Part 3: Acknowledging “Special Effects” in Movies & TV

Part 1: https://cccmovies.blogspot.com/2022/11/metacinematic-moments-acknowledging.html

Part 2: https://cccmovies.blogspot.com/2022/11/acknowledging-special-effects-in-movies.html  

Last time I ended by talking about found footage films and mockumentaries, but one of the first found footage horror films ever made is actually an intriguing example of effects that came off looking too real to some viewers. Cannibal Holocaust (1980) contains footage of real animals getting killed, which is utterly deplorable, but there’s also a horrific shot of a woman who looks to have been impaled on a wooden pole—or was she? In reality, the actress sat on a bicycle seat atop a pole and a piece of wood was set in her open mouth to look like it was going through her body. It was all trickery and no humans were actually killed in the making of the film, but the whole thing was so convincing that the director went to trial for the potential murder of real actors. That story has aided in the film’s potent reputation as one of the sickest Italian horror films ever made.  

Halloween (1978) is credited as being the slasher film to really popularize the sub-genre, but also blamed for the flood of slashers that came in the 1980’s. Halloween itself became a franchise, and in Halloween II (1981) we get a false scare with a trick-or-treater wearing the Michael Meyers mask. It’s not the real Michael Meyers, it’s just some guy dressed the same (who is then hit by a car which blows up, for some reason) and it’s just one example of a slasher movie where the “real” killer is impersonated by another person. It also goes the other way where the “real” killer is mistaken for an imposter by a character (who usually ends up being a victim). This happens in the Halloween franchise, too, and famously in the Scream franchise. Scream (1996) goes even further than any slasher movie before it when Billy, who has been suspected to be the killer throughout the film, is seemingly killed, but not long after it’s revealed to have been a fake death. The blood on his stomach is fake, even though it looks the same as the blood that’s spilled when all the other victims are murdered for real.  

Another instance of a horror sequel mixing “real” blood and guts and scares with staged ones is Wes Craven’s New Nightmare (1994), a meta-follow-up to the previous six Nightmare on Elm Street movies. New Nightmare takes place one step away from the reality of the sequels, but still in a realm of fiction. In this world, the Elm Street movies are nothing more than just movies, and we see filmmakers shooting a new fake sequel in the beginning of New Nightmare, but then it turns out that Freddy Krueger is real and the horror that happens later is real for the characters. This meta-cinematic technique was used in a similar way by Wes Craven again with Scream, and it leads me to the next type of movie that often acknowledges special effects.

I think we’ve covered enough horror movie examples that deal with these particular kinds of meta movie moments, but there are still many more films in other genres with moments like these. Movies that are about making movies are often the ones to do the dance of featuring effects that look convincing on top of commentary about shattering the illusion. This is different than mockumentaries or found footage films. I’m talking about fictional films where the characters in them are making a film. In Peter Jackson’s remake of King Kong (2005) Carl Denham asks his lead actor Bruce Baxter to get in the shot with the Brontosaurus herd because he doesn’t want people to think they are fake (to which Bruce says “Nobody’s gonna think these are fake!”) and what’s interesting is the original King Kong (1933) never had a moment like this even though the premise is the same. Ironically, the CGI stampede that ensues in Jackson’s version looks pretty phony in some shots, even for 2005. It would have been really neat if he had included footage doctored to look like authentic film stock from a 1930’s movie camera with the CGI dinos inserted in there to add a little more authenticity and be a visual throwback to the original’s black-and-white 4:3 format, but that might’ve been tough to accomplish in a truly authentic way.

Birdman (2014) is an interesting one, because it establishes a pretty realistic world, with some surreal elements infused in creative ways. We know Riggan is an actor and he’s famous for playing the superhero Birdman, we know how the effects for his stage play are accomplished (such as the wig he wears and the fake prop gun and the blood squib to make it look like he shot himself), but is he really levitating in his dressing room? Did he actually throw the Birdman poster into the wall using telekinesis? Those surreal moments really were accomplished with CGI, but in the context of the movie it’s unclear much of the time if what’s happening is in Riggan’s head or not, so once again it doesn’t shatter any illusions, because it’s all technically an illusion. Birdman is all kinds of meta, right down to the casting of Michael Keaton as Riggan.

I’m going to end this three-part essay with the TV show that got me thinking about these meta movie moments in the first place, and it’s the best modern example I can think of that strikes the perfect balance of winking at the audience and taking itself seriously. Amazon Prime’s The Boys (2019-present) takes place in a world where superheroes exist. It’s not a wholly original idea—in ways it’s reminiscent of the graphic novel Watchmen—but in this fictional reality people aren’t just saved by heroes, they react very much like people in the real world do to superheroes: by purchasing truckloads of merchandise, going to conventions, and seeing films depicting their heroic adventures. Sometimes The Boys gets a little too real with its commentary on today’s media consumers, but as I said, it strikes the perfect balance.

Dawn of the Seven is a big part of the first three seasons of The Boys, a film-within-the-show depicting the origin story of mega-conglomerate Vought’s superhero team. Instead of using actors, Vought Studios uses their actual employed superheroes, and create the rest of the film in the same way real studios create real superhero films, with green screens, fake explosions, and sets. The characters in the show know CGI exists. The Deep references how it might be used in security footage at one point. I found this detail fascinating, even though it might seem like a tiny trivial one, but the thing is that this show relies heavily on CGI in every single episode and yet drawing attention to itself in this way doesn’t take me out of the show.

The use of visual effects in The Boys is so effective that it sustains this unique in-between-reality where fakery exists but real heroes can destroy buildings and run incredibly fast and rip someone’s head off, and when they do those things there’s never a question from the audience about it being legit. The logical part of my brain knows Homelander isn’t really able to fly, but the characters in the show know he really can. When they see him fly over to a crowd of protestors their reactions are genuine. They can also distinguish between these “real” moments and when he’s in the movies produced by Vought that have visual effects involved, and when we (the viewer) see clips of these movies they look different and we understand the difference. What happens in those clips isn’t entirely real, to anyone. Homelander may be flying, but the background is a green screen. But, when Homelander uses his powers on real people in the real world, the reactions of the observers, the way these scenes are shot, and the depiction of the violence is all done in a way that’s convincing and doesn’t make me pause and think about how it’s all actually fake. It blurs the line to the point that I don’t see or even think about that line as the drama and action unfolds.

I like to think about special effects when I watch a movie or show, especially when the SFX are a main part of the draw, or a focal point for the entertainment/storytelling. I know not everyone likes to think about them; some people don’t care, others only like it when something looks 100 percent real, and some people, like myself, enjoy SFX even when they don’t look that believable. Movies and TV shows are supposed to be entertaining, and the different ways some stories play with the believability of what they are depicting can be a source of entertainment for me, but sometimes it can annoy me or make me roll my eyes.

I think the best point I can end this long essay on is this: if you can trick the audience into believing something is real when it’s really not, go with it. Don’t let the air out of the balloon, keep it floating. It’s one thing when Deadpool talks to the audience and makes a joke and winks and reminds us none of it is real, but it’s another thing when he thinks the action scene he’s in is just happening on a green screen only for him to realize all the explosions are actually real in his world and he gets blown up. It’s a balancing act, and as I think I’ve made clear, it’s also a case-by-case basis for how effective pulling back the curtain can be. Don’t draw too much attention to something in the wrong way, or else you might break that trust between the viewer and what they are viewing. We know none of it is real, but only remind us of that in the right ways.