I heard this week that stop-motion effects legend Ray Harryhausen passed away at the age of 92. Geek sites of all stripes have been doing obit and retrospective pieces about Harryhausen and his astonishing legacy, so it's only fitting that I share a few thoughts of my own about this amazing monster maker.
I was first exposed to Harryhausen's work the same way I was first exposed to most classic fantasy, horror and sci-fi cinema: through syndicated TV, during weekend afternoon sessions of channel surfing. I initially didn't know who Harryhausen actually was, but I knew his work when I saw it. The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms, It Came from Beneath the Sea, Earth vs. the Flying Saucers, 20 Million Miles to Earth, Mysterious Island ... whenever these movies would air, I would tune in and gawk in amazement at Harryhausen's stop motion creations as they terrorized us feeble, fragile human beings. I couldn't have told you a thing back then about how he brought his creations to life, but I knew that there was something magical about them. Harryhausen was a master puppeteer and animator, and his attention to the details of emotion, form and movement was so meticulous that even after I had a firmer understanding of how stop motion animation actually operates, it still felt like these creatures had a kind of life of their own. Some may complain that stop motion animation isn't "realistic" enough, but such a complaint completely misses the wonder and excitement that comes from artistic inspiration and ingenuity.
If we can learn anything from Harryhausen's work, it is that the creation of illusions is an art form unto itself. Making things move that do not otherwise move, making things big that are actually small, and making things appear close together when they are actually far apart were techniques that Harryhausen skillfully applied to make his creations seamlessly share scenes with flesh-and-blood actors. It's easy to take these techniques for granted, especially since movies in general specialize in creating a wide variety of fantasies, but Harryhausen was an artist in a truest sense who in turn influenced subsequent generations of special effects artists.
I don't mind CGI effects in general, but something gets lost when physical effects like stop-motion are replaced by digital images, when computers do most or all of the sculpting, animating, assembling and calculating; the craftsmanship and creativity of artistic vision gives way to the novelty and convenience of technology. The mass production of CGI effects has led to the mass production of flashy yet forgettable blockbusters with no uniqueness of their own. In contrast, Harryhausen was a pioneer of imaginative cinema and his distinct and distinguished work will live on long, long after the CGI-overloaded movie franchises are forgotten.
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took a novel approach by depicting a threat from beyond the stars that was neither an animal nor a plant but a mineral. The movie's titular menaces are crystal-like rocks from space that grow to gigantic heights when they're exposed to fresh water, which then shatter into fragments when they hit the ground after they become too large. This cycle repeats itself every time the rocks are exposed to water, until they threaten to crush a small town. Did I also happen to mention that the rocks' ability to absorb moisture allows them to drain the moisture from the bodies of nearby people, thus turning them into stone? With such a unique kind of horror, a remake of The Monolith Monsters would be an amazing science fiction disaster movie that leaves 2012 and The Day After Tomorrow looking very subdued by comparison.
looks like one of those movies that ran out of money for special effects in the middle of production--which is a shame, because it was one of the last movies that employed the talents of Willis O'Brien, the stop-motion animator who brought life to the titular ape in King Kong. To make the most of what little effects money it had, Scorpion reuses some of the same scorpion effects shots over and over again (much like how cheap cartoons save money by reusing the same footage). Nevertheless, the story about gargantuan scorpions that rise from a forgotten, subterranean world to tear apart victims with their mammoth claws and impale them on their giant stingers should be brought back as a remake with a better special effects budget.
is a fascinating B-movie that was directed by Albert Band. It depicts a man who may (or may not) have the power to kill people simply by rearranging the colored pins on a cemetery map. While this movie tells a very creepy tale, it avoids answering one of the questions that it raises: If someone had the power to kill others by manipulating a cemetery map, could that same person also raise the dead through the same process? I've heard quite a few rumors that scenes were written for this film that answer this question in the affirmative, but they were never shot; thus, I would love to see a remake of I Bury The Living that pushes the story into gruesome world of corpse reanimation.
is in a bizarre class of its own. Instead of ants that get bigger or more bloodthirsty due to some kind of atomic or natural disaster, the ants in Phase IV become smarter as the result of a mysterious cosmic event. With its minimalist, surreal script and astonishing insect cinematography make Phase IV a fascinating film, its maddeningly suggestive yet vague ending (which director Saul Bass has said was imposed by the studio) put this film on my remake list just so we can see this story told again with a more satisfying conclusion.
is one of the many Jaws rip offs that appeared during the late 70s, although it's one of the few that has nothing to do with water, fish and swimming. In spite of its derivative nature, ;">The Car is still a creepy little film about a possessed automobile that terrorizes a small desert town. With its pitch black windows, eerie sounds and animal-like behavior, the titular vehicle is a unique movie monster that deserves a tune-up for a second trip on the silver screen. With a bigger budget and a more nuanced screenplay, I could imagine a remake that has a driverless car isolating another small desert town by running down supply trucks and toppling power lines and cell phone towers, and then bumping off the remaining citizens who try to escape.
has a remarkable pedigree: It was directed by Irving Kersher, co-scripted by John Carpenter, and featured Faye Dunaway, Tommy Lee Jones, Raúl Juliá and Rene Auberjonois. Yet for a film about a photographer who receives psychic visions that allow her to see through the eyes of a serial killer as he brutally murders his victims, something just doesn't work. It could be because of the film's rushed "twist" ending, or that it fails to explore in greater detail the true nature of the visions (such as when they really started, not when the main character began to accept them as visions), or that the romance subplot doesn't feel as compatible with the rest of film (no matter how logical the relationship is within the context of the complete story). Regardless, I'd love to see a creepier and better-paced remake of this movie, just so this story can reach its full, frightful potential.
(which was produced by Charles Band, son of the aforementioned Albert Band). Tourist Trap is an uneven, hit-and-miss affair, a blend of House of Wax, Texas Chainsaw Massacre and The Twilight Zone. It's got enough mannequin-centric scares and shivers--particularly the final shot--to merit a second chance on the big screen, perhaps with less imitation of House of Wax and Chainsaw Massacre and more holy-crap-mannequins-are-out-to-kill-me shocks. With the current state of practical effects and CGI technology, I'm convinced that these murderous, on-the-move mannequins will generate a few weeks' worth of nightmares for movie viewers of all ages.
was the fifth film directed by bestselling sci-fi author Michael Crichton, who also wrote the film's script, it is not the best example of Crichton’s talents as either a director or a screenwriter. The finished film is an unmistakable mess, with a story that meanders through several different plot points (including some vague conspiracy involving subliminal messages in TV commercials) without ever adequately connecting them into a coherent, compelling whole. In spite of its shortcomings, Looker has an intriguing, eerie central concept: professional models who go through plastic surgery to correct very specific flaws--down to the millimeter--in order to achieve a specific standard of beauty and in turn gain employment, only to be systematically murdered as they are replaced by computer-generated duplicates who actually are "perfect". In the right hands, Looker could be brought back to the big screen as a high-tech, giallo-esque mash-up of The Stepford Wives, S1m0ne and Blood and Black Lace. 
has preposterous yet entertaining plot: To change the future to suit his nefarious agenda, a "psychic vampire" from the year 2247 travels back in time to 1985--with a police trooper from the same era hot on his trail. While its idea of a mind-controlling serial killer is handled better than most other films with a similar premise (such as God Told Me To), Trancers is too busy ripping off Blade Runner and The Terminator to explore this creepy concept in greater detail. Thus, a remake that goes into greater ghastly detail about what a "trancer" is and its ultimate purpose would be a fun, action-filled flick.