History SpecialEffectFailure / LiveActionFilm

* ''A*P*E'', a Korean ''Film/KingKong'' rip-off said to have some of the worst models ever. At one point, the giant monster steps over a toy cow. You can even see the strings on the helicopters at several points during the climax.
** The ape suit itself looks like a cheap Halloween costume, and you can see it falling apart throughout the film.

* Say what you will about Michael Bay, but when ''Film/{{Armageddon}}'' came out it looked pretty darn impressive. However, even with Bay's heavy emphasis on special effects, there are still the expected slips:

* ''Franchise/BackToTheFuture''

*** While it seems throughout the films that they are trying to show Batman's eyes in shadow, it's especially obvious in several evenly-lit scenes in ''Film/BatmanAndRobin'' that Batman is just wearing black makeup around his eyes. During the final conversation between Batman and Mr. Freeze, the 'ends' of the makeup, and Clooney's normal skin can be seen briefly.
*** When Richard Grayson saves Barbra from falling off a bridge after a motorcycle race, Barbra is seen in front of a laughably bad ChromaKey shot, which features the skyline of Gotham City wobbling unnaturally behind Alicia Silverstone.

* There's a lot of bad special effects through the ''[[Film/BillAndTedsExcellentAdventure Bill & Ted]]'' franchise, but one particularly glaring example is in ''Bogus Journey'' when Bad Robot Ted is holding onto Bad Robot Bill's head, which alternates between the actual actor in close-ups to... a very unconvincing prop in wider shots.
** Also noteworthy is the scene with Colonel Oates in Hell. The barracks is supposed to stretch on infinitely, but you can tell where the set ends and the matte painting begins, especially when Bill & Ted are doing pushups.
* In ''Billion Dollar Brain'', when [[spoiler:Leo is shot dead, it's glaringly obvious that the blood looks like tomato sauce.]]

** There is a shot in ''Film/BladeTrinity'' where Blade opens his eyes after seemingly being knocked out during a police raid, and his eyes look like very bad composited CGI. This was done in a hurry because Wesley Snipes was being difficult on set and refused to open his eyes during filming of the scene, requiring that the production team put in a quick fix to cover his lack of involvement. The end result looks very fake.

* Creator/RogerCorman's ''Creature from the Haunted Sea'' has a hilariously bad monster costume, even by 1950s/60s B-movie standards. It's a weird fuzzy creature with tennis ball eyes, complete with ping-pong ball pupils, and it wears diving flippers.
** ''Series/MalcolmInTheMiddle'' inserts a shot of this monster into the opening credits, in which it [[InterruptedIntimacy snatches an unaware woman during a romantic moment.]]

* ''Film/DamnationAlley'' features an uber-cheesy motorcycle vs. giant scorpions scene that looks like it was done as a 4th-grade summer-school project. What's truly mind-boggling is that this ''isn't'' a BMovie -- it was made the same year as ''[[Film/ANewHope Star Wars]]'' and its budget was 50% higher.
** Not to mention the rubber-mat cockroaches. And the "flood". And the lava-light sky.

* ''Film/TheDarkKnightTrilogy''

* The movie ''Film/{{Driven}}'' has most of its racing scenes actually filmed with real cars, but a few are CGI, and it shows. The CGI quality is actually pretty good, and it would have been marvelous in a space setting where nobody expects battleships to be too realistic. But since ''Driven'' has real-life subjects, the contrast between real and CGI scenes makes the latter really jump out.
** Midway through the street chase scene, Jimmy's racecar speeds over a manhole cover, which bounces back upwards and flies through the air. Joe (in the car chasing him) narrowly misses it as the cover flies past him -- and the shot in which this happens is so laughably fake it looks unrealistic. We see a comically-small manhole cover pass from right to left on-screen, just brushing past Joe's face. Aside from the fact that the cover is much too small, Creator/SylvesterStallone no-sells the effect of being an inch away from a fatal flying object. Not helping matters is that the theatrical trailer for the film shows an alternate take of this scene that not only looks better (there's no obvious CGI), but Stallone actually sells the effect of nearly being hit by the cover.

* The scene in ''Film/ExMachina'' where Ava [[spoiler:takes an arm and skin from Jade. Jade’s Asian skin becomes Caucasian once Ava applies it to herself. Ava's normal torso looks like a busty woman wearing a bra and clothes, rendered in chicken wire, but when ''applying more material'' (skin from the spare android), she turns into a woman with smaller, unsupported breasts. This comes as a consequence of having Ava's actress's (Creator/AliciaVikander) actual nude body as her skinned form, while her prior robotic torso had been CG-rendered.]]

*** The scene of [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M4UwBldkKcQ Human Torch flying through an airplane]] features some questionable flight effects, and part of his flames outright disappear for a moment when he flies through debris.

* ''Film/{{Frankenhooker}}'' features lots of clearly fake special effects, [[Main/SoBadItsGood none of which detract from audience enjoyment]]. Particularly memorable moments are the obvious substitution splices of [[spoiler: papier-mâché hookers exploding after smoking "supercrack"]] and the puppet-work for the[[spoiler: John Carpenter-esque spare limbs monsters in the freezer which kills Zorro the Pimp]].

* In ''[[Film/TheFastAndTheFurious Furious 7]]'', due to RealLifeWritesThePlot (the death of actor Paul Walker), Brian O'Connor had to be replaced in certain scenes with body doubles and CGI. In some instances, such as the first scene with him and his son, this effect works. In others... not so much. Most notable is the scene where the gang stands in front of the L.A. skyline and discusses their plan (Brian is seen awkwardly staring out and turning his head robotically in shots), and the final scene, where [[spoiler:he drives up to Dom's car and speaks to him, and there is an obvious seam from where the footage of his face was pasted in from a similar scene in ''Fast Five'')]].

* The entire Showa ''Film/{{Gamera}}'' franchise has some pretty poor effects - quite often even worse than the ''Godzilla'' films of the period - due to their low budgets. Ironically, [[SugarWiki/VisualEffectsOfAwesome this situation is reversed]] by the two series' Heisei films.
** Even the Heisei Gamera trilogy isn't completely immune to this trope. Several of the shots from ''Film/GameraGuardianOfTheUniverse'' where Gamera and Gyaos fly above Earth's atmosphere look off-puttingly fake. Thankfully, such instances were fully smoothed out by the time the second and third films were made.

* ''Film/{{Ghostbusters 1984}}''

** Though not nearly as bad, the hand-puppet used for close-up shots of Godzilla in [[Film/{{Gojira}} the preceding film]] looks noticeably different from the head on the full costume.

** {{Subverted}} in [[Film/GodzillaVsMegalon Godzilla vs. Megalon]]; The infamous tail slide may look like this at first, but the fact that they show it ''again'' shows that it was ''intentional''.

* ''Franchise/{{Halloween}}''

* In ''Film/Hellboy2019'', when Hellboy comes to on the floor of the elevator that takes him down to [[spoiler:Baba Yaga's realm]], his horn stumps can be seen moving on his forehead when they briefly scrape along the floor, revealing them as the glued-on prosthetics they are.
** The film has received much flak for its CGI monster effects, with many comparing them to creatures from a UsefulNotes/Playstation2 game.

* ''Franchise/{{Highlander}}''

* An especially absurd example: [[Film/HouseOfTheDead The film]] by Creator/UweBoll ''very'' loosely based on the ''Franchise/HouseOfTheDead'' video game series intersperses actual gameplay footage from the games. ''In a live-action film.'' It's not even ''true'' gameplay footage, it's footage of the ''demo run'' from the arcade version, with the "insert a coin" message blinking! Apparently, the two quarters required to actually play the game would have tripled the film's budget.

* ''Franchise/IndianaJones''

* Surprisingly, ''Film/JurassicPark''--a film lauded for its masterful combination of practical and computer-generated special effects--qualifies for this. There are numerous scenes in the first film and some of the sequels where errors slipped through, such as an out-of-place potted plant on the soundstage being visible during the tour car attack scene when the front car is flipped over, and as the raptor is standing in the threshold at the beginning of the kitchen scene you can see a stage hand reach out to stabilize the animatronic puppet. These are very much BlinkAndYouMissIt compared to a lot of other Special Effect Failures, though, and are so tiny and inconsequential that they don't hurt the finished product at all.

** The final battle contains absurd amounts of CGI that's comparable to that of the video game ''VideoGame/InjusticeGodsAmongUs'' rather than a major blockbuster, with the BlueAndOrangeContrast having been inverted after [[RealLifeWritesThePlot Joss Whedon took over reshoots from Zack Snyder]].

* ''Kunoichi Lady Ninja''. [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vmn63tFP9OQ Vagina tractor beam.]] 1982-ish special effects.
** Let's also include the [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ila6YYwmMHU shocking]] attack, complete with wobbly camera and transposed background.

* ''Film/TheLordOfTheRings''

** The funniest has to be the BigBad's death: torn in half. How do we know this? Because the camera showing his face has a piece of cardboard on the right half, then on the left half, both sides having the whole nose. SpecialEffectsFailure doesn't ''begin'' to describe it...

* In ''Film/ManosTheHandsOfFate'' Torgo is supposed to be a satyr, but this fails rather spectacularly because his actor is wearing the leg construction ''backwards''. It makes him look like he just has huge knees.
** The ''Series/MysteryScienceTheater3000'' [[Recap/MysteryScienceTheater3000S04E24ManosTheHandsOfFate take on the film]] posits that it looks like he's wearing Depends.

** A fairly minor one in ''Film/IronMan1'', but when [[spoiler:Iron Monger, AKA Obadiah Stane, runs at Pepper after discovering her underground, Stane is very clearly not moving.]]

** ''Film/SpiderManFarFromHome'' has moments of obvious CGI during [[spoiler: Mysterio's illusion sequence to Spider-Man, and during the final battle against his hybrid Elemental. This may have been intentional since Mysterio's illusions incorporate CGI in-universe, so of course they would look fake because they are fake in-universe. However, it doesn't explain why Spider-Man's CG model looks as fake as the illusions in the final battle despite Spidey himself not being an illusion.]]

* ''The Medallion'' has plenty of bad green screen, WireFu, and a scene where Lee Evans pokes Creator/JackieChan with a knife, and light shines out of the wound—because Jackie is now immortal, see.

* ''Film/{{Megaforce}}'' has some awful moments. [[http://cinemassacre.com/2011/03/18/megaforce-movie-review/ See this review]].

* ''Film/MortalKombat'' has some really bad effects, like Reptile, the spear that comes out of Scorpion's hand, the shot of Sub-Zero freezing a monk, Goro looking incredibly goofy like a cousin of the Ninja Turtles, bad ChromaKey and that AWFUL CG shot of going up Shang Tsung's tower, spinning around it and entering the top window to reveal a badly superimposed Sonja.

** [[http://www.jabootu.com/mka.htm This review]] nominates the stop-motion animation of a "velosphere" rolling into a tunnel as "quite possibly the single most inept special effect to hit the screen in the last twenty years of theatrical cinema." The film has obvious cuts and a slower framerate when the characters board them, and the actors inside are clearly gyrating against obvious and shaky ChromaKey effects.

* ''Film/TheMummyTrilogy''

*** Jet Li's character transforms into several things made of bad CGI, including a hydra-like three-headed-dragon.

* At the end of ''Ordeal by Innocence'', the murderer [[spoiler:commits suicide by jumping off a cliff.]] The camera cutting to a wide angle isn't enough to hide that [[spoiler:the falling "person" is a mannequin.]]
* ''Film/OverdrawnAtTheMemoryBank'' uses a lot of ChromaKey. The problem is that the movie is shot entirely on VHS tape, leading to a ton of pixellation. There's also a point where they don't match up a scene of Raul Julia TalkingToHimself properly, leading to a very awkward pause.

** Bela Lugosi's 'body double' looks nothing like him. He is about a foot taller and is nearly bald. He actually hides his face behind a cape, and we're not supposed to notice.

* ''Franchise/PlanetOfTheApes''

* ''Prancer'' was billed with the tagline "Come see Prancer fly." It is about a poor little girl on an apple farm and a reindeer in a pen who may or may not be Prancer. The reindeer does not fly until the very end when he is shown leaping... only to cut immediately to a twinkling dot flying up to join other twinkling dots. ''Film/PumaMan'' has better special effects than this movie.
* ''Film/{{Predator}}'': when the characters point their guns in the direction of the camera, the blank-firing adapters are clearly visible down the barrels.

* In the final scene of ''Film/RemoWilliamsTheAdventureBegins'', when Chiun runs on the water's surface to join Remo and Major Fleming in a boat, you can clearly see what Joel Grey's running on. And it ain't water.
** A few minutes earlier, when Remo is fighting his way through the villain's hideout, he executes a running dive through a plate glass window. The glass is replaced with already-cracked safety glass well before the actor actually hits it.
* ''[[http://www.stomptokyo.com/scott/yongary/movies/yonggary-99/yonggary-pictures.html Reptilian]]'', a 1999 Korean Kaiju film made to cash in on the 1998 ''Film/{{Godzilla|1998}}'' remake, and somewhat of a ''Film/YongaryMonsterFromTheDeep'' (see below) remake, has to have some of the absolute worst CGI ever. And the sad part is, it is apparently an upgraded version, so it may have looked worse at one point...

* The green screen effects in ''Film/TheRoom'' are pretty bad, although compared to the rest of the film, they are almost passable.
** The "throw the TV out of window" scene also features an obviously hollow prop, though if you've survived that long into the film you're unlikely to care.
* ''Film/RunSilentRunDeep''

* The ''Shark Attack'' TV movie series are examples of the junk ''Jaws'' rip-offs, especially ''Film/SharkAttack3Megalodon''. Awful rubber sharks and ludicrous green-screen-meshed-with-stock-footage [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1nzd0R_OeOc appears]].
** The eponymous Megalodon is frequently seen rising up out of the water to grab victims in its mouth. This is accomplished by superimposing footage of the victim over the mouth of footage of a shark head. The (main) problem is that the superimposed victim is always the same size relative to the shark head, whether said "victim" is a person, raft full of people, or entire boat, leading to the impression that the shark can change size.

* ''Film/SpyKids''

** The quality of special effects in ''Film/StarTrekVTheFinalFrontier'' is noticeably worse than in the earlier ''Series/StarTrekTheOriginalSeries'' movies (in particular, a shuttlecraft launch that is clearly a two-dimensional cell pulled across the frame).[[note]]It's such a SpecialEffectsFailure that Associates And Ferren were never allowed near a major movie - or, indeed, a ''movie'' - again.[[/note]]

*** ''Film/StarTrekGenerations'' reuses the Klingon ship effects from ''The Undiscovered Country''. Not necessarily a SpecialEffectsFailure, as they are good effects, but definitely an uncharacteristically cheap decision. This is made more jarring by the fact that Riker ''clearly'' orders a full spread of torpedoes to be fired because "we'll only get one shot." When the Klingon ship begins to decloak, the ''Enterprise'' only fires a single torpedo despite his order, because only one was used in ''Star Trek VI''.

* ''Franchise/StarWars''

** [[StylisticSuck Used intentionally]] in ''Film/TheLastJedi'' a few times as part of a deliberate homage to the original trilogy. First, when Connix closes a door aboard the ''Raddus'', it closes using a StopTrick effect that was used to close the prop doors in ''Film/ANewHope''. More notably, the appearance of [[spoiler: Yoda]] featured a puppet instead of the CGI rendering most younger fans are familiar with. Which version looks better is best left to YMMV, but in the film, it was done to mirror [[spoiler: how Yoda appeared in ''Film/TheEmpireStrikesBack'', down to digging out the molds used to make the original Yoda puppet, and tracking down the same artist who painted the original puppet's eyes.]]

* In the film ''Film/TeenagersFromOuterSpace'', they apparently couldn't even afford a decent prop for the gargon monsters, so they just used a lobster's ''shadow''.

* Part of the infamous blood-test scene in ''[[Film/TheThing1982 The Thing]]'', where the [[spoiler: Palmer-Thing splits its own head open and uses the halves to grab Windows' head. Windows' body is clearly a dummy - it looks much lighter and smaller than Windows. Also, Palmer's clothing briefly changes from a denim vest to a green t-shirt. ]]

* The movie ''Film/{{Thunderpants}}'' covers the main character's birth. He ends up farting, propelling himself out of the birth canal, up into the air, and into the arms of a doctor. While in the air (and, might it be added, at an impossibly steep angle), we get a close up of the new-born baby. It's obviously a doll, complete with hair, painted eyes, and not even being the right size.

* ''Literature/{{Twilight}}''
** In the first movie, Robert Pattinson's "sparkle". It looks like he's sweating.

* When Christina Applegate's character falls off the obstacle course in ''Film/{{Vacation}}'' she is obviously replaced with a CGI double, couldn't they have hired a stunt double?

* ''Literature/TheWarOfTheWorlds''

** One of the [[DuelingMovies three versions]] released in 2005 is set during the same period as the book and claims to be the most faithful adaptation. While the quality may be up for debate, the quality of the effects is not. The heat-ray is straight out of a '90s video game, the tripods clatter along independently of the surfaces that they're standing on and [[HollywoodNight nighttime]] is represented by superimposing starry night sky over ''some'' of the visible blue afternoon sky while being filmed in bright sunny daylight.

* ''Film/WhoFramedRogerRabbit'' was innovative when it came out in 1988, and still holds up today. However, there's one scene when Eddie is in the alley in Toontown and there are several shots where, due to time and budget concerns (see the DVDCommentary for more information), they had to opt out of rotoscoping out the fiberglass prop gun standing in for Eddie's toon gun and replace it with animation. Sticks out like a sore thumb among [[SugarWiki/VisualEffectsOfAwesome the rest of the film's effects.]]
** One really good example of a more "accidental" Special Effect Failure is when Roger pleads for the director Raoul to let him do another take. Raoul's coat sleeve goes up to Roger's hand, instead of Roger grabbing it himself.

* ''Film/XMenFilmSeries''
** From ''Film/XMen1'', in the scene where Magneto force pulls the dog tags from Sabertooth's neck, the wire connected to them is slightly visible. Even more so on the Blu-Ray release.
** Hugh Jackman's Wolverine beard in ''Film/X2XMenUnited'' is well made, but close-ups make it very easy to see the mesh the hairs are glued to.

*** The effect used to depict Emma Frost's [[TakenForGranite diamond form]] pops out for its low quality.

** In ''Film/XMenFirstClass'', a quiet scene has Magneto teaching Mystique that she can't focus on hiding her mutant identity when threats could come from anywhere, demonstrating his point by levitating the weight she's lifting into the air and dropping it on her, forcing her to change back into her mutant form to grab it. Not only is the weight noticeably hanging on wires when Magneto levitates it (it can be seen jiggling in place as he speaks), but the makeup used when Mystique grabs the falling weight looks like it was whipped together for Jennifer Lawrence in a hurry, as it has an obvious "seam" where the makeup ends and her actual forehead begins.

** The film is extremely infamous for its abuse of the Dutch angle throughout the film, with the majority of the film being shot at an angle (to the point where some reviews referred to the movie as being filmed in "tilt-o-vision"); this was intended to cover another special effects failure, namely the fact that the supposed nine-foot-tall Psychlos aren't actually as tall as they're supposed to be, but it just makes for a film that looks as clumsily shot as it is badly made.

* ''Film/{{Poltergeist}}'':

* The CGI effects for the monkeys from ''Film/{{Jumanji}}'' haven't aged well, they look like they came from a PlayStation game with their fur not looking like it was finished rendering and their cartoonish faces.

** Pictured is an infamous scene in ''Film/Jaws3D'', where an obviously fake shark slowly advancing towards the window of a tank... and it's supposed to be scary because the 3D is meant to make it seem like the shark is swimming toward the audience. In theory, this might have worked. In execution, however, the "shark" in question moves towards the audience much too slowly to evoke fear. It seems more to float in the audience's direction, lacking any sort of motion to show swimming or, indeed, ''basic vital signs''. That's not even mentioning the fact that it simply stops dead in its tracks after smashing the glass of the tank. You know, the tank that's underwater. [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=arsAllZIa1Y It really has to be seen to be appreciated.]]

* In the first ''Literature/{{Twilight}}'' movie, Robert Pattinson's "sparkle". It looks like he's sweating. On top of that, the part where they rip James apart is obviously foam.

* ''Film/Ultraviolet'' had a notoriously rushed production that resulted in some of the temporary CGI renders making it to the final print of the film. One of the most notable instances includes the infamous [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j972H8SnZRs Motorcycle Chase]].

** In several shots, the babies have their heads superimposed over the bodies of midget actors, with one particularly infamous case being when the main hero baby dances clad in a white suit while trying on various outfits in a mall clothing store. Once again, it disturbs more than it actually amuses.

* Zaphod Beeblebrox's second head in ''Film/TheHitchhikersGuideToTheGalaxy''. The fans refer to it as "The Pez Dispenser". It's... pretty bad. Thankfully it gets removed about halfway through the film. At least it isn't a mannequin head on a stick shoved onto his shoulder.

-->'''([=MST3K=] crew laughs)'''\\

*** Similarly to the aforementioned ''Film/{{Jaws}}'', the creature in the garbage compactor wound up looking so awful that it was filmed as little more than a bunch of tentacles reaching from the water — and is arguably much scarier for it.

** ''Film/JawsTheRevenge'' suffers heavily from this. Besides the awful model work used when the shark ''explodes'' at the end of the film, there are some spots in which you can see the mechanisms controlling the shark. The film also makes blatantly obvious the finale was reshot for the international and home release, with blatant StockFootageFailure from the original film and even earlier in the same film. There's also scars that keep disappearing and reappearing on the shark model between shots.

* Pictured is an infamous scene in ''Film/Jaws3D'', where an obviously fake shark slowly advancing towards the window of a tank... and it's supposed to be scary because the 3D is meant to make it seem like the shark is swimming toward the audience. In theory, this might have worked. In execution, however, the "shark" in question moves towards the audience much too slowly to evoke fear. It seems more to float in the audience's direction, lacking any sort of motion to show swimming or, indeed, ''basic vital signs''. That's not even mentioning the fact that it simply stops dead in its tracks after smashing the glass of the tank. You know, the tank that's underwater. [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=arsAllZIa1Y It really has to be seen to be appreciated.]]

** In a rare example of ''lighting'' failure in a blocklbuster movie, the way that Batman's costume is lit makes it look very, ''very'' stupid. His nose is blown out and the entire thing looks cheap and rubbery, when it was one of the few universally praised parts of the previous film, ''Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice''. It very obviously was never meant to be lit this way and does ''not'' hold up when it is.

* ''Film/JawsTheRevenge'' suffers heavily from this. Besides the awful model work used when the shark ''explodes'' at the end of the film, there are some spots in which you can see the mechanisms controlling the shark.

* In ''Film/JuwannaMann'', during the locker room scene after the titular character's first game, one of his/her fake breast forms flies out of under his/her shirt and onto the window. It looks obviously CGI, and in one shot it disappears on the last frame.

** The film is extremely infamous for its abuse of the Dutch angle throughout the film, with the majority of the film being shot at an angle; presumably the intention is to create a sense of tension as the Dutch angle is designed to do, but its overuse here has the opposite effect and makes for a film that looks as clumsily shot as it is badly made.
*** The overuse of dutch angles (to the point where some reviews referred to the movie as being filmed in "tilt-o-vision" was used to cover for another special effects failure, namely the covering the fact that the supposed nine-foot-tall Psychlos aren't actually as tall as they're supposed to be.

* Creator/DavidLynch's ''Film/{{Dune}}''

* ''Film/{{Catwoman}}'' adds special effects failures to its litany of other ones. In fairness, it's probably technically superior to the ''Film/SpiderManTrilogy'' films, but as they're trying to model different layers of costume and skin and imposing clearly inhuman motion on a human figure, it's more glaringly bad. Add to that the final fight being mostly CGI when it merely involves two human characters who (some wall-crawling aside) don't do anything a good pair of stunt-women couldn't do.

*** As Ripley repairs Ash, who has been revealed to be an android, the cuts between Ian Holm's head and the dummy's head used are very jarring. Worse still is the fact that the cut was intended to be seamless from dummy to live actor, with no change of camera angle or an in-between shot. Made even worse later when Parker sets the (now dummy again) head on fire, which blows off its skin and reveals a white plastic head underneath without a hint of mouth, nostrils, defined eyes or indeed anything to suggest that it's something other than a piece of solid plastic. Couldn't they have just cut the shot a few seconds early?

* ''Film/TheAmazingBulk'' is a {{Mockbuster}} of ''Film/TheIncredibleHulk'' consisting of CGI largely taken from [[StockFootage online libraries of 3D models and animations]]... and they ''still'' look better than the jittery and at times [[BodyHorror horrifying]] animation of the Bulk itself, at least when he isn't a live-action purple bald guy or a pair of Incredible Hulk electronic hand toys painted purple. The live-action scenes are no better: they're entirely filmed against a greenscreen, so any scene involving movement either has the actors jog or walk in place, or just has them stand still as the fake-looking backgrounds scroll and stop around them. [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cHjhdFh2oso Watch the epic chase scene here for proof]].

** Regardless of the film's scientific inaccuracies, the scenes on the asteroid are quite elaborate and very imposing. However, in several shots we can see that the rock shards of its surface are surprisingly fragile and in some shots they even look rubbery; such obstacles likely would've shredded both shuttles and Frost's drilling rig if they weren't obvious props.

* The effects on ''Film/AttackOfThe50FootWoman'' are bad even by '50s BMovie standards. Most of what we see of the giant Nancy is a floppy papier-mache hand. Apparently, that one hand ate up most of the effects budget, since all of the process shots are done with double exposure rather than ChromaKey, resulting in see-through giants. To cap it off, when Nancy finally gets even with her no-good husband, his stand-in dummy is not made to scale.

** For the opening sequence, Creator/JaneFonda was made to roll around on a pane of glass to give the illusion that she was floating in zero gravity. Unfortunately during some close-ups she is very obviously reflected on the glass.

*** The overuse of dutch angles (to the point where some reviews referred to the movie as being filmed in "tilt-o-vision" was used to cover for another special effects failure, namely the covering the fact that the supposed nine foot tall Psychlos aren't actually as tall as they're supposed to be.

* ''Film/TheBelkoExperiment'' involves office workers with bombs in their heads. Well, time comes that a character is picking the bombs out of dead character's heads... and it is ''plainly'' obvious that they are nothing more than small ball bearings from a hardware store. They made literally zero attempt to hide it, either.

* There's a lot of bad special effects through the ''[[Film/BillAndTedsExcellentAdventure Bill & Ted]]'' franchise, but one particularly glaring example is in ''Bogus Journey'', when Bad Robot Ted is holding onto Bad Robot Bill's head, which alternates between the actual actor in close-ups to... a very unconvincing prop in wider shots.

** A ''really'' bad one comes from the Battle of Stirling Bridge, when the English cavalry charges the Scottish lines to impale themselves on hastily raised pikes. The cut moves to a P.O.V. shot from the pikeholders' point of view as obviously animatronic horses crash into the pikes. That wouldn't be so bad, except it's also quite obvious the horses are standing on a wheeled platform - their legs don't move at all. During a charge. And then, just before the next cut, the platform rolls ever so slightly backwards...

* ''Film/{{Carnosaur}}'' is, quite possibly, one of the only movie franchises to have the quality of its effects get '''''lower''''' with each passing film. A couple of the more glaring ones include the awkwardly designed (and awkward-''looking'') raptor suits in the third movie, a hand pulling on one of the tree hugger's legs in the first film (meant to be a small dinosaur) and the sad excuses for puppets and animatronics representing the dinosaurs themselves throughout all of the films.
** The climatic battle in the first movie is shot mostly with models. '''''Very''''' unconvincing models.

** Of course, that didn't stop Creator/TheBBC from making a live-action miniseries of The Chronicles of Narnia in the early 90s. Fauns, Centaurs, Minotaurs, and some of the other normal-looking creatures are well done, with people in good costumes. Others, like phoenixes and fairies, are very obviously animated in the midst of an otherwise-live action film. The effect is poorly done and extremely jarring.

** At one point Arnie passes by a dog who is ''supposed'' to be barking and snarling at him. But, when Arnie walks by, you can tell the dog isn't fixated on him, and keeps looking off-camera (probably at an off-camera dog trainer).

* ''Film/TheCreepingTerror'' features a monster which looks remarkably like a giant tea cosy. It eats people, but in order to do so it has to move towards them very slowly, and the actors have to help it out by crawling into its mouth.
* In the Film/HammerHorror cheapie ''Film/TheCurseOfTheMummysTomb'', a character empties a revolver into the mummy's chest at point-blank range. The slugs appear to evaporate at some point between the end of the barrel and the mummy, because the filmmakers declined to include any impact effects...including ''sound effects''. Especially jarring if watched back-to-back with Hammer's ''Film/TheMummy1959'', in which a similar scene results in chunks of the mummy's body being blasted off.
* You wouldn't expect much from a film named ''Cyborg Cop 2'', and you would be right not to, but the ''pièce de résistance'' of its low effort effects comes when the protagonist destroys the evil cyborg minion army, consisting of a shot of a person in a green jumpsuit, the hero firing at them, and then an obvious mannequin in a green jumpsuit blowing up. It wouldn't be so bad, except A) they repeat this pattern half a dozen times in quick succession, and B) said mannequins apparently can't stand up on their own, and are just leaning against bits of scenery.

** Midway through the street chase scene, Jimmy' racecar speeds over a manhole cover, which bounces back upwards and flies through the air. Joe (in the car chasing him) narrowly misses it as the cover flies past him -- and the shot in which this happens is so laughably fake it looks unrealistic. We see a comically-small manhole cover pass from right to left on-screen, just brushing past Joe's face. Aside from the fact that the cover is much too small, Creator/SylvesterStallone no-sells the effect of being an inch away from a fatal flying object. Not helping matters is that the theatrical trailer for the film shows an alternate take of this scene that not only looks better (there's no obvious CGI), but Stallone actually sells the effect of nearly being hit by the cover.

** Far worse looking is the hilariously bad shield scenes, where the actors look like they're dressed up in holographic cardboard Halloween robot costumes. (This ''was'' one of the first uses of CGI in a movie, however.)

*** The four themselves consist of a Mr. Fantastic pulled straight from the director's [[NightmareFuel night]] [[UncannyValley terrors]], a Human Torch that can't keep his all his flames lit (or composited properly) and a pitiful attempt at Sue's force fields. The only one that's even remotely passable (in comparison) is The Thing, and that's saying ''a lot''. [[OffModel And his face still looks different in terms of structure and physical appearance from shot to shot.]]

*** The "organic" test for the matter transporter has an obvious CGI chimpanzee that is far less impressive than the ape effects used by ''Film/RiseOfThePlanetOfTheApes'' from the same studio. As Creator/BradJones points out in his [[WebVideo/MidnightScreenings review of the film]], given the time, money and manpower needed to make a CG chimp, it would've been cheaper to just get an actual chimp.

* ''Film/FinalDestination'' uses CG deaths for a lot of the kills, and for all of the premonitions. Whereas the prosthetics and physical special effects are on the whole convincing, the cartoon blood, organs and other kibble are more reminiscent of a mid-90's video game cutscene. It's especially odd in that the fourth and fifth movies' CG is somehow worse than the first three's.
* ''Film/FifthElement'' - When Zorg blows up his henchman for failing him, the henchman dummy is learly visible still standing even after the explosion.

* It's hard to tell if ''Film/FunInBalloonLand'' actually had a special effects budget, but if it did, it qualifies under this. The costumes look awful, to the point they make mascot costumes at a 50s amusement park like high tech ([[ValuesDissonance the Indians look]] [[{{Gonk}} downright horrific]], and the 'King of Atlantis' character has a very obviously fake beard tied on by string). [[AccidentalNightmareFuel The balloons somehow look even worse]], with the animal ones having dead eyes and open mouths and the human ones being horrendously out of proportion in an UncannyValley way. The movie's sets don't even look like what they're meant to represent, and were obviously filmed in an empty warehouse somehow. Then to top it all off, they didn't even film a middle or [[NoEnding ending]] to the story. It's just stock footage of a balloon parade (that lasts for 40 minutes) and a copy of the intro respectively. It's an abysmal failure on the effects level in every sense.

** Most infamous are the Garbage Pail Kids themselves; the costumes for them are designed so badly that their mouths barely close when they talk. Also noticeable are the soulless looks in their eyes ([[UncannyValley which rarely blink]]) and their poorly-functioning limbs. In some shots, you can even see where the heads attach to the rest of the suits; all of this, among many other things, make for characters who are not only ugly beyond comprehension, but also incredibly creepy.

** In ''Film/GodzillaVsMegaguirus'', the villainous monster, Megaguirus, is spectacularly menacing-looking... except that in the big reveal scene, when Megaguirus takes off, she is held up by incredibly obvious strings. And this is in a movie made in the year '''2000'''. Even more jarring in that the wires holding up the puppets, like Mothra, [[AvertedTrope are all but invisible in most of the movies]]. This can be blamed on [[ExecutiveMeddling Sony's handling of the film]]; when they put it on DVD, they used a brighter version of the print. The strings aren't visible in Japanese prints as those particular shots are too dark for the strings to be visible.

** The suit in ''Film/GodzillaVsGigan'' is the Soshingeki-Goji suit (from ''Kaiju Soshingeki'' or ''Film/DestroyAllMonsters''). In the '70s, Toho stopped spending money on making a new Godzilla costume for every movie, so the 1968 suit ended up getting used for ''three'' more movies. The suit would be falling apart anyway, since it's made of rubber, but all the fights it went through only adds to this, so that Godzilla's skin is slowly falling off over the course of the film.

*** The scale is completely off, with Godzilla seemingly changing size compared to the surrounding buildings throughout the film. The worst being when he can only fit her arm into a tunnel during the cab chase, when his entire body earlier fit into what looked like a smaller one.

* Everything about Charles Stratton/Tom Thumb in ''Film/TheGreatestShowman''. His lips look like they've been [[SynchroVox pasted onto his face]] a la ''WesternAnimation/ClutchCargo'' and the dubbed over deep voice looks like something out of an old Godzilla dub. They also have the actor, who is already 4'2", look even smaller by having him go on his knees and paste new legs on him, which becomes ''really'' obvious whenever he's walking (just look at his walk when he has his big solo during "This is Me"). They also hide the limitations this effect has on this actor poorly as the character keeps disappearing from places he was at just a second ago during every big dance scene during "This Is Me" and, in "From Now On", he just claps his hands (and kicks his "legs" once or twice) while everyone else dances (and even at some points you can see them trying to hide him behind a pole to make sure the limitations don't stick out too much).

** The ChromaKey effects in the first film are pretty poor. When the Trio talks to Hagrid outside his hut near the end of the film, it's particularly obvious that the view of Hogwarts behind the Trio has been pasted in. The quality of the film's Quidditch match also suffers for this reason. Fortunately, they fixed these issues on the second film, and the Quidditch match in that film looks much better.

* An especially absurd example: [[Film/HouseOfTheDead The film]] by Creator/UweBoll ''very'' loosely based on the ''Franchise/HouseOfTheDead'' video game series intersperses actual gameplay footage from the games. ''In a live action film.'' It's not even ''true'' gameplay footage, it's footage of the ''demo run'' from the arcade version, with the "insert a coin" message blinking! Apparently, the two quarters required to actually play the game would have tripled the film's budget.
* ''Film/{{Hulk}}''. While its engine is actually impressive, and the depiction is quite faithful to the comic book, it still left most viewers unprepared for what a 3D version of that Hulk would have looked like in real life. Some remarked that he looks like WesternAnimation/{{Shrek}}, and others wished he'd been played by Lou Ferrigno (despite Ferrigno being human sized). [[Film/TheIncredibleHulk The 2008 Incredible Hulk movie]] follows up on these concerns, giving the character a darker green complexion and a lot more veins and wrinkles, more in line with the '90s drawing style of Dale Keown.

-->"You idiot! These are not them! You captured their stunt doubles!"

*** To say nothing of the [[spoiler:Shia [=LaBeouf=] Tarzan sequence]]. Not everything is better with monkeys. Actually, let's extend it to everything involving animals in the film, because there are some of the fakest prairie dogs ever committed to film. And there have been a lot.

** There is some slightly obvious ChromaKey work in ''Film/IndianaJonesAndTheTempleOfDoom'', such as the scene where Indy, Short Round and Willie have to escape their plane before it crashes. While the raft being used as a makeshift cushion and the ensuing whitewater rafting sequence still hold up, the plane crashing into the mountainside is clearly a separate element from the raft sledding down the mountain. The scenes outside the Temple, when they are clinging to the cliffside while the flood bursts past them, is also pretty badly done.

* At the end of the 1998 film ''Film/JungleBoy,'' a snake statue mutates into a really badly animated giant cobra. Also the film has a obvious elephant prop.

** When they're looking out on Jareth's "kingdom", Sarah say it doesn't look that far. And it really doesn't. It's obviously a matte painting.

* ''Film/LaraCroftTombRaider'' and its sequel have examples of this. In the first, there are the stone monkeys in the Cambodian temple and the deconstructed Husky dogs (and various other objects) in the time storm. The second, however, is far worse. The underwater sequences at the start of the film features bad CGI fish, but the most triumphant example has to be when Lara Croft is rescued by a submarine, and the matte work of the sunset in the background is just awful. Elsewhere in the film, we have the studio backlot as a bad substitute for a Kazakh prison, rancor lookalikes that emerge from the shadows, some clumsy WireFu involving a fight on top of the heads of terracotta warriors, and the BigBad melting in acid.

** Hercules fights the Nemean Lion, which is one of the worst-animated CGI animals in recent memory. Apparently they used a lion head prop on a stick on set, and were restricted to its movements when making the CGI. See it in action here: [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bo5nkalL56g]]

** During one shot of the Carrousel scene, you can clearly see the wires holding some of the people in the air. When this footage was reused for the TV series, this was also visible. It's been speculated that this wasn't an error, and that the citizens were actually meant to be hoisted up on wires in order to attempt renewal.

** In ''[[Film/TheLordOfTheRingsTheFellowshipOfTheRing The Fellowship of the Ring]]'' during the Mines of Moria, that one bit where we see Gollum's hands and eyes looks weird, since it was made before the final CGI model as seen in the other two films was created (Andy Serkis had, in fact, been cast, contrary to previous reports, as his voice is plainly heard during the torture scene just before Frodo leaves the Shire).

* ''The Man without a Face'' at one point shows a cat mauling a person, achieved by intercutting shots of a real cat with an incredibly unrealistic animatronic cat.

*** While the FX for Rocket has improved in the sequel, the green screen effects in the scene where Peter and Ego are playing catch are rather egregious and look more like Chris Pratt and Kurt Russell are playing catch behind an obviously green screened background than they are playing catch on Ego's planet.

* ''[[Creator/SeltzerAndFriedberg Meet the Spartans]]'' has a particularly confusing example of this: In a scene where Leonidas addresses the fat Spartan who just had his eyes punched out by an enraged opponent in a [[YourMom Yo Momma joke]] contest, the fat Spartan's eyes are chroma-keyed out of the picture... and you can clearly see the stone wall behind him through his eye holes, which would imply he's missing the back of his head as well... except he isn't, because just one shot ago the audience has a clear view of the back of his head, and he looks fine.

* ''[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=roYo5EQi7A4 The Mighty Gorga]]'' features a man in an [[OffTheShelfFX store bought gorilla suit]] fighting dinosaur handpuppets held in front of the camera. It looks about as rubbish as you'd expect it to look.

** Also on the topic of the CGI, at one point, the bear Zord loses its yellow coloring, ''then'' loses its blueish-black coloring immediately after. And the Ectomorphicon is standing not on the streets of Angel Grove, but the 3D animation program's grid in another scene.

*** The CGI used on Imhotep's ''Mummy'' form is a failure of truly epic proportions. Due to the limits of technology, the original Mummy is part CGI and part guy-in-makeup, making him look incredibly realistic in both his movements and his interactions with the actors. But here he is entirely CGI, making a firm clash of UncannyValley with special effects failure, with his dead, lifeless eyes, jerky movements, dry untextured body and (there is no other way to put this) a cheesy shit-eating grin. It doesn't help that the other cast members he interacts with apparently have no idea where he is meant to be at any one time, which draws unnecessary attention to the fact he isn't actually there.

** Creator/KevinSpacey-turned-cat is trying to prove he's human, so he does some pull ups to show his family. Said pull-ups are just one shot of the cat slipping off of a bar, reversed and repeated to give the illusion of a cat doing pull-ups. [[https://youtu.be/_jHA97HzhxE?t=2m15s It must be seen to be believed.]]

** The sheer crudeness of the cockpit and graveyard sets. The "cockpit" is clearly just two wooden panels with a shower curtain and a few pathetic props meant to be flying apparatuses[[note]]Here's a complete list: Semicircular pieces of wood for flying yokes, a circular slide rule and a clipboard.[[/note]]. The actors don't even appear to be sitting on proper chairs, just wooden boxes. The "graveyard" is obviously a soundstage, with graves that are too close together to bury bodies and makeshift headstones that are clearly made out of styrofoam or cardboard and wobble and fall over when people hit them.

** ''Film/BeneathThePlanetOfTheApes'', the first sequel, has this problem. In one shot, the pullover orangutan masks of the background apes are easy to make out (this is due to budget constrains on makeup).

* ''Prancer'' was billed with the tagline "Come see Prancer fly." It is about a poor little girl on an apple farm and a reindeer in a pen who may or may not be Prancer. The reindeer does not fly until the very end, when he is shown leaping... only to cut immediately to a twinkling dot flying up to join other twinkling dots. ''Film/PumaMan'' has better special effects than this movie.

* The finale of ''Film/{{Shotgun}}'' features a car with a flamethrower. Said flamethrower has a reach of maybe three feet, but somehow manages to ignite mooks who are standing much farther away from it.

** This glaring error is committed again later, when Jamie Kennedy flees from Loki with his son in his arms... or rather, a plastic lookalike of him.

** Speaking of the first one, it's quite obvious that the some of the bugs are stiff animatronics.

** In the extended TV edition of ''Film/StarTrekTheMotionPicture'', after Spock leaves [[spoiler: to go inside V-Ger and essentially trip on acid]], Kirk decides to head out after him. As Kirk leaves the Enterprise in a space suit, the entire top fourth of the screen isn't actually the Enterprise... but the top of the set! Though some viewers mistakenly believe this shot was in the original theatrical release, it's actually from an unfinished sequence of Kirk and Spock taking the spacewalk together, which was cut due to effects problems and replaced with the solo-Spock spacewalk in the final film. The TV edition restores portions of this sequence to lengthen the film, but merely cuts in the unfinished footage of Kirk's exit without the intended matte painting that would have hidden the visible wooden beams of the set. Note also that Kirk's spacesuit in this restored footage is different from the spacesuit he wears in the footage from the theatrical edition, so in the ABC version of the film, not only does the ''Enterprise'' consist partly of wooden beams, but Kirk's spacesuit has shapeshifting powers.

** In general, many of the Original Series movies' effects, although decent for the time, just don't hold up very well to modern audiences. This is especially the case with ''Star Trek II'' and ''Star Trek III'', which were made on limited budgets and with early 1980s technological limitations, and as a result their production values often look cheap or haven't aged well.

*** The Neimoidian animatronic heads look great, and are a surprising example of good practical effects in a very CGI-driven movie. Until they open their mouths, and their lips don't match the overdubbed dialogue in the slightest.

*** During the fight when Count Dooku drops part of the walkway on top of Obi Wan, it looks really fake. Obi Wan is just moved down on the screen when it falls on him without any of his limbs reacting to the impact. Even [[TheProblemWithLicensedGames the game]] does that scene better than the damn movie.

*** During Anakin and Obi-Wan's final duel, there's a moment where Obi-Wan leaps off a tall structure and lands on a small platform floating above the lava, where he then switches his lightsaber on. The problem is you can ''hear'' the humming of his blade during the whole scene, as if it was supposed to be on the whole time.

*** There are actually two wolfman masks in that scene, both replaced in re-releases... But the two aliens used as replacements are just wearing the same mask forwards and backwards, which is a fail all in its own. Funnily enough, the wolfman [[NarmCharm has become a martyr figure among fans who dislike the special edition changes, and like being reminded of the franchise's low-budget roots.]]

*** In the establishing shot of Jabba's barge floating over the dunes, they added a human walking across the deck, probably to give it scale. They shouldn't have, because it's spectacularly bad, with the guy seeming to teleport three times as he's "walking". This was replaced with a real person greenscreened in the Special Edition. It is perhaps the least-noticed change made to the trilogy.

** Possibly the worst of the lot: the scene with Superman, Nuclear Man and Lacy all breathing perfectly well ''in outer space'' is supposed to be in the sky above Metropolis!

** Also, during one shot after [[spoiler: Copper]]'s arms are pulled off, his face looks bizarrely stiff and unnatural as he screams. This is because it's actually an arm-less double wearing a mask of the actor. Apparently John Carpenter was well aware that it might look crappy, but reasoned that no one would be looking at the dude's face anyway.

* Another film you wouldn't have expected on this list: ''Film/{{Transformers}}''. While the effects are most often believable (so much so that everyone complained when ''Film/TheGoldenCompass'' won the Visual Effects award), there are two instances when the CGI doesn't match up with the live action elements - the scene when Ironhide steps out of the pool, and the scene where the Predator drone is over the desert during the Scorponok battle, revealing that the two are separate CG elements.

** This also applies to ''Film/TransformersRevengeOfTheFallen'', but on a much larger scale. Pay very close attention throughout the third act and you'll find shoddy compositing, half-baked CG models that look like an Asylum film and a lack of motion blurring that, while making the characters easier to tell apart from one another, makes them less believable on screen.

** One of the [[DuelingMovies three versions]] released in 2005 is set during the same period as the book, and claims to be the most faithful adaptation. While the quality may be up for debate, the quality of the effects is not. The heat-ray is straight out of a '90s video game, the tripods clatter along independently of the surfaces that they're standing on and [[HollywoodNight nighttime]] is represented by superimposing starry night sky over ''some'' of the visible blue afternoon sky while being filmed in bright sunny daylight.

** Blueberry Violet doesn't look very genuine. The effect of her skin turning blue is "accomplished" by simply shining a colored light on the actress' face.

* In the finale of ''Film/TheWitchesOfEastwick'' has shades of this. When Susan Sarandon's character falls off a stone balcony, not only is her falling an obvious blue-screen effect, but when her body stops falling mere inches above the floor. (she begins laughing, which makes the witches lighter than air, and thus float.) you can clearly see the wires holding her up and she begins floating into the air.

* ''Film/YongaryMonsterFromTheDeep'', a Korean version of Godzilla, has, at the very least, a visible nozzle during a close-up of the the title monster's head as it's breathing fire and a visible fifth wheel to prop up the rear half of a jeep the monster slices in half with a laser shot from its horn.

* There is one special effect shot in ''Film/{{Reds}}''; a ship tossing on a stormy sea. Not only is it a blatantly poor miniature, it's also a very unusual shot for the film which is otherwise always in the actors' faces.

** A lot of reviews mention the CGI in this movie being good at best and ''atrocious'' at worst, with the most common offender being Steppenwolf, who is a completely CGI creation.

* Surprisingly, ''Film/JurassicPark''--a film lauded for its masterful combination of practical and computer-generated special effects--qualifies for this. There are numerous scenes in the first film and some of the sequels where errors slipped through, such as an out-of-place potted plant on the soundstage being visible during the tour car attack scene when the front car is flipped over, and as the raptor is standing in the threshold at the beginning of the kitchen scene you can see a stage hand reach out to stabilize the animatronic puppet. These are very much BlinkAndYouMissIt compared to alot of other Special Effect Failures, though, and are so tiny and inconsequential that they don't hurt the finished product at all.

* Motion-capture disaster ''Film/{{Cats}}'' actually had to release an ''updated version'' of the film to cover up some of the more memorable CGI failures, such as Judi Dench's hand being in multiple shots with no CGI at all, visible zippers up people's backs and so on. That's not even getting into the UncannyValley effects from the live actors' human faces and the infamous "digital fur technology" that jars terribly from the makeup and costumes of the [[Theatre/{{Cats}} original play]].