Posted on 07/13/2012 7:04:50 PM PDT by PJ-Comix
Let's start out with the recognition of perhaps the WORST special effect ever seen in a movie was the flaming paper plate on a line passing itself off as a flying saucer in "Plan Nine From Outer Space." However, I recently saw a movie that might have had a special effect just as lame.
It was "Knights of the Round Table," starring Robert Taylor as Lancelot. Anyway, Lancelot, along with King Arthur and some allies were at a meeting at Stonehenge. The bad guys (Modred) suddenly decided to attack the Arthur crew. So Lancelot saves the day by pushing one of the Stonehenge rocks over to prevent the bad guys from getting to them while they made their escape. What made the scene especially ridiculous was that Lancelot really didn't even put much of an effort into shoving over that Stonehenge rock. And when the Stonehenge rock hit the ground, it was with the gentle thud of styrofoam rather than a crash of several tons worth of rock. Oh, and how could Stonehenge manage to stand all these years since from we saw in the movie just a 60 mph wind would have knocked those Stonehenge rocks to the ground?
I wonder if Robert Taylor or any of the other actors at the time objected to participating in such an incredibly lame special effect.
Plan 9
Any of the Superman movies.
The Stonehenge in “This Is Spinal Tap” was also bogus.
For me, the 1997 re-release of Star Wars had some pretty nasty (and ruinous) CGI. I consider it the worst effects ever, since it ruined a perfectly good movie.
This isn’t a special effect but in the remake of Pearl Harbor made about ten years ago you could see the Arizona memorial in the background of some scenes. Some of the harbor shots ad modern destroyers and frigates in them.
Seriously, I saw a “spaghetti western” once (Don’t remember the name) where they had a couple huge saguaro cactii props in it that they would move from scene to scene. The wind was blowing and these things were blowing and bending in the wind. LOL! Funny stuff.
Tron, the original, was the worst special effects. the entire movie.
Still watched it a couple of times.
Japanese Godzilla movies special effects sucked, but I love to watch them all the same.
PJ, the worst special effects are always those flashing lights on dashboards and pseudo-instrument panels in all the Star Trek Wars movies, since the Melies Bros. until today, including all your Kubrickian Lucasian “masterpieces”.
Surely the collection of plastic rocks that appeared in numerous Star Trek episodes bears mention. That the same rocks were found on so many planets was just hilarious.
Ping-Pong Ball eyes from Killers from Space
The best special effects EVER in a movie was in that cinematic masterpiece “Leprechaun II”!!! (one of the greatest movies of all time - if you are in the advanced levels of intoxication)
Wow, I thought that was universally heralded as an improvement. Sure beat the original where the ships in space were semi-opaque.
IIRC, that is the Attack of the 50 foot woman, no?
True dat
My friends and I would look for the Aurora and Revell models in those old Japanese monster flicks. Cries of “I got that one” would echo through the Elmwood Theater.
that was how I learned how computers work.
Lots of tiny people in electric suits running around inside that mysterious box they put on my desk.
When Godzilla jumps you are thinking, ok who’s the kid in the Godzilla suit.
A movie made in the ‘60s by Shepperton Studios was about a Hercules-type super-hero. In one scene, he jumped across a gorge in a cavern. It was about 25 feet across, and they spliced two shots together. He actually dipped down in the middle and then magically bounced up in mid air to finish the jump. Everyone in the theater laughed.
I have several times seen airplane contrails in the sky in movies set in the old West.
The 2012 movie where the car is running through the streets with the buildings falling and the street caving in. It is beyond fake looking.
MST3000 has a boatload of them. “The Crawling Eye” comes to mind.
It's still ongoing, the longest horror movie in American history, and they never have gotten the special effect right...
Agreed. It was over the top. People shown dying by the thousands before our eyes and 2012 played it for laughs.
Not a special effect but at the end of the King Kong remake....Kong falls off the Empire State building, craters the ground and still retains his form....no blood , no guts, no broken bones poking out....
In real life he would look like a junebug on a windshield at 100 miles an hour ....
Many times in Swamp People, I have seen them take aim with one gun and then they shoot with a totally different gun. Obviously splice two different incidents together.
Also once they were stranded until they could fix the boat motor. No one mentioned why they didn’t just ride in the boat with the camera.
Here are some shots from our latest, "Evel Knievel on Skull Island: The Rescue of Ann Darrow": 
Here is a shot of the "vampire cut in half" scene from CHARLIE CHAN IN TRANSYLVANIA:
Here is a shot from "The Mummy In the Maze":
And finally, some cheesy effects from our movie "Attack of the 50 Foot Ghoul":
IMHO, it’s pretty hard to beat an iguana with prosthetic makeup...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U_x6qZEvX4k
Although not a movie, and not really special effects, I remember watching the old Dark Shadows re-runs-—specifically a scene in which Barnabas Collins was drinking a glass of “blood”. Problem was, the blood was thick and orangey and left pulp on the side of the glass-—it was tomato juice, LOL.
In another episode, a character was running through the woods....he brushed against a tree and the tree rocked back and forth.
The bird thing in “The Giant Claw.” It was “as big as a battleship” but otherwise didn’t inspire much terror.
I saw an, ahh, “adult” movie while in college years ago. It was set in the 18th century. The two “stars” walked into a bedroom equipped with light switches, electrical outlets and radiators.
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