from scene to scene, never quite sure what they might find around the corner. He said he never has trouble finding people to staff his houses. "I've got lots of friends who like to play monsters," he said.
"I always put names of my workers on the tombstones, too. It's kind of a little joke we have," he added.
Day refuses to use commercial masks. "Mine are all original. Kids haven't seen them in a costume shop or anywhere else. And I believe in creating a mood, a whole set."
In his haunted house at 77th and Powell, Day created a scene from the movie "Alien" that is "just like a regular Hollywood set," he said.
Safety is important to Day and has a lot to do with the way he designs his houses. "I'm concerned for the people who are going through the house," he said
He explained that he uses ramps instead of stairs, eliminates sharp edges, and uses chicken wire to separate spectators from monsters and ghouls. "The monsters don't touch the people, and the people don't touch the monsters. That way, nobody can get hurt. Monsters can get hurt, you know, because people don't think of them as human." The two houses are open nightly this week from 7 p.m. to 10:30 p.m., and until midnight Halloween night.
Day said he has created five haunted houses and has been involved with make-up and costuming for more than eight years. "My freshman year in high school, I found a recipe for how to make blood. That's how it all started." He is in business with his father, and works out of a studio in Portland. The motto of Chimera Studios is "We make your dreams realities." What is E. Larry Day's dream?
"I’d like to turn the entire city of Portland into a giant haunted house. It would take three days to go through it!"

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