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?
Aliens.
Still holds up in 4K nearly 40 years on. The drop ship, the mother alien, the armoured carrier, all incredible looking.
Good answer!!
For me, the peak of practical effects is Scanners.
https://www.slashfilm.com/1603402/scanners-head-explosion-why-shotgun-vfx/
That does look pretty amazing lol
Mad God and John Carpenter’s The Thing.
Mad God the 2021 movie?
Yes, the one by Phil Tippett. It’s a stop motion movie. One of a kind.
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!
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!
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!
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.
Be Kind, Rewind
Kind of a joke answer because if you don’t know it, the entire premise is some guys remaking classic movies based on their memory and just a bunch of whatever junk they can find. It’s adorable, clever, inventive, and bewilderingly creative. It’s by the director of Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, several White Stripes videos, the Daft Punk video for Around the World, and so much other brilliant stuff.
There are a lot of digital effects in that film.
The question wasn’t “film that uses no digital effects”, it was “film that uses a lot of practical effects”. I called this movie out because it’s basically all about practical effects.
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
Not exactly what I was looking for, but still very interesting! It’s amazing the creative techniques people can create. I wonder if his work influenced stop motion movies that came after
That Mad Max with Tom Hardy had great rrsl stunts.
Cool I’ve been meaning to watch the Mad Maxes. What is an rrsl stunt?
Typo. R is real close to e and s is real close to a.
Idle Hands if you like Army of Darkness and gross out practical effects.
Ty I’ll check it out
Hellraiser
