What Were the WORST Special Effects Ever Seen in a Movie?

self | July 13, 2012 | PJ-Comix

[PJ-Comix]

Let's start out with the recognition of perhaps the WORST special effect ever seen in a movie was the flaming paper plate on a line passing itself off as a flying saucer in "Plan Nine From Outer Space." However, I recently saw a movie that might have had a special effect just as lame.

It was "Knights of the Round Table," starring Robert Taylor as Lancelot. Anyway, Lancelot, along with King Arthur and some allies were at a meeting at Stonehenge. The bad guys (Modred) suddenly decided to attack the Arthur crew. So Lancelot saves the day by pushing one of the Stonehenge rocks over to prevent the bad guys from getting to them while they made their escape. What made the scene especially ridiculous was that Lancelot really didn't even put much of an effort into shoving over that Stonehenge rock. And when the Stonehenge rock hit the ground, it was with the gentle thud of styrofoam rather than a crash of several tons worth of rock. Oh, and how could Stonehenge manage to stand all these years since from we saw in the movie just a 60 mph wind would have knocked those Stonehenge rocks to the ground?

I wonder if Robert Taylor or any of the other actors at the time objected to participating in such an incredibly lame special effect.

[1010RD]

After the first installment of Star Wars in ‘77 everyone thought Lucas was brilliant. The more he filmed and tinkered the more obvious it was that he just got lucky. JarJar Binks? What was he thinking?

[InvisibleChurch]

Mesa no deserve to be speshuh effect!

[BenLurkin]

[BenLurkin]

Robert Vaughan!

[BenLurkin]

[upchuck]

“Mysteries in History,” hosted by Peter Graves in the opening sequence of Men in Black II is pretty hilarious. Loaded with “special effects.”

[Revolting cat!]

The worst ever special effect belongs to Victor, although he didn't live to see it, having lost his head!

[BenLurkin]

[chuckee]

No one can top the Japanese of the fifties for bad special effects:The zippered monster genre - Godzilla, Rodan, etc

[muir_redwoods]

Is that Robert Vaughn and James Arness? Wow, I guess you gotta pay the bills somehow.

[cornfedcowboy]

I have several times seen airplane contrails in the sky in movies set in the old West.

---

Historically accurate. Because back in the mid 1800’s the govt was spraying cowboys and Indians with time triggered neurotoxins. Gonna send this to George Noory.

[Blogatron]

So Fake!

[count-your-change]

I always liked the old cowboy movies where a six shot revolver could fire fifteen times without a reload.

[DManA]

I thought the lizard monster in the new Spider man movie was surprisingly crude considering the rest of the effects were pretty good.

[Revolting cat!]

Do special effects from gay porno movies qualify?

[BenLurkin]

[DEADROCK]

How innocent of an age it was back then where it was important to portray a loving couple to fool the public.

[DManA]

Zardoz.

Somebody had to rule the outlands.

[Chickensoup]

Birddenic

[gorush]

“Flash Gordon Conquers the Universe”

[OneWingedShark]

Where is that from?

[packrat35]

Robot Monster takes the cake. Guy with a gorilla suit with a diving helmet on his head.

[Vendome]

8088 baby!

[garjog]

“Robert Vaughan!”

Yes, he is supposed to be the teenager of Teenage Caveman but looks 30 in the film.

[BenLurkin]

I don’t know. Saw it while searching google images and thought it would dress up this thread a little.

Not that it needs dressing up, of course.

[Melas]

Had to hit abuse FM. Whatever graphic you intended was replaced.

[frithguild]

[M1903A1]

My memory of this is vague, but it sticks nonetheless....

It’s a scene from the movie “The Valachi Papers”, where there’s three 1920s cars proceeding down a street at night, and the image has been manipulated to emphasize them...but it’s clear that there’s then-current 1960s cars passing them in the other lanes. Only time I ever saw the movie, it was one of the first scenes I saw (having joined it midshow), and for me it was a major “what POS movie is this???!!!” moment.

[Fiji Hill]

A nuclear submarine sailing beneath an iceberg in Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea (1961) finds itself in peril when chunks of ice sink down around it as the berg breaks up.

While watching The Battle of the Bulge (1966), one might find it odd that the Germans fighting a 1944 battle are riding around in American tanks from the 1950's.

[qam1]

Shark Attack 3 Megalodon

The worst CGI / Special Effects ever

More gems

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-pRuncHws2g&feature=player_embedded

[garjog]

Greek columns special effects for Obama in Denver?

[garjog]

“I’ve been making low-budget short films for years and yes,”

Hey Kharis as your films on Youtube? We want to see them.

[Cvengr]

Robin Hood movie incorporating “Higgins Boats” as Norman landing craft circa 1160 AD.

[yefragetuwrabrumuy]

Mega Shark vs. Giant Octopus:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I16_8l0yS-g

It’s pretty hard to outdo a giant shark attacking a 747 airplane in flight.

Note: Technically NSFW, as it has a bad word.

[chopperman]

I think this was supposed to be a scene from within an alien spaceship:

[KC_Lion]

Ah Thats not fair! Godzilla VS Mothra is an AWESOME movie.

[Rides_A_Red_Horse]

The Stonehenge in “This Is Spinal Tap” was also bogus.

---

It was in danger of being crushed by a pair of dancing dwarves!

[fieldmarshaldj]

Drat.

[M1903A1]

Same’s true with Patton (Yanks in M41 tanks versus Krauts in M48s). For stuff like that, ya gotta give ‘em some wiggle room...Shermans and Panzers were just a *little* tough to get hold of by then!

[fwdude]

Aliens.... oh, wait - those were the best.

[fwdude]

Don’t be dissin’ t.v. Batman. The best!

[InvisibleChurch]

But you can’t say he didn’t deserve it.

[razorback-bert]

Captain Kirk taking cover behind a painted tumbleweed.

[Fiji Hill]

The movie Thoroughly Modern Millie (1968) is set in 1922, yet the opening scene features a woman singing along as she plays Looking at the World Through Rose-Colored Glasses, a hit from the spring of 1926. Perhaps she was a time-traveler.

[Conservative4Ever]

Dang...missed that one. :-)

[dfwgator]

I thought that was Marty Feldman in Young Frankenstein.

[fwdude]

Is that a “cigar boat” behind them?

[dfwgator]

That reminds me, I must get my watch fixed.

[JRandomFreeper]

The pyroclastic cloud in "Supervolcano".

Lame. Needed crutches.

I say that as a cook that has opened oven doors on pyroclastic flows (small scale).

/johnny

[Jonah Vark]

The Thing with Two Heads starring Ray Milland and Roosevelt Greer.

Milland plays Dr. Maxwell Kirshner, a dying, wealthy racist who demands that his head be transplanted onto a healthy body. As his health rapidly deteriorates, there remains only one alternative: graft Kirshner’s head onto the body of a black death row inmate, Jack Moss, played by Grier.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gWHNA_j7h5A