10 EXACT Moments Horror Movies Self-Destructed
8. Less Is Very Much More - Rawhead Rex
With a screenplay from Clive Barker - and based on his short story of the same name - 1986's Rawhead Rex does so much so well when it comes to establishing its titular threat.
Where said titular threat is concerned, Rawhead Rex is a creature of Irish folklore who rises through a stone column after that column's been struck by lightning. From there, there are religious undertones aplenty as Rawhead starts to stalk the locals of a small Irish town.
Utilising an approach famously utilised by Jaws - even if this approach was forced upon Steven Spielberg due to a malfunctioning shark - Rawhead Rex manages to drum up tension and terror by keeping its creature out of view or in the shadows. There's the odd shot of his feet here, the odd glimpse of an arm there, or a super-brief shot of something when Rex is awakened by the aforementioned lightning bolt. This George Pavlou-helmed picture manages to keep this up until around the one-hour mark, before it finally unleashes the full visage of Rawhead onto its audience.
To say the design of Rex is rough would be an understatement. Sure, a film released in 1986 clearly doesn't have the advantages of modern-day movies when it comes to SFX work and budgets, but the Rawhead design is utterly laughable.
Movies like The Thing, The Exorcist, An American Werewolf in London, and Howling all came out several years before Rawhead Rex, and all showcased how magnificent practical effects work of that time could be. Unfortunately, Rawhead Rex was the polar opposite - and as soon as you get a good look at Rex, you're immediately taken out of the film.