When you try to pick what you consider the "worst" effect is, I think it best to have some criteria to judge by. I tend to cut some slack to films that are shot on $1.98 budgets. Sometimes, you just gotta fly with what you got... But, when the producers of a film deliberately cheap out, and try to foist some turd-blossom of a model, or matte shot, or monster on us, simply because they didn't give a crap, then THAT's when I consider it a contender!

So, I think I'll cast my lot in with "The Giant Claw."

From all reports, the films producers had every opportunity to hire an experienced, well-trained crew for this... er... turkey. But opted instead for a Mexican crew that didn't really have any idea what they were doing. The final result wasn't just laughable, it hurt the careers of the actors who trusted these guys with putting something on screen that wouldn't be embarassing. Seriously, leaving in editorial cards that read "scene missing" would have been more effective and dramatic in the long run.

"[The audiance] will populate the darkness with more horrors than all the horror writers in Hollywood could think of. If you make the screen dark enough, the mind's eye will read anything into it you want! We're great ones for the dark patches." -VAL LEWTON