When little girls practice putting on makeup, they dream of looking like beauty queens. But when Jamie Kelman thinks about cosmetics, he draws his inspiration from corpses, vampires and monsters.

Kelman, a special makeup effects artist, has worked his gory and mysterious magic on TV shows like "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" and movies like "Men in Black II" and "The Ring." Kelman designs and creates prosthetics, full-body animatronic creature suits, puppet heads and makeup effects. His latest project, the made-for-DVD movie "Rest Stop," was released Oct. 17. The film follows a young couple terrorized by a psychotic killer on a cross-country road trip.

Although he was terrified of horror movies when he was young, Kelman says he learned to embrace his fears. "It was about finally giving in and being willing to have nightmares, and understanding this was stuff that somebody made; it wasn’t real," he says. "I became obsessed and fascinated by seeing everything that had makeup effects in it."

Kelman says his favorite types of effects aren’t gratuitously gory. He prefers science-fiction creatures with supernatural touches.

"When it’s just torture, it’s not so much my thing," he says, adding that the killer in "Rest Stop" fits into the supernatural category because he is "unkillable."

His favorite effect in the film is when the police-officer character gets killed. The lead female character tries to end his life out of mercy, but her attempt backfires.

"She puts a gun in his mouth, and when she pulls the trigger, it blows his ear off," Kelman says. "You think he’s dead for a minute, and then there’s this great shock moment when he opens his eyes and says, ’You missed.’"

But Kelman is quick to dismiss the idea that he’s desensitized to violence. "I’m a family man; I have a little boy," he says. "I look as normal as the dentist."

He adds that he doesn’t actually believe in monsters or aliens. "If they do exist, I haven’t seen any personally, except in my imagination and on set when I get to help breathe them to life," he says. "In my opinion, there’s nothing scarier than the 11 o’clock news. I don’t really like to watch that."

When it comes to makeup and costumes for Halloween, Kelman has some simple advice. "If you’re going to do something, do it bold, and preferably, do it bloody," Kelman says. "Just don’t get blood on your friends’ dorm futons."

Here are Kelman’s tips for making your Halloween makeup memorable:

Make your own batch of blood.

There’s no need to buy expensive fake blood. Water, corn syrup, red food coloring and a drop of green food coloring (so it’s a "deep visceral red instead of a candy red," Kelman says) will do the trick.=

Get grotesque gelatin.

Mix up some gelatin, and while it’s still warm and workable, mix it with fake blood. Then, pull apart a cotton ball so that it looks like "chunky flesh," and put the gelatin mixture over it and on to your face for a "really bad road rash" effect.

Personalize store-bought masks.

You can buy a skull-shaped or other kind of gory mask at the store, and add your own gelatin and blood effects around the jaw, eyes, forehead and cheekbones.

Try K-Y.

Kelman says K-Y Jelly is great for a "slimy, wet and goopy effect" on alien and monster costumes. "You don’t have to be embarrassed when you’re buying it because you know it’s for Halloween and not for other purposes," he says.