Legendary special makeup effects artist Screaming Mad George has passed away at the age of 69. After grieving in private, his family announced on Sunday that he died on February 10th of this year.

The multi-hyphenate — who was also a creature and effects designer, filmmaker, musician, educator, and artist — was best known for his surreal SFX work on several significant horror films. His credits include Predator, Bride of Re-Animator, Spaceballs, Freaked, and the third and fourth instalments of A Nightmare on Elm Street.

The artist, whose real name was Joji Tani, was perhaps most celebrated for his groundbreaking work on Society, the influential body horror film. A satire of the Beverly Hills elite, the film culminates in a special makeup effects tour-de-force in a Dalí-inspired orgy sequence which Variety described as “sickening” in a negative review. Most of the American press shared the negative reaction — and it would be three years after screening at the Cannes Film Festival in 1989 that it was finally released in the States — but European critics were far more receptive to the film. It has since become a cult classic, and its influence can be seen on contemporary body horror films like The Substance (2024).

Born in Osaka in 1956, George initially moved to New York at 18 to pursue a career as a painter. While studying at the School of Visual Arts, he founded punk rock band THE MAD. Teaching himself special makeup effects in order to create theatrical live performances that blended music with striking visual art, George’s career took a turn when he sent a short film to Rick Baker, the 7-time Oscar-winning SFX artist behind An American Werewolf in London, Videodrome, and How the Grinch Stole Christmas. Baker invited him to California, and after years of behind-the-scenes work, he distinguished himself in the industry and earned his first official credit with Poltergeist II: The Other Side as part of the creature crew.

George later established S.M.G. Inc., his own studio in Hollywood. The S.M.G. Inc. laboratory became a space for young artists to hone their craft, with the likes of Greg Nicotero (The Walking Dead) and Robert Kurtzman (Evil Dead II) spending time in the lab early in their careers.

Screaming Mad George is survived by his wife, Miki, and his daughter, Alice.