- The earliest iterations of this
were still so disgusting to me
that I couldn't watch them at all.
- I'm cringing still.
- We're about to go behind the effects of
the Fear Street trilogy.
(intense music)
It's three movies that tell the story
about this town called Shadyside where
bad, terrible things have been happening for centuries.
- Who is this?
- [Woman] It's happening again.
- We knew we were gonna have a lot of effects challenges.
The top priority for me was
hiring a visual effects supervisor.
- My first encounter was with Leigh on Stranger Things
and my first goal was really to visualize Leigh's brain.
(creepy music)
- One of the things we talked about when we started dealing
with like a more formed killer in this movie was
how to make the characters feel different
than other kind of like zombie-like things
that we've seen before.
And so we really leaned into the grotesque.
Body parts are popping out where they shouldn't be.
The motion feels weird and jerky.
It's that like uncanny valley thing of like,
we recognize this as a human form,
but there's something very wrong with it.
So I think it's very successful.
- This is the first time we see them actually
forming from blood
and we want to hold back with the human shape
as long as we can,
and then just like get out of the shot
as soon as we realize what it is.
- Guys.
(liquid squelching)
- The point here was to go from black blood to a creature.
It had to start really subtly because of the performances.
It had to be really basically right on the line between,
Is this really supernatural
"or is this just like a random phenomenon?"
- We had a layer of black blood
that we splattered with set design,
but ultimately when we got into post
and we started working on the scene,
we realized that a lot of it looked a little dry.
So we had to enhance it to give it a more wet look
to have a little bit of movement.
- [Paul] The challenge here is that
this has to be both animated and at the same time,
because it's all liquid it needs to be a simulation.
To marry this key frame animation with the simulations
is pretty challenging.
Actually it's like one of the most challenging things
in the visual effects world to make these liquid creature.
- The main thing for me was keeping it feeling
very organic and gross.
Let's make sure that if you see it, you're like,
This is disgusting.
"I don't want to be near this for very long at all."
- Holy crap, go, go, go!
- This was actually one of the most challenging sequences,
because it was all just describing to them
this thing that wasn't fully fleshed out yet.
We knew that it was gonna be a hand
and we had a little bit of concept art.
So I was able to like get on the ground in this bathroom set
and be like, "No, this hand is gonna like
"come up like this and grab you."
Really a testament to the actors,
and Benji who plays Josh, and they were great at it.
(dramatic music)
(flies buzzing)
(flesh squelching)
With the movie too, our characters from '94
have kind of tried to go into the past to learn more about
why the town has been cursed by this witch, Sarah Fier.
One of the things that our characters in '78 discover
is that underneath the town,
there's this like extensive tunnel system.
And while they're there,
they discover this disgusting heart
throbbing and pumping this blood.
We'd been looking for a way to have something that
represented all of the evil in Shadyside.
And we looked at a lot of images that had to do with
growths and tumors and feel like it was just
this disgusting thing.
- Main job, tell the story, make it really clear,
be unmistakable, direct the eye,
force everybody to basically see what you want them to see.
And then at the same time,
create like a platform that you can then later come back to
and then people know, "Oh yeah,
"that's how this all fits together."
One thing was like just the development of
the motion of the heart and the look
and the oozing of the heart.
And then at the same time,
the connection of two practical shots
and we were supposed to make them feel like
they're like one shot.
There's a lot of set dressing.
You have to put black blood on the walls.
There was practical stuff on the walls, but like not,
it's not alive.
So we have to dress the entire set.
Then we have to connect shots.
And then we were tied to a specific camera.
Then later we have to do a CG version of all of this
just kind of building itself.
So we felt like,
"Why don't we just make the entire environment?"
We have a digital set that we can use for all three scenes.
- In the grand scheme of things
this sequence actually was kind of like our hero.
Everything kind of started growing out of
the looks and the movement and everything
that we established in this.
I think this became like the first very successful sequence
that we had and then everything else
kind of water-filled from there.
(ominous music)
- Run, run!
- My worst kind of terrible thing that I can't watch at all
is anything that involves bones.
This shot here where Ruby,
kind of her hand comes up and her finger is like
contorted and disgusting,
the earliest iterations of this were still like
so disgusting to me that I couldn't,
I could not watch them at all.
- After we put a girl through a bread slicer.
And Leigh has like no problems with that.
Challenge was that there was no real witness cam
or tracking dots or anything.
So it all had to be hand tracked.
It's extremely difficult.
- Because this was not initially a visual effects sequence.
When we shot it, we weren't gonna still show them forming.
And that was something that came later when we were in post
and we were looking at the sequences and we were like,
"We should see this completing here."
- We had a vendor who really literally bled to get
these things to just sit on the fingers and on the arms
and not slip around.
One job of the fingers also to really kind of
lock the eye on the hand, on this very spot.
And here, the hand comes out.
So you're looking at the hand,
something's happening on the hand, then you go to the arm
and then you go to the face.
It's basically put the action and always where the eye is.
So it makes it easier to follow the shot
and it's not distracting.
- Lucifer.
Gargoyle.
Beelzebub.
Morningstar.
(dramatic music)
Satan.
- As he's like reciting this evil spell,
the tunnels themselves were forming,
that was basically allowing the evil of the devil
to take form,
which is ultimately our disgusting heart of darkness growth.
As the mark is forming, also the tunnels are forming,
and all of this is CG.
We had obviously practical kind of things to guide us
as far as camera work and as far as locations
that we were matching,
but ultimately it all became CG.
It's actually one of my favorite sequences,
visual effects-wise in the show.
- And we are connecting a few dots here
in the visual effects side,
because we've already learned that
the witch's mark is a map.
We're connecting the witch's mark and the tunnels.
It's a beautiful little parallel montage between this
witch's mark and the tunnels.
The idea is like it's kind of like
a representation of the same thing.
At the same time, we need to recognize where we are.
That's why we're going the same tunnel,
we're making the same turn.
And now we see, "Okay, we have been here before."
That's where the heart was, and exactly where it was.
It comes out of the ground, it comes to life.
- 1666.
- The devil has come
to feast on our misdeeds.
- [Leigh] Make sure to check out the Fear Street trilogy
only on Netflix.