As Alien: Earth hits the small screen with promises of creatures even scarier than the slathering xenomorphs, SFX experts tell us how they made Stranger Things, The Last of Us and more so horrifying
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hen special effects artist Aaron Sims first read the script for Stranger Things, he was struck by how vague the description was for the show’s centrepiece monster. “It basically said, ‘The Demogorgon is a tall, lanky creature that eats children,’” recalls Sims. “I’m thinking, ‘OK, that’s scary – but what does that actually look like?’” What happened when he posed this question to the series creators Matt and Ross Duffer? “They said, ‘We have no idea – come up with something.’”
For Sims, who has worked on films such as The Incredible Hulk, Rise of the Planet of the Apes and X-Men, this was a relief. “When there’s already a fanbase, there is a lot of scrutiny and expectation. The fans either love it or hate it – and there’s nothing you can do. Working on The Incredible Hulk, for example, took years. So when it’s a new creature, a lot of people get excited.”
This near-blank canvas led Sims to an unlikely source of inspiration: the snapping mouth of a turtle. “When a turtle opens its jaws,” he says, “it looks like it has rows of teeth – but they’re actually fibres that draw food inward.” He combined this with a Venus flytrap and the result was that uniquely terrifying head that blooms open like a flower, revealing concentric rings of teeth, then clamps down on its prey, usually a screaming child. The Duffer brothers wanted only one modification: no face.
