From dancing queens to spider-walking, some of the most terrifying horror scenes look completely different without special effects.
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00:00 From Dancing Queens to Spider-Walking, some of the most terrifying horror scenes look
00:05 completely different without special effects. The undeniable creepiness of the titular life-sized
00:10 doll in 2023's Megan largely comes from the character's unsettling appearance of seeming
00:14 almost real, but not quite. To achieve this, filmmakers approached the doll's performance
00:19 as a combination of live actor Amy Donald on set combined with animators in post-production.
00:24 Donald wore a wig cap during filming, then later, the digital artist superimposed Megan's
00:28 face and hair onto Donald's head, creating a character who moved like a real person but
00:32 was visibly and obviously not human. Speaking about the movie in a promotional video, producer
00:37 Jason Blum said, "I was really impressed with Amy's performance, especially because she
00:41 was able to do most of the stunts on her own." Director Gerard Johnstone echoed Blum's statement,
00:45 saying, "She could run on all force really quickly. She could rise like a cobra without
00:50 using her hands."
00:51 Like many other iconic horror movie villains, the Megan character perhaps could have been
00:54 created entirely with visual effects. The fact that filmmakers took a different, more
00:58 practical path makes her place in movie history all the more memorable. Would Margaret Hamilton
01:03 have channeled the Wicked Witch of the West's signature cackle in The Wizard of Oz if she
01:06 wasn't painted green and wearing a pointed hat? Would Ralph Fiennes have commanded scenes
01:10 as Lord Voldemort if he didn't sport head prosthetics and wear flowing robes?
01:14 In many cases, iconic makeup and costuming aren't just what we remember about a character.
01:18 These elements help the actor inhabit the character to begin with. Taking these tools
01:22 away poses a challenge, an acting exercise of sorts. Without the costume, without the
01:27 makeup, is the character still there? Can the actor embody the personality all on their
01:32 own?
01:33 While much of Bill SkarsgÄrd's performance as Pennywise the Clown in 2019's It Chapter
01:36 2 was achieved with practical makeup, director Andy Muschietti's plan for the film included
01:41 SkarsgÄrd performing a motion-capture test as the character prior to production commencing.
01:45 This essentially distilled the character solely to SkarsgÄrd's acting, though the footage
01:49 of him performing this screen test looks decidedly less creepy than Pennywise's actual appearance
01:53 in the movie. SkarsgÄrd's menacing smile, and therefore the spirit of Pennywise himself,
01:58 remains present.
02:00 SkarsgÄrd said afterward that he was initially unsure of how effective his motion-capture
02:03 acting would be, but that Pennywise is ever-present and exploded out of me. I was surprised at
02:07 how much of him was still there.
02:09 "Yeah, there we go."
02:13 Creating a film requires artists of many trades and talents working together. The finished
02:17 product as the audience perceives it wouldn't be what it is without the unique contribution
02:20 of each individual department. Despite an actor's chilling performance as a horror icon,
02:25 or the composer who provides the eerie music, or even the costume designer that brings the
02:29 right threads, it's often makeup artists who help make cinema's most terrifying antagonists
02:34 shine.
02:35 Such was the case when makeup department head Eleanor Sabaduchia transformed actor Bonnie
02:38 Aarons into the horrifying demon known as Valak in 2018's The Nun. In a home video supplemental
02:43 feature, Sabaduchia described Aarons' makeup design as being paler and employing a gradation
02:48 of grays in contrast to how Aarons appeared at the beginning of each day's lengthy makeup
02:51 application. A nun's wardrobe is universally recognizable enough to not necessarily need
02:56 makeup to identify the central character. All the same, the makeup's presence elevates
03:00 the villain's visual appearance to be something more.
03:03 In Oversized, Jack in the Box serves as one of the most frightening and sinister figures
03:07 in 2015's Krampus. Three artists brought the terrifying toy to life from within a multifaceted
03:12 set. Stunt performer Brett Beatty maneuvered the figure's head, puppeteer Imogen Stone
03:17 the torso, and puppeteer Tanya Drury the tail. When it came time to film the stunt in which
03:21 the clown toy violently cannonballs through the air, Beatty was the sole performer inside
03:26 the clown suit. Furthermore, outside wasn't outside at all. The set existed within the
03:31 more controlled environment of an indoor soundstage.
03:34 Stunt coordinator Rodney Cook helped build a ratchet to pull the Jack in the Box out
03:37 the window quickly. Cook had his work cut out for him, as he explained in a bonus clip
03:41 posted to Universal's YouTube channel. He said,
03:44 "We're pulling something that's floppy. It's really long and it's a Jack in the Box kind
03:48 of thing. We had to get the torso through, get the tail through, and also get another
03:52 body flying on top of it through."
03:54 What comes across as a fun and calamitous moment in the movie is actually intricate
03:58 science and math at work.
03:59 "Ugh! I love my job!"
04:02 With the technical finesse demonstrated by digital artists in the modern era, audiences
04:06 enter a film with high expectations for visual effects. Benchmarks include Davy Jones' squid-like
04:10 face in Pirates of the Caribbean, Dead Man's Chest, and the sweeping vistas of Pandora
04:14 and Avatar. So, we've seen what's possible in terms of elite, believable computer-generated
04:19 effects, and perhaps unfairly hold everything to those standards.
04:24 Going hand-in-hand with this principle is the assumption that all special effects are
04:27 digital. If anything on screen could not exist in real life, it must have been created through
04:31 the use of computer tools. Why wouldn't it be?
04:34 These natural, if baseless, preconceived notions about filmmaking are debunked by the perhaps
04:38 surprising amount of practical effects that artists still use. In watching 2010's A Nightmare
04:43 on Elm Street, the audience might assume actor Jackie Earl Haley performed his role of Freddy
04:46 Krueger makeup-less, with motion capture dots covering his face to aid animators in monsterizing
04:51 him in post-production.
04:52 While Haley wore a few small patches of green-screen-esque fabric for the purposes of visual effects,
04:57 and the film does contain its share of digital enhancements, Krueger's facial appearance
05:01 was largely the work of talented makeup artists, led by makeup department head Karen Lin.
05:06 What you see on screen is what the crew saw on set.
05:09 The team behind the 2009 reboot of Friday the 13th needed to create the same level of
05:13 terror as the original film, but also by including a fresh spin on the story. Speaking about
05:18 an early instruction he received when he joined the project, director Marcus Nispel said,
05:22 "Create an underground, something claustrophobic, an old mine shaft, something like that, and
05:27 have the characters operate from there. The tunnels get the job done."
05:30 Enhancing the underlying eeriness of the story, the narrow passageways add an unsettling element
05:35 to the aesthetic, even if their effect is subconscious. The audience feels the tension
05:39 the tunnels create, even if they're not aware that that feeling is the tunnels doing.
05:44 In real life, though, the underground labyrinth wasn't in close quarters after all. Set builders
05:48 followed Nispel's wishes of creating claustrophobic pathways, but if the camera were to back up,
05:52 the viewer would realize the tunnels existed in a large soundstage. Still, that doesn't
05:57 take away from how terrifying it is.
05:59 "Say hi to mommy!"
06:03 In 2000, Warner Bros. re-released 1973's The Exorcist with expanded sequences and unused
06:08 scenes that landed on the cutting room floor in the horror film's initial run. Branded
06:12 as The Exorcist the Version You've Never Seen, the extended movie included a moment in which
06:16 Regan spider-walked backward down the staircase. While Regan is portrayed in most of the movie
06:21 by Linda Blair, she is substituted by stunt double Anne Miles for this scene. Back in
06:26 the 70s, even with Miles' talented contortionist skills, she still required wires attached
06:31 to her body to pull off the movement. Despite the filmmaker's best efforts, those cables
06:35 were too visible on camera. They distracted from the action and dispelled the illusion.
06:39 So, director William Friedkin removed the scene from the film's original debut. By 2000,
06:44 though, technology had advanced leaps and bounds. Making the wires invisible by means
06:48 of CGI was more than doable. As a result, Friedkin reinstated the spider-walk scene
06:52 into the Version You've Never Seen. This trend fell in line with several other 70s and 80s
06:57 classics re-released with updated technology around the dawn of the new millennium. George
07:01 Lucas famously added CGI to the original Star Wars trilogy for its 1997 theatrical re-release,
07:07 while Steven Spielberg similarly edited shots for the 20th anniversary of E.T. the Extraterrestrial
07:11 in 2002.
07:13 From the director's chair of 1975's Jaws, a young Steven Spielberg delighted audiences
07:18 just as much with what he didn't show on camera as what he did. The shark's elusive absence
07:22 throughout most of the film is just as strong a horror device, if not stronger, than featuring
07:26 the beast front and center in every scene. The restraint in the shark's appearances consequently
07:31 meant that any time Spielberg chose to spotlight a physical shark figure, the impact upon the
07:35 audience was more menacing. In a way, the completed version of Jaws is basically already
07:40 without special effects because Spielberg and his crew frequently couldn't use the special
07:43 effect they planned for. The shark doesn't seem quite as scary when he's on shore. Separate
07:48 versions of him were fabricated to only be shown on screen from one side. This meant
07:52 the opposite side of the shark's body essentially provided a peek inside the robot's organs,
07:56 which made it more fascinating than frightening.
07:59 Bob Maddy designed the shark, coming out of retirement at the request of production designer
08:02 Joe Alvis. Though the shark didn't chew up as much of the movie's runtime as it could,
08:07 its brief screen time does a lot with a little.
08:09 "That's great! That's just great!"
08:12 A key ingredient in 1981's An American Werewolf in London is, well, the American werewolf
08:17 in London. Creating the film's star character was a tall order tasked to make up artist
08:22 Rick Baker. In a home video bonus feature, Baker explained the process began as a creative
08:27 conflict between himself and director John Landis. Baker wanted the werewolf to walk
08:31 upright on two feet. Landis preferred the creature to walk four-legged. Baker said,
08:35 "He kept saying he wanted it to be this demon hound from hell. This mandate would be harder
08:39 to pull off on screen."
08:41 Baker wondered how they would be able to pull this off, since putting two people in a suit
08:45 might look too strange. The solution came to Baker in the middle of the night. He thought
08:49 back to childhood wheelbarrow races, and how he could implement it here. Could a similar
08:53 contortion of performers serve as a makeshift werewolf? Turns out, yes. Whenever the wolf
08:58 performer suited up, they used their arms as the wolf's front limbs, while the rest
09:02 of their body lay parallel to the ground on a plank within the suit, and their feet unceremoniously
09:07 stuck out of the wolf's behind. The back of the suit emulated a wheelbarrow, able to
09:11 be moved about by another person from behind. As the wolf walked, a puppeteer followed,
09:16 creating the creature's hind legs with rods. Thus, a werewolf was born on screen.
09:21 In the early days of filmmaking, artists' resources for creating movie magic were much
09:25 more limited than today's supply of hat tricks. However, this fact doesn't render their work
09:30 unimpressive. On the contrary, the wizardry that these creatives achieved nearly a century
09:34 ago is all the more astonishing given the constant need to innovate in areas where no
09:38 prior technology existed.
09:40 For example, in 1933's King Kong, the giant gorilla is seen on a Broadway stage before
09:44 a gathered audience. In real life, filmmakers captured this shot in two places. Inside the
09:50 Shrine Theater in Los Angeles, the crew filmed the wide shot of an empty stage, void of any
09:54 monster. Separately, stop-motion animators filmed the model of Kong on a miniature stage,
09:59 to be supersized and imposed into the finished shot through a process known as matting. It's
10:03 natural for modern audiences accustomed to the special effects spectacles of Marvel films
10:07 to watch King Kong and wonder how audiences of 1933 considered this type of effect impressive
10:12 at all. No one would blame them, since by today's standards, Kong's appearance looks
10:16 incredibly dated.
10:18 Not that moviegoers of the era believed they were seeing footage of an actual giant gorilla,
10:22 but the illusion and wonder of watching the scene in action still captivated them.
10:27 (music)