From the outside, Distortions Unlimited in Greeley looks like any other plain industrial building. Inside, latex limbs with bulging veins and gnarled fingernails hang from clotheslines on drying racks, while a soundtrack of "You're the One That I Want" from Olivia Newton-John and John Travolta plays for the crew. The company has been turning out some of the best-known Halloween props and animatronics in the world since 1978.
Its creations end up in haunted houses, amusement parks, corn mazes and the front yards of devoted Halloween decorators across the globe. "We're just a bunch of goofs," said owner Ed Edmunds, seated beside a life-size goblin in the workshop. "We're just trying to survive and make monsters."
Edmunds traces the calling to childhood, when the science fiction series "The Outer Limits" captivated them with its weekly creatures. "Monsters were powerful and in control of their emotions, and I wanted to be that as a kid," Edmunds said. A neighbor who was a dentist even cast Edmunds' childhood face in dental alginate. In high school, Edmunds started a mask-making business that grew into stage makeup and prop work, and by college it had become a full pursuit of monster-making.
Edmunds met Marsha Taub-Edmunds while she was studying biology at the University of Northern Colorado. Together with their crew, the couple now spend their days dreaming up bigger and grosser creatures. "It's very hard to dream up something that's never been done, but we try," Edmunds said.
Popular products include a $619 fire-breathing dragon, an 11-foot-tall animatronic ape head priced near $9,000, baby gremlins that sell for around $100, and a 7-foot-tall "demon legend." There is also a $6,570 electric chair animatronic that pays tribute to the company's original version, introduced in 1995. In a YouTube explanation of the prop's history, Edmunds said it "changed the whole haunted house industry" and drew major media attention.
On a mid-October visit, the busiest days of the year had already passed, but the work continued. Employees painted rows of baby gremlins and poured latex into molds of sculpted dragon heads. Unpainted Frankenstein's monsters, lines of corpses writhing in agony and plastic-wrapped alien parasites waited for their finishing touches. One large shipment was bound for the Malibu, California, home of Dick Van Dyke, who is 100 and could not be reached for comment. The Edmunds decorate the house for an annual Halloween celebration they attend. "We just have the best customers," Taub-Edmunds said.
The company's work scares visitors far beyond Colorado. It appears at Centennial's Monster Mini Golf, Denver's 13th Floor Haunted House, an alien installation at the UFO Museum in Roswell, New Mexico, and a massive sleeping giant at Six Flags Canada's Wonderland. The shop's antics were also the subject of a Travel Channel reality show called "Making Monsters."
This summer, the Edmunds ended Monster Days, a decade-long Greeley celebration held each August with costume contests, food and family activities. The event fell during the company's busiest season. "It was killing us," Edmunds said. With that commitment gone, the company has more room to think big.
Looking ahead to next year, Edmunds hopes to experiment with invisible ultraviolet paint to see what haunted house illusions it makes possible. In the coming weeks, the crew will hold a pitch meeting where everyone offers their most horrifying ideas for new designs. "We try to increase creativity, make animatronics that move better and just improve every year," Taub-Edmunds said. "It's a team effort."
