favorite hilarious cheap effects

[mr. henry]

i recently watched "supersonic man" which of course is anything but.

however, it has one of the funniest cheap effects i've ever seen. supersonic man lifts a FLAT wooden "steamroller" over his head. it even says ACME on it. the snail's pace robot is pretty funny too.  the following site has pictures of the insane effect. http://www.jabootu.com/supersonic.htm

another one i like is from "cannibal! the musical." trey parker's character carries around a paper mache head of the guy his group is eating. it of course looks like a kindergarden class slapped it together. (it really stands out because the other effects in the movie are pretty top notch.)

i'd like to seek out other noteworthy HILARIOUS bad effects---not just dumb, funny too. you get the idea.

-mr. henry

[Neville]

I think the beachball, sorry, "intelligent bomb" from "Dark star" is a winner. Watch it yourself, there's a review and a short clip in this webpage.

[Squishy]

I don't have a specific film in mind, but rather a general effect: crappy wire work.

Whether it's brainmonsters and plane debris wobbling back and forth in midair in The Brain From Planet Arous, falling or flying bodies displaying bizarre vectors in the lesser moments of Godzilla and Star Trek movies, or a crashing plane actually stopping and reversing direction for a few seconds in The Giant Claw, sloppy wire work--which can almost always be easily reshot--is the lowest, most giggleworthy level special effects work can sink to.

Correction: The beachball from Dark Star is the ship's pet. The "smart bombs" are actually the film's most professional-looking effect, along with the ship itself; the rest of it is homemade home-movie effect paradise. I love the beachball.

Also: Space Mutiny's warehouse-as-spaceship-interior and floor-buffers-as-"space"-cars routines are pretty pathetic. I don't know how they got away with using Battlestar Galactica footage for exteriors, but the rest of it is a dead loss.

And any movie that has spaceships that look like assorted plastic model kit parts assembled at random always suck. Best example: the Murray Leinster from Starcrash; as it rips off the opening shot from Star Wars, the plastic tank treads wrapped around the "spaceship" are jawdroppingly obvious.

[J.R.]

How about in The Deadly Mantis when the title creature knocks over a fire truck with the word TYCO written on the bottom? Or when someone is supposed to have been shrunk or captured by giants. The small person is supposed to be in the larger's hand, but it's obvious it's cheap forced-perspective and the smaller one is standing at the other end of the room, with the larger holding his hand up to create the optical. Or in old prehistoric-type films like "Journey To The Center Of The Earth", where the dinosaurs are merely lizards with horns glued to their heads.

[Cullen]

...the dinosaurs in the Doctor Who episode "Invasion of the Dinosaurs."  Doctor Who has never, ever, ever been known for its special effects.  This story's FX is the series nadir.

I swear to you, they make Reptilicus look like CGI.  

Well, maybe not that bad, but still.  

The episode is kind of fun, but the dinosaurs are terrible.
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A picture of two of the dinosaurs fighting can be found at http://www.bbc.co.uk/cult/doctorwho/episode_guide/dinosaurs.shtml.  However, there is nothing like seeing them in "real" life.

[Flangepart]

Would Dr Who and the host segments of MST3K count? From Blenders with blinking lights, to "Rouge body parts", that was some cheap, but funny stuff. Now that i think bout it, "Hardwear Wars". Works for me.

[J.R.]

I remember the Doc Who where Ramses was trying to overtake the Earth and his "mummy" henchmen were just guys with lumps of paper mache slapped on them, and they even had mesh screens over their faces so you could see the actors' faces. The scene in Godzilla 2000 where the tanks are rolling over a bridge looks as though pictures clipped from magazines are being pulled along.

[Flangepart]

Humm....that G2000 shot i'll have to look for, as ther were useing real Type-74's and type-90's! Maby the bridge wasen't rated for that much armor? Ya know, cheap effects can be fum, if they match the attitude of the flick. Guess thats why us old codgers don't appologise for likeing classic Toho.

[John Morgan]

I grew up on bad special effects.  Doctor Who, Godzilla, and even Star Trek all had effects that just didn't hold up to well.  But the thing I really enjoyed about them, I could create my own Doctor Who episode (with my Star Wars figures) or Godzilla Movie (with my Shogun Warriors Godzilla) in my back yard and it would look just like what I saw on TV.  I could duplicate the Special effects with stuff that was around the house.

Effect of a Ghost: 2 liter Coke bottle, flash light and water.  Remove the lable and fill the bottle with water, shine the flashlight on the object you want to be a ghost.  place the bottle near the figure and look at the reflection in the bottle.  Cheap Ghost. (Worked well with old Obiwan)  You could even add stuff to the water, (Glitter, soap, food coloring and start a whirlpool/tornado in the bottle for a transporter effect.  Turn the light off the make the figure disappear.  Cheap, yes, funny looking, yes but it worked for me as a kid.)

Strings for flight, firecrackers for bombs, sandbox, cardboard buildings and paper tanks- GODZILLA RULES!!!

[Squishy]

That's the beauty of Godzilla--if the effect works, fine. If it doesn't, it's still like watching kids playing with the biggest damn monster playset toys in the world.

[Vermin Boy]

Call me a sucker for the classics, but I gotta go with Robot Monster. A gorilla in a diving helmet, whose super-computer is a bubble machine and a ham radio, and whose viewscreen has a large ripple down the middle. Almost brings a tear to the eye.

[Babydoll]

Labyrinth!   Enough said!