Visual effects artists explain why a 2013 horror movie pulls off one visual trick better than Disney’s The Little Mermaid remake. Released in 2023, Disney’s live-action remake of their 1989 animated classic was reportedly made on a budget of $297 million. For that massive investment, the studio was rewarded with a film that took in $569 million at the worldwide box office, making it the seventh-highest-grossing Disney remake to date.
$297 million may buy a lot of high-end comupter generated visual effects, but according to a crew of VFX artists, the Little Mermaid remake was outdone by a movie from ten years earlier that cost $282 million less. In breaking down the underwater hair effects from the Disney film, the Corridor Crew guys recall the Jessica Chastain horror movie Mama, praising the $15 million movie for its creepy ghost, and the way that film’s VFX artists leaned into the uncanny valley effect to create an otherworldly atmosphere. Check out the remarks from the crew below:
Now we looked at Little Mermaid, and we looked at hair and underwater hair, and how even though she’d move in different ways, the hair wouldn’t follow the laws of physics, and we’re talking about, does it break our immersion, does it make it feel cartoony, does it not make it feel cartoony. Well, what if instead of worrying about trying to match reality, you just embrace the fact that you are breaking the laws of physics and use that to make something creepy and weird and unnerving.
So I actually think the Mama effects are super well-done. The movement is crazy, the posing is crazy, the design of the face is really disturbing.
Using the hair, to have it just be constantly floating and disobeying the laws of gravity really makes it a ghost. It’s using the uncanny valley for filmmaking purposes. It’s like, let’s let VFX be slightly broken and let’s use that to make it creepy.
Mama Paved the Way For IT (And Might Be Creepier)
Andy Muschietti made his feature film directorial debut with 2013’s Mama, a supernatural chiller about a pair of orphaned children coming under the sway of a creepy forest spirit. Made for just $15 million, the film grossed an impressive $148 million. Muschietti would later go on to direct the two-part Stephen King adaptation IT, collectively budgeted at just under $120 million, and then an even bigger movie in 2023’s The Flash, budgeted at $300 million.
Despite its relatively modest price tag, Mama boasts memorable visual effects from Mr. X, effects that, in the estimation of Corridor Crew, outdo the much-bigger-budgeted The Little Mermaid. Muschietti himself would go on to have a much bigger budget on IT, but it can be argued that even the evil Pennywise the Clown isn’t as creepy as the tortured supernatural entity at the center of Mama. IT may have been a bigger triumph for Muschietti in terms of box office, but with its ingenious effects, Mama might be a greater accomplishment when it comes to generating a pure sense of fright.
