Ever wonder how they got Louis Del Grande’s head to explode in Scanners? While most people’s first guess would logically be “explosives,” it was actually a lot more tricky (and awesome) than that.
For their new Blu-ray release of the film, the Criterion Collection talked with photographer Mark Irwin, special effects supervisor Gary Zeller, and makeup artists Stephen Dupuis and Chris Wallas about the effect. The guys explain the difficulties in creating the now-iconic moment, saying how they made several attempts to make it look real before finally deciding to do things the old fashioned way.
Check out the video below for the whole, messy story.