10 Most Incredible Practical Effects In Sci-Fi Movie History

David Cronenberg's horror flick, Scanners, revolves around an evil psychic is trying to take over the world. In the most iconic scene, he uses telekinesis to make a man's head explode. The shot is only three seconds long but is one of the most memorable practical effects of the 1980s.

The special effect was performed by the Oscar-winning makeup artist, Stephan Dupuis, and special effects supervisor, Gary Zeller. The original plan for this shot was to blow up a wax head with explosives. Unfortunately, wax wasn't malleable enough to look realistic so the team used latex and plaster for the head. They then packed the skull with anything they could find which resembled human innards including dog food, fake blood, rabbit livers, and leftover burgers.

But there was another problem. The explosive they were going to use made visible sparks appear on screen. Frustrated that they were running out of time, Zeller improvised and blasted the head prop with a 12-gauge shotgun.

Cronenberg thought the effect looked so good, he knew it would be the stand-out moment. Although this was meant to be the first scene, Cronenberg was worried late moviegoers would miss it so he moved it to later in the film.