Most Underrated Special Effects ever...

I'm comin' up with this personal list of the most underrated special effects in cinema:


Superman ... Flying (particularly outside of the Earth; I don't know if these are underrated, but they still hold up to this day, which makes them all the more impressive)..

Hollow Man ... Wow! All those invisible moments (especially in the early portions of the film, have prettymuch gone by unappreciated)

Honey I Shrunk the Kids ... pretty-much the whole film...

Innerspace ... this beat Predator for the Oscar, and it deserved it for its fantastic effects that have now sort of gone by forgotten

Predator/Predator 2 ... so many great moments (the end of the sequel as the Predators are all walking away from Harrigan and turning invisible one-by-one is highly impressive)

Spawn ... the fight with The Violator, the scenes with the cape, just about all of the effects were good and seamless for such a cheap, barebones movie... (I'm impressed they did such a good job of choreography for the type of film that it turned out to be; something about the effects in the film in the face of this century's constant CGI use makes them even more impressive, as they pull off what they pull off in an era when CGI is still picking up steam)

Robocop 2 ... stop-motion fight at the end (I think we all know about this one)..

Ghostbusters ... The Marshmallow Man (amazing that this and The Terminator somehow lost to Temple of Doom, although I do love the second Indy film; but it didn't deserve the Oscar over GB)

Little Shop of Horrors ... Audrey II ... (man-oh-man, I just watched this the other day for the first time in many years. I grew up watching it and I must say, to this day the plant still looks menacing and creepy, and so goddamn real. Wow... I'm stunned that nobody praises the puppeteering as highly as it deserves for this film)

Aliens ... The Queen (obviously this is not underrated, but it deserves to be singled out because of today's heavy use of CGI. Is there a more impressive non-CGI visual effect?)


I'm sure there are many more that I would revise my list with. But I just made this list a day or two ago and I didn't have time to put heap-loads of thought into it. I just spoke from my immediate memory and with a passion for those oustanding effects which have blown me away over the course of my 30 years. Honorable mention to the more recent John Dies at the End- really cool practical effects in that one as well. And an obscure 70s supernatural Horror-Thriller called Shadow of the Hawk has a great moment involving an automobile which I won't spoil (although no one here will likely ever see the film anyway).


Feel free to share some of your own.





I'm not a control freak, I just like things my way