An Absurd Trip

You’ve probably watched a movie where an actor is asked to fall down. Usually it’s shot and/or edited in such a way to hide the fact that either a) a stunt actor was used b) special padding was involved or c) the fall was never actually performed.

In Joe D’Amato’s home invasion horror film, Absurd, a mash-up of The Exorcist, Halloween and The Shining, French actress Annie Belle plays a nurse and in-home caregiver to a young girl (Katya Berger) in traction. On her long walk through the woods to the young girl’s family home, in order to add tension to the long and drawn-out scene, the script calls for her character to trip and fall to the ground. Always the professionial, Annie falls down in the most convincing fashion.

I’ve watched this clip one-hundred times and it looks more are more “real” each time. Today, a minor stunt like this would require several safety contracts, a stunt coordinator, and a medical team on standby. Or more likely, it would be done using computer graphics to replace a stunt performer’s face with Annie’s, or worse, recreated from scratch using a computer generated human wireframe.

Never forget what they took from you. And thank you, Annie, for putting your body on the line for your art, and our amusement.