SciFiNow – September 2019

JIM HENSON

The Best Jim Henson Creatures

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10

THE GRAND

HIGH WITCH

THE WITCHES

Casting Anjelica Huston as The Grand High

Witch in the Roald Dahl adaptation was

enough to make the character scary, but the

Jim Henson Creature Shop went one step

further when it created the real faces of the

film’s witches – and in the utterly nightmarish

scene in which she, and the other witches, are

all transformed into mice. The Creature Shop’s

half-transformed puppets are truly horrific.

NIGHTMARE FACTOR

™š›œ

The Roald Dahl scare factor is present

and correct.

13

SKEKSIS

THE DARK CRYSTAL

With their hulking figures and high-pitched

cackles, the Skeksis haunted the dreams of

every young child who watched The Dark

Crystal. The Skeksis puppets are huge, full-

body creations that required six puppeteers

• two operating it from inside, and four
  external puppeteers handling limbs and other
  elements. The Skeksis also originally didn’t
  speak English, but instead spoke a made-up
  language. Test audiences hated it, though, so
  the Skeksis were dubbed into English.

NIGHTMARE FACTOR

™š›œ

Terrifying, but so OTT as to be a little funny.

11

VOGONS

THE HITCHHIKER’S GUIDE

TO THE GALAXY

Jim Henson and Douglas Adams had

discussed working together, so it was only

fitting that the Creature Shop provided the

film’s adaptations’s creatures. The Shop made

the Marvin the Paranoid Android costume, but

the Vogons are the real scene-stealers.

NIGHTMARE FACTOR

™š›œ

We wouldn’t even mind if they read their

poetry to us.

12

THE GHOST OF

CHRISTMAS YET

TO COME

THE MUPPET CHRISTMAS CAROL

The Ghost Of Christmas Yet To Come doesn’t

even seem like a puppet – just a tall guy in

robes. Yet he brings with him such an air

of dread that it’s only in adulthood that you

realise what an effective puppet he is. It’s the

lack of a face that makes him really scary.

NIGHTMARE FACTOR

™š›œ

BRING BACK THE GHOST OF CHRISTMAS

PRESENT, HE WAS LOVELY.

HUSTON’S

PROSTHETICS

TOOK SEVEN

HOURS TO APPLY,

AND FIVE HOURS

TO REMOVE.

THE CREATURE

SHOP HAD TO FIGURE

OUT A WAY FOR THE

MAJORITY OF THE

PUPPET’S WEIGHT TO

BE CARRIED ON THE

PERFORMER’S HIPS.

14

THE WILD

THINGS

WHERE THE WILD

THINGS ARE

The Creature Shop refined the

designs for the Wild Things, then

figured out how to build them as life-

sized puppets. They weighed around

150 pounds and were operated by

a single performer inside each suit.

Rather than giving them animatronic

heads, the Wild Things’ facial

expressions were added in CG. The

suits were so hot that performers

would occasionally pass out, but

the suit was too heavy to fall over

so it would take the crew a while to

notice. Quite how such cumbersome

creatures looked so energetic on

screen is frankly mind-blowing.

Nightmare factor

™š›œ

Cuddles please.