Top Ten… Movie Monsters!
Since I like the look of you, I’ll let you in on a little secret…I freakin’ love monster movies. I’ll happily sit through 2 hours of utter dreck if there’s the promise of a fucking monster at the end (trust me; I’ve seen “Horror of Party Beach” and lived to tell the tale). So, without any further bullshit, let’s take a looksee at the top 10 greatest movie monsters of all time. Ever.
10. THE STAY PUFT MARSHMALLOW MAN
And why the hell not? Every bit as destructive as King Kong or Godzilla and equally scary, the Stay Puft Marshmallow man is the one thing in “Ghostbusters” that would actually be pretty scary in real life. Slimer and the other ghosts are a bit too comedic to be really scary, but a giant marshmallow walking down the street crushing everything in it’s path? Now that’s scary. If you’re still wondering why he made this list, well, to quote Ray, “he just popped in there.”
9. THE FLY
Cheeseburger! Wether you’re talking about the classic 1958 Vincent Price vehicle or the 1986 Jeff Goldblum grossout, it’s always wise to make sure you’re alone in the booth BEFORE teleporting. In the original Andre Delambre winds up with the head and arm of a fly which leads to the famous “heeeelp meeee!” ending, whereas in the remake cranks the dial to 10 and snaps it off giving us Seth Brundle teleporting while intoxicated causing him to pull his teeth out, puke on his food and ultimately transform into a giant fly. “Be afraid…be very afraid.”
8. BRUCE THE SHARK
Not strictly a monster, but still awesome and iconic as hell. Realizing the shark was a tad on the rubbery side, Steven Speilberg wisely kept it out of sight for three quarters of the movie, building up tension like the bastard love child of Alfred Hitchcock and Brian dePalma. When the shark finally makes his first apperance, we’re so caught up in the story and the deep, primal fear of the unkown terrors swimming around our legs that we neither notice or care the blatant fakery on display. And that, my friends, is filmmaking genius.
7. PINHEAD
Possibly the creepiest monster on the list, and certainly the only one to freak me out as a kid, Pinhead (or Captain Elliot Spencer to his friends) was played to ghoulish perfection by Doug Bradley. The character of Pinhead has evolved over the years, but I’ll always remember him for his – like the shark in Jaws – fleeting apperance in the original “Hellraiser:” hidden in the shadows and intoning vauge yet terrifying threats about torture and hell. And those nails, man… Those fucking nails.
6. FRANKENSTEIN’S MONSTER -tie- COUNT DRACULA
As played by Boris Karloff and Bela Lugsoi, these two are so inexorably intertwined in horror movie history that it’s impossible to seperate them and that’s why they’re tied at number 6. Two of the most iconic characters in movie history, the Monster and the Count are the archetypes for almost every horror movie character that followed. Every monster created by science (Mr. Hyde, Godzilla, Them, the Invisible Man, the Fly) and every supernatural monster (the Wolf Man, Michael Myers, The Mummy, Edward fucking Cullen) can trace their roots back to the characters of Frankenstein’s Monster and Count Dracula.
5. GODZILLA
The Big G himself! Originally a metephor for the nuclear bomb before transforming into the jolly green giant who proteced Japan from aliens and space montsers, Godzilla has more films under his (sizeable) belt than any other character on this list save Dracula and the Frankenstein Monster. No matter if he’s stomping Tokyo or saving it, Godzilla is as iconic as they come has inspired countless movie monsters. Whether watching the shaky camerawork of “Cloverfield” or the “friend to all children” Gamera, spare a thought for the big guy who started it all. Just don’t mention the bloody woeful American version.
4. NORMAN BATES
Inspired by the true life crimes of Ed Gein, Norman Bates is a young man with one hell of a mother fixation. Played to perfection by Anthony Perkins, what makes Bates truly a scary character is that he’s seemingly harmless, charming even in an awkward sort of way. But when he snaps, get the fuck out of the shower. Not a monster in the “green and scaly” sense of the word, but truly a monster in the “one who inspires horror” sense. First brought to life in Robert Bloch’s novel “Psycho” but made iconic by Hitchcock’s masterpeice of the same name. Two sequels and a prequel followed and are all decent – watchable at least – but, like Godzilla, don’t mention the re-make.
3. PAZUZU THE DEMON
One minute Regan McNeill is an ordinary 12 year old girl, the next – thanks to an archeological dig in Iraq – she’s spewing pea soup, grabbing hypnotherapists’ nutsacks and making a list of 1001 innapropriate uses for a crucifix. Though the original film strongly suggests that Satan himself is possessing Regan, the novel it’s based upon and the film’s sequels and prequels (“Exorcist III” is better than you’ve been told it is, by the way) reveal the true culprit behind the head spinning, carpet pissing anticts that go down in that unassuming house in Georgetown: the Assyrian demon Pazuzu; king of the underworld with the head of a lion, two pairs of wings and a snake for a dick. Often called the scariest film of all time (it’s not) “The Exorcist” is a fucking classic, and that dude Pazuzu is not one to be fucked with. To quote Twisted Sister, “stay away from Captain Howdy.”
2. THE CREATURE FROM THE BLACK LAGOON
Not content with being one of the greatest monster movies of all time, “Creature From The Black Lagoon” had to go one step further and introduce one of the greatest movie monsters of all time. The Creature (known to monster fans as the Gillman; Creech to his friends) falls squarely in the misunderstood monster category alongside the Frankenstein Monster and King Kong in that he really doesn’t do anything overtly nasty. Think about it, if you came home from work one day and found a bunch of people having a party in your house you’d be pretty miffed too. “Creature From The Black Lagoon” may look dated now (but only if you’re one of those people that can’t appreciate the classics) but it was a gamechanger in it’s day, creating a whole new genre of evolutionary nightmares, taking horror out of the gothic age and into the atomic age. If the classic Universal Studios monsters are the Rat Pack, then the Gillman is Elvis: the new kid on the block who rewrote the book and made sure that nothing would ever be quite the same again.
1. KING KONG
There are people who say “Citizen Kane” is the best film ever made. Some people say “Gone With The Wind” is the greatest. Others still claim that “The Godfather” is the greatest ever made. But they’re all wrong. The single greatest motion picture ever made is the 1933 original “King Kong.” And even if it wasn’t perfect in every way, it would still be an awesome freakin’ film thanks to the special effects work of Willis O’Brien – the man who created Kong. Most flesh and blood actors haven’t got as much character and charisma as that 18 inch model had thanks to the genius of O’Brien. Never mind the 70s remake or the more recent Peter Jackson CGI fest (why have one T Rex when you can have three, right? Right? Wrong.) stick to the 1933 classic. Put it this way, they don’t call him the Eight Wonder of the World for nothing. “Scream Ann! Scream for your life!”
Ten honorable mentions, in no particular order:
1. THE THING (John Carpenter’s “The Thing”)
2. THE XENOMORPHS (“Alien” and sequels)
3. THE WOLF MAN (“The Wolf Man” and sequels)
4. FREDDIE KRUGER (“Nightmare on Elm Street” and sequels)
5. THE LIVING DEAD (“Night of the Living Dead” and sequels)
6. COUNT ORLOCK (“Nosferatu”)
7. MICHAEL MYERS (“Halloween” and sequels)
8. CLOVIE (“Cloverfield”)
9. THE BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN (“The Bride of Frankenstein”)
10. THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA (as played by Lon Chaney in “The Phantom of the Opera”)
So, once again, there ya go. Cheers/jeers? Post commentage below. End transmission.
