8 Most Horrifying Practical Film Effects (And How They Were Achieved)

7. The Exploding Head - Scanners

The Movie: Do you like your gruesome (and totally awesome) practical effects served up with a slice of tantalizing sci-fi? Then David Cronenberg's Scanners is absolutely where it's at, pitting a bunch of people with psychic powers against one another.

The Effect: Even if you haven't seen Scanners, you're likely to have seen this particular shot, which has been circulating around the internet as a gif for quite some time. All that said, it's a pretty simple scene - our titular Scanner uses his psychic powers to make a man's head explode.

How They Did It: Unhappy with how the effect looked after using pyrotechnics and pneumatics, the special effects team took a cast of actor Louis Del Grande's head and filled it with gelatin. Then they lined the mould with plaster in order to give the head a skull-like structure. After that, they packed it full of all kinds of gutsy materials, including wax, latex and even bits of left-over burger. When it came to blowing the head up, the team deliberated for quite some time before arriving at the simple solution. Someone lay down behind the dummy and blasted the head with a shotgun, resulting in an amazing explosion that looks like the release of a huge build-up of pressure. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YI3NoBeNwfk