You da man Joe! Thanks.
I wish we celebrated Halloween here in Aus; it must be alot easier to find good horror makeup in the states. Maybe I just don't know where to look.
I do know of one place that'll probably help on the make up side of things. I was lucky that my friend was a makeup artist and just gave me all her crap [latex etc] otherwise I'd be lost.
Oh and I saw a documentary, The American Nightmare, where it had a great interview with Savini with the same basic idea in mind. My own theory is to just make it look gross, even if it isn't real. I don't have enough time to play with the format, but I'll work on it more for next time so thanks for the tips.