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Late to the party here.
That was the CGI blood of the era….
I remember that effect as an 8yr old kid and I thought it was effective to depict them getting crushed and squished. I was distressed by much of the mayhem in this film.
I don't think the deaths were that exploitative in the film and neither in
The Poseidon Adventure
. They all worked in well with the narrative, the possibility for depiction in a similar disaster and for emotional impact.
The Towering Inferno
had more of a mean-streak to it I find.
Norman! What did you put in my tea?

That's one of the single most unintentionally uproarious moments in the film. I always bust a gut when that particular moment happens.
You've seen Guy Standeven in something because the man was in everything.

I just don't understand why the animation was left in there. The movie didn't have to actually show blood splattering to convey the horror of the elevator crashing. Hell, it could've cut to black or something as soon as the elevator hit the bottom, followed by a loud crunching noise.
Emojis=
Emoticons=

The blood splatter is awful but a lot of the effects and sets hold up pretty well today, and are better than most CGI crap.

The big selling point for Earthquake was the "Sensurround" gimmick, which was really just a bunch of subwoofers.
They must've run out of money, and couldn't afford some fake blood.
What!!! No Gravy???
Check out the FAQ.
http://tinyurl.com/cf6pvux

The blood splatter is the only thing worth remembering in the movie. We saw it in the theater and after the first 1/4 second of "eeewww", everyone started laughing. It was dreadfully funny!
Birdbrains Teaser Trailer:

I was 14 when this came out in the theater, along with Sensurround. The vibrating chairs brought out giggles, but the animated blood splat caused several minutes of laughter and even well into the movie, a person behind me started snickering and said, "I can't get over that elevator thing," or something to that effect. I just saw it again on TCM and had another good laugh. Just awful!

This entire movie is about the worst thing I've ever seen! Cannot believe the big names and bad acting.

Yep, it was cheesy. When I saw it in 1974 I was about 13 and the whole theater laughed then groaned because the "4th wall" was gone.

I watched it today after many many years. Its a terrible movie. Worst affects I've seen. For 1974 the effects should of been better. Just lazy and clumsy film making

They must have done that at the very last second. "The negative is due at the lab in an hour, hurry up with that blood splatter!"

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Maybe Universal should have done what Irwin Allen did and find another studio to help finance Earthquake like he did with Inferno,with extra backing Mario Puzo's original script might have been able to be done justice and the destruction of Los Angeles could have been done on grand scale.
Even today The Towering Inferno looks like a class act that was well thought out, Earthquake just looks like a bad lego set thrown together which was rushed out to beat the release of Inferno.

back in the day you had to take the good with the bad in terms of special effects.u kind of expected them to look a little phony at times, kind of like seeing the boom mike poking in on tv shows

It did. All us seventies kids still joke about it today!

The warping shot was originally done as a camera test prior to production. The reason the shot is in the film (as awful as it is) is as an inside joke to the Universal executives the tower is the "Black Tower" on the lot at Universal, which houses the executive offices.
"It's people"

The blood splat was a post-production 'money shot' substituting for an originally more graphic aftermath to the scene, which would have shown the detail of the bloodied, entangled heap of the travellers' bodies. However, the MPAA deemed it 'R'-worthy and so a compromise had to be made. There's been some debate over the years as to whether or not it was deliberately done so awfully as a kind of 'forget you' gesture.
There's no excusing the 'warping building' shot though, no. The very first one is just about passable, as there's not so much 'movement' to the building, more a bulging, and it's fleeting enough for you to let it by without dwelling on it, but then they cut back to a much longer shot with laughably apparent optical distortion. They really should have dropped the repetition.

Apart from the blood splattered elevator there is a scene early in quake when Chuck and Ava are under the car and a building just bends, it is a pathetic special effect and the trivia section here[or somewhere] mentions it was done by warping a mirror.
That said I always like seeing the Capitol Records building collapse and the shot that pans over the city just after the quake finishes with the eerie John Williams score is very effective, that scene was done well.

Earthquake was nominated for 4 Academy Awards but only won one for best sound.
It also won a special achievement award for visual effects.

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I thought it was stupid

Agree. The WORST special effect, considering what they could have done by 1974.

Yes that was a little silly. Even back in 1974 when i saw it in the movie theaters It looked fake.