On Friday we lost Italian visual effects artist Carlo Rambaldi, dead at 86. 

Carlo put the gore in the gore effect laden Italian films of the seventies, especially in seminalworks like like Bava’s “Twitch of the Death Nerve” and Argento’s “Deep Red”. 

His international fame came later, designing and building incredible creature props for the 1976 “King Kong” remake and the alien prosthetics for “Alien”. Giger designed the creature, but Rambaldi was tasked with the near impossible feat of translating Giger’s concept into a filmable suit an actor could wear. He was also responsible for the tentacled creatuer from Zulawski’s“Possession”, the creature effects in David Lynch’ “Dune” and the aliens from “Close Encounters of the Third Kind”. 

He will always be remembered however for creating E.T. for Steven Spielberg’s “E.T.: The Extraterrestrial”, creating a set of effects that have become part of Hollywood’s indelible iconography. 

Carlo won Oscars for ET, Alien, and a special achievement award for his work on King Kong.