10 Practical Movie Monsters Remade with CGI

Special effects are constantly evolving. They’re just one of the many challenges that filmmakers must overcome in crafting their visions. When it comes to monsters, they’ve employed a number of tricks. Suits, puppets, and miniatures were just a few of the practical techniques used to bring these fantastic creatures to life. While these methods aren’t perfect, they actually have something in front of the camera, thereby making these fictional figures feel more real. However, advancing technology heralded a radical change.

More and more filmmakers opt for computer-generated imagery, rendering the monsters in a digital landscape. This innovation obviously yields new possibilities. Creators can now craft anything imaginable and place it in existing footage. It’s a chance for old icons to gain the fluidity that they never had before. The catch is that such retrofitting doesn’t always work out. Some digital updates actually look worse due to inferior textures, unnatural movements, or lazy presentation. Like the practical effects of old, these CG creatures require immense passion and attention to detail. Otherwise, audiences will reject the fakery and go back to the immersive originals.

Related: 10 Mind-Blowing Special Effects behind Iconic Movie Scenes

10 King Kong

How ironic that a giant like King Kong is really a tiny action figure. Standing dozens of feet tall, this big ape dwarfs all other primates. He uses that size and strength to reign over Skull Island, regularly combatting the prehistoric creatures roaming the remote locale. In the 1933 classic, these explosive brawls came down to stop motion: photographing small models frame-by-frame and stitching them together into a fight sequence. Later takes in the ’60s and ’70s opted for animatronics and placing actors in gorilla suits. It wasn’t until the new millennium that things changed.

The 2000s revived Kong for several projects. The most notable was a 2005 remake of the 1933 film, but subsequent appearances were blockbuster crossovers with other monsters. What these takes had in common was the wealth of CGI. Namely, Kong was a product of motion capture—recording an actor’s movements and transferring them to a digital character. Although he lost some of his prior tangibility, the king was now capable of incredible nuance. That increased expression lets you empathize with him like never before, which was ultimately the point of the character.^[1]

9 Godzilla

The king of the monsters has had a similarly storied history. Godzilla is a colossal saurian awakened by nuclear radiation. Big enough to trample cities and impervious to most weapons, he’s an unstoppable force of destruction. His grand finale is his atomic breath, which reduces targets to fiery, irradiated rubble. Such wanton ruin required a new strategy to shoot.

The filmmakers had neither the time nor the budget for stop motion, so they placed an actor in a rubber suit amid a miniature city. This innovation pioneered kaiju flicks, defining the franchise for decades. It wasn’t until recently that things changed.

With the 2000 Godzilla movie, they began rendering the radioactive reptile on the computer. Though they initially limited this swap to a few shots, the creators eventually forewent the rubber suits entirely. That’s not to say the creators forgot their roots. Godzilla’s proportions and movements still echoed those of an upright human. Films like Shin Godzilla even used motion capture to emulate the lumbering visuals of old. Combined with the detailed textures, these techniques allowed the movies to up the spectacle while matching the slow menace of yesteryear.^[2]

8 Xenomorphs

In space, no one can see the seams in the suit. The xenomorph is an extraterrestrial life form said to be a perfect species. It lays eggs in its victims, which then burst out of the prey’s chest, grow at an exponential rate, and slaughter everything in sight. Not only is the xenomorph incredibly cunning in its predatory tactics, but its acidic blood means you can’t kill it without sustaining wounds yourself. The first two Alien movies brought these parasites to life through puppets and suits, hiding any shortcomings through shadows or close-ups. They couldn’t remain shrouded forever, though.

Later Alien movies had entire armies of xenomorphs. As the series progressed, the practical effects faded away and were replaced by CGI. The quality ebbed and flowed, with the well-lit environments and flashy set pieces often destroying the illusion. This decision prevented the xenomorphs from ever regaining the tangible terror of their early incarnations.^[3]

7 The Thing

Sometimes, our neighbors are the greatest monsters. The Thing is a movie about an alien lying dormant in the Arctic. Once awakened, it possesses and absorbs any organism within reach. It can morph its host to grotesque degrees as a defense mechanism, but it prefers to stay hidden as a doppelganger. This tactic meant that most of the 1982 movie consisted of normal-looking actors. On rare occasions where the creature revealed itself, it did so through horrifying animatronics. Before you could spot any seams, it retreated into the night. Apparently, that restraint was relatively recent.

The 2011 prequel repeated the same beats as its predecessor. The difference was that the titular Thing was far more visible. Not only was it in brighter locations, but it repeatedly burst forth in all its tentacled glory. It was now a digital demon, and it looked atrocious. You didn’t believe it could even touch the characters, let alone kill them.^[4]

6 Dracula

One of the oldest movie monsters required few effects. Dracula is the quintessential vampire. His enigmatic allure draws in unsuspecting victims, enabling him to drink their blood and retain his youth. If seduction doesn’t work, his superhuman strength and dominion over animals are enough to thwart most enemies. Most 20th-century interpretations used simple tricks to portray these gifts, ranging from fake fangs to bats on strings. Of course, these scare tactics weren’t big enough.

Modern filmmakers wanted to show the full extent of Dracula’s vampiric gifts. That’s why relatively recent takes like Dracula Untold had him morph into bat swarms and single-handedly slaughter whole armies. Most of these set pieces look formidable, with the chaotic visuals making it difficult to discern the CGI. Unfortunately, such bombastic effects diminished the subtle scares that defined the character.^[5]

5 The Mummy

Despite its gruesome roots, the mummy should be one of the easier horror icons to adapt. An Egyptian priest comes back to life thanks to an ancient curse. His decayed remains are still wrapped in ritualistic bandages, but he can withstand virtually any attack as he slowly walks toward his targets. That inevitability was enough for early entries as the actors lumbered around in bandaged bodysuits. They were essentially Egyptian zombies. That said, future films wanted to expand that image.

The Mummy remakes in 1999 and 2017 both bestowed catastrophic gifts to their undead antagonists. The bandages were gone in lieu of grisly flesh stretching to unpleasant lengths. In addition, the villains could control swarms of scarabs, conjure massive walls of sand, and bring forth disastrous plagues. All of it amounted to CGI layered over the actors. The glossy textures and exaggerated movements weren’t particularly convincing, but the ’90s flick was excusable. It opted for high-flying adventure over creeping horror, so it didn’t have to be scary.^[6]

4 The Wolfman

Nearly as infamous as Dracula is the Wolfman. Portraying him was similarly simple in the 1941 film. As a guy suffering a canine curse, he’s a humanoid figure even after transforming. The difference is the wolflike head, killer claws, and hairy body. These accompany a feral desire to kill, making for an unpredictable foe. That said, all that you needed to create this animalistic adversary were masks, gloves, and prosthetics. Those days are long gone.

Filmmakers soon prioritized the wolf over the man. Werewolves continued appearing in fantasy franchises like Harry Potter and Twilight, where they became increasingly malformed. Some depictions just had them transform into giant dogs. Obviously, these renditions were computerized creations, the quality varying with the movie. As ever, the well-lit examples looked the worst. The poetic justice came with the 2010 Wolfman remake. This project resurrected the masked approach and blew its competition out of the water.^[7]

3 The Terminator

There is no fake but what we make. Terminators are cyborg assassins. They may look human, but beneath their skin are metallic endoskeletons. They use their fleshy disguises to infiltrate human societies and get close to their targets. Upon locating their quarry, these robotic villains execute their programming with unparalleled precision.

The Terminator films all used real actors to convey that deadly precision, but early entries had to improvise whenever these cyborgs sustained damage. Prosthetics worked for light wounds, but heavier injuries call for animatronics and stop motion. Filmmakers eventually began mixing in CGI, but practical effects were always present in some capacity.

Terminator Genisys and Dark Fate changed that by going all-in on digital imagery. The cyborgs in these flicks leaned heavily into liquid metal and nanotech. Combined with ever-more explosive chase scenes, these aspects left little room for practical tricks. Even the partial damage on the fleshy Terminators was now CGI. Sadly, it all looked utterly weightless and failed to blend with the organic bits at all. There’s a tragic irony in killer robots being made entirely on the computer.^[8]

2 The Kraken

The ocean holds many unseen calamities, but the greatest one is the Kraken. This giant squid has haunted sailors’ nightmares for centuries, and movie-goers easily could see why. Films like 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea depicted this creature as a colossal killer preying on unsuspecting vessels. Long tentacles could pull an entire ship to the depths, and its submerged body made it nearly impossible to fight. That also meant that early filmmakers could get away with not showing the monster. The most that viewers got were the tentacles, which were a combination of stop motion and wirework. Of course, this workaround couldn’t last forever.

CGI eventually showed the Kraken in all its glory. The results predictably varied. Films like Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest kept the creature somewhat obscured underwater, thereby sparing the FX artists from rendering the details and retaining the fear through mystery. Unfortunately, works like the Clash of the Titans remake had the Kraken leave the sea. At that point, it looked like any other semi-convincing monster. Long story short, it should have stayed in the depths.^[9]

1 Dinosaurs

Dinosaurs may have been real, but that didn’t make them any less spectacular. Thus, they’re Hollywood’s most enduring movie monsters. Since the dawn of cinema, these prehistoric lizards have terrified audiences through sheer size and crushing strength. A plethora of tricks have gone into recreating these titans. They range from stop motion to animatronics to costumes. One movie, however, changed everything.

That movie was Jurassic Park. Although it retained the animatronic approach for close-ups, it used revolutionary digital effects for wide shots. The detailed skin and fluid musculature created living, breathing animals. This achievement meant that subsequent filmmakers never looked back. Digital dinosaurs were soon running all over movies, TV shows, and documentaries. While these effects were rarely terrible, the best examples were those that mixed in the animatronics of old. You felt like you could touch them without waiting for rendering. ^[10]

fact checked by
Darci Heikkinen