How Total Recall Created Sci-Fi Mutant Kuato Without An Ounce Of CGI

Paul Verhoeven's 1990 film "Total Recall" takes place in the distant future of 2084. Mars has not only been colonized, but it has also fallen under the rule of an evil governor named Vilos Cohaagen (Ronny Cox). The planet is rich with a rare, valuable ore called turbinium, but mining it has caused widespread pollution and radiation. Many of the Martian citizens have mutated as a result, their bodies sprouting extra body parts or sporting unusual growths. In many cases, mutants are also mildly psychic. To combat Cohaagen's corruption, a Mutant Resistance has formed, led by the mysterious and difficult-to-find Kuato (Marshall Bell).

The protagonist of "Total Recall" is Quaid (Arnold Schwarzenegger), a former agent for Cohaagen who had his memory erased and his identity changed. It takes a long while for Quaid to understand what happened to him, but he eventually discovers that he has to combat Cohaagen and help the Mutant Resistance. When Quaid finds Kuato, he is surprised to learn that Kuato is a psychic homunculus growing out of the abdomen of another person. He is able to reach into Quaid's mind and tell him about a 500,000-year-old Martian device left behind by the planet's previous inhabitants. When activated, the atmosphere of Mars will become breathable.

Kuato is a somewhat disturbing creation, speaking with an adult's voice yet bearing the features of an angry baby. The character, indeed all the mutants, were added to "Total Recall" by David Cronenberg, who was once attached as the film's director. Even after Cronenberg dropped out and Verhoeven came aboard, the mutant characters remained.

In a making-of documentary included on the "Total Recall" DVD, Verhoeven explained how he and his team created the Kuato puppet and just how complicated it was. It required 15 puppeteers.

Looking closely at the above image will reveal that both Kuato and Marshall Bell are puppets. Rather than strap an animatronic to a live actor, Verhoeven had a life-size Marshall Bell duplicate built, with the Kuato mutant as part of the construction. This meant that the puppeteers weren't just operating Kuato's face, eyes, and arms, but also Marshall Bell's head. Luckily, Bell's character falls into a trance when Kuato speaks, so there wasn't a lot of articulation in the puppet's upper head.

Verhoeven was impressed with the Kuato puppet, which he said was the most complicated construction made for "Total Recall" (warning: Verhoeven used some dated and insensitive language to describe it):

"The most complex one, of course, was Kuato. It had to be done with 15 puppeteers that would do all the –- that would do the arms, and the eyes, and the mouth. [Rob] Bottin had made the thing so real, two people asked me if it was a real 'freak,' a semi-born Siamese twin."

"Siamese twin," a dated term used to describe conjoined twin siblings, is derived from real-life conjoined twin brothers Chang and Eng Bunker, who became very wealthy as sideshow performers in the 1820s and 1830s. They were born in the Rattanakosin Kingdom, or the Kingdom of Siam, and were billed by their "handler," Robert Hunter, as Siamese Twins. The term became a colloquialism for conjoined twins for years thereafter. Up until the early years of the 20th century, on-stage displays of people with extraordinary bodies — called "freak shows" for years — were fairly common circus entertainments. The practice died out in the 1930s and 1940s, and the term became gauche. Verhoeven's description is old-fashioned.

But, yes, Rob Bottin did an amazing job.

Rob Bottin had previously worked with Verhoeven on "RoboCop," having provided the stop-motion animation on the massive, tank-like ED-209 police robots. He also designed and built the RoboCop suit. For "Total Recall," not only did he construct the Kuato puppet, but he also crafted various other strange and ambitious animatronics. He specifically created semi-lifelike robotic cab drivers designed after voice actor Robert Picardo, in addition to the robotic "mask" of a red-haired woman that Schwarzenegger wore to dupe a security guard. The "mask" was partly actor Priscilla Allen, but was replaced by a realistic puppet when the mask began to malfunction. The effect was pretty seamless.

Like with Kuato, if one looks closely at the unmasking scene in "Total Recall," one will see that both Allen and Schwarzenegger were puppets. Bottin, along with fellow technicians Eric Brevig, Tim McGovern, and Alex Funke, won a Special Achievement Academy Award for their work on the film. There was no competition. This is impressive, given that "Total Recall" came out the same year as films like "Back to the Future Part III," "Ghost," "Dick Tracy," "Gremlins 2: The New Batch" (the apex of cinema), "Tremors," "Basket Case 2," "Frankenhooker," "RoboCop 2" (also overseen by Bottin), "Die Hard 2," "Darkman," and "Child's Play 2."

Previously, Bottin had worked on "Star Wars," as well as multiple Roger Corman productions like "Piranha," "Humanoids from the Deep," and "Rock 'n' Roll High School" (the construction of the man-sized mouse). He continued to work with Joe Dante on films like "The Howling" and "Innerspace," and provided the strange creatures seen in "The Witches of Eastwick" and "Legend." Most recently, Bottin worked on monsters for "Game of Thrones." He is a legitimate movie legend.