By Ben Bussey
It seems like we’ve been calling practical special effects and special make-up effects a dying art for more than twenty years, yet here we are in 2016 and the art form still has vast swathes of admirers advocating its return to prominence in a cinematic landscape which seems overrun with CGI. This new documentary from the makers of 2012’s Ray Harryhausen: Special Effects Titan may seem to be primarily an exercise in nostalgia, in that it casts a wistful, even elegiac eye back over decades of classic movie creature work which seemed to have been stopped in its tracks in the wake of Jurassic Park and the rise of digital creatures. However, this isn’t a simple-minded ‘practical good, CG bad’ diatribe; rather, it’s an exploration of the many different ways in which filmmakers can bring the products of their imagination to life on screen, and how more often than not a judicious combination of the various approaches (which, not for nothing, was very much the case on Jurassic Park) proves to be the most fruitful path.
Creature Designers: The Frankenstein Complex may have a somewhat ostentatious title, hinting at a deep psychological exploration of the drive to create monsters, but it’s ultimately directors Alexandre Poncet and Gilles Penso present us with a fairly grounded chronicle of the creature FX industry. Much of it isn’t necessarily telling as much we haven’t heard before, but it does take a fairly fresh angle inasmuch as its told for the most part from the point of view of the FX artists themselves, without too much input from the directors who generally take the spotlight. It also takes an interesting approach in that, in many instances, actual footage from the films in question is absent; it seems fair to assume that for the most part this would be down to the inability to secure the rights to this footage, but in a curious way it is worked to the film’s advantage, as instead we’re shown behind the scenes stills and test footage, allowing us to focus on the creatures from a technical and creative standpoint.
As you’d expect, Rick Baker and Greg Nicotero feature prominently, but so to do a great many perhaps less celebrated creature masters such as the Chiodo Brothers, Steve Johnson, John Vulich, Tom Woodruff Jr and Alec Gillis. Whilst naturally the film touches on the original make-up masters Lon Chaney, Jack Pierce and Bud Westmore, as well as stop-motion pioneers Willis O’Brien and Ray Harryhausen, the main focus of the film is the mid-70s to the mid-90s, when the term ‘special make-up effects’ first came into common use and animatronics allowed for more complex and lifelike creatures than had ever been shown on screen before – many the handiwork of the late, great Stan Winston. But as the documentary highlights, hand in hand with this was a decline in the use of the much-loved stop motion approach, with CG coming increasingly into the mix. Again, the film does not play this as a negative in and of itself, but it does explore how many creature masters – Rob Bottin being a notable example – grew increasingly disillusioned with filmmakers opting for the ‘fix it in post’ approach all too often, whilst audiences routinely assume that any handmade creations which do make the screen must have been created on computer.
It’s an affectionate treatment of the subject matter, and for the most part an interesting one. Honestly though, even at only 107 minutes it perhaps feels a little longer than it needs to be, largely because some of the interview subjects don’t add a great deal to the mix; the decision to give a few minutes over to Kevin Smith is a bit bewildering, given the director doesn’t have a great deal of experience with creature FX himself and mostly waxes lyrical about Jaws and Star Wars; hardly earth-shattering. Happily, we also have Guillermo del Toro on board for some more erudite insight into what draws us to monsters.
Anyone with a particular interest in the technical side of genre filmmaking will definitely want to track this documentary down, but for everyone else it isn’t necessarily a must-see; for the most part it feels a bit too much like an extended DVD extra. Still, it’s good fun, and does boast an enjoyable extra in a full-length video recording (very badly filmed, sadly) of Guillermo del Toro in an hour-long conversation with Tony Timpone at the Fantasia Film Festival 2015, mostly discussing the allure of monsters and how practical FX are essential to his filmmaking process.
Creature Designers: The Frankenstein Complex is out on DVD on 3rd October 2016, from Studiocanal.