Favorite BAAAD special Effect?

[ulthar]

What's your favorite crappy special effects?

I am partial to the candle flame rocket exhaust plumes you see in older space movies, strings visible or not on the rocket.

I also enjoy gunshot effects where:

--the person is clearly making a non-fired weapon recoil on purpose (like in "Angel")

--the bullet of a high powered rifle hits a person and all you see is a little blood AT THE ENTRY POINT (no fine mist BEHIND, no fist sized hole in the back, etc)

--people standing behind objects (such as other people) that are clearly inadequate cover and suffer no subsequent penentration trauma

[Ash]

I like when someone is surrounded by a colored aura like in "Xanadu" and "Howard the Duck".

It's an animated line around their bodies such as in this picture:  

http://www.badmovies.org/movies/howardduck/howardduck4.jpg

or this one:

http://www.badmovies.org/movies/xanadu/xanadu2.jpg

I always laugh when I see that ridiculous looking effect.



Post Edited (12-15-03 15:09)

[Dunners]

Tough choice.....hmmm

when things fly on strings :)

[raj]

Scratches on film to show death rays.  gotta be the cheapest f/x.

[Brother Ragnarok]

Being a Doctor Who fan, I'm with ASH on the CSO (chromakey separation overlay if you were wondering, ASH).
The scene in Split Second where the monster's hand is clawing through the roof of the subway car to get at Kim Kattrall is pretty silly.
And my all-time favorite is the mannequin they use in Zombie Holocaust to represent a guy falling out a top-floor hospital window.  When it hits the ground, the arm flies off and they do nothing to mask the fact.
Also, rear-projected lizards with fins glued on pretending to be dinosaurs rock.

Brother R



Post Edited (12-15-03 16:26)

[Vermin Boy]

I just saw a clip from the Mighty Gorga, in which there was a dinosaur that was VERY OBVIOUSLY a hand puppet. I don't even mean "obviously" like you can see the strings; the thing looked like Cecil the Seasick Sea serpent, and it was being held really close to the camera to make it look big while the actors ran around in the background. I've seen a lot of cheesy effects, but that one made my jaw drop.

[Flangepart]

Regards ol' time rockets....the smoke trail that, insted of going strate back from the rocket nozzel, goes up, perpindicular to the body of said rocket!
Hey, guys...point the rocket down, in relation to the camera, and when the smoke goes up, it'll look right on the film!

[trekgeezer]

Angry Red Planet, when it's night on Mars blue light comes through the window, daytime it's scarlet red.  

They used  a photographic effect called solarization to make everything red,  hoping  you wouldn't notice that their space helmets didn't have  face plates and that the backgrounds weren't drawings.  Don't  get me started on the  Bat-rat-spider- crab thingy or the giant amoeba with the  rotating eyeball.

[jmc]

I guess it's more of a bad stunt, but I like when they have scenes where a cat is supposed to jump on people and scare or attack them, and it's always obvious that someone just throws the cat onto them.  

The spider attack in THE BEYOND was pretty bad too.



Post Edited (12-16-03 15:20)

[AndyC]

Flangepart wrote:

> Regards ol' time rockets....the smoke trail that, insted of
> going strate back from the rocket nozzel, goes up,
> perpindicular to the body of said rocket!
> Hey, guys...point the rocket down, in relation to the camera,
> and when the smoke goes up, it'll look right on the film!
>

Of course, that doesn't help when you also have a bunch of huge sparks falling down :)

[ulthar]

hehe, yeah, that's right up there with buckets of water being thrown acting like waves or heavy rain.  "Wind" is a pretty good movie, overall, but in the final race sequences, Matthew Modine has obvious buckets thrown on him that are supposed to be spray from the boat working to windward.  My wife points this out every single time we watch it!!

[Brother Ragnarok]

Hey, jmc, thanks for reminding me by mentioning spiders, how could anyone forget the VW Bug covered with naugahyde in The Giant Spider Invasion.  And while we're on the goofy spiders bit, how about that spraypainted melon with pipecleaners glued to it in Nude For Satan (on a side note, no movie has ever had a cooler title than that).

Brother R

[JohnL]

I like when two people are standing face to face and one of them gets shot in the back. The other person sees blood appear on their friend's chest, or they even get sprayed with blood. Gee, what happened to the bullet that obviously exited the other person's chest heading straight for them?

[Ken Begg]

There's a plane crash in the movie, and as the toy plane angles down towards the (ahem) ground on a wire, it hits a snag, pauses, *rears back* a bit, then continues to "Earth."

It's...it's...perfect.

[Neville]

Damn! I would have bet you would mention the "flying motorbikes" from "Megaforce", Ken.

About me, I have developed a certain fondness for Matte Paintings used as backgrounds. And the Fantastic Factory (makers of "Arachnid", "Dagon" or "Beyond Re-animator") make-up effects are lots of fun.