Snake charmer.

Todd Masters takes pride in being the king of the grotesque, at least for this summer.

His Arleta-based MastersFX is the specialty prosthetic, animatronics, and makeup outfit behind the gory snakebites and other grotesque effects in the much-hyped New Line film "Snakes on a Plane," set for release Aug. 18.

Masters has been in the business for more than 20 years, and worked on features including "Predator" and "Look Who's Talking." He won an Emmy for effects work on the HBO series "Six Feet Under."

He started design work "Snakes on a Plane" in April of 2005 and was shooting by June of last year, using silicone heads, plastic eyes and animatronics body parts in his repertoire of tricks.

This year, when fans that had seen sneaks demanded more gore through an Internet campaign, Masters and others involved in the film were gathered in Venice.

"It was this really funny meeting about how we could create more visual mayhem and violence for the movie," Master said. "We added some punch to it, made it a little more gross and R-appropriate."

Among the changes: An added scene in which panicked passengers stampede to a safer area of the plane. Gems from Masters' work in the new footage include a man knocked to the ground and trampled by a woman wearing stiletto heels, a passenger who falls on a wine glass stem and another impaled on a broken railing.

Staff reporter Anne Riley-Katz can be reached at [e-mail] or at [phone], ext. 225.