Top 10+10 Practical Movie Effects (Most Realistic / Horror)

Welcome to WatchMojo, and today we’re counting down our picks for incredible practical effects from pre-2000s films that are still impressive today. Which practical effect still has you oohing and ahhing? Let us know in the comments down below.

#10: The Jog

“2001: A Space Odyssey” (1968)
Stanley Kubrick’s seminal film proves it doesn’t take fancy CGI to make a truly convincing sci-fi movie. The famous but simple scene where one of the astronauts jogs around the outer part of the ship’s centrifuge was done by staging the camera in a large rotating set. The result is a convincing illusion where the camera seems to follow and stay ahead of the runner. Kubrick had to get creative in his use of practical effects to simulate both weightlessness and artificial gravity, and the result is a space epic that’s still extremely impressive today.

#9: Fountain of Blood

“A Nightmare on Elm Street” (1984)
This scene was a bloody nightmare, all right. This classic slasher film directed by Wes Craven contains tons of truly gruesome killings. For Glen’s death, however, something extra was needed. When Glen falls asleep, he’s sucked through a hole in his bed, and a geyser of blood then spews out. To make it happen, Craven built the set on a gimbal. Once he flipped it upside down, the crew dumped hundreds of gallons of red-dyed water through the hole. The effect wasn’t without its dangers—the water reportedly caused the set to spin unexpectedly and made a huge mess. At least they got a truly iconic shot out of it.

#8: Melting Head

“Raiders of the Lost Ark” (1981)
Speaking of nightmare fuel, the first “Indiana Jones” film definitely has its share. Seeing Nazis die onscreen via divine wrath is always a thrill. But one gruesome death deserves special attention for its practicality. First, Spielberg’s special effects team made a rubbery mold of actor Ronald Lacey’s head. From this mold they carved a skull from stone and covered it in layers of gelatin, which they then melted using propane heaters and a heat gun. Once achieved, the melting mold was overlapped with footage of Lacey screaming. The 1981 film “Scanners” similarly used gelatin molds over a fake skull in their famous exploding head scene. Now that is truly creative filmmaking, and all without CGI.

#7: The Final Fly

“The Fly” (1986)
Even decades later, this transformation scene is still stomach-churning. After a slow deterioration resulting from a botched experiment, Seth Brundle finally transforms into a gruesome human-fly hybrid. To achieve the effect, the makeup and special effects teams went to town on Jeff Goldblum, using prosthetics for his growing deformities. The final stage of the Fly is actually a series of puppets maneuvered by cables and rods. A puppet was also used in the Fly’s death when he’s fused with the telepod. The team won a well-deserved Academy Award for Best Makeup for their efforts to turn Brundle into the Brundlefly.

#6: The White House

“Independence Day” (1996)
The explosion of the White House in Roland Emmerich’s film is still as shocking as it was in 1996. A large plaster model of the building was constructed for the shot, which was decorated with dollhouse furniture inside to ensure that the debris looked realistic. Once done, the team put 40 explosives around the model. The actual detonation was over in just under a second, but Emmerich used a high-tech camera to capture it in gorgeous slo-mo. The director has since made a career out of destroying major landmarks on film, but none have quite the impact of that “Independence Day” scene.

#5: Mirror Shot

“Terminator 2: Judgment Day” (1991)
Making Arnold Schwarzenegger’s head peelable is no small feat, and to this day the scene where Sarah Connor takes out the T-800’s microchip in front of a mirror still looks remarkably convincing. The mirror is actually a window, with Arnie sitting behind it facing the camera while Linda Hamilton works on a dummy head. Hamilton’s twin sister Leslie was brought on to play Connor’s reflection, and the two had to mirror each other’s movements exactly. It was an extremely clever piece of special effects trickery that left viewers totally baffled.

#4: The Schüfftan Process

“Metropolis” (1927)
You know you’ve made it as a visual effects artist when a whole process gets named after you. Created by cinematographer Eugen Schüfftan, the most iconic use was in the classic German film “Metropolis.” The Schüfftan process involves using plate glass and mirrors to create the illusion that miniature models are actually full size sets. It even enables the filmmaker to make it look like people are moving inside the miniatures. By the mid-20th century the process was replaced by blue screens and other types of special effects. But when it comes to small effects that can achieve big results, few can best the Schüfftan process.

#3: Transformation

“An American Werewolf in London” (1981)
This scene alone took an entire week to shoot. After protagonist David gets attacked by a wolf, he begins to have strange dreams, and if you’ve seen the title of the movie, you know what comes next. Director John Landis put months of preparation into David’s transformation into the titular beast. The film’s crew created multiple different prosthetic heads and limbs to use at different stages of the metamorphosis. The hair growth was filmed in reverse, with the crew trimming it between shots and running the footage backward to make it look like it was growing. Landis also employed stop-motion animation and even animatronic devices. All these combined techniques make the scene incredibly visceral and convincing.

#2: The T-Rex

“Jurassic Park” (1993)
Even decades later, Spielberg’s iconic sci fi masterpiece still astounds audiences with its realistic special effects. The film relies heavily on practical effects, with only six minutes of CGI making it into the final cut. The dinosaurs were created almost entirely using detailed, full scale animatronics – including the massive T-Rex. No wonder the kids look so convincingly terrified: they’re reacting to an actual life-size dinosaur, not a green screen. As for the T-Rex’s bone-rattling roar, the film used recorded vocals of a tiger, alligator, and even a baby elephant. The result is a staggeringly realistic dinosaur.

#1: Baby Xenomorph

“Alien” (1979)
Of course, we must talk about the most realistically gruesome scene of all. The Xenomorph is one of the most recognizable and terrifying movie monsters thanks to the excellent design talents of H. R. Giger. He, along with the rest of the design team, made the creatures come to life. Giger designed the chestburster puppet himself, although his original idea went through some revision before it was implemented. Similar puppetry was also employed in “The Thing” for the peeling dog effect. While the actors in “Alien” knew about the puppet, they had no clue about the fake blood squibs, hence their real-life alarm. Thanks to Giger’s expertise, the scene became one of the most memorable in cinematic history.