Ray Harryhausen: Special Effects Titan
 
 

Director:  Gilles Penso
Year:  2011
Rating: 7.0


This is a very affectionate documentary/tribute to one of the great founding special effects masters of film. Since it is produced by his Foundation that is not too surprising but it is well justified. His contributions to the fantasy film genre is extraordinary and the film lines up directors like Spielberg, Cameron, Jackson, Gilliam, del Torro, Landis, Burton and a number of modern day special effects folks to laud Harryhausen and to say how influential seeing his films were to them as King Kong had been to him. Most of the films that Ray worked on are no doubt looked on by today's audience and the term B film immediately springs to mind - low budget, actors you have never heard of and corny scripts - but his stop-motion creativity and wild imagination made them worth watching. He was still alive when this was made (he passed away in 2013) and goes through all of his top films and talks about what he had to do. Really painstaking complicated things. Seeing all the many clips reminded me that I have not seen most of these since childhood and made me want to see them again.