We’ve all been there. You’re watching a pretty decenthorror movieone night. Hell, maybe it’s not even that good of a horror movie, but you’re along for the ride. Then it’s time for that moment where half the film’s budget is put to use with a CGI effect, and quite honestly, it just ruins the rest of it for you. It’s a laughable, un-rendered effect that looks like it belongs in a PlayStation 3 video game, and it completely strips you of your investment in the movie.
Since CGI has been used in the horror genre, it can sometimes ruin a heightened moment. There are plenty of times when you can spot if the production ran out of money or the effects team backed out because checks began to bounce. All in all, these moments of bad special effects need to be on a list, so here they are: all 13 unlucky bad CGI moments in horror movies that kill their momentum.
Ice Spiders (2007)
Let’s start with one of the most obvious ones. Yeah,Ice Spidersmay not be a great horror film, but a lot of people have made their way into its cult following over the years. The 2007 SYFY original movie about a group of Olympic skiers who take on giant mutated spiders is turn-your-brain-off fun. And since this was an original film by the Sci-Fi channel, a network that was known for producing creature features with horrible-looking special effects, people gave it a pass. The spiders look like a B-movie CGI creature would look in this day and age, and we’re here for it.
Stream on Tubi
Sleepwalkers (1992)
You could give this one a pass because CGI was still a few years away from really being elevated to another level. ButSleepwalkershas one of the wildest effects ever, as one of the lead characters shape-shifts into their actual selves. Anything with Stephen King’s name on it and his frequent collaborator, Mick Garris, directing it, is always worth a watch.Sleepwalkersis a film based on an unpublished short story by King about a mother and son who are a pair of soul-sucking demonic shape-shifters that kind of look like cats. And it is quite a funny moment when one goes full demonic cat.
Stream on Pluto
The Langoliers (1995)
Let’s keep the trend going with Stephen King adaptations.In the mid-1990s, King had a string of his stories adaptedinto ABC miniseries'. One of which wasThe Langoliers, a miniseries that was about a group of plane passengers who wake up and find that everyone else on their Boston-bound plane has vanished. These survivors of this strange occurrence then find themselves being pursued by these odd-looking creatures that eat up everything in the world. One of which is time; they literally eat the past to make room for the future.
It is a trippy concept, even for King, to write about. And quite frankly, it is a very dreadful and existential thing to think about. But once we get our eyes on these Langoliers, we see they look like poorly animated, photo-shopped mouths of piranhas.
Buy on Vudu
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Anaconda 3: Offspring (2008)
Did you know thatAnacondaspawned a franchise? By the time it reached part three,Anaconda 3: Offspring, Jennifer Lopez, and Ice Cube were long onto other projects, and the franchise had now morphed into a SYFY original movie area. All installments in the franchise are fun. It’s a giant snake attacking people; of course it’s going to have an audience.
SYFY original films take the concept of the bad drive in movies of the 1950s and 1960s and put it on television. But the CGI never evolved with the giant snake, most likely mainly due to budgetary constraints, with the sequels falling far from the original movie. The snake looks even more laughable than the bad CGI moments in the original film.
Stream on Roku
The Ring Two (2005)
As much as most of us loveThe Ringin both its original Japanese film and the American adaptation, most of us find it easy to forget that there was a sequel a few years later,The Ring Two.A scene that stands out for its awful special effects is the infamous deer scene.The Ringand its sequel had great moments of horror, but the scene where Rachel (Naomi Watts) nearly hits a deer and then many more deer walk out into the road and harass her and Aidan (David Dorfman) has zero impact on the plot and is actually hilarious. Plus, the CGI deer look ridiculous. When horror is done wrong, it comes off funny.
Stream on Paramount+
Boogeyman (2005)
We were very into our ghost stories in the mid-2000s, as well as in love with the idea of the boogeyman, the creepy entity that has had multiple iterations and taken different forms over the years. In 2005 the horror filmBoogeyman, about a man who returns home after his mother’s death, he also must face the trauma of losing his father at a young age. The Boogeyman got him, of course. Now, you’d think this Boogeyman would be utterly terrifying; however, it looks like some sort of fan art come to life that got animated by someone who dabbles in the industry but isn’t a full-blown animator.Boogeymanisn’t a film working with much to begin with, and its creature effects aren’t helping its cause.
Spawn (1997)
Spawndoes have some good things working for it. Michael Jai White is great in the title role. John Leguizamo carries the movie on his back as Clown, aka Violator. And for some reason, Martin Sheen is in this. Regardless,Spawnwas a film that was in the early days of CGI really getting going. At the time, this had to feel like the filmmakers were onto something. Then two years later,The Matrixhappened with all its groundbreaking CGI, andSpawn’sNintendo 64-level of CGI immediately began to age horribly.
The scenes in hell look rough more than 25 years later, and why didn’t they just have Spawn with a red cape instead of a CGI one? Yeah, it’s kind of a long cape, but boy, did that thing not look rendered. It’s a shame because the Todd McFarlane character is widely loved and hopefullygets a nice update on the big screen soon.
Rent on Prime Video
An American Werewolf in Paris (1997)
On paper,An American Werewolf in Parissounds like a lot of fun. It’s a loose sequel to theJohn Landisclassic that entertains but, in the end, falls flat. Not just in its plot but in its god-awful-looking special effects of a werewolf. The subgenre of horror has always thrived in practical effects. With its run-of-the-mill plot of a guy touring around Paris getting bit by a werewolf and then turning into one, the effect of becoming a werewolf is completely full of CGI cringe. Just look at that photo above; does it impress at all? No, it doesn’t.
Stream on Peacock
A Nightmare on Elm Street (2010)
A lot of people didn’t like the 2010 reboot ofA Nightmare on Elm Streetwhen it came out. The film has its moments that draw you in deeper, but in the end, it’s the fact that there’s nothing new in the film that wasn’t in the original or its sequels. At one point, the movie takes an old concept from the original film and applies CGI to it. The old effect had spandex stretched across a whole wall, and had a stuntman as Freddy stretch himself out through the spandex while Nancy was sleeping. CGI could not make that effect look cooler, as it looks funny, and gimmicky, and hurts the film even more.
Stream on Max
The Thing (2011)
By 2011, John Carpenter’sThe Thinghad gone from a box office bomb to one of the greatest horror films of all time. So since Hollywood is going to do what Hollywood does, it’s time for a remake. In this case, 2011’sThe Thingis a prequel to the 1982 film.The Thingis a masterclass in the visual effects of the time it was released. With gore gags that gross you out but also make you not want to look away.
The 2011 prequel has a lot of people these days voicing their opinion that it actually isn’t that bad. But how can you defend these poor attempts to pay homage to the classic gory effects of the original? VFX’s team’s heart was in the right place, but what they were working with may have been a misfire.
Stream on Peacock Premium
Freddy Vs. Jason (2003)
Freddy vs. Jasonwas an event of a horror movie. A matchup that had been years in the making was finally released in 2003. All in all, the film is a fun thrill ride that may lack in acting performances, but thrives in its two antagonists airing out their grievances. Besides, that’s what you paid to see anyway. With CGI blood splatter and kills edited in post in the film, there were a lot of things that got a pass because that was what was in at the time.
One scene that still has moviegoers thinking, “What the hell was that?” is the scene in which the stoner character Bill Freeburg’s psychedelics kick into full gear as he finds himself smoking weed with a caterpillar that looks a lot like Freddy Krueger. Yeah, it’s funny for a moment, but then the CGI gets even more wild when the caterpillar goes down Bill’s throat. Lay off the hash pipe for a while after this one.
Jaws 3-D (1983)
3D is always a gimmick that will make its way into movies, and by the early 1980s, it was in full effect. So withJaws, a franchisethat never really needed to be anything past its first filmwas gearing up for its third installment, so of course, why not call itJaws 3-D?The film kind of bites off more than it can chew with the three-dimensional effect.
It actually hurts the 2D moments, making them blurry. And even if you don’t see it in 3D, the parts of the film that are meant for the effect look even worse. The shark looks like a cardboard cutout swimming right at you. Despite the bad usage of 3D,Jaws 3-Disn’t that bad of a film. There is a lot of entertainment value in it, and it has a great cast with Dennis Quaid and Lea Thompson.
Stream on Netflix
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I Am Legend (2007)
We’re still talking aboutI Am Legendmore than 15 years later. It’s a polarizing film for some reason. Is it the ending? The dog? Or is it because Will Smith never really leaves the zeitgeist (not that that’s a bad thing)? The ending, however, does hurt the movie; some hate it for what happens, and others hate it for the creature reveals. Initial reactions confused audiences. Were these aliens? Zombies? Did the human race evolve beyond Smith’s character? Either way, these CGI-infected beings look bad in the scene next to a real person. For a film that has a deserted New York City and one major star in the whole film, where did the budget run out on making good-looking creatures for the film’s climactic scene?
The film actually has a lot of weight in its story. There are many impactful emotional moments that connect with the audience.I Am Legendstill has a loyal fan base despite its flaws, and with there always seeming to be a rumor of asequel in the works,we shall wait and see if the CGI ups its game for another installment of this storyline.
