News > The 10 Worst Special Effects in Films

Written by John Lichman

Today's list comes from Empire Magazine and discusses the best of the worst Special Effects. So, will it attack intentional shlock that's become acceptable (melting nazis from Indiana Jones) to the truly awful (Shark Attack III anyone?)

But their #10 and #8 choices seem the best. And as for their single best use of special effect? I hate to agree, but The Matrix was pretty mind-blowing. Really, John Woo may have inspired slo-mo shots, but the Wachowskis made bullets ripple and "Mister Andersonnnn" a household quote:

#10: King Kong

 

Sod Driving Miss Daisy — Oscar’s greatest crime was awarding Special Visual Effects to Dino De Laurentiis’ monkey sham. So the story goes that, having built a 40-foot animatronic to upstage the 1933 original’s stop-motion FX, Carlo “E. T.” Rambaldi’s jerky creation refused to work, nearly crushed Jessica Lange and bled the budget dry. Step in Rick Baker, sewn into a hastily knitted monkey suit so unconvincing that audiences kept looking out for the zipper. The Seventh Wonder Of The World? Try Chimpiest Blunder Of 1970s Cinema.

 

#8: Slugs

In which a plague of meat-eating mutant slugs terrorise a small town populated by badly dubbed Spanish actors and menopausal porn fools. Scared yet? It does, of course, get much, much worse — mostly thanks to the titular horror resembling the contents of Bertie Bassett’s unflushed toilet. They also: a) hiss b) have teeth c) are, during one agonisingly taut set-piece, defeated by a frying pan. Complete with DOING! sounds. We’re not making this up. It was, bizarrely, banned until the early ’90s in the state of Queensland, Australia. A triumph of taste, surely?

Read the full list here:

#10: King Kong (1976)

#9: The Mummy Returns

#8: Slugs

#7: Escape from L.A.

#6: The Lost World

#5: Predator

#4: The Abyss

#3: A Nightmare on Elm Street

#2: Alien Ressurection

#1: Plan 9 From Outer Space (…duh.)

Best of FX: The Matrix 

(via SciFi Wire)