Harryhausen’s Creatures
Man, do I love me some Ray Harryhausen. I’ve seen occasional comments–largely from people too young to remember what movie special effects looked like before the advent of CGI–that his creatures look rather clunky, and they are admittedly not as smooth as today’s computer animations. What makes his work so amazing, though, is not only the technical artistry (you guys, stop-motion animation is hard) but also how memorable his characters were. The bit in Jason and the Argonauts when the skeletal Children of the Hydra attack (around 3:25 in this clip) haunted my childhood.
Some kind soul has compiled a collection of all of Harryhausen’s stop-motion work in chronological order, from harpies to giant walruses. They are just splendid.
(via BoingBoing)
Posted in Whatever | 3 Comments »
August 30th, 2011 at 9:30 am
Ray Harryhausen is directly responsible for my unmatronly crush on Bruce Campbell. If it hadn’t been for those sword wielding skeletons of Ray’s there would have been no “Army of Darkness” or “Bubba Ho-tep” to worm Bruce into my cold, cold heart.
August 31st, 2011 at 2:15 am
Oh! I’ve watched Monster’s Inc. with my kids and have seen the part where they go to the restaurant called Harryhausen’s, but I didn’t realize they were paying homage to a person having everything to do with monsters. Learn something new everyday.
August 31st, 2011 at 2:30 pm
Thank you so much for leading me down that rabbithole of sites related to this man – wow!!! I loved Clash of the Titans so much as a child that my dad kept finding more and more similar things like Jason and the Argonauts for us to watch together- and I never knew they were all Ray Harryhausen. Hell, I’ve never heard the name. Wow. That is crazy amazing.
Side note- Harry Hamlin weirded me out then, and he weirds me out now. Don’t know how I managed to like that movie given the fact that he creeps me out more than Christopher Walken ever could. But Bubo? I love me some Bubo!
You are amazing. Seriously, thanks for this one…