FFM27: Do These Best Special Effects Nominees Make You Believe? Like Really, Really Believe?

It’s time to take a look at the Best Special Effects nominees at the 27th Malaysia Film Festival (FFM27)! The awards ceremony, due on the 5th of September, will see top honours in the film industry handed out to several filmmakers and actors.

Based on our extremely limited knowledge of how things work in this field, CGI and special effects in movies can either be exceptionally convincing, or doesn’t even have to be so in the first place. With special effects, filmmakers are allowed to create almost anything they can imagine and see it come to life in their films – which can be pretty exciting.

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Terbaik Dari Langit

Verdict: It was indeed a trip watching Terbaik Dari Langit. In scenes where Berg shoots up, hallucinates and sees the universe, you’re bound to have a psychedelic experience. Special effects here was done with just the right amount of shaders and beautiful colours making it pleasing to the eyes. Nabil Productions did a crisp and fine job at visual effects throughout Terbaik Dari Langit.

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Kami Histeria

Verdict: In Kami Histeria, we get Fazura who plays Cik Lang, a langsuir. Immediately one would think white face, long hair and red eyes are the ultimate qualifiers, but in this case we’ll make an exception — this particular langsuir passed off as a local wicked witch of the west. Despite extending hair extensions which looks quite comedic, it was the morphing of Fazura’s beautiful face which made it all the more horrific yet awesome.

We also have to give props to the special effects team for their virtual gaming scene. Jojo, a character from the film, enters a virtual world similar to left4dead. Overall, the digital animation showcased in the film was pretty good (by Malaysian film standards lah).

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Seventh

Verdict: Horror movie effects are tricky to pull. One, it needs to look frightening enough to be believable. Two, a heavy amount of special effects can lead to it being less believable – there needs to be a balance. In Seventh, the FX team played around with a variety of CGI and visual effects for each ghost, choosing to not just stick to a more uniform look. In the end, we’ve got zombie-looking but also pontianak-looking ghosts.

They even played around with motion effects which we can tell they had fun quite a lot of fun with, but to know what we mean make sure to watch the film!

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Hungry Ghost Ritual

Verdict: There’s a simple constant that makes up for a good horror movie and that is fear. When it comes to horror movies, we want make up and prosthetics that aren’t over the top yet just enough to give you the creeps. It’s the cheesy bending and breaking of backs plus twisting of limbs that really stood out in Hungry Ghost Ritual. All of this instead of the actual ghosts we don’t get to see much off, and we must say it worked out quite well.

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Abang Long Fadil

Verdict: In the action genre, it’s really hard not to be a fan of over the top, exaggerated action movies – we’re talking Rajinikanth and a mix of Kung Fu Hustle in this particular instance. Here, special effects for  butt-kicking, explosions and high-flying hits and misses were all a bit much.. but the slow-mo, adrenaline boosts as well as the match-moving effects helped save the movie, only barely. There’s even a special appearance from Bumblebee!

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The Daily Seni’s choice

The thing is, the use of special effects has to strike a balance between practicality and visuals; we want acting and digital effects that morph and work together harmoniously. We’re going to sit on the fence with this category and say that it’s a toss-up between the landscaping effects and colours in Terbaik Dari Langit, and the twisting, breaking of limbs and prosthetic makeup used in Hungry Ghost Ritual.

We say… it’s going to be a tie.

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