An Animatronic ‘Devil Baby’ Scares New Yorkers in Viral Prank
Devils are scary. Devil babies are scarier.
To promote the horror movie Devil's Due, releasing this weekend, the mad PR geniuses at Thinkmodo conducted, according to founder Michael Krivicka, "an interesting social experiment to see how many people would bother to check on an abandoned stroller."
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- No Good Deed Went Unpunished
- Practical Jokes With Practical FX
- Using an Animatronic Rig to Make ‘Devil Baby’ Move
- Making ‘Devil Baby’ Cry
- The Fine Line Between Terror and Laughter
- “Real” Monsters Are Scarier
No Good Deed Went Unpunished
It turns out that the tough streets of New York City are filled with Good Samaritans who tried to soothe the wailing infant, only to find, to their horrified surprise, the bile-spewing, telekinetic Spawn of Satan.
('Devil Baby' begins his Reign of Terror. The NYPD are powerless to stop it.)
(Horrified New Yorkers behold the tiny face of evil.)
Practical Jokes With Practical FX
'Devil Baby' and his radio-controlled Satan Stroller were created by the Practical FX wizards at Mark Rappaport's Creature Effects Inc. (300, Star Trek, I Am Legend). "The whole shop was involved in making 'Devil Baby.' We had a blast," said mechanical designer Eric Fiedler.
Using an Animatronic Rig to Make ‘Devil Baby’ Move
"Bob Newton, Todd Minobe, and I primarily worked on the animatronic rig to bring it to life. I mechanized the baby, Bob handled the stroller, and Todd built what we call a "rat trap," a torsion spring mechanism that popped up when triggered via radio-control. It would drop the stroller shade down and flip the baby up," explained Fiedler. "Mark Rappaport, Jeff Cruts, and I flew out to New York to operate it."
(The Creature Effects Inc. team assembles 'Devil Baby' before taking to the streets.)
Making ‘Devil Baby’ Cry
"Another cool thing is we had a sound system we controlled from an iPhone," said Fiedler. "We'd play the sound of the baby crying, and it would lure people in like ants to sugar. And they would get down and look, and BAM, we’d hit them."
Listen to our interview with Eric:
The Fine Line Between Terror and Laughter
"Since the stroller was remote-controlled, we decided to have some fun with it and have the stroller approach people — some walking, some sitting enjoying a coffee. After getting the living hell scared out of them, each reaction ended with a laugh," reassured Thinkmodo's Krivikca, who has a baby son himself.
This isn't Thinkmodo's first Practical FX-driven prank video to go viral. Watch the brilliant "Telekinetic Coffee Shop Prank" they devised for the remake of CARRIE below.
“Real” Monsters Are Scarier
We love stuff like this not only because scaring people is really, really fun but because it goes to show that when you want a visceral reaction from an audience, nothing beats Practical FX.
All hail 'Devil Baby,'
Matt Winston
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