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Special: Monster Legacy’s Monstrous Hundred – Part 2
We continue with the second part of the Monstrous Hundred. Now we dive in he 70s and the glorious 80s, which saw a renaissance of practical effects.
King Kong (1976)
Probably the weakest of all Kong films (not including the abhorrent Skull Island), and one with a remarkably extended and multi-limbed controversy behind it. Regardless, this 70s colossal doesn’t fail in portraying the lonely and tragic nature of its main character, whose death is particularly well-orchestrated and effective.
Special: Monster Legacy’s Monstrous Hundred — Part 1
Back in 2002, I was a small kid watching Free Willie on a local channel. During an ad intermission, a trailer was broadcast for what was coming afterwards. It didn’t have a hard time selling it to my young eyes — “monsters from beneath the Earth! Now they’re back, badder and hungrier!” were all the words I needed to hear. The film was Tremors 2: Aftershocks and it may very well be the reason Monster Legacy has been and continues to be a thing since 2011.
Brundlefly
I’m an insect who dreamt he was a man and loved it. But now the dream is over – and the insect is awake.
Screenwriter Charles Edward Pogue first approached producer Stuart Cornfield to produce a remake of The Fly, one of the most influential science-fiction films of the 1950s. The core concept the two agreed on was to have a progressive transformation, as opposed to a sudden one. Cornfield told Cinefex: “when Chuck Pogue came into my office and said he wanted to remake The Fly, we screened the original film and decided a straight remake wouldn’t be as interesting as a change of the basic premise from a head-switching to a metamorphosis.” From there, Pogue’s pitch evolved around an introvert scientist having to deal with the progressive corruption and transformation of his body into that of a monstrous hybrid of man and fly. This idea was influenced by David Lynch’s The Elephant Man, as well as Jean Cocteau’s Beauty and the Beast, two films that dealt with the contrast between the ‘inner man’ and the ‘outer appearance’.
Son of Brundle
Having been at the helm of the gruesome special effects of Cronenberg’s The Fly, Chris Walas not only decided to attach himself the sequel, but to direct it — assuring to confine the expenses within the same budget of the first film ($12 million) but with more action involving the monstrous creature. A sequel “in the class of Aliens,” as producer Steven-Charles Jaffe told Cinefex. The role of director restrained Walas from collaborating extensively in the special effects department, or at least not as much as he would have wished. He recalled: “design has always been the most satisfying and enjoyable phase of my work, and here I was basically delegating that aspect to my colleagues while I figured out the logistics of the shooting schedules. I visited my studio occasionally — and it got to the point where I regarded my two-day stays there as a vacation because I could sit down and push some clay around.”
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