The 10 Best Horror Movie Practical Effects, and How They Did It

Horror movies live and die on the images they conjure: Images of suspense, images of terror, images of disgust. One easy way to get a reaction out of your audience is to make your images as gross as possible — nothing sticks in the mind as well as something that makes someone go “Ewww!” Plenty of gooey, goopy, messy, bloody effects have been conjured with digital effects, but for the really yucky stuff, it’s always best to keep things practical.

There’s an art to making a truly disgusting practical effect. You have to know what makes an audience squirm, and you have to know how to achieve it in reality. Practical gore effects are best when they’re as close to life as they can be. Yes, that really is a limb getting twisted and stretched into pieces, even if it’s a fake one. Yes, that really is an actor drenched in liters of blood, even if it is made of syrup and food coloring. We know it’s not really happening, but it sure looks legit.

Whether it’s layers of prosthetic makeup or gallons of fake organs and goop, many of the best practical horror movie effects are achieved with tricks that might surprise you. For every monster built with hydraulic animatronics, there’s a tub of blood and guts made with common household items like apples and mayonnaise. To honor all the hard work that makes us cringe in our seats, we’ve chosen the ten best horror movies with the grossest practical effects of all time. Knowing how they were made won’t make them any less disgusting, but it’ll definitely give you a better appreciation for how it was done.