For many people, going to the movies is about escaping from the mundane and stepping into a fantasy world; it's about losing oneself in an altered reality, which is why people can't seem to get enough of movies.

Is it any wonder, then, that when it comes to movie promotion and special-effects makeup, people are drawn to the biggest, brightest, boldest, most colorful, most outrageous, most shocking and even scariest?

Actor Mark Metcalf becomes the Master in "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" with the help of Optic Nerve makeup and artist Todd Macintosh and crew. Metcalf's is one of several morphings in an exhibition on 3-D makeup magic.

A trio of entertaining and enlightening film-related exhibitions coming to the Fowler Museum of Cultural History next month explores this notion and offers insight into moviegoing as a cultural phenomenon.

One exhibition, "Marquee Madness: The Attack of the 50-Foot Poster," opening Feb. 14, looks at how movies are promoted in contemporary Los Angeles; the other, "Death-Stalking, Sleep-Walking, Barbarian Ninja Terminators: Hand-Painted Movie Posters From Ghana," opening Feb. 18, depicts how movies were marketed in West Africa in the mid-1980s to mid-1990s.

The images on display in "Marquee Madness" will be familiar to local audiences; most Americans and, in particular, Angelenos, are bombarded by them in video stores, movie theaters, fast-food restaurants, on city buses, in malls or just along the street. Giant posters, hanging mobiles, life-size cutouts and marquee banners promote the latest, greatest, must-see action-adventure/thriller/romance/comedy/epic blockbuster hit - or so they would have you believe.

The movie posters in "Death-Stalking, Sleep-Walking, Barbarian Ninja Terminators," an exhibition curated by Fowler director Doran Ross, are hand-painted by West African artists. The posters, which were used to market films being shown at small Ghanaian video clubs, mobile theaters and other venues, loosely interpret the characters and movies they advertise with exaggerated and embellished images.

Also premiering Feb. 18 is "Making Faces, Playing God: Identity and the Art of Transformational Makeup." This show, being guest-curated by Thomas Morawetz, a professor at the University of Connecticut School of Law, showcases the work of another kind of artist - the Hollywood makeup artist.

A couple of years ago, the Fowler staff decided that the two exhibitions being proposed, the Ghana posters and makeup photos, could be linked. "The Fowler began to look at a slice of Hollywood in two different ways - the notion of transformation on screen from actor to made-up, and seeing how the films are transformed on posters in West African culture," said Betsy Quick, the Fowler's director of education.

Indeed, the idea of transformation is one that seems to enthrall many people, and "Making Faces, Playing God," which features side-by-side, before-and-after pictures from popular movies and television shows such as "Tales From the Crypt," "Babylon 5" and "Buffy the Vampire Slayer," explores what people find so meaningful and engaging about the process of transformational makeup.

In the makeup artist's ability to morph a man on the street into someone or something else lies the opportunity to transcend our own identities - to become greater, or just different, from ourselves, suggests Morawetz, who teaches law and ethics.

"Questions of identity," wrote Morawetz in a book of the same name as the exhibition, "are inseparable from speculations about transformation. In philosophy, psychology, religion, myth and literature, identity and transformation are twinned themes."

The Ghanaian posters also alter identity. These posters were popular at a time when videos from Hollywood, Hong Kong and India first arrived in Ghana, and few people had access to VCRs. Painted on strips of canvas or recycled flour sacks, the posters announced the film screenings as the videos traveled from town to town.

Before-after-photos of Wayne Alexander as the alien Lorien on "Babylon 5." Other transformations in the exhibition include animalesque and historical people.

Ghanaian audiences favored fantastic creatures, action heroes and monsters, so poster artists took creative license. For example, a poster for Clive Barker's "Hellraiser III" puts a half-eaten human in the mouth of the character Pinhead to make him appear even more frightening than his on-screen image.

"In some cases, the artist hadn't even seen the film," noted Quick.

As videos became more common, the expensive, individually painted posters were replaced by mass-produced versions and chalkboards listing movie times.

The Fowler decided to add a third and local companion to the two film-related exhibitions and, at the suggestion of exhibitions designer David Mayo, to look at movie promotion in Los Angeles. "Marquee Madness" borrows contemporary marketing material from such movies as "Space Cowboys," "A Bug's Life," "Snake Eyes" and "Mission Impossible," from Paramount, Disney, Warner Bros. and Dreamworks studios, among others.

"Here we have another kind of promotion, and it's such an interesting phenomenon that is so L.A.-based, and so much a part of Westwood," said Quick, who co-curated the exhibition with Mayo. "It's another way to look at our own cultural history. It's another slice of the pie and contextualizes how the boldest, brightest advertising and other kinds of promotions and giveaways draw us in.

"Supersize movie graphics crowd our cinematic psyche," continued Quick. "They do have power over us. They bombard our communities and send messages, some subliminal and some very direct, that we take in and process. They affect our choices, even small choices. We participate in these processes as much as audiences in Ghana do."

"Marquee Madness" runs through June 24. "Making Faces" and "Death-Stalking" continue through July 29 at the Fowler Museum. Several special public programs, including a lecture by Thomas Morawetz with a demonstration by a makeup artist, will be presented in conjunction with the exhibitions. For hours and other general information, call (310) 825-4361.