1. Rob Bottin
Piranha
The Fog
Maniac
Humanoids From The Deep
The Howling
The Thing
Twilight Zone: The Movie
Legend Witches Of Eastwick
Robocop
Total Recall
Seven
Fear And Loathing In Las Vegas
Fight Club
In the era of the 80's horror movement gore was god for most fans and Rob Bottin was behind a lot of the memorable splatter. Bottin began at the very early age of 14, by submitting pictures of his illustrations to Rick Baker who eventually hired him. Rob Bottin worked on the effects crews of various films over the years honing his craft and developing the skills he would need to create some of the most amazing effects in film history. His first big break was his solo effects work on the Joe Dante directed werewolf film The Howling. In The Howling, Bottin was able to create one of the most impressive werewolf transformations to ever hit the screens. The effects were especially groundbreaking due to the fact that The Howling hit the screens months before his mentors' (Rick Baker's) Academy Award winning werewolf transformation for, An American Werewolf In London. Though his film work could be discussed for days it is his work with John Carpenter that has truly set him apart from all others. Now in an age of CGI for any effect process that is highly time consuming for complex, Bottin was able to create creatures that would still rival the best CGI today (sorry Avatar). Cinematographer Dean Cundey introduced him to director John Carpenter for a possible effects position on The Fog, afterwards the two kept their working partnership with the film, The Thing. On set Bottin worked himself into a frenzy and almost broke down from exhaustion and stress due to the long seven day work weeks for over a year which even led to hospitalization after production for Bottin to recuperate. The outcome was some of the most mind blowing creature work ever seen. If anyone out there has not seen this film you must! It truly is the genre at its best due to the high caliber of everyones efforts and performances. Bottin went on to continue his impressive work over the decades until his unexpected retirement from the industry around 2003. Many say his premature sabbatical is due to the high level of stress Bottin had reached on his last few productions. He now works as a realtor in California. Whatever the reason was for his retirement, it is the film industry that was on the poor receiving end of the deal. Now impressive and talented effects artists are few and far between and the only existing effects super power, KNB, have also made the very sloppy transition into the realm of CGI, and with a The Thing prequel in the works we will have a direct comparison of new effects vs Bottin's approach. Everyday we hope to wake and read a headline that genre fans and effects kids alike have been dreaming of... "Rob Bottin Returns To Hollywood!".
