10 Groundbreaking Movie Special Effects (That Aged TERRIBLY)

10. Poltergeist

Poltergeist has so many mind-blowing special effects, its baffling how it didn't win any Oscars (It lost out to E.T.) But after 40 years, you'd assume a lot of these visuals would be pretty ropey nowadays.

Amazingly, most of these optical tricks still look top-notch. The way the house collapses into itself is one of the coolest visuals of the 1980s. The elongated corridor sequence is is just as mesmerising now as it was when Poltergeist was released.

But there's one scene that has aged worse than Mickey Rourke. When the parents open their children's bedroom door, they see all sorts of paraphernalia spinning throughout the room. As they gaze in horror, records twirl around, books fly towards them, and a lightbulb places itself into a lamp by itself.

Although this scene should be scary, it feels like it was only put together to show off these gimmicky visuals. Not only that, the camera lingers on every shot, making the stop-motion and green-screen painfully obvious. Because this scene doesn't add anything to the story, it feels self-serving . (Also, did we really need to see a floating Hulk action figure riding a toy horse?)