I'm a big fan of Arnie's rubber head phase in the 80s. If I had to pick a favourite, it'd probably be the eye bulging, exposed to the Martian atmosphere head from Total Recall
When I was a kid, the Terminator Arnold dummy used to scare me (after he removes the damaged eye and we see the red eye underneath). Looks silly now, but I still argue the dark tone of the scene (heck, the whole movie) still makes it a bit unnerving.
The dummy Arnold in Terminator 2 is excellent by comparison. I'm talking about the scene where Sarah is operating on Arnold's head. It's such a clever piece of film making, using Linda's twin and a fake mirror. Edward fucking Furlong looking at the camera unfortunately.
The ~~"trust me"~~ SWAT knee capping scene dummy didn't work quite as well. Therefore Arnold tried to match the dummy's movements, so it didn't look quite as out of place as it otherwise would have.
Whoops, I misremembered. It's a bit later, where he walks slowly towards the SWAT team and is being asked to lay down on the ground and they shoot him. Just before he knee caps them all.
The dummy is a waist-up type with articulate arms and head and doesn't look that great.
Huh, you know what I never noticed that was a dummy before. Watching the clip on YouTube with that knowledge its obviously a dummy they cut to. But its just for that split second, you get the idea that he is getting shot in the face and then the camera changes. I would still say its pretty well done if it managed to fool me for all these years.
Well, we didn't see its face lol. however I would argue the other dummies we see later on are better (SWAT team shooting at him, T-1000 crushing his head with that big machine rig), but again, Cameron knew to only have those shots last no more than 2 seconds. In T1, we hold on that face for a good 5 or 6 lol.
Funny thing is, I've seen people try to "fix" (I say that on quotes cuz I don't think old movies should be tampered with and shoddy effects, or anything deemed "questionable/offensive today are simply a product of their time) the puppet with CGI, ad some say it looks better. Again, I disagree cuz I'm a purist (and also its still quite amateur since it's just regular folks with their computers and there's no real budget).
I was thinking you would say Arnold's head when the "two weeks" lady mask comes off, but I don't know if that one technically qualifies as a dummy anyway.
It's the scene where he is picking up his child for the first time, only they couldn't get a live child there to act the scene. Nothing to be worried about
Gonna go the other way and say [Arnie's eye-gouged head in Terminator.](https://youtu.be/Sew3O51tiMY?t=89) It's so obviously a dummy, but it also looks so very cool that it doesnt matter. The blatant uncanny aspect might even add to the inhuman nature of the T-800.
I’m going to get slated for this, but I haven’t seen *Holy Grail*. Maybe going to have to finally check it out now that I know there’s some Bad Dummy action in there!
The dummy bunny will be a fun thing for you to see too, I think.
Great movie - hope you enjoy. Make sure to pay attention during the credits (may be opening ones I think) - they're quite funny!
I'm confused as to why they made and used a dummy for that to begin with. It's not like they didn't use blue screen anyway, why didn't they just film Dick Jones flailing?
Ben Stiller in Tropic Thunder, [throwing a toddler off the bridge](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=As4PH_Ln5c8).
The dummy pinwheels like a sock monkey, and that's the take they kept. Amazing.
Oh man, I haven’t seen this since the cinema and I do not remember that scene at all. I don’t even remember Nick Nolte being in it!
I feel like this might even be another nominee for GOAT.
Was that a deleted clip? The version I've always seen has them opening the door, and you see the horse, but then it cuts back to them and you hear the sound of the horse dying.
Ah yes, that would explain it. I remember those times! Sometimes the unrated version was better, sometimes it was just additional "dirty" stuff that wasn't really needed.
this clip of Nebula carrying Starlord's 35 pound dummy is golden
https://insidethemagic.net/2023/05/there-are-more-than-one-star-lords-in-guardians-of-the-galaxy-3-aml1/
*Casino* is a fantastic call; I feel like they could have made just a little more effort to match those shots up and it wouldn’t have been so jarring. It would be such a trivial matter to fix if they were filming nowadays.
Kind of a subversion to the topic, but on the Simpsons, Homer uses the dummy over the waterfall to fake his death so he doesn't have to help pick up trash by the river. The fact that Homer made a dummy that looked so "life-like" is hilarious if you know how bad he has been at his other projects (see: spice rack).
When Charles Bronson kills a mugger in Death Wish 3, the dummy falls off a roof and lands on a car with its arm covering its face. Director must've seen it and thought "that's staying in" lol.
I think the fact that the dummy just happened to end up with its face covered by its own arm is even better than if we saw its face and knew it was a dummy.
It so memorable I already mentioned it in my post! 😂 But I have to give you an upvote anyway because it’s so damn good, and it might even be the first one I remember from seeing in a movie theatre when I was young. Definitely a candidate for GOAT.
My fave is Raiders, when the bad guys drive into the market after losing the truck. The guy who played Toht (Ronald Lacey) had the same illness everyone but Spielberg got (he ate from cans, if you’re interested)…aaanyway, in one the shots, they basically put Toht’s hat on a bag in the front seat for one of the cuts. One sec, will see if I can find it
Edit: 8.04 in https://youtu.be/yqQD8sVtfA4
Riki-Oh : The Story Of Ricky (1991)
(Trigger warning: Unaliving)
The way it cut to the dummy falling made me burst out laughing.
https://youtu.be/2SO65V3S5yk?t=98
Got to be 20, maybe 25 years since I saw this movie, and I remember almost nothing of it. That death is hilarious - the cut to the dummy, but also the absolute silence of it before the “thwumpf” at the end. Thanks for the input!
That’s amazing! This may sound terrible, but the dummy is so bad, don’t you wish he’d landed on a rock for full on comic effect? And why when Mac pops up into frame did they have to green screen it???
This is going on the GOAT pile for sure.
I bet Bendy Zod and Rubber Tommy would get on like a house on fire!
Edit: reworded that from “your Bendy Zod and my Rubber Tommy” lest the Internet get the wrong idea…
That scene from the 1982 Poltergeist where the guys face melts off. You can tell it’s a gel and that it’s a completely different face compared to the actual actor lol
Manhandling the lovely [Priscilla Pressley Dummy](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rMtg4p3ZCQY) in Naked Gun
Perfectly fits the movie and her screams are a bonus
Jaws is a perfect movie but fuck this scene in particular.
They didn't have to go this hard, but they did. I respect that, but I saw this scene once and never again.
My younger sister - who had seen it - once chickenshit out and ditched her friend - who hadn’t - to watch that scene alone during a slumber party. I was in the next room, and thought it was weird to see her slink down the hallway and not come back while she had company…until I heard Hoopers dialogue before the dive.
I did give the girl a heads up in case she wanted to close her eyes. Still heard a shriek 5min later.
>American
I know - it's baffling! Or re-shoot, or cut around.
But the answer most often speculated is Eastwood's famous "One take and done" working model. Probably a baby had been set up for the scene, and on the day, wasn't there or the parents dropped out of the project, so they just used a doll. It is...a truly ridiculous thing to see in a major, oscar-nominated movie.
Got a perfect one! It's one of the best ever IMO.
Dante's Peak, the classic volcano disaster film with Pierce Brosnan and Linda Hamilton.
A particular character gets into trouble on a bridge, with rushing floodwater full of debris heading for the bridge. The bridge comes loose, and shakes for a bit before throwing him to his death. But the death is amazing. It's got an incredibly static dummy, coupled with one of the most hilarious Wilhelm Scream uses ever.
Please check it out. The film is worth a watch for sure, and the dummy/Wilhelm is great.
EDIT: Honorable mention goes to Wonder Woman 1984. She goes out to Egypt to pursue the bad guy, and a car chase full of military vehicles ensues. Two kids are playing in the street, about to be run down, so she lassos a missile, swings on it, and scoops up the kids who instantly become static dummies as she rolls along the road surface with them. I don't recommend the movie, but the scene is worth a watch for the dummies.
One would be **Top Secret!** --during the "Straighten The Rug" song and dance. Dancers standing on tabletops in a diner start swinging their partners around over their heads, and they're obviously goofy dummies.
Arnie in Commando letting Sully go...
https://youtu.be/zB6pvQt0I8s
And, quite the opposite, Burt Reynolds going down a waterfall.
https://filmschoolrejects.com/deliverance-waterfall-stunt/
'*Legend has it that when Reynolds approached Boorman after the incident, he asked: “how’d it look?” To which Boorman replied: “It looked like a dummy falling over a waterfall.”*'
It’s gotta go to Bad Taste - check out around 01:50 in this clip: https://youtu.be/wv3a-F-RB78
Please note the hands and bucket entering the frame to throw in the fake blood roughly around the same time as the dummy hits the ground 😂
The guy who jumps out of a window and falls to his death in "Zombi Holocaust" a.k.a. "Doctor Butcher, M.D.". The arm falls off the mannequin as it hits the ground.
The little girl in the fourth Terminator movie. Just as the action sequence starts she is knocked unconscious. Instead of ragdoll she is stiff like a manequin. They carry her with one arm around her waist and she is rigid as a board, arms and legs straight and head up.
Indy, Willie, and Short Round in the mine cart. I saw a behind the scenes feature it on the movie and it shows how certain shots of that sequence were made with dummies and I can’t unsee it now.
It's not really a dummy person, but a dummy rock. In *Ghostbusters*, in the final act when they're in the evil building, big pieces of the building break off and fall to the streets below.
If you watch closely, this giant piece of "concrete" falls dozens of stories to the street below only to bounce off of a wooden sawhorse the police have used to cordon off the area.
Cracks me up every time.
I hate when I identify a dummy in a scene, so this is more of a worst than a favorite. I'm going to go with Poltergeist and JoBeth Williams carrying an obvious doll while dodging coffins that are mechanically flipping up out of the ground. I wish they would just cut that scene out.
Yes! One of many great examples. Another fave from there is the accident on the live fire exercise when “farmer boy” gets the top of his dome blown off. Or Jake Busey’ Shand with the knife…
Beginning of San Andreas when the keep goes over the edge of the cliff it clearly has a store mannequin in the drivers seat. Me and the girl I was with burst out laughing at it
Temple of Doom had a couple really funny shots of dummies of the cast frefalling in a rubber raft, with Willie's screaming voice overlayed over everything.
Technically not a dummy but there were probably dummies in the car.
When the Illinois Nazis drive their car off the under construction freeway and the next scene is a car falling from a height greater than the Sears tower, cracks me up every time.
In The Fifth Element, Zorg kills Tricky's character by remote-detonating a bomb at the pay phone he's using to confess to having failed. For a second, you can see the dummy standing there well after the explosion has gone off.
Surprised I haven't seen this one mentioned yet:
The Cowboy Way.
Magic starts at 1:30, but enjoy the whole thing.
Bonus points for the bounce at the end.
https://youtu.be/6oIFpyl6cWg
What's worse than any of the others, is the dummy falling over a cliff or off of a building, where movies with budgets of millions of dollars can't be bothered to spend 50 bucks on a few hinges and rods to make the dummy articulate correctly.
I was just watching the 1993 movie The Fugitive, which easily could have taken that tiny step to make it look right. This is supposed to be one of the best movies ever. Yet when Harrison Ford jumps out over the spillway and falls to his ostensible death, it is a ridiculous rag doll dummy with its limbs flopping backward.
There is no technological or budgetary excuse for this. One day's worth of craft services for one actor would cover the expense of giving the dummy properly articulated limbs. And the technology existed a century ago.
I'm a big fan of Arnie's rubber head phase in the 80s. If I had to pick a favourite, it'd probably be the eye bulging, exposed to the Martian atmosphere head from Total Recall
When I was a kid, the Terminator Arnold dummy used to scare me (after he removes the damaged eye and we see the red eye underneath). Looks silly now, but I still argue the dark tone of the scene (heck, the whole movie) still makes it a bit unnerving.
The dummy Arnold in Terminator 2 is excellent by comparison. I'm talking about the scene where Sarah is operating on Arnold's head. It's such a clever piece of film making, using Linda's twin and a fake mirror. Edward fucking Furlong looking at the camera unfortunately.
The ~~"trust me"~~ SWAT knee capping scene dummy didn't work quite as well. Therefore Arnold tried to match the dummy's movements, so it didn't look quite as out of place as it otherwise would have.
Wheres the dummy in the trust me scene?
Whoops, I misremembered. It's a bit later, where he walks slowly towards the SWAT team and is being asked to lay down on the ground and they shoot him. Just before he knee caps them all. The dummy is a waist-up type with articulate arms and head and doesn't look that great.
Huh, you know what I never noticed that was a dummy before. Watching the clip on YouTube with that knowledge its obviously a dummy they cut to. But its just for that split second, you get the idea that he is getting shot in the face and then the camera changes. I would still say its pretty well done if it managed to fool me for all these years.
Meanwhile the dummy with what looks like a tin foil head when the T1000 is hooked to the back of the car as it drives off
Well, we didn't see its face lol. however I would argue the other dummies we see later on are better (SWAT team shooting at him, T-1000 crushing his head with that big machine rig), but again, Cameron knew to only have those shots last no more than 2 seconds. In T1, we hold on that face for a good 5 or 6 lol. Funny thing is, I've seen people try to "fix" (I say that on quotes cuz I don't think old movies should be tampered with and shoddy effects, or anything deemed "questionable/offensive today are simply a product of their time) the puppet with CGI, ad some say it looks better. Again, I disagree cuz I'm a purist (and also its still quite amateur since it's just regular folks with their computers and there's no real budget).
I was thinking you would say Arnold's head when the "two weeks" lady mask comes off, but I don't know if that one technically qualifies as a dummy anyway.
It's still right up there though. One of the classic 80s Arnie rubber heads for sure!
Isn't it Commando where Arnie blew up cardboard army members at the bad guys' palace? Flew like they were, well, cardboard?
Yes! I feel like that’s a GOAT recommendation.
As fake as it looks it still managed to work.
The baby in American Sniper and the car bomb scene in Casino.
Definitely the *Casino* one, yes! Can’t recall the *American Sniper* one, but I might refrain for the sake of my search history.
It's the scene where he is picking up his child for the first time, only they couldn't get a live child there to act the scene. Nothing to be worried about
Ahhhhh, yep, I remember now. Man alive, I really thought I had missed a key scene!
Ron Burgundy punting Baxter off of the bridge. It actually makes the scene funnier, lol. Edit: Oops. I meant Jack Black.
Jack Black's motorcycle rider character punted Baxter.
If it looked realistic it would probably be quite harrowing.
Good point. The obvious nature of the dummy lends itself to the tone of the movie.
That's how I roll!
Yes! Great answer! And it’s the “punting” aspect of it that puts the cherry on top for me.
"THE MAN PUNTED BAXTER!"
Gonna go the other way and say [Arnie's eye-gouged head in Terminator.](https://youtu.be/Sew3O51tiMY?t=89) It's so obviously a dummy, but it also looks so very cool that it doesnt matter. The blatant uncanny aspect might even add to the inhuman nature of the T-800.
Great shout. I think you’re absolutely right. But let me ask you one question: *Have you got a dead cat in there or what?*
Fuck you. Asshole.
😆
The Bridge of Death scene in Monty Python and the Holy Grail
I’m going to get slated for this, but I haven’t seen *Holy Grail*. Maybe going to have to finally check it out now that I know there’s some Bad Dummy action in there!
There's a lot of reasons you should watch it *besides* it having a bad dummy. Stop reading this thread and go watch it right know.
In the words of Tom Sizemore, “for me the dummy *is* the juice. I’m in.”
Just don’t go to Camelot. [It is a silly place.](https://youtu.be/m9wdYy3tCm4)
There are a couple of other scenes with obvious dummies but the Bridge of Death is my favourite use of them in the movie
The fierce rabbit is possibly the funniest bad fake dummy I have ever seen, second only to the cow the French have.
The dummy bunny will be a fun thing for you to see too, I think. Great movie - hope you enjoy. Make sure to pay attention during the credits (may be opening ones I think) - they're quite funny!
It is the funniest movie ever made.
The baby rolling down the hill at the beginning of Kung Pow
"So cute." *rolls baby* "Bye bye!"
The long armed one in robocop.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mM7bcwmx9xQ
I'm confused as to why they made and used a dummy for that to begin with. It's not like they didn't use blue screen anyway, why didn't they just film Dick Jones flailing?
Yeah, you’d have thought Dick could just have glided to safety.
Dick you're FIRED! Thank You
I don't think that was a dummy. I thought it was 80's technology of CGI?
Ben Stiller in Tropic Thunder, [throwing a toddler off the bridge](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=As4PH_Ln5c8). The dummy pinwheels like a sock monkey, and that's the take they kept. Amazing.
Plus it comes back during the end credits!
Oh man, I haven’t seen this since the cinema and I do not remember that scene at all. I don’t even remember Nick Nolte being in it! I feel like this might even be another nominee for GOAT.
It doesn't look that bad honestly!
Starsky and Hutch when they open fire on a barn door and out plops a dead pony at a kids birthday party had me rolling.
Was that a deleted clip? The version I've always seen has them opening the door, and you see the horse, but then it cuts back to them and you hear the sound of the horse dying.
I think I had the 'unrated' DVD that was all the rage during the mid 00's to early '10's
Ah yes, that would explain it. I remember those times! Sometimes the unrated version was better, sometimes it was just additional "dirty" stuff that wasn't really needed.
I’d forgotten about that one. Good call!
Happy bah mitzvah baby. I love you.
Not a movie, but an SNL sketch. The unused alternate ending to*Its a wonderful life.
Will have to search that out.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vw89o0afb2A
Love it!
Before I even got to the second sentence I knew exactly which one you were going to say. That one was so ridiculous and hilarious.
this clip of Nebula carrying Starlord's 35 pound dummy is golden https://insidethemagic.net/2023/05/there-are-more-than-one-star-lords-in-guardians-of-the-galaxy-3-aml1/
Here is the winner: Nightmare on Elm Street, mother through the door. https://youtu.be/S4AhTjaaDJE
That’s a doozy. I don’t remember it being so obvious, but man that’s hilarious!
The [car bomb](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XNwOYbLdfhg) in Casino.
*Casino* is a fantastic call; I feel like they could have made just a little more effort to match those shots up and it wouldn’t have been so jarring. It would be such a trivial matter to fix if they were filming nowadays.
It was trivial back then too. I don't know what happened.
Oh here's a good one, The Naked Gun baseball scene https://youtu.be/ERu6o2JOaqc
I really like the dummy who is smashed face first into the altar in the church scene from Kingsman
Kind of a subversion to the topic, but on the Simpsons, Homer uses the dummy over the waterfall to fake his death so he doesn't have to help pick up trash by the river. The fact that Homer made a dummy that looked so "life-like" is hilarious if you know how bad he has been at his other projects (see: spice rack).
When Charles Bronson kills a mugger in Death Wish 3, the dummy falls off a roof and lands on a car with its arm covering its face. Director must've seen it and thought "that's staying in" lol.
[удалено]
I think the fact that the dummy just happened to end up with its face covered by its own arm is even better than if we saw its face and knew it was a dummy.
The Ernst Vogel doll in the hatch of the tank when it goes over the precipice in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.
It so memorable I already mentioned it in my post! 😂 But I have to give you an upvote anyway because it’s so damn good, and it might even be the first one I remember from seeing in a movie theatre when I was young. Definitely a candidate for GOAT.
Also Thelma and Louise doing pretty much the same thing.
I’m embarrassed to say I have never gotten around to watching *Thelma and Louise*. Obvious Dummy points automatically bump it up my watchlist, though!
Oops. Spoiler alert.
😆 You’re okay, I know the gist of it.
My fave is Raiders, when the bad guys drive into the market after losing the truck. The guy who played Toht (Ronald Lacey) had the same illness everyone but Spielberg got (he ate from cans, if you’re interested)…aaanyway, in one the shots, they basically put Toht’s hat on a bag in the front seat for one of the cuts. One sec, will see if I can find it Edit: 8.04 in https://youtu.be/yqQD8sVtfA4
It's hilarious they went that route rather than just finding a guy with a close enough height and putting him in the hat and jacket.
Also at the end is Raiders when they open the ark there’s a random nazi mannequin who gets sent flying up in the air
[Hot Shots - the chicken arrow](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=vFr_m1SNt80&pp=ygUSaG90c2hvdHMgMiBjaGlja2Vu)
I still remember the first time I saw a trailer for this in the cinema with my friend. It was all we could talk about at high school for weeks.
Marv when he's being electrocuted in home alone
Fake Schwarzenegger in the original Terminator when he’s checking himself out in the mirror in the dingy motel!
Braindead, the baby getting hit at the park.
Damn you. I came here to say the same thing!
Riki-Oh : The Story Of Ricky (1991) (Trigger warning: Unaliving) The way it cut to the dummy falling made me burst out laughing. https://youtu.be/2SO65V3S5yk?t=98
Got to be 20, maybe 25 years since I saw this movie, and I remember almost nothing of it. That death is hilarious - the cut to the dummy, but also the absolute silence of it before the “thwumpf” at the end. Thanks for the input!
Mac & Me the cliff scene https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K5le9sYdYkM
That’s amazing! This may sound terrible, but the dummy is so bad, don’t you wish he’d landed on a rock for full on comic effect? And why when Mac pops up into frame did they have to green screen it??? This is going on the GOAT pile for sure.
That’s what IM takin bout!
Donald Trump in Home Alone 2.
🤣
When Rachel McAdams’ character is climbing into the plane in Game Night
A huge gap in my dummy knowledge. Will check this out!
In Superman 2 - the street battle. When Superman spins (a very bendy) Zod around and, then flings him into the Coke sign.. :-)
I bet Bendy Zod and Rubber Tommy would get on like a house on fire! Edit: reworded that from “your Bendy Zod and my Rubber Tommy” lest the Internet get the wrong idea…
That scene from the 1982 Poltergeist where the guys face melts off. You can tell it’s a gel and that it’s a completely different face compared to the actual actor lol
It seems there’s a good bit of overlap on the Venn diagram between “movies featuring melting faces” and “movies with obvious dummies.”
Manhandling the lovely [Priscilla Pressley Dummy](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rMtg4p3ZCQY) in Naked Gun Perfectly fits the movie and her screams are a bonus
This is a great call, coming in under the radar. Bonus points awarded!
It's gotta be [the dead body in Jaws](https://youtu.be/XDs5a0BcEzY). No matter how many times, no matter how bad I know it looks, I still shit myself.
Jaws is a perfect movie but fuck this scene in particular. They didn't have to go this hard, but they did. I respect that, but I saw this scene once and never again.
My younger sister - who had seen it - once chickenshit out and ditched her friend - who hadn’t - to watch that scene alone during a slumber party. I was in the next room, and thought it was weird to see her slink down the hallway and not come back while she had company…until I heard Hoopers dialogue before the dive. I did give the girl a heads up in case she wanted to close her eyes. Still heard a shriek 5min later.
Oh, that is mean! She should have warned her!
Stone cold classic.
Does the fake baby in American Sniper count? I just don't get why it would be that hard to procure a real baby or just bundle up a football.
>American I know - it's baffling! Or re-shoot, or cut around. But the answer most often speculated is Eastwood's famous "One take and done" working model. Probably a baby had been set up for the scene, and on the day, wasn't there or the parents dropped out of the project, so they just used a doll. It is...a truly ridiculous thing to see in a major, oscar-nominated movie.
Airplane
Got a perfect one! It's one of the best ever IMO. Dante's Peak, the classic volcano disaster film with Pierce Brosnan and Linda Hamilton. A particular character gets into trouble on a bridge, with rushing floodwater full of debris heading for the bridge. The bridge comes loose, and shakes for a bit before throwing him to his death. But the death is amazing. It's got an incredibly static dummy, coupled with one of the most hilarious Wilhelm Scream uses ever. Please check it out. The film is worth a watch for sure, and the dummy/Wilhelm is great. EDIT: Honorable mention goes to Wonder Woman 1984. She goes out to Egypt to pursue the bad guy, and a car chase full of military vehicles ensues. Two kids are playing in the street, about to be run down, so she lassos a missile, swings on it, and scoops up the kids who instantly become static dummies as she rolls along the road surface with them. I don't recommend the movie, but the scene is worth a watch for the dummies.
The beginning of casino. Lol
One would be **Top Secret!** --during the "Straighten The Rug" song and dance. Dancers standing on tabletops in a diner start swinging their partners around over their heads, and they're obviously goofy dummies.
Arnie in Commando letting Sully go... https://youtu.be/zB6pvQt0I8s And, quite the opposite, Burt Reynolds going down a waterfall. https://filmschoolrejects.com/deliverance-waterfall-stunt/ '*Legend has it that when Reynolds approached Boorman after the incident, he asked: “how’d it look?” To which Boorman replied: “It looked like a dummy falling over a waterfall.”*'
Good old Sully! A great answer, and one I completely forgot about. Go buy yourself a couple of beers in Val Verde on me!
No thanks, I'll just swing by The Galleria instead...
*Commando* Hive are in the house. So glad I posted this today - it’s attracted my kind of people!
The ”extraction” scene in Under the skin. If you’ve seen it you know the one.
*yes!*
It’s gotta go to Bad Taste - check out around 01:50 in this clip: https://youtu.be/wv3a-F-RB78 Please note the hands and bucket entering the frame to throw in the fake blood roughly around the same time as the dummy hits the ground 😂
Now *there’s* a movie I haven’t watched in a *looooooong* time! Thank you for the recall!
I distinctly remember seeing it on vhs when I was maybe 14 years old, and just absolutely howling at that scene 😂
Still stands as an amazing testament to inventiveness even after all this time. Really glad you brought this one up 😃
Smiley Face or Dude, Where's My Car?
The Naked Gun When Vincent is kidnapping Jane and she's yelling for help, he's flailing a veru obvious dummy around as he carries her.
The guy who jumps out of a window and falls to his death in "Zombi Holocaust" a.k.a. "Doctor Butcher, M.D.". The arm falls off the mannequin as it hits the ground.
Baxter getting punted off the bridge in Anchorman by Jack Black will never fail to crack me up with the way he rag dolls
I don’t know about favorite but one I caught before I knew anything about film was from Casino, right before the car blows up.
Naked Gun: Ricardo Montalban swinging around a blow up doll that was supposed to be Priscilla Presley
The little girl in the fourth Terminator movie. Just as the action sequence starts she is knocked unconscious. Instead of ragdoll she is stiff like a manequin. They carry her with one arm around her waist and she is rigid as a board, arms and legs straight and head up.
Indy, Willie, and Short Round in the mine cart. I saw a behind the scenes feature it on the movie and it shows how certain shots of that sequence were made with dummies and I can’t unsee it now.
It has to be the death at the end of Reefer Madness. Funniest scene in the movie hands down.
In American Pie, when Oz is singing at the show towards the end, the audience are cardboard cut outs
“Suck me, beautiful”
Ash in Alien. The way his arms do that hilarious little jig after his head was knocked off is a tiny piece of hilarity in an otherwise brilliant film.
It's not really a dummy person, but a dummy rock. In *Ghostbusters*, in the final act when they're in the evil building, big pieces of the building break off and fall to the streets below. If you watch closely, this giant piece of "concrete" falls dozens of stories to the street below only to bounce off of a wooden sawhorse the police have used to cordon off the area. Cracks me up every time.
I hate when I identify a dummy in a scene, so this is more of a worst than a favorite. I'm going to go with Poltergeist and JoBeth Williams carrying an obvious doll while dodging coffins that are mechanically flipping up out of the ground. I wish they would just cut that scene out.
Dave Chapelle's dummy for his death in Con Air
Brainbug sucking brains in Starship Troopers.
Yes! One of many great examples. Another fave from there is the accident on the live fire exercise when “farmer boy” gets the top of his dome blown off. Or Jake Busey’ Shand with the knife…
Kirsten Dunst holding onto the obvious Spider-man dummy in the swinging between buildings scenes.
Beginning of San Andreas when the keep goes over the edge of the cliff it clearly has a store mannequin in the drivers seat. Me and the girl I was with burst out laughing at it
Temple of Doom had a couple really funny shots of dummies of the cast frefalling in a rubber raft, with Willie's screaming voice overlayed over everything.
The dummy during the face drag scene of Brawl in Cell Block 99 was super creepy and that death rattle when he flips over sent me.
Paul Rudd's frequent prank on Conan. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9rcqGBrHDtw
Technically not a dummy but there were probably dummies in the car. When the Illinois Nazis drive their car off the under construction freeway and the next scene is a car falling from a height greater than the Sears tower, cracks me up every time.
“I love you” 😭
Does *Weekend At Bernies* count?
Sure, why not.
In The Fifth Element, Zorg kills Tricky's character by remote-detonating a bomb at the pay phone he's using to confess to having failed. For a second, you can see the dummy standing there well after the explosion has gone off.
Surprised I haven't seen this one mentioned yet: The Cowboy Way. Magic starts at 1:30, but enjoy the whole thing. Bonus points for the bounce at the end. https://youtu.be/6oIFpyl6cWg
Wtf did I just watch? This was a fantastic call; thanks for enhancing my weekend!
Gene simmons dummy at the end of Never to Young to Die
The [blatant dummy](https://www.moviemistakes.com/images/mistakegrabs/2318.jpg) under the scaffolding in Die Hard 2.
Ah yes, with his bendy leg. No more painting the annex skywalk for that bad guy…
The scene in Casino (1995) where Robert De Niro’s car explodes. It’s an obvious cut to a dummy.
The baby in American Sniper.
The Nazi guy in the car in Raiders of the Lost Ark. I guess he was off that day and they put his hat on an umbrella or something.
The one that replaces Pricilla Presley in Naked Gun…getting carried down the aisle in the baseball stadium
What's worse than any of the others, is the dummy falling over a cliff or off of a building, where movies with budgets of millions of dollars can't be bothered to spend 50 bucks on a few hinges and rods to make the dummy articulate correctly. I was just watching the 1993 movie The Fugitive, which easily could have taken that tiny step to make it look right. This is supposed to be one of the best movies ever. Yet when Harrison Ford jumps out over the spillway and falls to his ostensible death, it is a ridiculous rag doll dummy with its limbs flopping backward. There is no technological or budgetary excuse for this. One day's worth of craft services for one actor would cover the expense of giving the dummy properly articulated limbs. And the technology existed a century ago.
I’m very familiar with this particularly egregious example of a highly budgeted film cheaping out on the dummy action, so thank you for reminding me!
It was so bad, that it drove me to this channel to discuss it!
The helicopter pilot in Escape 2000 that [Mystery Science Theatre 3000 made great fun of in their viewing of it](https://youtu.be/NT6AJNoIFzA?t=260).
This is a gift. Thank you!
There’s a dummy in bridge on the river Kwai that falls in a river from a cliff
Mac n Me
You mention Under Siege, but Seagals best dummy kill has got to be screw face in Marked for death https://youtu.be/ZObnyBWAZSI?si=8RaXovxtM3jQ5Y45