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Weekend Discussion Thread: Worst Special Effects/Make-UpAlert reader Phil (aka “Fart Bargo”) writes:
Good catch! For special effects, I’d have to go with the flying pizza creatures in IT CONQUERED THE WORLD. For makeup, I’d have to pick the zombies in THE INCREDIBLY STRANGE CREATURES WHO STOPPED LIVING AND BECAME MIXED-UP ZOMBIES. What are your picks? 87 Replies to “Weekend Discussion Thread: Worst Special Effects/Make-Up”Commenting at Satellite News
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I’ve definitely gotta throw in another vote for 12 to the Moon, between the “invisible face shields” and the moment where, as Mike hilariously declares, you can see the budget run out.
There’s also got to be some sort of honorable mention for Space Mutiny lifting a huge chunk of its special effects footage from something else entirely.
This first that come to mind are maybe not the worst but ones that struck me as particularly funny.
“Special” Effects:
-The jelly-bean bowl spaceship in Gamera vs. Zigra
-City of the future as seen on a trs-80 screen in Time Chasers
-Billy’s toy boat and helicopter in Danger Death-Ray
-The weird physics of falling at a 60 degree angle in Puma-Man
-The green-screen effects when Fingal is lost in the Novacorp computer (near the end) in Overdrawn at the Memory bank
Makeup or Costumes:
-Ro-man in the gorilla costume and helmet in Robot Monster
-Everyone’s favorite carpet monster from Creeping Terror
-The not even remotely spider-looking guy in Horror of Spider Island
-The freaky bat-puppet thing from Werewulf
I don’t know if this has been mentioned yet, but the “invisible” guys in “Cave Dwellers.” Like Joel said, they were too cheap to hire villians.
What WAS all that dripping stuff in “The Incredible Melting Man” anyway?
I’ve only read thirty of the comments at this time, but what comes to mind for me is the underwater scene from #505, The Magic Voyage of Sinbad. Underwater? C’mon now. That’s a catfish? An Octopus chandelier? Thoroughly goofy.
A;so. to add to Sinbad, the Bird of Happiness has got to be in the bad special effects / makeup category.
“Danger! Death Ray”. They’re not toys… yeah, right.
What about the toy boat from the first Gamera movie? And the styrofoam they used for the snow? And the guy churning the water?
I never realized what a treasury of bad (incredibly bad) makeup/special effects were in MST3K movies.
I would nominate PHANTOM PLANET for a few in this category.
1) The Solarites – both their costumes and spaceships.
2) The “gravity plates” in the duel of death (or whatever) – wonder if they occasionally lost some janitors on them?
3) The meteor showers look like overbreaded chicken nuggets.
4) The controls for the gravity field looked so taxing – I’m surprised they didn’t tire Sessom out more quickly.
5) Astronaut Frank’s spaceship – Yugos were better built.
Here’s another one for the Worst Make-up category.
The goofy fish monsters from Horror at Party Beach.
“I don’t know if this has been mentioned, but…”
You know what’s a good way to find out if something’s been mentioned? Read the previous comments. If you have only moments to post before going off to fight a blazing house fire, you can just do a search for a word in the title of the episode you’re about to mention. Of course, pretty much by definition, the people who most need to read this are the ones least likely to.
I don’t know if this has been mentioned yet, but I would go with…oops, sorry.
Actually, I would go with Laserblast for the special effects of the aliens. Second choice is the epic spaceship landing from Women of the Prehistoric Planet.
For makeup, I go with my favorite MST actress of all time, the grocery store visitor of the Castleton snob in Time Chasers. She looked like she had just come from a Tammy Faye Bakker impersonation contest.
As a special effects geek, I have to say the worst effect was the giant spider at the end of Giant Spider Invasion. I’m willing to forgive a lot in a B-movie, but……well…….it’s obviously an average car, not a giant spider.
Bad effects? Beat of Yucca Flats hands down. Take one Tor Johnson, tear uo his shirt, smear his head with rubber cement and tissue: Voila!! The Beast!! Also the off camera dialogue, and the “explosion” where all they did was open the shutter on the camera. Plus Tony Cardoza’s “acting”
Plus the Rocky Jones duo films, slowest space ships in the universe.
The hovering bats in Samson VS The Vampire Women.
Village of the Giants: Looks like a cheap Disney film from the 60’s and 70’s
I immediately thought of Track of the Moon Beast too. I thought the scene where we see Paul turn to SuperPaul works well for the first three stages as they add makeup to the the actor until the final stage where it’s a completely different monster mask.
#64s icon of Ben Murphy reminds of the scene in Riding with Death where Ben’s invisible and mellow, and he holds a gun motionless and slugs a villain with his 6 foot arm.
No one has mentioned Invasion of the Neptune Men especially the how the Neptunians never have more than three fighters launched at any time, the re-blowing up buildings, and of course the Hitler Building.
My favorite though is Puma Man. “Help!!! I’m falling at a 45 decree angle, breaking all the laws of physics!”.
I nominate the Creature from the Black Lagoon wannabe from Blood Waters of Doctor Z.
One scene from “Track of the Moon Beast” that never fails to crack me up is when the beast attacks the campers. I love how the guy who got his arm ripped off had his right arm located several inches below his shoulder.
I haven’t seen this turkey unMSTed, though. I’m curious if the bad editing was there originally or if the scene jumps around because the Brains removed scenes too gory for broadcast.
I’m surprised no-one has mentioned the office-chair G-seats in the rocket from the Commando Cody serials.
#67 Michael D., Just google Track of the Moon Beast. The copyrights have expired and it is viewable at Internet Archive and several other sites. I think there is a link for that at IMDB.
Don’t know how this fits in this thread, maybe worst make-up, but what about that weird giant Ross Perot looking monster thing that Krankor uses to attack Prince of Space with.
Looks like a retarded Yoda who ate too much cheese dip.
Wow, all this and only a glancing reference to BRIDE OF THE MONSTER. And it wasn’t even a reference to the awesome octopus arm that people had to just flail around with, pretending it had an armature inside of it. :)
Two bad/cheapass effects that I didn’t see mentioned:
-The beach chairs the crew used on “12 To The Moon.”
-The cardboard-box-with-glued-on-lens news camera from “Future War.” I think Mike pointed out that this was a particularly disappointing failure of the film makers. Right up there with the lack of costumes in “Attack of The The Eye Creatures.”
I don’t think the stop motion stuff in “Pod People” should be judged too harshly. It takes a lot of time and effort to do that kind of effect. It shows that the director was at least trying, if still failing.
@68-Egad Commando Cody had so many not so special effects; vicious fist fights with broken furniture & gun fights with hundreds of rounds involved and not one drop of blood (half the time no one even loses their hats), moonware by Cody include cuffed slacks, wing tips and leather jacket for those chilly airless strolls across the Sea of Tranquility topped off by a jaunty bullet helmet, last but not least moon tanks with heat rays that are depicted by a BLARING Chevy horn!?
I really can’t add anything that hasn’t already been said here (thanks for the laughs!) but I’d love to see another thread about “Worst Costume/Costumes.” Personally, I will be haunted by Torgo’s knees ’til the day I die.
I’ll go with The Phantom Planet. It had hokey special effects and the makeup on those McGruff the crime dog aliens were just as lame. Like Sampo said, this one is pure cheese.
he awful “fight scenes” (particularly the foggy beach battle) from Angels’ Revenge – complete with sound effects by hanna-barbera! beehive waitress’s “beating” of the M.C. in Hobgoblins.
Riding with Death. the invisible fight scenes were ridiculous effects. blood water of dr.z has some pretty horrible costume/ makeup. not Roger Corman bad but it’s bad.
Darn you, just when I think no one will mention something I thought of while reading, ya do! But I still have a few:
1. In “Cave Dwellers”, the giant plush snake that Ator kills is very lame.
2. In “Women of the Prehistoric Planet”, when the giant “jumping” spider attacks is a very poor special effect, as well as another plush toy.
3. In “The Crawling Hand”, when the hand attacks Paul at Mrs. Hotchkiss’s house, you can see the shadow of the guy who is strangling Paul on the carpet.
4. In the “Revenge of the Creature”, when the creatch attacks Joe in the lagoon, the guys on the boat are deliberatly shaking and pulling on the hoses attached to the diver’s suit to simulate how titanic the battle is, but its obvious how deliberate they are.
5. The title monster in “Devil Fish”- ’nuff said.
6. As a musician, it is always funny to me when, like in “Eegah”, when “cabbage-patch Elvis” is singing to Roxie in the desert, just him and his guiter, you hear a fully produced song- string sections,other singers doing harmonies and counterpoints, etc. It happens in alot of the movies throughout the seasons of MST3K, and it always seems so ludicrous to me.
Anyway, thats it for now. Thanks for reading, see ya!
For me it’s The Blood Waters Of Doctor Z. Terrible costume.
You know, this week points the way toward a real savings of labor for Sampo. In future, he can just use some random word, like “Worst Srntpq,” and people will just mention whatever pops into their heads, the same way that this week, we have people apparently thinking that music, sound effects, lighting, writing, acting, costumes, and so on qualify as “special effects” and/or “makeup.”
Effects: Toss-up between any special effect in “Puma Man” versus the kid swinging through the air into the palm tree from “Revenge of the Creature.” There’s a difference between “we didn’t have enough money to do it right” and “we just didn’t give a rat’s ass.”
Make-up: Rick Baker or not, “The Incredible Melting Man.” In fact, I’d cite that one as an example of a horrible waste of talent. Baker got consistently screwed throughout his early career (cf. “Octaman” and deLaurentiis’ “King Kong”). Runner-up: Bald Matronly Giant from “Prince of Space,” as well as its Chicken People of Krankor (I’d KILL to see the manga on which these characters were based…)
How about the giant spider in “Giant Spider Invasion” you know the furry jeep cruising through the fields. Almost as lame as the creeping terror. :roll:
Sorry, I have been busy fighting a blazing house fire….I don’t know if this has been mentioned already, but….
Why is Steve Pop so agrivated if someone’s post is slightly off topic?
it’s just a show, etc. (#83): “Sorry, I have been busy fighting a blazing house fire….I don’t know if this has been mentioned already, but….”
Well, at least you read the message.
The flag-and-desk set in “Racket Girls”, The Rocket Taxi (on a stick, get ’em while they’re hot!)in “12 to the Moon”, The super duper invisible face shield in “12 to the Moon”, The Radar Ball in “Radar Secret Service”, the Amazingly realistic, not a toy Helicopter and Submarine in “Danger! Death Ray!”, the totally threatening bubble machine in “Robot Monster” and the best of them all: The cardboard camera in “Future War”. There’s an actual sadness to that duct-taped, corrugated pressed wood pulp, flailing attempt at a prop. You have to hand it to Coleman Francis: no matter how crappy, everything in his films were real…
I guess someone has to mention the phone that keeps ringing after Johnny picks up the receiver in the ‘Cheating’ short (“Oh, the foley guy must be calling!”) and the “runaway plane” that clearly was just sitting there while standhands shook it around in SKYDIVERS.
Oh, and I hate myself for admitting it, but I still think the attempt to make the SHE-CREATURE look radioactive by smearing vaseline on the lens was kinda neat, in an Ed Wood sort of way…
Stagehands, not standhands. What’s a standhand? :oops: