Montgomery monster maker: Jonathan Thornton has 'twisted imagination'

Walking through a haunted house gives Montgomery's Jonathan Thornton a thrill — but not really a fright. There’s not much that can terrify him.

“I guess if I was walking down the street and a grizzly bear or a bobcat were to jump out in front of me, I think that would scare me,” Thornton said. “But that’s about it.”

Every year he loves taking his wife and daughter on a road trip to Georgia to stroll through Netherworld, Stone Mountain’s premier haunted house attraction. Unlike the screaming people around him, Thornton feels pride as incredibly realistic creatures jump out.

“I’m like, yeah, I made that,” said Thornton.

That’s right, Montgomery. The Capital of Dreams is a nightmare factory thanks to Thornton and his company Southern Fried Monsters FX.

Thornton has almost 20 years in as a professional creature maker in his hometown. He just shipped a fresh batch of monsters from here to Netherworld.

More: From the MCU to slasher flicks: Alabama's Roy Wooley knows the art of movies

“We got three zombies, a fish monster, a bizarre clown, a baby bigfoot and several more things,” said Netherworld owner Ben Armstrong. “Two Mongolian death worms in cryo chambers. It was a good selection of oddities."

Armstrong and Thornton met years ago through mutual effects friend Bill Johnson ("Blue Beetle," "Eight Legged Freaks" and "The Hunger Games: Catching Fire") in Atlanta. Since then, Armstrong said Netherworld has amassed a huge collection of Thornton’s work, and said he’s a talented guy with unique style. Thornton is one of the Netherworld artists who creates things people won’t see anywhere else, Armstrong said.

“(Thornton) makes at least a couple of new characters for us every year,” Armstrong said. “He’s always coming up with stuff. He made a really cool fungus zombie coming out of the ground prop last year... He’s a really good dude with a really twisted imagination.”

Thornton said he enjoys creating both masks and attachments with makeup.

“I like to do things the old way,” he said. “I like to sketch out designs, and sculpt them out. I have friends who are very talented and can get on the computer and design stuff, but they don’t know how to make the stuff. They’ll design and send it to me, and we’ll work hand in hand.”

You’d think it would be easy to spot a horror effects maker’s home in Montgomery, especially this time of year. But not so. Making these creatures takes time, and he gets so busy that his family doesn’t really decorate much for Halloween anymore. Thornton’s neighbors likely have no idea what kind of horrors are being born nearby in his shop.

“I don’t think any of them know what I do,” Thornton said. “Although, I’m sure they wonder why I have a coffin in my back yard.”

Thornton's special effects and makeup for TV and film

Like haunted houses, horror movies don’t give Thornton much of a scare either. His mind goes into the filmmaking process he’s seen much of in person. It’s not just horror movies — that goes for any genre.

“Movies are ruined for me,” he said. “It’s got to be a really good movie for me to be involved in it now… I’ll see blend lines on makeup that are supposed to be realistic-looking.”

Since 2002, he’s worked in makeup and special effects for several TV and film projects.

“’Blood Feast 2’ was one of my first films I worked on,” he said. It’s a project he got to do in New Orleans with filmmaker Herchell Gordon Lewis, AKA “The Godfather of Gore.”

“He’s the guy who created the splatter craze,” Thornton said.

Over the past two decades, Thornton’s been a part of several independent films, including “Kill Theory,” “Oculus,” “Last Looks,” “Last Seen Alive” and “Hellbilly Hollow.”

Among Thornton's huge collection of masks and gore at his shop that he's made, he has a special keepsake from working on the 2016 western drama "The Duel" — actor Woody Harrelson's foot. In the film, Harrelson's character has to cut of his own foot to escape. Thornton admits the prop wasn't actually cast off of Harrelson's foot. He used a stunt double.

Thornton was nominated for Best Special Effects at the FANtastic Horror Film Festival in San Diego for the 2017 horror/comedy film “Attack of the Southern Fried Zombies” — where an attempt to kill kudzu vines turns people into the undead. The film was originally called "Kudzu Zombies." The renamed film is what inspired the name for Thornton's shop.

In 2019, his makeup work for “The Reckoning of Darkness” won Best Makeup at the Hex After Dark Film Festival, and was also nominated in the Spookscreen Film Festival.

“Jonathan’s been around as long as I have. He’s probably a better artist than I am,” said Atlanta native John Harris, a special effects colleague of Thornton’s whose work in major films include “Zombieland: Double Tap.”

"I've known Jonathan for many, many years. He's a really good guy," said Alabama native Roy Wooley, a former artist for Netherworld who's done makeup and effects on several Marvel films and most recently was on the crew for Disney's "The Haunted Mansion."

One of Thornton’s latest TV works is a “click it or ticket” commercial with three zombies. Other upcoming TV and film projects have been on hold lately due to the writer and actor strikes.

“Once the strike is over with, a lot of work is going to be hitting,” Thornton said. “A lot of people are going to be busy.”

Monsters a highlight of Thornton’s Montgomery childhood

“Growing up in Montgomery, it was an escape for me to sit in my room and draw, to sculpt and create,” Thornton said. “In elementary school, I started to experiment with making masks. Of course, it was simple stuff, like latex and cornflakes. Crude zombies and stuff.”

As a child, Thornton found his calling while flipping through the pages of “Famous Monsters of Filmland” magazine. Books like this were his only resource, since there was no internet at the time.

“I saw my first photos of the Frankenstein creature, and I was hooked,” Thornton said. “I was like, 'Where’d they find that actor with the square head?'”

Halloween in Montgomery was an amazing time for young Thornton. He loved going to the Jaycees haunted house. “That’s another thing that got me into this,” he said.

Of course, young Thornton would wear costumes and makeup faces that he’d created. He has fond memories of going through Montgomery’s TG&Y store to find scar skin, dermal wax and latex.

He was also a veritable Dr. Frankenstein Jr., turning his classmates into different creatures.

“I would make friends up in school for Halloween costume contests, and make myself up,” Thornton said. “We’d do little haunted houses and stuff.”

Leaving, returning to, and passing on love of creature making

Thornton graduated from Jefferson Davis High School, and went to the University of Alabama. Eventually, he stepped away from his love of monster makeup to, gasp, take a “normal” job.

“I just wasn’t enjoying the career I was in,” Thornton said. “When I married my wife, she encouraged me to get back into this.”

Thornton went to conventions and met FX peers who mentored him. He also trained in a course designed by legendary makeup and special FX master Dick Smith.

Thornton’s become an inspiration in a circle of undead life kind of way to his 13-year-old daughter — who thankfully still enjoys going trick-or-treating.

“She is as much into Halloween and horror as I am,” Thornton said. “She loves it… Halloween starts about July for us.”

His daughter is into making her own cosplay outfits.

“When she was younger, I had her in my shop sitting on my knee, and she would sculpt as I was sculpting,” Thornton said. “Sometimes, the things that she would sculpt, I would leave in the sculpture for the mask. That would be her little signature on there.”

Montgomery Advertiser reporter Shannon Heupel covers things to do in the River Region. Contact him at sheupel@gannett.com

This article originally appeared on Montgomery Advertiser: Montgomery monster maker: Jonathan Thornton has 'twisted imagination'