"It was one of the most grotesque things I’ve ever seen. It was a horror show! There was one shot where I call, ‘Cut!’ and suddenly she turns her head and mechanically stares right into the camera. It was incredibly disturbing.”
So teased director Bill Condon to Entertainment Weekly when he was promoting the final film in the Twilight series. The 'thing' he was referring to was an animatronic baby the film's effects team had created to play the role of Renesmee: (spoiler) the hyper intelligent mutant child of main characters Bella and Edward.
For those who are unfamiliar with Twilight lore - and really, you should count your blessings on that front - Renesmee is a telepathic child who ages at an extremely accelerated rate (there's also some weird and ridiculous stuff involving a werewolf). Naturally, this means she doesn't look like any normal baby, but it seems as if the creators of the puppet might have gone a step or ten too far when it came to the uncanny valley.
The resulting monstrosity was dubbed Chuckesmee by the cast and crew, after everyone's favourite evil puppet Chucky from Child's Play. In the final film, Chuckesmee was replaced by a real child who had their face 'enhanced' by CGI.
A clip of the abandoned doll has been released via Yahoo Movies. It's embedded below, and even in brief you can see why this was a very bad idea, even by Twilight standards. You've been warned: what is seen cannot be unseen.
Image / video: Yahoo Movies / Summit Entertainment
