Photo by Adam Taub
Audio By Carbonatix
Halloween may be months away, but it’s always spooky season inside Distortions Unlimited. Founded in 1978, this monster-making company has built a legendary reputation in both Greeley and the global haunt industry.
As a child, Ed Edmunds was fascinated by all things sci-fi, especially “The Outer Limits” and “Planet of the Apes.” He founded Distortions Unlimited while still in high school and began by making Halloween masks, but techniques were hard to come by back then.
“Nobody was sharing. It was a black box, man,” says Edmunds, adding that those in Hollywood held tightly to their secrets. But learning through trial and error worked for him. Soon after establishing the company, North Carolina-based Morris Costumes began placing year-round mass orders.
“We put an ad in Fangoria magazine, a little ad in the classified section. One of the guys there went to management and said, ‘We have to carry this stuff.’ That just changed everything. They were connected to all the retail stores, and it really took off,” Edmunds recalls.
Photo by Adam Taub
In the early ‘80s, Edmunds also found a partner in life and business. Marsha Taub-Edmunds was completing her master’s in biology at the University of Northern Colorado and simultaneously worked part-time at Distortions Unlimited. “Ed and I would paint together, and I just loved it,” she recalls.
Around the same time, Halloween began to shift into a more adult holiday. Edmunds explains that in October 1982, headlines around the Tylenol murders circulated and prompted fears of candy poisonings. “Instead of trick-or-treating, parents decided to stay home and throw parties. They thought, ‘Well, the kids are dressed up. We should get dressed up, too.’”
Sales continued to climb, but the early ‘90s demanded another shift as manufacturers in China began creating really good masks for really cheap. That’s what led Distortions Unlimited to focus on its specialty: monster props and animatronics.
“Our first animatronic was an electric chair and it changed the whole industry,” Edmunds says. Distortions Unlimited has an impressive following on YouTube, and in one (maybe NSFW) video, he overviews its breakthrough creation: a rubber sculpture of a seated man with gritted teeth, writhing and moaning as the chair he’s cuffed to sizzles.
Photo by Adam Taub
Despite costing thousands of dollars, far more than other horror props at the time, the company sold more than two hundred units in its first year, proving there was an untapped market for high-end Halloween fixtures.
Available for online purchase, this season’s selection includes a glowing skeletal ghost pulling from a suspended chain, a shaking Frankenstein hooked up to hyper-volt transformers and a grumpy, spitting grandpa (Taub-Edmunds says it’s been a hit with the haunted pumpkin patches and corn mazes).
“We do a lot of stuff. It’s like throwing spaghetti against the wall, see what sticks,” comments Edmunds. His wife agrees, adding that designing is their favorite part of the old-school process.
To create a prop, in-house and guest artists use a water-based clay, then cover the sculpture with a plaster mold. Once the clay is dug out, this forms a negative which is filled with liquid latex. The rubber piece is then painted and dressed. In the case of animatronics, audio is programmed into the cylinders and a metal armature may be installed to allow for movement.
Photo by Adam Taub
Today, Distortions Unlimited’s work appears in commercial haunted houses and theme parks worldwide, as well as many home haunts — a pandemic-era trend that has only grown more popular since.
While the company has countless clients, one of its most notable is Dick Van Dyke. “We’ve gone out [to Malibu] every year for the last ten to fifteen years and helped him set up his home haunt,” says Taub-Edmunds.
Distortions Unlimited also created the guillotine used by Alice Cooper in recent concerts, as well as the queen alien from the “Aliens” movie. Among other displays, both will serve as photo ops at the upcoming Monster Day celebration along Eighth and Ninth streets in downtown Greeley.
Edmunds first pitched the event to the city after reading a book about Don Post Studios, a Halloween mask company that hosted its own Monster Days in the ‘60s and ‘70s. People would dress up in costumes and their masks would be on full display.
“I thought, ‘Wow, that really looks cool.’ So I approached the downtown development guys with this idea of having monsters on the street and having some shows and things, and they loved it instantly,” recalls Edmunds.
Photo by Adam Taub
Mini Kiss, a Kiss tribute band made up of little people, will kick off the free event on Friday, Aug. 21, from 6 to 10 p.m. Festivities will continue the following day from noon to 5 p.m., drawing thousands of attendees. Many will be dressed for this year’s costume contest, which offers a thousand-dollar grand prize and $500 for second place.
Costumed actors, a monster-themed puppet show for kids, a scream contest and nearly a hundred vendors will add to the fright fest, which benefits bullying prevention nonprofit Don’t Be a Monster.
“At the end, we do a thing where I get on stage with a bunch of our painters and people here. We paint and finish off a hundred masks, and as we finish them, we throw them out in the audience,” says Edmunds.
The upcoming finale will be particularly grand, as this year marks the tenth and final Monster Day. “August is actually our biggest month of the year as far as production and orders, so we are kind of overwhelmed, and our crew is just super busy right now,” explains Taub-Edmunds. “We felt like ten years was a good run.”
Monster Day will take place on Saturday, Aug. 22, from noon to 5 p.m. between Eighth and Ninth streets in downtown Greeley. A concert featuring Mini Kiss will occur the prior evening from 6 to 10 p.m.
