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30 Totally Rad Special Effects From ’80s Movies That We Wish Would Save Us From Our High-Tech CGI Prison

You can keep your green screens and your tennis balls… We’re good

30 Totally Rad Special Effects From ’80s Movies That We Wish Would Save Us From Our High-Tech CGI Prison

October 19, 2023

Ah, the ‘80s. Who could have known that all your horrendous restaurant table concoctions of ice cream, mustard and Shirley Temple were actually training you for bodily fluid mixing on a film set. In those days, that kind of disgusting witches brew — and a basic knowledge of mechanics and camera trickery — could get you all the shots you needed. So don’t worry about sending these dailies off to some CGI nerd. Send them off to some film editor nerd instead!

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CRACKED.COM Amazing effects made without CGI Aliens The dropship crashing down and rolling towards the characters was achieved by the old technique of projecting the footage on the background. The scene looks smooth, dangerous, and insanely dynamic. — Source

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CRACKED.COM Fake DeLorean Amazing effects made without CGI Back to the Future II That lamp post isn't random - it's there to hide the change from the flying fake DeLorean to a real car. The transition is seamless, with shadows and details perfectly matched. God damn, we love this trilogy. Real DeLorean — Source

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CRACKED.COM Amazing effects made without CGI The Fly The FX artists worked backwards - they began with the last two creatures (both puppets), then moved onto the four stages of make-up transformation that would turn Jeff Goldblum into Brundlefly. — Source

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Amazing effects made without CGI Hellraiser Frank's slimy rebirth (a result of reshoots) was pulled off through puppets, reverse photography, a fake floor - and lots of lube and condoms. Lube, condoms, and Hellraiser? Sounds like a dream date to us. CRACKED.COM — Source

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Amazing effects made without CGI Little Shop of Horrors The carnivorous plant Audrey II is animatronic, which makes her fluid, smooth lip motions amazing. To achieve that, the animatronic was shot at 12 to 16 frames per second, then sped up to the regular 24. CRACKED.COM — Source

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CRACKED.COM Amazing effects made without CGI Who Framed Roger Rabbit Roger Rabbit did the opposite of the Chip 'n Dale movie -hand-drawn animation was made to look 3D. The animation was passed through several layers of highlighting and shading to give it its lifelike feel. — Source

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Amazing effects made without CGI Society Spoilers for this 1989 classic by Brian Yuzna: The rich are cannibalistic aliens! Not only that, but they melt into each other in a shapeless, Akira-like blob. The bonkers effects were done by cult Japanese artist Screaming Mad George. CRACKED.COM — Source

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Amazing effects made without CGI The Thing John Carpenter rejected the idea of a guy in a suit, so his FX team created several incarnations of the Thing, mimicking different creatures and organs. The result feels and moves like it is truly alive - perhaps because there's very little stop motion as well. CRACKED.COM — Source

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Amazing effects made without CGI An American Werewolf in London The iconic, game-changing werewolf transformation used prosthetics, animatronics, reverse photography, and a fake floor. FX wizard Rick Baker worked for months on these two minutes - and got an Oscar for it. CRACKED.COM — Source

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Remember how digital the original Tron looked? That was achieved with practical effects. It was 1982, and the CGI it would take to render the high-tech look filmmakers wanted just didn't exist. So they used old-school methods, like shooting in black and white and then hand-painting individual film cells to get the glowing suit effect. CRACKED.COM — Source

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Escape From New York showed a wireframe view of the city. NOSE VIEW And it was done with tape and a black light. The filmmakers wanted to create a high-tech computer readout but didn't have the budget. So they grabbed the model they'd been using for high angle shots and striped it with green tape. When they hit it with a black light, it glowed. CRACKED.COM https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Escape_From_New_York_Wireframe.jpg — Source

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The home fusion reactor in Back to the Future is a Krups coffee grinder. MB FUSION KRUPS It was mounted on a piece of a 1960s computer to look more high-tech, but was otherwise largely unchanged. CRACKED.COM — Source

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The white stuff that pours out of the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man in Ghostbusters is shaving cream. The production team initially wanted to pour 150 pounds of it on William Atherton, but he asked them to pour it onto a stuntman first, to see what would happen. The stuntman was flattened like a pancake, so they reasonably agreed to only use 75 pounds. CRACKED.COM — Source

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30 Totally Rad Special Effects From ’80s Movies That We Wish Would Save Us From Our High-Tech CGI Prison — Source

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30 Totally Rad Special Effects From ’80s Movies That We Wish Would Save Us From Our High-Tech CGI Prison — Source

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30 Totally Rad Special Effects From ’80s Movies That We Wish Would Save Us From Our High-Tech CGI Prison — Source

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Predator (1987) The Predator's blood is a mixture of K-Y Jelly and glow stick fluid. The same effect is still used in the sequels. CRACKED.COM — Source

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30 Totally Rad Special Effects From ’80s Movies That We Wish Would Save Us From Our High-Tech CGI Prison — Source

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30 Totally Rad Special Effects From ’80s Movies That We Wish Would Save Us From Our High-Tech CGI Prison — Source

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30 Totally Rad Special Effects From ’80s Movies That We Wish Would Save Us From Our High-Tech CGI Prison — Source

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30 Totally Rad Special Effects From ’80s Movies That We Wish Would Save Us From Our High-Tech CGI Prison — Source

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BEHIND-THE-SCENES FACTS Jack Nicholson chopped through the prop door too fast in The Shining. CRACKED COM Since Nicholson used to be a volunteer firefighter, he was so good with the axe that when it came time to take down the prop door, it went down unnaturally fast. The production had to replace the flimsy door with a real one so Nicholson could hack away at it. — Source

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BEHIND-THE-SCENES FACTS Real human skeletons were used in Poltergeist, without the actors knowing. GRACKED.COM The prop master on set realized it was cheaper to get some real skeletons from a medical and science supply company than to have replicas made. JoBeth Williams, who played the mother Diane, filmed with the skeletons in a mud filled pool for five days without knowing the props weren't... props. — Source

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'80S HORROR CLASSICS RE-ANIMATOR THE MOVIE IS REALLY GORY, EVEN BY GENRE STANDARDS. The makeup people used around two dozen gallons of blood, when they'd normally use just two. Things got so bloody director Stuart Gordon has said his shoes would get stuck on the floor. CRACKED.COM — Source

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'80S HORROR CLASSICS SLEEPAWAY CAMP THE GRASS WAS PAINTED. While the movie is set in the middle of summer, it was actually shot in early fall, so green spray paint was applied to the grass in order to make it look season-appropriate. CRACKED.COM — Source

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'80S HORROR CLASSICS THE FLY A DELETED SCENE MERGES A BABOON WITH A CAT. Brundlefly teleport-fuses the two creatures together, with the resulting CatDog-style monster attacking him and being beaten to death. Yes, the scene is on YouTube. CRACKED.COM — Source

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The information discs that programs wear on their backs in Tron are really Frisbees. Frisbee coach Sam Schatz was hired to train the actors how to use them. CRACKED.COM — Source

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The actors playing dead people in Day of the Dead had to keep their faces above rotting meat for hours. They'd lay under a false floor, leaving only their head and shoulders visible next to a fake body cavity filled with pig guts. Shooting those scenes took hours and hours, and they just had to bravely endure the stench all that time. CRACKED.COM — Source

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The Thing

A garbage bag was used for the titles in The Thing. THE IN The lettering was on the back of a fish tank filled with smoke, behind part of a plastic garbage bag that was stretched on a frame, all behind a bright light. They put a lit match to the piece of the bag, which burned a hole in the plastic and let the light through. CRACKED.COM — Source

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The slime on the drawers in the library in Ghostbusters is a Chinese food starch -- methyl silos. CRACKED.COM — Source

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