Unfinished Bodies: The Sticky Materiality of Prosthetic Effects

How do we sense, and make sense of, disturbing traces of the material world of filmmaking when they appear onscreen? This article explores the felt presence of prosthetic effects in popular American and Indian horror films of the 1980s. I argue that the perceptible thereness of prosthetics can unexpectedly intensify the meaning and feeling of the film in which it appears. At the same time, prosthetic effects can also force an encounter with the non-signifying thingness of bodies, spaces, and accidents recorded in the profilmic event— an unmastered materiality that gives heft to and haunts contemporary digital visual effects.