Wednesday, February 16, 2011

23 of the Oddest and Strangest Monsters from Filmland!


Welcome to another one of my famous MONSTER BLOG POSTS! On this edition we're gonna be focusing on…guess what? Movie Monsters! That’s right my dear readers, we’re gonna take a stroll down Freakville lane! (And if you want more freakishness make sure you check out part two of this article 23 MORE Oddities and Strange Creatures from Hollywood!)Movie monsters are awesome; they never cease to amaze me. Monster films sometimes make you wonder what the hell these filmmakers were smoking when they came up with these creations. Apparently something good because some of these creations can really freak you the hell out!

Now, there are the traditional monsters we all know and love like Frankenstein, Dracula and The Werewolf. And though we love those creatures to death, I’m always amazed at how movie makers continue to try and freak us out with new, stranger, weirder creations. It seems that with each monster, filmmakers are trying to out do each other. Some directors are completely devoted to creature features, like for example Guillermo del Toro, a director who has practically dedicated his entire filmmaking career to strange creatures. And you’ll see one or two of his creations on this list. But sometimes, filmmakers will go all out in trying to do truly odd, weird and outlandish creatures. They truly give it their all to try and show us something we have never seen. One of these directors is Frank Henenlotter, the creator of the Basket Case films. He really packs his films with the craziest oddities you could think of. Look for some of his creatures on today’s list, and on future installments.

So, for this blog post I’ve decided to focus on the strangest and oddest creatures I could remember from all the countless creature features I have seen in my time. I decided to only include creatures from films made in the United States, but future blog posts will focus on creatures from all over the world. That’s right my friends, this here blog post will have a part 2 and 3! So be on the look out for these! And now, without further ado, come one come all to the freak show! The Film Connoisseur presents 20 of the oddest and strangest creatures from film land! Enjoy!


Film: The Fly II (1987)

Creature: Bartok Monster

Description: This vile creature is the result of a teleportation experiment. You see in The Fly II young scientist Martin Brundle, transforms into the monstrous fly creature, which means he now has  six arms, six legs, huge gaping jaws and green skin. By the climax of the film, he no longer wants to be the fly; he wants to turn back into a human. The problem is that the only way to do that is by swapping genes with another human being. But hey, don't sweat it! It just so happens that the villain in the picture - Mr. Bartok- was such an asshole through out the whole movie that he ends up being used to complete the gene swapping experiment. In the end, the experiment worked, the good guy turns back into a human, but Mr. Bartok turns into this horrible creature you see above. You almost pity the guy; all he can do is crawl through the floor like a beast. He cant even reach his plate of food! But since he was such a douche bag through out the whole film, pity quickly fades away. .


Film: Total Recall (1989)

Creature: Kuato

Description: Wow, I don’t know where to begin with this one, but essentially, he is the rebel of the Martian revolution. Humans have colonized Mars, but unfortunately a dictator wants to charge the people living on Mars everything, even the very air they are breathing. In comes Kuato and his group of revolutionaries. The way Kuato looks kind of makes you wonder why the rebels consider him their leader. I mean, the guy looks like a deformed fetus that was never fully developed, kind of like Belial from the Basket Case movies. But he does have a usefulness to him, he can make you see visions with the power of his mind! And a powerful mind is a terrible thing to waste. Unfortunately, the poor thing doesn’t get to do much in the film; he gets shot in the head rather quickly.

Weakness: Well, he speaks kind of slow, looks like crap and can take a bullet like anybody else.


Film: Dune (1984)

Creature: Guild Navigator

Description: The Guild Navigators from the Dune movies are these creatures that look like deformed fetuses and live in water all of the time. So whenever a Guild Navigator needs to talk to The Emperor of the Known Universe, they have to travel inside these giant tanks filled with water. They may look weird, but they are quite useful! By using Spice Mélange, they can travel through time and space without moving a muscle, and they can take anyone they want with them. Nifty trick!

Weakness: If somebody should destroy their giant water tank, I’m pretty sure they’d suffocate like a fish out of water.


Film: From Beyond (1986)

Creature: Dr. Pretorious

Description: Dr. Pretorious is a mad scientist experimenting with a machine he has created called The Sonic Resonator. This machine can do various things, among them it can amp up your sex drive, making you into a horny sex machine at the flip of a switch. Unfortunately, it can also bring deadly creatures from other dimensions that want to do nothing more then snap your head off like a gingerbread man. Dr. Pretorious used the machine to travel to another dimension, when he came back he returned as the sexed up violent creature you see pictured above.

Weakness: His ego is way too big and his emotions and sexuality are out of control.


Film: Dogma (1999)

Creature: The Golgothan

Description: The Golgothan (a.k.a. The Shit Demon) is a creature sent by evil forces to stop Jesus’s last descendant (The Last Scion) from saving the earth. The creature is made up of real shit and stinks like it too, a power I wouldn’t want to underestimate.

Weakness: A toilet is pretty deadly to these creatures.


Film: Weird Science (1985)

Creature: Chet Donnelly

Description: Chet Donelly is the evil bully brother from hell. He is a brash military school student who treats his little brother Wyatt like crap. He abuses him physically and emotionally. He even blackmails him! What Chet doesn’t know is that with the help of his own personal computer and a little voodoo, Wyatt has created a beautiful woman who possesses magical powers! This beautiful creation quickly decides how to deal with bullies like Chet; she turns him into a hideous shit monster as payback from treating Wyatt so badly.


 Film: The Deadly Spawn (1983)

Creature: Alien

Description: Alien creatures crash land on earth and decide to hide in the basement of a typical middle class American family. These creatures have multiple heads and each head is equipped with rows upon rows of deadly teeth! Every time the creature feeds it gets bigger and bigger! And every time they feed it’s a gruesome and gory spectacle. One scene has the creature ripping the face off of one of its victims. The alien also gives birth to little slug creatures that decide to leave the basement and visit the home of these vegetarian elderly people; which they then proceed to feed on. This was an extremely low budget flick made by a bunch of sci-fi buffs, but wow, they sure were pretty creative!


Film: Big Trouble in Little China (1986)

Creature: Floating Eye Monster

Description: What the hell is this little creature and how did it come into existence? I don’t know and I don’t want to know! Jack Burton sums it up when he says “Oh my god, no. What the hell is that? No wait, don’t tell me!” And I don’t want to meet its parents either! But basically what this creature does is, since it’s entirely made up of eyes, whatever it sees, Lo Pan, the villain of the film sees as well! Freakiest feature: its mouth is an eye as well!

Weakness: A sword to the head will end this creature’s existence rather quickly.


Film: Terrorvision (1986)

Creature: Alien Trash Monster

Description: This ugly creature is a Trash Monster from an unknown alien planet. You see, in the planet it comes from Aliens take garbage and turn it into energy and then hurl it into space! Unfortunately, one of these energy beams ends up hitting the Puttman’s new satellite dish and then this monster ends up entering their home through their television set! This creature has a never ending appetite for everything! When it decides to eat, it opens up its mouth up and sucks with a gust of wind everything it can, then eats it. It can also mimic human beings quite well and loves listening to heavy metal.


Film: Jack Brook’s Monster Slayer (2007)

Creature: Professor Gordon Crowley

Description: The pic you see above used to be one Professor Gordon Crowley. That is until he unwittingly releases a bunch of demons from his basement. Then he becomes a possessed monster hungry for his own students!


Film: The Thing (1982)

Creature: Spider Head Thing

Description: To quote a character from the film when he sees the Spider Head Alien: “You gotta be fucking kidding me!” I couldn’t have said it better myself had I seen something like that crawling past me! The alien being in this excellent John Carpenter sci-fi horror film mimics human beings. When attacked, any part of it can simply detach and crawl away trying to survive! When the body to which this head was attached to was discovered to be an alien, the head detached, grew six legs and two eyes and then crawled away to everyone’s astonishment. A great flick to amaze your friends with.

Weakness: Extreme temperatures will do the trick with this beasty, a blow torch will do just fine as well.  


Film: Critters (1986)

Creature: Critters

Description: The Critters or “Crites” as they are referred to in the film are a bunch of mischievous little creatures that escaped from a prison asteroid somewhere in the far reaches of space. They land their stolen spaceship on a farm in the middle of nowhere U.S.A. Then they proceed to wreck havoc in the lives of a bunch of hillbillies. The little creatures have the ability to curl up into a little ball and roll the hell out of anywhere. They can also shoot these poisonous darts out of their head, knock you out cold and then proceed to eat ya! They can also gather up into a giant critter ball and eat any one they decide to roll over. Deadly little boogers, no wonder they where in prison.

Weakness: A couple of sticks of dynamite will shred these creatures to smithereens, but really, they can be killed in any old way you can think of.


Film: The Giant Claw (1957)

Creature: The Claw

Description: A Giant ostrich from another planet is thought to be a UFO at first, but upon careful consideration everyone soon discovers it’s a giant…I don’t know what the hell that thing is! But its big and it flies and destroys everything in its path. Looks like a rotting ostrich or something! This is really a ridiculous looking creature, sure to incite laughter rather then screams.


Film: Tremors (1990)

Creature: Graboids, Snakeoids

Description: The Graboids are these giant snakes that travel beneath the earth. They pop out of the ground, open their mouths, and grab you with the snakes that they shoot out of their mouths. Hence the name “Graboids”

Weakness: They are blind, and guide themselves only by sound. If you stay still, they will never find you.


Film: The Live (1988)

Creature: Alien Invaders

Description: These alien invaders have taken over earth and successfully use a machine that blinds humans to their true visage. In other words, nobody knows what they really look like! To humans, these aliens look like humans! That might not be such a bad thing since these creatures look like skinless humans with purple muscles and bulging eyes! Their main power resides in controlling peoples actions through subliminal messages.


Film: Invaders from Mars (1986)

Creature: Brain Alien

Description: This brain alien is the leader of the Martians who have just crash landed in David Gardner’s backyard. The thing looks just like an exposed brain with a face. It controls all the other creatures on the spaceship, who are as equally (if not more so) monstrous as it is.


Film: Explorers (1985)

Creature: Wak Wak

Description: Wak is an alien creature/kid who has stolen his dads giant spaceship so he can have a close encounter with a group of human kids that he and his sister have managed to contact via a dream controlling machine. Wak and his sister Neek are just like any other human teenagers, they want to hang out and party!

Weakness: Wak and Neek have one weakness, their over protective father who screams and yells at them when he discovers they have stolen his spaceship.


Film: The Blob (1988)

Creature: The Blob

Description: The blob is slimy, pink and hungry! It’s a living alien organism that ends up on earth when it crash lands here on a meteor. Damn those things,  always bringing some foul creature to our planet! The more the blob eats, the bigger it gets! It can crawl beneath your door; it can travel through water pipes and sewer systems! And when it grabs you, it melts your body until it completely devours you. Grizzly!

Weakness: Extreme temperatures


Film: The Stuff (1985)

Creature: The Stuff

Description: The Stuff is white, slimy and hungry! Like oil, The Stuff comes right out of the earth. When a company grabs a hold of The Stuff, and realizes that it could be eaten and sold to the rest of the world, that is exactly what they do! They market it and sell it as if it was yogurt or Ice Cream. Unfortunately, The Stuff is extremely addictive and turns whoever eats it into a brainless zombie.

Weakness: Extreme Temperatures


Film: Starship Troopers (1997)

Creature: Brain Bug

Description: This giant worm has a face that looks like a sphincter, but in reality, this giant brain but is the brains of the bug operation. All the other bugs in Starship Troopers follow its orders. It moves really slow, but if it can get close to you, out of its sphincter like face, slowly a protrusion appears, then it proceeds to stab you with it in the head and sucks your brains right out!

Weakness: It’s too fat and slow.


Film: Brain Damage (1988)

Creature: Aylmer

Description: This little creature known as Aylmer looks like a walking talking turd. Yeah, this little worm talks, and its got one hell of a vocabulary! He’s as well versed as a university professor, but with the voice of a radio DJ. Aylmer crawls up to your head, sticks to the back of your neck and injects you with a very addictive hallucinogenic blue liquid. After you taste it, you are addicted for life. Problem is, if you want more blue liquid in your brain, you have to feed Aylmer human brains! The film begs to ask the question: What are you willing to do for your addiction?


Film: Basket Case Trilogy

Creature: Belial

Description: Belial is Duane Bradley’s deformed Siamese twin brother, who never fully developed in his mothers womb. In fact, he never even detached from Duane’s Torso! That’s right; Daune was born with his deformed brother stuck to his torso. A quick visit to the doctor’s office quickly fixes that and he is detached from his brother and thrown in the garbage like some sort of an abomination. Problem is that Duane and Belial have a very strong psychic connection! And Belial loves feeding on people! So Duane goes through out the whole film carrying Belial on a basket, looking for Belial’s next meal. With each film, Henenlotter only added more freaks to his roster of creatures! Belial actually finds a girl friend and has baby Belials! Sequels are pretty amusing!


Film: Naked Lunch (1991)

Creature: Giant Bug

Description: The Giant Bug in Naked Lunch is one of many strange creatures that appear on this film, but essentially, the Giant Bug tells Bill Lee the exterminator what to do. Is it all part of Bill’s drug trip? Or is he really seeing Giant Bugs and typewraters that ejaculate whenever he begins to write on them? I’ll leave that up to you my dear reader.

So that’s it my friends, these are the first batch of weird creatures I could come up with. If you enjoyed this list, then check out part 2 and part 3 of this series, where I will be explore yet another batch of oddities and creatures for your viewing pleasure, these articles are a monstrous good time, dont miss them!


27 comments:

  1. Excellent list, very cohesive and reminded me of some great flicks I haven't seen in a long while.

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  2. Glad you enjoyed it JP! Theres more where these came from, so look forward to another one of these in the next couple of days, I got more monsters lined up.

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  3. This was fantastic!!
    I've only seen The Thing, Big Trouble in Little China and They Live...I'm kind of a John Carpenter fan.
    I'd never even heard of most of those monsters, some of them are terrifying. It makes me rather miss the days before everything was CGI.

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  4. Glad you enjoyed it Jack! A lot of these are fun watches, like Critters, those little boogers are real pest! Some of these monsters come from awesome movies, others from not so awesome movies, but they all got something interesting about them. They got that weird strange vibe that entertains the hell out of me.

    Im a huge Carpenter fan as well, some of the best creatures come out of his films, The THing alone has so many cool monsters in it, but I had to put the weirdest one, which is that freaky spider head!

    Big Trouble in Little China is one of my all time favorite films...cant even begin to tell ya how many times I've seen that movie. I mean since I was a kid! That monkey monster could make it to the next list I'll be making...keep an I eye out for that one.

    I agree about missing the non CGI days, I see these movies and the creatures have that organic nature to them that I love. One of the few guys who still respects this organic quality in creatures is Guillermo del Toro who does a great job in mixing the best of both the CGI and the practical effects worlds. Gotta hand it to the guy, he knows all about cool monsters. His creatures will be on the next post.

    Thanks for the kind comments!

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  5. Awesome list and excellent choices of films!

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  6. Very nice list! As someone else said, great to see all those Carpenter films on there! He's had some pretty gnarly creatures in his films. Another good one is the big Cthluhu-type creature near the end of IN THE MOUTH OF MADNESS. Clive Barker's NIGHTBREED also has some pretty cool-looking monsters.

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  7. Fantastic list mate! THE STUFF is awesome like a cross between quatermass 2 and the blob

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  8. I'll be mentioning some creatures on a couple more Carpenter films on the second part!

    I was trying to pinpoint exactly which creature is the weirdest in NIGHTBREED, but its proving to be a difficult task, theres so many oddities on that flick!

    Be on the look out for part II, Im working on it as we speak!

    @Cal(YB): Damn, I need to get down and watch those Quartermass movies!

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  9. Glad you put the claw creature, thats one wacky monster.

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  10. Thanks Manny, our geeky conversations produced this mega article! Thanks again....tomorrow I'll go deeper into monster madness! Be there or be square!

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  11. This is one of the best posts I've seen on any blog. You've done a lot of research here, amigo. I love all of these choices. Love the penis looking thing from THE DEADLY SPAWN. THE BLOB is a classic. Chet, from WEIRD SCIENCE, is one of my favorites. And props for including BIG TROUBLE IN LITTLE CHINA. I really dig that flick.

    Keep bringing them on, Franco!

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  12. Thanks for the kind words Fred!

    Im currently cooking up a pretty nifty follow up article...hoping I can print it today! Be on the look out, but I've included a bunch of other cool monsters and creatures from all sorts of crazy films.

    Lots of these creatures are phallic in nature for some reason...I mean, look at the little monster from Brain Damage! Or the two headed dragon in Willow! Or the sand worms in Dune, to mention but a few..

    My favorite and most outlandish creature from this list has to be the big bug thing from Naked Lunch! So freaky looking!

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  13. you most certainly do! quatermass and the pit is one of my favourite films of all time and without doubt the best hammer hrror

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  14. Good list, Franco. Like Jack L, as a huge John Carpenter fan it was good to see 'They Live', 'The Thing' and 'Big Trouble in Little China' represented. I love the creature from 'Naked Lunch', too, the way it's casually sitting at the bar with Peter Weller like they're just two regular guys having a beer after work.

    Looking forward to seeing what you've got lined up for part two.

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  15. @Cal: Quatermas is horror or sci-fi? I thought they were sci-fi flicks. BUt anyways, I love Hammer HOrror, I've seen most of their films (and reviewed them here) but I need to see those Quartermass movies soon. Promise I'll get down to it in the next couple of days.

    @Neil:Yeah if I remember correctly, the creature has this real cool voice as well, really mellow. Hey Neil, part two is now up, go and check it out bro!

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  16. Nice selections, Fran! If you're including 50s era creatures, might I recommend the giant carrot monster from IT CONQUERED THE WORLD?

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  17. A ton of great picks Franco, and lots of favorites! Plus, I give credit to any list that can feature one of my favs, the Deadly Spawn =D

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  18. @Venom: Great suggestion man! Monsters from the 50's is an article Im also working for this series, be on the look out for that one, it will be a trip back in time!

    That carrot monster will no doubt make the list Brian!

    @Carl: Yeah, The Deadly Spawn, I like that one, so creative, and such a small budget! It was made by a bunch of friends who just wanted to make a sci-fi flick together. They did a great job in my book. I put it in the same category as films like The Dead Next Door and Darkness. All are films made by people who just got together to make a film without any sort of official film experience. My hats down to those guys!

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  19. Nice list. In fact, I chose it (and its follow-up) as one of my favorites of February, and included a link to them in the 5th issue of Spatter Analysis.

    Check it out!

    --J/Metro

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  20. Thats awesome Johnny man! Make sure you check out part two of this article!

    http://filmconnoisseur.blogspot.com/2011/02/23-more-oddities-and-strange-creatures.html

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  21. That shot you had in Deadly Spawn...makes me wanna see the damn film.

    also, AYLMER! OH GOD! YOU INCLUDED AYLMER!

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  22. The Deadly Spawns a fun flick! No budget movie making at its best! Aylmer is classic, so smart, yet so evil!

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  23. The 1988 Blob shown here didn't come from an asteroid.

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  24. I guess the correct term would be 'meteoroid' or ' meteor'

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  25. That's not the type-writer-turned-bug-with-an-asshole-mouth-on-its-abdomen.
    Although he does use his mouth as his typewriter and drinks -I believe- some narcotic substance by sucking on those straw like appendages protruding from the creatures head.
    [img]http://bit.ly/1KyKlSv[\img]
    [img]http://bit.ly/1KyKuFg[\img]

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