These moments are often horrifying for all the wrong reasons.
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00:00It's fair to say that horror, perhaps more so than any other genre of media, benefits
00:04from what is not shown to viewers, of hiding terrifying threats in the shadows and, crucially,
00:10not making the production's visual effects limitations clear. There's a lot to be said
00:14for restraint, for only periodically showing the terror, because what with the nature of
00:18digital media these days, it's all too easy for audiences to hit the pause button and
00:22take a long, lingering look at an effect that doesn't stand up to prolonged scrutiny.
00:27And these 10 horror TV shows, each with their own devoted fanbases and many of them acclaimed
00:32classics, dared to offer up moments that absolutely should never, ever be paused. From unconvincing
00:39CGI, to atrociously obvious body doubles, and yes, an Easter egg hunt so terrifying
00:43that you really shouldn't bother. So let's take a look at them as I'm Jules, this is
00:47WhatCulture.com, and these are 10 Horror TV Shows You Must Never Pause.
00:5110. Terrible CGI Everywhere
00:54The Walking Dead
00:56Despite being one of the most popular TV shows of the last decade plus, with episodes being
01:00budgeted at several million dollars each, it is shocking just how persistently terrible
01:05The Walking Dead's visual effects are. Hell, there are even enough hideous CGI blunders
01:10in this show that we even wrote a list on it, with by far the most infamous VFX gaffe
01:15being an embarrassingly lo-fi digital deer that shows up in the series' seventh season.
01:20This is just one of several instances of egregiously poor CGI throughout the show. There's the
01:25digital CDC building explosion, Michonne walking past burning mattresses that were created
01:30in post, and the awful green screen shot of Rick standing in front of a landfill. Not
01:35to mention the general overabundance of unconvincing CGI blood throughout the show.
01:40Basically never pause anything in this show to get a better look, because there's a
01:44good chance that it will reveal just how shamelessly AMC cut corners in order to save a little money.
01:519. The Leviathans – Supernatural
01:53For the standards of a CW show, Supernatural boasts relatively solid production values,
01:59but there's no escaping how absolutely horrid, and not in the intended way, the Leviathans
02:04look. The man-eating shapeshifters typically reveal their true nature when their human
02:08faces transform into a gaping maw of jagged teeth complete with a forked tongue. It's
02:13a terrifying idea in theory, but the VFX are so uniformly cheap that they end up resembling
02:19goofy B-movie villains rather than cosmic nightmare fuel. It's easy to believe that
02:24these effects are the result of interns at the effects house being given a Friday afternoon
02:28to motion track a lo-fi 3D animation onto an actor's face. Worse still, they all looked
02:33terrible even a decade ago when these episodes originally aired. Any small measure of fear
02:38that the Leviathans still hold in your heart will surely evaporate if you dare to pause
02:43any of their so-called money shots.
02:468. Mike's Hairy-Legged Stunt Double – Stranger Things
02:50Stranger Things is undeniably one of the most popular shows that is currently on the air,
02:54and while you might be tempted to hit the pause button in order to savour the series'
02:58outstanding production design and lavish VFX, be careful where you decide to freeze frame.
03:04One of the show's most cited criticisms throughout the third and fourth seasons has
03:07been the distractingly accelerated ages of the main cast, basically an unavoidable consequence
03:12of the show's lengthy production and, of course, the pandemic further slowing shooting.
03:17But even with the cast visibly growing up across seasons, the show's crew were a little
03:21optimistic in assuming that fans wouldn't notice the very obvious adult stunt doubles
03:26that are subbing in for the younger protagonists. In season three's final episode, The Battle
03:30of Starcourt, a mind-flare-possessed Billy attacks the Hawkins gang, throwing Mike into
03:35a wall and causing him to fall to the floor in pain. As noticed by Redditor Major Threat
03:40on the rMovieMistakes thread, for a fleeting shot, it is hilariously obvious that we're
03:45not looking at Finn Wolfhard. You see, Mike's legs have suddenly sprouted a wealth of hair
03:49that you'd expect from a full-grown adult male, not somebody who was just 16 years of
03:53age during shooting, and certainly not Wolfhard, whose legs are clearly shown to be relatively
03:58hairless whenever he's wearing shorts. It doesn't break the show by any means, but
04:02it is an amusing reminder of the challenges of working with a predominantly young ensemble
04:06cast.
04:077. The Terrible Fake Dog Prop – Bates Motel
04:11Now here is a moment that SHOULD be absolutely heartbreaking, and yet, if you pay remote
04:16close attention, it becomes completely impossible to take seriously. In the seventh episode
04:21of Bates Motel's first season, Norman befriends a stray dog, Juno, and after calling out to
04:26it across the road, the dog is struck and killed by a truck as it attempts to cross
04:30the road. Horrible and devastating, right? Except if you keep an eye on poor old Juno
04:35at the moment of impact, it's very clearly a cheap rag doll, given that its small body
04:39just tumbles stiffly underneath the truck, rather than, well, you know, squishing like
04:43you'd expect from a flesh-and-blood animal. It shouldn't be funny, but the obviousness
04:48of this prop, even when it's out of focus as it is, totally obliterates the emotional
04:53intent of the scene. And in a feat of accidental irony, Norman then has the dead dog stuffed,
04:59so the late canine now has all the rigidity of the fake dog used to achieve her demise
05:03on the screen. Classic.
05:056. Harrison's Adult Stunt Double – Dexter
05:09Many Dexter fans had basically lost all hope for the series as it entered its miserable
05:13eighth season, and of the many terrible moments fans care not to remember, there's a ridiculous
05:18treadmill accident that befalls Dexter's young son, Harrison, a few episodes from the
05:22end. While Hannah is babysitting Harrison, he decides to toy around with the treadmill,
05:27and predictably ends up tripping and smashing his chin. It's a silly scene in of itself,
05:32albeit one made so, so much worse by the fact that Harrison's fall is very clearly
05:37carried out by a fully-grown adult trying to fall and resemble a small, injured child.
05:41There are two shots in particular where the deception is hilariously obvious, that we're
05:46looking at a stuntman several times larger than the actor in question, and the man is
05:50seemingly wearing a blonde mop of a wig in a feckless attempt to sell the illusion. It's
05:54hardly the worst thing in season eight, and certainly not the most infuriating, but an
05:58absolute embarrassment from a show that is generally so slickly produced elsewhere.
06:035. The Unsettlingly Terrible Effect – Twin Peaks The Return
06:08Twin Peaks The Return is one of the most unforgettable TV series of the last decade, a long-awaited
06:13follow-up to the legendary series that is as baffling as it is brilliant. One of the
06:18series' most divisive aspects remains its visual effects, which range from utterly mesmerising
06:22– namely episode 8's stunning nuclear explosion – to absolutely hideous. While
06:28some of Lynch's fans continue to argue that the low-poly, poorly-textured effects were
06:32intentional, it's much easier to believe that Lynch simply lacked the budget to execute
06:36all of his ideas at a high level of fidelity, and decided instead to save the big bucks.
06:41So many of the effects wouldn't look amiss in grotty VHS tape and lo-fi video games from
06:46literally decades ago. And while the visual effects are certainly interesting, sometimes
06:51the results are so off-puttingly garish as to make The Return a genuine eyesore. Again,
06:56there are those who maintain that this was entirely on purpose by Lynch to subvert our
06:59very expectations of prestige TV with a nauseating aesthetic, but either way, you're probably
07:05better off not scrutinising them too much for fear of seeing just how rudimentary and
07:09ugly they truly are.
07:114. The Hidden Ghosts – The Haunting of Hill House and Blind Manor
07:15And now for something that isn't a horrible VFX gaffe or unconvincing stunt double. Mike
07:20Flanagan's sister horror series The Haunting of Hill House and The Haunting of Blind Manor
07:25were notable for many reasons, not least that Flanagan made the decision to sneakily include
07:29ghostly figures throughout each series. Fans and critics found literally dozens of ghosts
07:34cleverly concealed in plain sight throughout almost every episode of each show. Some are
07:40hidden within negative space that the viewer's eye wouldn't naturally be drawn towards,
07:43while others are disguised as general household objects. And there are even those that are
07:47only visible if you crank the brightness settings up on your TV to the extreme. As much as it
07:52might seem like a fun game to try and catch them all Pokemon-style, for your psyche's
07:57sake it's probably best not to, because some of them are sure to give grown adults
08:00vivid nightmares.
08:023. Anna's Unhinged Jaw – V, 2009
08:06The 2009 reboot of legendary 1980s sci-fi horror miniseries V received wildly mixed
08:12reviews across its two-season run, with the one key complaint being its drastically low
08:17budget, defined by cheap sets and low-rent visual effects which failed to live up to
08:21the original show. This was most palpably felt during the reboot series' attempt to
08:26recreate the iconic scene from the 80s show where villainous alien queen Diana unhinges
08:30her jaw and eats a live rat. The original prosthetic effects certainly didn't look
08:34great, and there was clearly a ripe opportunity here to massively improve upon it with contemporary
08:39VFX, and yet when Diana's daughter Anna chows down on some squirming vermin, it somehow
08:44looks even worse. Rather than using a practical prosthetic, Anna's unhinged jaw and widely
08:49extended mouth were achieved digitally, except that it looks like ABC spent about $5 on an
08:54After Effects plug-in to pull it off. More comical than disturbing, the shot of Anna
08:58dropping the terrified animal into a gaping maw looks like something out of a bad 90s
09:03FMV video game, rather than from a scene from a TV show that aired on a major network barely
09:08a decade ago. TV shows are famously produced on tight deadlines with limited VFX budget,
09:14but come on, people can literally produce more convincing effects on their home computers
09:18these days.
09:192. Peter's Transformation – Hemlock Grove
09:22Alright alright, I know this one might ruffle some feathers, but let's get into it. Hemlock
09:25Grove does admittedly deserve a measure of credit for combining CGI with practical effects
09:30for the physical transformations of werewolf Peter, yet it's also painfully clear watching
09:35these scenes that Netflix was a little tight with their VFX purse strings. The idea behind
09:41Peter's transformation, of his wolf form tearing out of his human body, is really quite
09:45fantastic, but the execution is far more middling due to CGI that felt poorly dated back when
09:51it originally aired almost a decade ago. The biggest issues are the hilariously bad motion
09:56tracking of the CGI yellow eyes over the actor's actual eyes, atrocious looking digital werewolf
10:01fingernails protruding from his human fingers, and embarrassingly low-poly tears on his back
10:06as the transformation continues. The money shot of the werewolf's face bursting through
10:11Peter's own looks pretty great, but everything else is hugely on the rough side, and it doesn't
10:17at all hold up to the scrutiny of a freeze frame.
10:201. Another Terrible CGI Deer – American Horror Story Apocalypse
10:25Proving that The Walking Dead didn't solely corner the market on awful CGI deer, American
10:29Horror Story Apocalypse offered up its own shockingly naff digital doe in the season's
10:34fifth episode, Boy Wonder. Near the start of the episode, Mallory uses her extensive
10:38powers to not only heal a dead deer's wounds, but also restore its youth. It's a swell
10:43idea, but a complex effect for even a well-minted TV show to pull off, and so it's not terribly
10:48surprising that they bungled it. The morphing effect from the adult to youthful deer looks,
10:53to be kind, like something out of a PS2 game, and doesn't hold up to even the most casual
10:58degree of challenge. The effect was widely mocked by fans when the episode first aired
11:02back in 2018, roughly 18 months after The Walking Dead first introduced audiences to
11:07the deeply off-putting horrors of what CGI deers could be.
11:10And there we go my friends, those were 10 Horror TV Shows You Must Never, Ever Pause.
11:15Hope you enjoyed that, and please let me know what you thought about it down in the comments
11:18section below. As always I've been Jules and you can follow me over on Twitter at RetroJay
11:22but the O is a zero, or the same on Instagram, RetroJay but the O is a zero. Hope to see
11:28you over there. But before I go, I just want to say one thing. Even though we talked today
11:31about Horror TV Shows You Must Never Pause, I definitely encourage you to take a pause
11:35every once in a while in your regular lives, just so that you can get a bit of perspective,
11:39and rest and relax, because that is how you live a healthy and happy life. By getting
11:43a bit of perspective you can see where your limitations are, where you need to ask for
11:47help, and sometimes when options just aren't right for you and you need to try something
11:50else. It's all part of growth and as difficult as it is sometimes, it's very healthy to
11:55take your foot off the gas and just enjoy the view for a bit. Big love to you my friend,
11:59hope you're treating yourself well. As always I've been Jules, you have been awesome, never
12:03forget that, and I'll speak to you soon. Bye.