THE WIGHT STUFF
NEVER BEFORE BROUGHT TO LIFE IN A BIG-BUDGET TOLKIEN ADAPTATION, THE GHASTLY BARROW-WIGHTS ARE HERE TO DEEP-FREEZE YOUR SOUL…
Concept art of the otherworldly ghouls.
1. THE IDEA
“Barrow-wights walked in the hollow places with a clink of rings on cold fingers” wrote J.R.R. Tolkien in The Fellowship Of The Ring. In the book, the wraith-like beings terrorise the Hobbits, but the wights didn’t show up in Peter Jackson’s films, and have only been tackled in a little-seen 1991 Russian TV adaptation of Fellowship. Until now. “The Barrow-wights are ancient, reanimated heroes, acting for evil against their will,” sums up Rings Of Power VFX supervisor Jason Smith. “It was superexciting to take on something I hadn’t seen before. We’ve seen undead before, but not like this. We’re doing a little horror movie in Middle-earth.”