The terrified nameless citizenry of 1950s b-movies dressed in colorful outfits are caught in horrified poses as they scream, flee and try to shoot their way out of certain death from off-screen monsters looking to squash them, natural disasters, giant crickets and alien landings.

I’ve always been intrigued by the artifice and histrionics of acting styles from low budget sci-fi and horror b-movies from the 1950s/60s and earlier. A blonde dame puts her hands up to her head and lets out a primordial scream, shaking her head in a close up as the giant lizard man approaches her. The non-stop mugging of a grimacing astronaut in a Halloween grade costume being zapped with a laser by the bug-eyed martian. The contorted facial acrobatics of the scared scientist as he battles a 2000 year old extinct dead fish that he accidentally brought back to life.

There is something about being so fake, yet totally believable in an unbelievable way that I just love. Once when casting a project, an actor had on his resume, ‘fleeing citizen’ as a film credit. I could not have been more impressed.

When I found the set of Horrified B-Movie Victims toy figurines years ago in an odd shop in Burbank, California I had to buy it. The figurines are crudely made, cheaply painted and feature big lips and oversized white eyes with black pupils yet posed with inspiration. The perfect characters to bring to life and base a photo shoot on.