The Further
Is CGI Relied Too Heavily Upon In Today’s Movies?
YouTuber StoryBrian has posted a video that argues CGI effects peaked in the 90’s and early 2000’s and that we now suffer from what he calls the “WETA Effect”. Basically, he’s saying that CGI used to be one or two things added into a scene built on reality, meaning there actual people touching actual props with actual backdrops and filmed using actual cameras. However, as computing powers expanded, whole scenes could rendered in CGI, meaning we could be wowed with the beauty that was created but ultimately feel entirely alienated because it simply wasn’t real.
Perhaps the best line in the video is when Brian says, “The problem, I think, is a subtle one: putting beauty, or impressiveness over believability when believability is actually more important.”
I think we can all agree that John Carpenter’s The Thing isn’t believable. However, the fact that real FX were used and it could all be interacted with by the actors suspended that disbelief, making everything seem all the more terrifying and real. Just think of the outrage over the 2011 pseudo-remake/prequel. Nobody was really bitching about the story, were they? They were far more upset that the creatures were done with CGI when we knew that they had the ability to honor the original and make fascinating, horrifying, disgusting REAL creations. We felt betrayed and let down, rightfully so, in my opinion.
What do you all think? Check out the video and then leave your opinion in the comments.
Can you believe this year marks the 25TH ANNIVERSARY of Bloody Disgusting?! Yes, it was way back in 2001 that Brad Miska and Tom Owen launched this very website, with yours truly taking over as Editor-in-Chief around 10 years ago. It’s been the highlight of my life to run and write for this website every single day of those past 10 years, and one of the very best things about writing for Bloody Disgusting is the community that’s kept us alive all these years.
It’s thanks to you, the readers and supporters of Bloody Disgusting, that we get to keep doing this for a living, and we’re deeply proud of the fact that we’ve continued to have an engaged and active readership over the years and throughout the many changes we’ve had to weather.
We’re not going anywhere anytime soon, and we hope you’re not either.
On that note, we thought it might be fun to fire up monthly discussion threads where you can essentially use the comments sections of those articles to ask us anything. Sure, we’re always hanging around in the comments sections of different articles here and there when we can, but these will be dedicated spaces that we can repeatedly come back to throughout each month to answer questions and chat about what’s going on in the world of horror.
For the month of June 2026, this is that discussion thread. Feel free to come on back here any day throughout June to ask us literally anything, or start up a discussion on any topic of your choosing. Whenever we’ve got some spare time in between writing articles, we’ll pop in here and engage back with as many of those comments as we possibly can.
As long as you’re being pleasant, even if you’re expressing disagreements with our opinions or frustrations with anything we’re doing, the conversation will be more than welcome.
So go ahead… ASK BLOODY DISGUSTING ANYTHING!