Xbox's 'Monster Makeover' – Turning Beauties Into Beasts

If last weekend’s Saw V and High School Musical 3 didn’t fulfill your zombie and gore requirements, look no further than the new web series Monster Makeover. Just in time for Halloween, Xbox360 has partnered with the Cinema Makeup School to provide video game and horror movie fans with a brand new reality show based on popular Xbox games.

Hosted by video game bloggers Nelson Rodriguez and Natalie Sousa, Monster Makeover gives five makeup artists the chance to turn gorgeous models into horrific monsters based on creatures from new XBox360 games Left 4 Dead, Dead Space, Fallout 3, Gears of War 2 and Fable 2.  The five makeup students – Simpat Beshiron, Robert Lindsay, Erin Dellamore, Morgan Muta and Lea Willard – from Los Angeles’ Cinema Makeup School (located right next to the historic Wiltern Theatre) will be competing for the grand prize of an Xbox360 prize pack (including an Xbox360 Elite, the five aforementioned games and a Zune music player) as well as an ‘industry’ job. Viewers also have the opportunity to win a prize pack by entering on the Monster Makeover site. The zombies are judged by Cinema Makeup School instructors/veteran makeup FX artists Leonard Engelman (How the Grinch Stole Christmas, Batman Forever) and Lee Joyner (Mimic, Godzilla).

The first episode, available now on Xbox’s website, is inspired by the upcoming horror/action game Left 4 Dead (due out November 18).  Armed with two hours and $100 worth of makeup supplies, the students race to transform their beautiful subjects into grotesque members of the living dead.  The results of this week’s competition are quite impressive – love Robert Lindsay’s office supply riddled zombie.  Three of the five contestants will advance to the next round, but you’ll have to wait until the next installment to find out who the winners are.  Running at just under nine minutes, Monster Makeover unfortunately does not display enough of the makeup process, focusing more on interviews with the contestants and the judges.  Considering its concept and the gamer audience, I think Monster Makeover has the chops to make the jump to a half-hour program.