Gary J. Tunnicliffe
Tunnicliffe's real work happens before the camera rolls. He is an English special make-up effects designer attached to the Hellraiser films for most of their run, handling effects from Hellraiser III: Hell on Earth in 1992 through to Hellraiser: Hellworld in 2005, and his other make-up credits take in Candyman, Wishmaster, the Dracula 2000 films, the Pulse films and Feast.
Then he moved up the chain, which effects people rarely manage. He wrote Hellraiser: Revelations, and he wrote and directed Hellraiser: Judgment, in which he also appears as the Auditor. The directing shows up on this page too: he directed Hansel & Gretel in 2002.
The acting credits follow a pattern common to effects designers, who are already on set and already sitting in the make-up chair when a body is needed. He is a police officer in Halloween: Resurrection, Mama Beast in Feast, a mimic bug in Mimic: Sentinel, a security guard in The Seeker: The Dark Is Rising, a homeless man in Pet, a principal in Trick. He also appears as himself, credited as a make-up designer, in the Roger Corman documentary Corman's World.
It is a horror career built from the inside out, and the filmography reads that way.
Movies (12)
Where to start with Gary J. Tunnicliffe
Hellraiser: Judgment is the one to watch first, because it is the only film here that is entirely his: written, directed, and with him on screen as the Auditor. It is a small, grubby, extremely committed entry in a franchise long past its budget, and it is worth seeing on those terms rather than as a sequel.
Feast is the better film, a fast siege horror with creatures that look like somebody actually built them, and he is inside one of them as Mama Beast. Halloween: Resurrection and Mimic: Sentinel are the studio work of the same period, neither of them well loved, both worth a look purely for the effects.
Corman's World is the odd recommendation and the useful one, a documentary about Roger Corman in which Tunnicliffe appears doing his actual job. Hansel & Gretel shows the directing before the horror, and Pet and Trick round out the small parts.