Editorials
[It Came From the ‘80s] Oscar Winning Makeup and Creature Effects Transformed ‘The Fly’
With horror industry heavy hitters already in place from the 1970s, the 1980s built upon that with the rise of brilliant minds in makeup and effects artists, as well as advances in technology. Artists like Rick Baker, Rob Bottin, Alec Gillis, Tom Woodruff Jr., Tom Savini, Stan Winston, and countless other artists that delivered groundbreaking, mind-blowing practical effects that ushered in the pre-CGI Golden Age of Cinema. Which meant a glorious glut of creatures in horror. More than just a technical marvel, the creatures on display in ‘80s horror meant tangible texture that still holds up decades later. Grotesque slimy skin to brutal transformation sequences, there wasn’t anything the artists couldn’t create. It Came From the ‘80s is a series that will pay homage to the monstrous, deadly, and often slimy creatures that made the ‘80s such a fantastic decade in horror.
By the time David Cronenberg’s The Fly released in August of 1986, the golden era of practical effects had already mastered monstrous transformation sequences with films like An American Werewolf in London, The Howling, The Thing, and many more. Just when horror fans thought they’d seen it all, special creature effects artist Chris Walas (Gremlins), his crew from FX company Chris Walas, Inc., and makeup effects supervisor Stephan DuPuis sought to create Seth Brundle’s transition from man to insect-creature unlike anything else ever seen before. The result was a creature design and makeup effects that clinched together Cronenberg’s tragic tale of star-crossed lovers and earned Walas and DuPuis an Oscar for Best Makeup.
The Fly begins as a meet-cute between brilliant yet socially awkward scientist Seth Brundle (Jeff Goldblum) and journalist Veronica Quaife (Geena Davis). He entices her back to his home turned lab to show off his project; a pair of teleportation pods meant to deliver instant transportation between them. He offers Veronica exclusive rights for an article in exchange for silence, and the pair wind up falling for each other in process. But their growing love sparks human emotions like jealousy, leading Seth to test the pods on himself, unaware a fly has slipped into the pod with him. This begins a slow transformation from man to insect hybrid to completely inhuman creature.
There are seven stages of transformation for Brundle, beginning very subtle and gradually growing more grotesque with transitions similar to insect stages of growth, Walas taking care to avoid the bladder effects that gave other transformations familiarity. Stage one only gives Brundle blotchy skin, like an allergic reaction, which becomes more accentuated with scabs, warts, and oozing fingernails in the second stage. Stage three sees Brundle looking more diseased, with Goldblum sporting appliances and prosthetics that give his head a wider appearance as his hair and ears fall off. Stage four makes Brundle even less recognizable, with complete facial appliances and a full body suit – it’s here that he’s losing his teeth and developing bulges that will later give way to extra insect legs. Stage five distorts this further, requiring at minimum four hours of application. This stage also introduced a mechanical puppet replica of Brundle’s head to extend the lower jaw and push forth a fly tongue. The puppetry also bridged the transition from the fifth stage to the sixth, a gruesome transformation of splitting skin as insect parts emerge, operated via rigs by multiple crew members at once. Stage six was the most involved, as the animatronics involved in Brundle’s full fusion of man and fly didn’t just mean more body parts falling away but also the vomit digestion of Stathis Borans’ (John Getz) hand and foot. The final stage was an impressive rod puppet rigged with hydraulics, motors, and cable systems that took eight crew members to operate from beneath it.
As if that wasn’t enough, Walas and team also produced the writhing maggot puppet for Veronica’s nightmare sequence, a protruding bone via arm wrestling mishap, the cringe-worthy inside-out baboon, and the unforgettable melting mutilation of Stathis’ limbs. The vomit was DuPuis’ secret recipe consisting of edible materials like honey, flour, and food coloring. Cronenberg didn’t want much blood in the film, but what it lacked in blood it more than made up for in slime, ooze, and icky insect bodily fluids.
And that’s just the stuff that made the final cut. A lot of the stage four makeup wound up on the cutting room floor because it also happened to feature Brundle beating a mutated cat-monkey creature he unwittingly created with a lead pipe. Understandably, it was deemed too intense and undid a lot of the sympathy towards Brundle. Luckily the scene is easy enough to find in the deleted scenes on the DVD release. There were also scenes of Brundle chewing off his own insect arm and gnawing on a human foot that were trimmed as well.
Walas, DuPuis, and the 30 plus crew members designed and created more than two dozen different special makeup FX, rigs, and puppets, and only had roughly three months of pre-production planning to work with. Once Brundle had been cast, the team had less than a month to get Goldblum’s makeup designed, casted, and customized to the actor. Cronenberg and the lead actors imbued this tragic tale with emotion, sympathetic characters, engrossing story, and layered themes. But the stunning work that the Chris Walas, Inc. crew delivered takes that story and makes it felt on a visceral level. Walas and DuPuis’ work is every bit deserving of that Oscar and helped make The Fly forever a classic.
Editorials
Before ‘The Blair Witch Project’, ‘Alien Autopsy’ Showed How Real Found Footage Could Feel
The line separating artist from con man is a lot thinner than you might initially believe. While I think we can all agree that lying for the sake of profit is actively malicious behavior, isn’t it also true that the faux documentary aspect of The Blair Witch Project is half the reason why that film became such a cultural phenomenon? After all, if there’s one thing filmmakers have in common with stage magicians, it’s that misleading and misdirecting audiences is simply part of the job.
That’s why I’ve developed a habit of mostly ignoring the moral quandaries behind many of film and television’s biggest “hoaxes” in favor of appreciating the narrative elements that drive productions like Mermaids: The Body Found and even Animal Planet’s highly underrated The Cannibal in the Jungle. However, if there’s a definitive case of a highly publicized broadcast fooling the world into taking it seriously, it has to be Fox’s infamous 1995 TV special Alien Autopsy: Fact or Fiction.
It’s been over three decades since that eerie footage first haunted television screens right at the peak of the ’90s ufology craze, and in that time, the video has taken on a life of its own. From countless parodies and references in everything from The X-Files to Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater (as well as John Dower’s recently released tell-all documentary The Alien Autopsy Scandal, which I’d highly recommend to genre fans everywhere), there’s no denying the legacy of the Alien Autopsy video. However, I rarely see the tape discussed as what it truly is: a highly convincing found footage film directed by a passionate stage magician and brought to life by masterful practical effects work.
That’s why I’d like to invite readers to join me on a deep dive into one of the most infamous broadcasts of all time in an attempt to reevaluate the footage as a fascinating narrative experience rather than a complete hoax.
The TV Special That Convinced Millions It Was Real
Ray Santilli next to Extraterrestrial replica in ‘The Alien Autopsy Scandal’
For starters, regardless of whether or not you believe that there was in fact an extraterrestrial crash in Roswell during the summer of 1947 and that some form of autopsy was performed on the victims, the producers behind the black & white recordings, Ray Santilli and Gary Shoefield, insist that their video was a “restoration.” Though I’d argue that the proper word is “remake”of genuine footage that was too damaged to air on television. That’s why the duo went on to recruit filmmaker and eccentric magician Spyros Melaris and sculptor/monster designer John Humphreys to bring their version of the autopsy to life and sell it to the highest bidder.
This is where the story of the Alien Autopsy as a narrative experience really begins. Melaris claims that his approach to the faux recording consisted of striving for extreme period accuracy in both shooting equipment and setting while also planting subtle details that would initially seem like mistakes but could later be revealed to actually fit the time period. That being said, the filmmaker was under the impression that the short would be released for free as a PR stunt, with the team later producing and selling an informative documentary chronicling exactly how the footage was faked and commenting on how easy it is to manipulate public perception with a good old-fashioned magic trick.
This obviously isn’t how things went down, and that’s likely the reason why Melaris has since distanced himself from everyone else involved with the project. Yet, no amount of behind-the-scenes drama can undermine the genuine effort that went into making the short as impressive as it is. From the sourcing of real animal organs from a local butcher to make the organic part of the creature more lifelike to the highly detailed sculpt that made use of a hollowed-out underlayer that could be filled with fake blood and assorted viscera, there’s a reason why so many Hollywood specialists are still impressed with the artistry on display here.
Of course, the believability is only half the story, as I think that the best part of the autopsy is how Melaris builds on the existing tension by obscuring certain details and often embracing the chaos of what a real examination of extraterrestrial life could feel like. The camera often goes out of focus at just the right time to make certain effects hit even harder, and we can only speculate as to what the hazmat-suited doctors are gesticulating about during the operation. There’s a real air of mystery to the whole thing that almost makes it feel like a cosmically terrifying, cursed film containing forbidden knowledge that civilians were never meant to see.
So when Fox’s Fact or Fiction brings in the specialists to comment on the film and its otherworldly subject, it’s no surprise that we end up with one of the most memorable mockumentaries of all time – albeit one where the participants are unaware that the footage they’re commenting on is basically a large-scale practical joke. A joke that the network was obviously in on, as many participants claim that the TV special cut out significant portions where guests point out that they believe the footage to be an elaborate hoax.
The Lasting Impact of the Hoax Turned Cultural Event
Regardless, I remember going to bed terrified after watching reruns of the special and thinking about the respected pathologist who claimed that the body was almost certainly inhuman, with even effects maestro Stan Winston commenting on how difficult it would be to recreate some of these visuals through practical puppetry. That’s not even mentioning Jonathan Frakes’ dramatic hyping up of the disturbing imagery as if he was talking about the tape from The Ring, with his spooky demeanor here likely being responsible for his later role as the host of Beyond Belief: Fact or Fiction a few years later.
Personally, I’d argue that the Alien Autopsy phenomenon had just as much of an impact on me as a horror fan as The Blair Witch Project, a film that was almost certainly influenced by the success of this immensely popular hoax (to the point where they even produced their own TV special commenting on Heather’s found footage). Even if Fox didn’t intend to produce a narrative feature about the aftermath of the Roswell crash, the end product still holds up remarkably well as a highly entertaining mockumentary exploring the idea that we may not be alone in the universe.
While neither Santilli nor the rest of the production team has ever commented on this, I also think it’s very likely that the idea of a faux Alien Autopsy could have been influenced by Dean Alioto’s The McPherson Tape/UFO Abduction. I’ve already written about how this granddaddy of found footage was co-opted by rogue ufologists who began selling bootlegs of the tape at conventions as if it were real evidence of a close encounter, so it’s not that much of a stretch to imagine that Santilli and company could have heard about this phenomenon and been inspired to come up with their own highly profitable hoax.
At the end of the day, it’s unlikely that the Alien Autopsy film is recreating any real footage from Roswell, but I can still appreciate the short and the accompanying television event as a standalone horror story that still influences the way we see found footage to this very day.
After all, the possibility that something could be real is often much scarier than finding out for sure – and that’s why I think Alien Autopsy: Fact or Fiction is still worth revisiting three decades down the line.
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