The Thing Forum

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It's almost criminal how these weren't used, or looked worse with the bad CGI.

If indie horror movies like Attack the Block are using actual practical effects with cool tricks, what's the excuse for not using practical FX? Most CGI creatures look awful or just hard to be horrified by e.g. Cloverfield, Super 8.

My point of view on this subject has always been that fake looking is fake looking. It doesn't matter if it's a solid object, or a computer-generated image, I will never actually believe what I'm looking at is real.

@jimjimman said:

My point of view on this subject has always been that fake looking is fake looking. It doesn't matter if it's a solid object, or a computer-generated image, I will never actually believe what I'm looking at is real.

I don't think realism is the issue, I find it's just easier to be horrified by practical makeup than CGI where in a second you notice something's wrong and end up not caring. As a counter-point, there are some few CGI monsters that do work, though. All the CGI creatures in The Mist (spiders with cauterising web strings WOW) creeped the shit out of me especially the one at the end, also the ones in King Kong.

I'd have to agree that practical effects look a considerable deal better, eg. The Thing, Alien.

I would assume they were scrapped because it is cheaper and quicker, as well as more versatile to use CGI - you can do massive amounts of the same creature at once easily, and manipulate the model in ways that you may have to build an entirely new model for practical effects.

I would love the old style of effects to come back though, it feels like CGI is so overused these days anyway that anybody can clearly see it's computer generated, whereas with The Thing particularly, the physicality of all the effects to me makes them feel much more real.

Pretty sure it's about price and time. If Attack the Block's effects were solely practical then it would have looked dumb and to make something look realistic using solely practical effects would be expensive and time consuming, like the Thing. A mixture is probably the best bet, but then you might end up with Yoda in The Phantom Menace.

I hated that King Kong scene, that part where the kid grabs the machine gun and starts shooting the bugs perfectly off Jack while closing his eyes. Man, I disliked that film. And I dislike the mist as well, though the ending was a mix of greatness and shit.

That looked incredible.