🔴This Forgotten 2010s Horror Movie Is a Masterpiece of Old-School Practical Effects🔴
0This Forgotten 2010s Horror Movie Is a Masterpiece of Old-School Practical Effects
1982's The Thing—a remake of The Thing From Another World three decades earlier—is regarded as one of the best horror movies ever made, thanks to the direction of John Carpenter and the jaw-dropping practical effects created by Rob Bottin. While the 1951 original succeeded by hiding its alien monster, Carpenter's version scared audiences by putting the creature designs in the forefront.
It was unlike anything moviegoers had ever seen, and with that in mind, when the prequel of The Thing prequel was created in 2011, Universal Studios brought in Amalgamated Dynamics (ADI) to create the practical effects. Well, they were brought in only to have their work erased as the final film covered up the alien with disappointing-looking CGI. Frustrated by this decision, ADI decided to fund their own independent horror film, a tribute to The Thing called Harbinger Down, which would use only practical effects, showing what they could do when given the chance.
The 2011 Version of 'The Thing' Had Its Practical Effects Covered up With CGI
The 2011 The Thing—which was a prequel to John Carpenter's film—had the heavy task of trying to recreate the magic of an all-time classic. Being that that was impossible, the finished product was a failure. It only has a 34% favorability rating from critics on Rotten Tomatoes and amassed a measly $16 million at the domestic box office on a $38 million budget. Although stars Mary Elizabeth Winstead and Joel Edgerton held their own and kept the movie afloat, The Thing felt like a cheap imitation (pun intended), relying too much on jump scares instead of genuine tension.
Jump scares can work when done correctly if what we're shown is something to genuinely be scared of. The multiple alien designs from Carpenter's The Thing are to be feared because we never know what shockingly disturbing visual we're going to get hit with next. The prequel tries to give us those same twisted sort of designs, but instead of being scary, they're silly, as almost everything is covered up by CGI. Instead of feeling like a lifelike impossibility, the monsters look like one-dimensional cartoons. It's something that didn't have to happen either, as Amalgamated Dynamics (ADI) had been brought in to painstakingly create practical effects, only for Universal to decide to cover it all up.
This wasn't the first time ADI had dealt with practical effects being replaced by the convenience of digital imagery. ADI was also hired to create vampire monsters in the Ridley Scott version of I Am Legend that never came to be, but when the Will Smith-starring I Am Legend came out in 2007, the vampires were made of bad looking CGI. I Am Legend is a fine movie until the vampires show up, but the unrealistic appearance of the monsters takes the viewer out of the experience. The released photos of the vampires ADI created for Ridley Scott show monsters that are absolutely terrifying.
Frustrated by big studios, ADI founder, Alec Gillis, decided that he'd make his own horror movie using only practical effects. He started his own Kickstarter campaign, reaching his goal of $350,000 in contributions. And how did they do it? Gillis told SciFiNow that his studio knew that fans of The Thing had to be wondering how badly ADI messed up to have their practical effects replaced with CGI, so they decided to put a five-minute video on YouTube displaying their impressive creations. After the positive fan response, Gillis decided to release videos for their test makeup for the Green Goblin of 2002's Spider-Man and I Am Legend. When told that practical effects were actually cheaper than CGI, many fans urged Gillis to start a crowd-funded campaign for a film. Alec Gillis did just that. As he told SciFiNow: