Low Tech FX still in Modern Horror
By mikenew -
Aug 10, 2011 02:08 PM EST
With all the special effects movies have now days, what has happen to Low Tech, Low budget FX that they used back in the day? From Fake blood to cheap, homemade rubber costumes or basically any materials you can pick up at a local dollar general or Walmart to use for a cool, old school, eighties horror movie. Did they just put it in a vault collecting dust for years to come? Are these big Hollywood Movies afraid they won't make money if they did that? I guess to produce results you have to rake over the dough. If shareholders aren't happy than nobody is happy
When you watch all these modern horror movies and you see all that gore and crazy shit that looks realistic, most of the time you are like "whatever, we know it's all done by computers". You will be surprised how many of your favorite horror movies still use low budget special effects. Here is a list of movies we will discuss that can prove how valuable the low budget special effects are.
Before I go into the discussion, these findings that I'm about ready to present to you aren't my findings. These are findings from another horror fan like myself who writes articles for a pretty reputable, horror site. When I watched these clips from these movies, it's just amazing how the little things can make a horror movie successful. I hope to make a article in the future about my own findings and the answers to them.
The first two films I want to talk about is ghost busters and Poltergeist. Both popular movies made in the eighties. This is the era when cheap, special effects made these movies worth seeing. First lets discuss ghost busters. In the first scene of the film, the ghost busters, who aren't even officially the Ghost busters yet, go to the Library in New York City to investigate a ghost who scared an elderly woman. Before the woman can turn around to see all the commotion, books start to levitate around the room. You can always view this clip on you tube to understand what I'm talking about. It was very simple how they did the levitation of books. They put them on string! String you say? Just string. They put books on a line of string and sent them through book shelves. With some creepy music playing, the scene worked out well. It is only the simple things that can make something creepy in a horror movie.
Next, On the film Poltergeist , the scene when Diane Freeling walks into the kitchen to see all the chairs are pulled away from the table. She thinks it could of been someone else doing she grabs something below the sink while the camera follows her. When she goes back to the kitchen table and notices they are stacked on the table. This was pretty simple to do. People on the movie set stacked the chairs as fast as possible. If you look closely with this scene, you can see a few chairs slowly rocking back and forth due to the hurry. This was probably one of the scariest scenes in the movie.
Lets move forward to the 2000-2010 era for the films, 28 Days Later and Halloween(Rob Zombie's Version). In 28 days Later, the main character, Jim (Cillian Murphy) wakes up in the hospital and is walking through the empty streets of London. Most of the popular businesses and tourist attractions have nobody, it's just empty. If this was the real London than you couldn't walk less than ten feet without bumping into someone. You say to yourself, how are they able to film this location with no one walking the streets? Well here is your answer. They did the filming very early in the morning. However, minimal shots were done with computers but most of the movie was filmed streets completety empty for real. I haven't watched the comentary part of the dvd, but I heard through internet sources if you watch it, Danny Boyle does mention they had several blown takes because young people would exit nightclubs drunk of their asses. This is very effective for this scene since Jim his alone and confused as what happened when he was in a coma.
Last but not least, one of the most controversial movies made today, Rob Zombie's Halloween. This scene is after Michael kills his family. The camera tracks the street in front of the home while police, neighbors, and paramedics are in the scene. the lights from the emergency vehicles are flashing with everyone frozen until the shot ends with Michael in the back of a cop car. This could be a mind blowing thing to figure out. The way it was done, you would of thought it was done with special lighting, cgi, or some sort of special effects. To everyone's amazement, this was done the old fashion way. Everyone kept still and slightly followed the camera as it moved. This little trick was what made this scene the most eerily and disturbing shots in the film.
As you continue to see more successful horror movies going forward that will be hitting the theaters this year, just remember they might have all this flashy, technical, mind-blowing, special effects, but they are throwing some good-old fashion fake blood in there somewhere.