I recently rewatched Army of Darkness for the first time in forever and I was so charmed by all the practical effects. The eyeball in the shoulder still gets me lol. Practical effects aside, the whole movie was a lot of campy silly fun. It’s just a gem of a movie.
What’s your favorite movie that uses lots of practical effects?
Do you have a favorite practical effect of all time?
Any movies like Army of Darkness you’d recommend?
For me, the peak of practical effects is Scanners.
https://www.slashfilm.com/1603402/scanners-head-explosion-why-shotgun-vfx/
Aliens.
Still holds up in 4K nearly 40 years on. The drop ship, the mother alien, the armoured carrier, all incredible looking.
The Empire Strikes Back
Mad God and John Carpenter’s The Thing.
The Adventures Of Baron Munchausen.
Battle of Britain, because it was filmed in the 60s they managed to get a load of old spitfires that were mothballed after the war and used them for filming.
Does Mike Jittlov count? He did a lot of in-camera animation using single frame shots. Set up scene, click shutter, move stuff in the frame slightly, click, etc. He shot mostly 16mm short films but did a feature length “Wizard of Speed and Time” in 35mm.
Here’s the original 3 minute 16mm version to get you started. The feature version is also on youtube it looks like. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XReeuhBeiIA
Mad Max Fury Road. Pretty impressive what they were able to accomplish.
Here’s the behind the scenes shot of my favorite effect near the end of the film. Link is timestamped but the rest of the video is pretty cool too.
Check out F/X. It’s litterally about practical special effects. It’s been a long time but I remember liking it a lot. I wasn’t subscribed to Fangoria but my buddy was.
Added ty!
Gotta go with The Thing. Seriously next level and gross special effects. One of John Carpenters best movies.
Yeeesssssssss nothing has looked so good to me since. It’s not that the effects look photorealistic to anatomy or something tangible, they do but that’s not what sells it. it’s that they’re textured and made by someone who is inspired by things that are tangible.
Beth Cavener is a sculptor from Washington who’s got a similar grasp on that vibe
Also stop motion animation moves creepy
What’s your favorite movie that uses lots of practical effects?
The Thing has to be up there if the criteria is just an overall great movie heavy on practical effects.
Do you have a favorite practical effect of all time?
The “digital” wireframe view of the city from Snake’s glider in ‘Escape From New York’.
It was accomplished with miniature buildings which is rad.
Thats super interesting about the wire frame intro to Escape From New York. I’ve seen that movie a ton of times but I always thought that part was early digital.
The Thing is a great one that I haven’t seen in too long. I’ll add it to my list.
That is super cool about the digital wireframe!
Since 2001: Space Odyessy is above…
Im tempted to go with some Jackie Chan (?!) or Jet Li (Hero) or Tony Jaa (Ong Bak) or Donnie Yen (Ip Man) film — the one that’s closest to my heart is Wo Hu Cang Long (Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon).
Do not watch the trailer. It’s garbage. The film is beautiful.
There are a few outstanding moments in film as well that are practical effects that just force my memory:
As mentioned: 2001, and the Fall.
The last arrow in Throne of Blood. Several scenes in The Cell (dir: Tarsem, who also did the Fall) I’ll also highlight Hero.
e: And all the crazy shit Tom Cruise does in Mission: Impossible. Those are some fun movies.
You had me at Jackie Chan, and lost me at Tom Cruise.
Not at all like Army of Darkness, but my fave hasta be 2001: A Space Odyssey
This movie still looks stunning!!
Also 2010, just beautiful!!
Never a bad time to drop some acid and watch 2001 A Space Odyssey. I’ve been tripping everytime I’ve watched it but I’m pretty sure the story makes no sense if you’re sober
Somewhere out on the web one can find 2001 with Pink Floyd replacing the movie audio. Don’t settle for just the last bit. Get the whole movie with alternate (flyod) audio. A cursory look suggests the full replacement isn’t on youtube, but since I’ve seen it in the past, I’m sure it still exists somewhere.
Soundtrack details here: https://moviesyncs.com/pf_syncs/sync_pf_i.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fall_(2006_film)
Singh stressed the importance of on-location filming and lack of special effects, as he found that modern techniques would not age well in comparison.
When shooting scenes of the blue city in Jodhpur, Tarsem provided locals with blue paint to refresh the paint on their houses. This alternative to post-production effects resulted in the vibrant blue of the city in the film.
This entire film is practically a love letter to early film practical special effects. Is it the best story? No, the story is flat in many respects. Yet the film to this day is visually stunning, and stands as one of my favorite films due to it’s visually captivating presence. The film surely does have small amounts of modern special effects, but by and large Singh worked very hard at producing mostly practical effects.
It’s one of my favorite movies, and I find the story beautiful. Incredible acting from a child, as well as Lee Pace.
Interesting ty! I’ll check it out!
Dark City. When the city transforms overnight. I wish there was more behind the scenes footage of how they pulled some of them off.
I feel like I’ve heard of this before but never did. Is this the 1990 or 1998 Dark City?
