Hey, everybody! It's time for Jamie's entry! I've known about Jamie's love of this monster for many years, and I am happy she finally gets to share this with you.
I should also add: Jamie actually provided her own captions for the pictures, so kudos to her
Favorite Monster: “Nessie”, The Lochness Monster
In no way is this picture fake
Although I do not believe in any mythical creature, I wish with all my heart that somehow Nessie could be real. I love that she is this huge sea (lake?) monster that so far no one has been able to decisively capture on film. That means she is stealthy. And smart. Or maybe she has a cloaking device, which would only make her even cooler. She also seems relatively harmless and I am a fan of friendly monsters.
Terrifyingly adorable?
Least Favorite Monster: Trashsquach
When I was around 7 years old, my mother thought she would play a funny funny trick on me and had my brother hide in a trash bag to scare me. When I went to take “the trash" out like she instructed, “the trash” moved and started following me down the hall. My 7 year old brain could not process this and to this day that moment is the most scared I’ve ever been in my life. In exchange for coming up with the name for this entry, I formally and publicly forgive Doug for his hand in this incident.
Trashquach could be the next SyFy original
Jamie, I wasn't sure if the picture you provided provided the real terror of Trashquach, so I fixed the picture for you.
Our own Horus Kemwer of of Against the Modern World sends in his picks for Favorite and Least Favorite Monster! My, but these entries are diverse, and I have to give Horus extra points for style.
Tetsuo, The Iron Man, at his angriest
My Favorite Monster: Tetsuo, The Iron Man
Tetsuo is star of two classic cyberpunk movies by visionary Japanese director Shinya Tsukamoto, Tetso: The Iron Man (1989) and Tetsuo II: Body Hammer (1992) (all screencaps from the latter).
[Note: the name is a pun in Japanese as the prefix "Tetsu-" can mean "iron" and the ending "-o" can mean man, though these are not the characters with which the common name "Tetsuo" is usually written.]
Tetsuo is a mild mannered (nay, downright wimpy!) Japanese "salaryman" who is one day mysteriously harassed by strange techno-punks. He discovers that when angered, his arm turns into a gigantic gun which he then fires at his antagonists in blind rage.
In typically perverse Japanese fashion, Tetsuo is tricked into slaughtering is loved ones by this strange ability (in the first movie, his wife, in the second his son—essentially the second film is just a larger budget retelling of the story in the first rather than a sequel proper).
As tense situations (and correspondingly, Tetsuo's degree of anger and stress) increase, he discovers that more and more of his body is able to sprout guns.
Tetsuo's chest is now a barrage of firing cannons!
Although the source of Tetsuo's strange "ability" (curse?) is eventually revealed, I'll leave the curious reader to discover it via netflix . . . (hint: it's not pleasant)
The appeal of Tetsuo is the usual man down fights back taken to extremes. First, Tetsuo the salaryman is so pathetic and beset upon that he takes the beleaguered victim syndrome to a new level. When he turns badass, though, he turns so badass he can't even control himself.
Tetsuo's become a full on mecha for his final battle
Unfortunately, none of the screencaps really do Tetsuo justice. And this is another big part of what makes him so cool: Tetsuo really only exists in the mind of the viewer. Tsukamoto "creates" Tetsuo out of a barrage of crazy imagery, fast cutting, frenetic industrial music, and bizarre atmospherics. At no point do you really get a clear view of him, but in your mind you build up a whole construct of crazy machinery. Tetsuo isn't just a costume, he's a whole music video, limited only in its cyberpunk badassery by your own imagination!
Baixo Astral talks to his TV set
My Least Favorite Monster: Baixo Astral (aka "The Down Mood")
Baixo Astral is the villain from the Brazilian children's (?) movie Super Xuxa contra Baixo Astral (1988), which I've seen most convincingly translated ("Baixo Astral" sure does not mean "Satan" in Portuguese) as "Super Xuxa vs. the Down Mood." And "Down Mood" really seems to sort of fit the character of Baixo Astral, who is dedicated to bringing war, destruction, corruption, vandalism, and anything that's downbeat into the world.
SXCBA stars Xuxa Meneghel, the single hottest children's show host ever to talk the face of the earth (oft parodied by ignorant Americans, jealous that none of the children's shows they grew up with had hosts anywhere near as hot). Nevertheless, the movie is inventive, with crazy scenes and catchy music.
Except when Baixo Astral and his dopey sidekicks are on screen.
The lamest sidekicks in any children's movie ever
Frankly, Baixo Astral himself wouldn't be that bad if his supposed evil hadn't been set up as being so intense. Frankly, he just can't live up to it. Add to that the fact that he has the lamest sidekicks in the entire universe and every moment with him just sucks.
Even the climax sucks. Baixo Astral tries to keep Xuxa's mood down by "shooting" her with his TV gun which shows sucky downbeat things like violence. The gun itself has actually a kinda cool cyberpunk design, but somehow, wielded by Baixo Astral, it just turns to suck.
TV guns could be cool, but not this one
But really, the worst thing about Baixo Astral is that whenever he's around, fun things like this aren't happening:
Final note: if you bear in mind that Brazil is a country that dealt with its homeless street urchin problem by simply shooting them, then the appeal of someone like Super Xuxa coming along and painting everything like a rainbow so everyone can just live happily together seems a lot more understandable . . .
If you haven't ever Googled 90's-era Latin-American children's TV host, Xuxa, I highly suggest you do so. I still remember stumbling across her while in college, and remember wishing I knew more Spanish.
This I find fascinating. I've never seen this movie, but people who have seen it love this thing. I honestly expected JimD to send in lots of stuff about Zombies, so this was a bit of a surprise!
Without further ado, here's JimD's entry:
I remember seeing this movie as a young child and being scared of the Bansee, the ominous figure in the film who arrives to creep out everyone. Much ado is made of the arrival of the Banshee, and I've never forgotten it. Decades passed, and when I learned the film had arrived on DVD, I had to rent it, and of course, it's all spectacularly silly to watch now. But back in the very early 1980s, not so much.
Shelley's Frankenstein hit me over the head like a ton of bricks when I read it as assigned reading in high school, and the character of Victor Frankenstein and his unbridled ambition, followed by his inability to take responsibility for what he'd created... pretty good stuff.
While there's no question the Monster is murderous, Shelley also infuses him with a craving for understanding and a humanity that Frankenstein himself may have set aside.
The movies, of course, turn the monster into an invulnerable, inarticulate beast, but the first three in particular explore much of the same themes, and are a lot of fun in their own right.
Is The Monster actually scary? Well... yeah. I mean, he's a hodgepodge of parts of various people sewn together and brought to life through artificial means. He also kills folks both accidentally and intentionally (and just to make a point - that's gangster). In the movies the Monster is more or less a superhuman, immortal walking weapon with quite a different personality. However, I think we can look at Victor/ Henry* Frankenstein as us, and he, of course, is far scarier than the Monster. After all, he dreamed the creature into being, and he failed to contain what he'd made.
but for my dollar, I'll take The Bride...
Baby, you can re-animate for me anytime
Of course, the portion of the novel featuring The Bride and the movie follow two entirely different trajectories. I think the pursuit of The Bride (or a mate or whatever) for The Monster is so terribly tragic and part of what makes the story so haunting, that longing for contact and love that humans can grasp, and the lengths the Monster will go to for fulfillment of that need can read as the horrible act of a murderer, but that's a pretty dim reading of the characters.
Of all the monsters, its the understanding forged between The Monster and his creator that's the most fascinating aspect to me (more so in the novel than in the movie, but the movie doesn't shy away from this, either). Having to face down the monster you've created and abandoned, who you've rejected and whose one dream you've torn apart? Well, that's a pretty tough conversation to have. In the sequel, Dr. Pretorious certainly adds a whole new aspect to the proceedings as Whale was making a movie completely separate from the novel.
Curiously, its Young Frankenstein that seems to be the one version of the story we can see that bridges the gap between the monster and its creator.
The original novel is the template for a thousand more stories, movies, comics, whatever... but in my book, the original is still the best in both novel and the first two movies, and its a template for a reason. The story says something very interesting about us as a creative species, and its a lesson you hear reflected and rebounded throughout science-fiction.
As per The Monster, he's the avatar of that creation, and one that is entwined hopelessly with its creator.
*that's what he's called in the movies
2) American Remake Godzilla - Least Favorite
I like a good Godzilla movie from Toho studios. Man in Suit is where its at, if you ask me. And I love how Toho always makes sure there's some reason Godzilla is rampaging across Japan, be it an anti-nukes warning, people not loving one another enough, or as a reminder to recycle. Whatever. Godzilla is sort of a nation's conscience and psychic backlash stemming from guilt writ large and with atomic breath.
With total sincerity, I contend that this is a metaphor. Also, its @#$%ing awesome.
In the summer of 1998, Roland Emmerich (I assume, I can't remember) got his hands on a high-grade CGI crew (well, 1998 good) and went about making an American version of Godzilla. I went opening day, popcorn and Diet Coke in hand, and was naively quite excited to see what a couple hundred million thrown at a Godzilla movie would get me. The answer: an absolutely horrendous movie featuring a CGI Godzilla that made me long for the days of Man in Suit. And it featured a complete waste of Vicki Lewis.
This version of Godzilla is so reviled by true-blue Godzilla fans that the creature and the movie is referred to online as "GINO" or "Godzilla in Name Only", which I fully support.
While Godzilla in this movie was also created by nuclear tests, Americans get off guilt free as the tests were French atom bomb tests. And, of course, we were just hapless victims in our version of the story, which...
Anyway, there's my social commentary quota for the month.
Yes, the monster looks a little like a squatting mime playing dinosaur
The monster-as-emblem-of-psychic-punishment-for-national-shame angle is completely missing from this Godzilla, but... that's of course not quite enough.
The creature just looks stupid and does stupid things. Its a 30-story monster that sneaks around between sky scrapers, runs so quickly in the middle of Manhattan that it ditches military helicopters, and slithers through the New York subway line. It has a bizarre and almost lithe body for something of its scale, including oddly human limbs. Its just really perplexing to see on something of that scale that's just so off that your brain knows it and sort of sends you signals about how this just doesn't look right at all.
Godzilla has really been hitting the gym
American Godzilla is supposed to be a mutant iguana, I think, so the filmmakers decided that while a 30 story iguana with shoulders* isn't a stretch, apparently giving us some nuclear-fueled fire breath is just getting silly (although they do give it a sort of "air blast" thing, which... @#$% you, American Godzilla. Your dumb fake fire breath via exploding gas line isn't going to cut it here!).
I recently watched this movie in its entirety, by the way, convinced it couldn't be as awful as I'd remembered (I took Jason to see the movie because he wouldn't believe it was as bad as I'd said). It may have been worse. Just.... truly... an horrendous movie in so many ways, from scripting to acting to derivative creatures and scenarios to the worst love interest in a movie I can remember... and it will make you very glad we escaped 90's big-budget movie-making alive and intact.
What's stunning is that so many people had to have worked on that GD iguana, and apparently nobody pointed out that this thing just made no sense, and wouldn't it just be better to redesign based upon the Japanese version rather than start from scratch? And didn't anybody talk to a biologist or even a high school anatomy student while figuring out what a 30-story animal would look like if they were going to walk away from Gozilla classic?
Anyhow, this movie has largely been forgotten, and gladly so. I wouldn't mind another American remake or Japanese/ American remake where it seemed like everyone wasn't so busy patting themselves on the back and second guessing 50 years of awesome movies that they wound up with a boorish movie with a crummy looking monster. Sure, go CGI and do some mild redesign, just so long as Man in Suit never goes away...
*btw: an anatomical difference between lizards and dinosaurs? Lizards have splayed legs vs. how dinosaurs have hips that place the legs under them. Think how monitor lizards get around versus how triceratops stands. See, you learn important stuff here all the time.
Fantomenos writes in about his favorite, The King of the Monsters
My favorite monster? Easy. Godzilla. No hesitation. I remember watching him electrocute the smog-monsters babies on our tiny B&W TV. I remember the cartoon (with Godzuki...), and I remember the Marvel comic. Godzilla has been a constant in my life.
oh, jeez. The Champions. Well, Godzilla doesn't need my good luck wishes.
But, my clearest Godzilla memory is from the Christmas of 1979, at age 5. We lived in Sitka Alaska, which means that our X-mas wish lists were made with catalogs, well in advance. This year, the Sears catalog featured a line of plastic Shogun Warriors, maybe 2 feet tall with missiles and shooting hands etc. For some reason, Godzilla was one of the members of the line. Wheels on his feet, a lever in the back that would extend a small flame-painted tongue, and his right fist shot when you pressed the button in the crook of his elbow. Remember, safety regs weren't what they are now, so this was a hard piece of plastic that shot out pretty fast.
If only King Ghidorah would reach out the same way...
This item immediately shot to the top of my X-mas list, in the "get me this and I won't ask for anything else" slot. But, $5.00 was way to much for my parents to spend on a "hunk of plastic". My B-day follows X-mas by about a month, and again no Godzilla. But, I had received enough money (Grandparents and such) to send away for it myself. So I did.
Oh, Hanna Barbera. The theme song to this show was awesome.
And it was magnificent. Pride of place in the toy chest. Totemic. I had also received this book:
kids, this was what passed for blogging in the 1970's
very '70's. Write your own book about yourself. Here's where the compulsive geekiness first rears it head. I put it together that if I can write a book about me, and Godzilla is the most important thing about me, it stands to reason that I should write "My Book About Godzilla". Which I immediately set about doing. Measuring his height, the length of the flame tongue, and most crucially, how far his fist could shoot, checking the distance of shot after shot. I remember it being around 5 feet, but that could be Proustian reverie.
So there it is, my first attempt at creative writing, being a completely uncreative compendium of facts about my favorite toy. Where'd Godzilla and his hagiography end up? No idea, we were a military family, and my parents were ruthlessly unsentimental about things. The late 70s were a weird time.
A League afterword: I had this same Godzilla toy, and it was exactly as awesome as Fantomenos describes. I once convinced this little German kid who moved in down the street that the thing was alive and would attack him because that little German kid was annoying. Anyway, his mom came down and yelled at me in German. It was traumatic, but certainly not the last time I would be yelled at by someone in a language other than English.
Godzilla is currently in the attic of my folks' garage, and I have plans to retrieve it over the holidays. However, Jason and I both believe that the missile fist may be missing. I will send photos when Godzilla resurfaces.
It's our own RHPT (aka: The Amazing Rando!). I don't know what else I can add here:
I don't know if this is a favorite or least favorite, but the one monster(s) of which I am deathly afraid are zombies. I know zombies are, along with vampires, the pop-culture 'it monster' of the moment and maybe that's the only reason I am writing about it. Who knows? But with the profiliation of zombie movies, comics, games, tv shows, etc. It's something that has made me think: 'What would I do if a zombie apocaypse broke out?' Now, if I were a single man with no family, this wouldn't really bother me so much. I would use a zombie apocalypse as a reason for some guilt free violence, get some free and cool loot (all the iPads I can haul, baby!). Ultimately, I would die or get turned, but you know it was fun for a while. (I would probably travel to Austin to see how the Steans made out).
well, at least this means people really took a strong liking to you, in a way
However, I have a wife and a small child (soon to be 2 small childs), and I can't just go with the flow of the apocalypse. Granted, would I want my children living in a world full of zombies? probably not. but then that would just leave me with the unpleasant choice of killing my family to avoid their suffering, and who wants to think about that?
This right here is our first entry into the Signal Watch Halloween Monster Madness. It's not too late to send in your own favorites! For more information, click here!
But let's start with the guy who sent in the first bunch of crazy creatures, my own brother, Jason. Now, Jason sent in a list with these really detailed descriptions and pictures, and then wrote back a few days later, apparently having reconsidered. Here's what we've got.
1) Audrey 2, Little Shop of Horrors
Jason sometimes sings to the shrubs in his backyard hoping they'll sing back
Audrey 2 not only feasts humans and their blood, but also has one of the most soulful, groovy singing voices in this half of the Milky Way. Audrey 2 is a plant who's fun enough to make it worthwhile to sacrifice a few humans for high protein fertilizer. And haven't most of us had at least one or two moments when it might not have seemed like such a bad idea to feed our dentist to a singing plant?
2) Junior Gorg, Fraggle Rock
The missing Steans Brother
Son of Ma and Pa Gorg, the self proclaimed king and queen of the universe, Junior Gorg spends much of his time doing chores, hanging out with his friend, Geraldine (who happens to be a large raddish), and trying to capture Fraggles who sneak into his family's raddish garden. Junior Gorg keeps things simple, but he generally seems pretty happy, and he seems pretty content with his lot in life- hanging out and waiting to ascend to his role as the future king of the universe.
3) Medusa, Clash of the Titans (1981)
When I saw the first Clash of the Titans movie as a kid, there were a number of scenes that were pretty frightening (and cool- the Stygian witches, fights with Calibos, the giant scorpions, the Kraken, etc.). The scenes where Perseus fought Medusa were the most frightening to me, though. I remember thinking that Medusa's lair was really scary (all of her stone victims scattered around like statues), and I couldn't imagine how anyone could fight a monster that they couldn't even look at. The solution, of course, found in watching Medusa's reflection in a shield and then chopping off her head, struck me as so brilliant that I'm still impressed by it almost thirty years later. Anyway, in a movie full of scary monsters, to me Medusa was the scariest. Although the movie seems a bit silly and cheesy nowadays, as a kid it really got my heart thumping, and it taught me an important lesson- the qualities of your monsters can help to determine the quality of your heroes.
4) Killer Klowns from Outer Space
Jason and is crew roll to prom
Gotta stick with this one. Killer shadow puppets, deadly cream pies, cotton candy nets, big top spaceships, and deadly balloon animals. What's not to like? Plus, this is the perfect movie for the tried and true plotline where the square adults just won't believe anything that the kids tell them- no matter how hard the kids try to warn them. This movie is just a whole lot of fun- AND there's still something that's still genuinely creepy about those clowns (klowns).
There's my new, revised list. Throw out the old one. I'm not sure what I was thinking.
5. Slippery Pete
My least favorite monster is my housemate, Slippery Pete. He wants to kill me.
The official deadline for submitting your Monsters is October 22nd. Unofficially, we're pretty flexible and encourage you to send it in right up until October 28th or so.
We've gotten some great entries! Be a part of the fun and send in your entry!
Every entrant will receive a Signal Watch Fun Pack!
Well, I think I buried my last reminder too far down in a previous post, but we're still looking for entries to the "My Favorite/ Least Favorite Monster" Signal Corp Interactivity. As of today, we've only had one entrant. The deadline is October 22nd, but we'll post responses if they come in afterward.
I assure you, its easy and fun to play.
I've seen this movie. Its... well, it's a movie.
Just send in some info on your favorite monster or your least favorite monster with a little blurb as to why you dig that monster (and a JPEG if you've got one).
Yup, this counts as a monster, too
I know many of you don't stay up until 2:30 AM watching The Brain that Wouldn't Die* immediately after watching Ghost of Frankenstein. That's just not everybody's bag. But sooner or later, everybody watches a movie, and many, many of these movies feature monsters. From Star Wars (which... Giant Worm? Sarlac Pit? Rancor? Carrie Fischer's coke habit?) to Clayface in the Batman cartoons, to the ants of Them! to the sharks of Deep Blue Sea... you don't need to stick to just Halloween monsters.
And don't forget, its not just monsters you like, its also the ones who just leave you cold and/ or angry.
I think I went out with this dame my freshman year
Every entry will receive a nifty Signal Corps Fun Pack! So there's your incentive, as if getting your name up in lights isn't enough.
So, this evening I watched the fourth in the series of Frankenstein movies from Universal Studios. Perhaps its fitting that this fourth and uninspired edition falls into the same category as many un-asked for fourth installments, like, say... The Phantom Menace, Indiana Jonesand the Crystal Whatzit, Superman IV: The Quest for Peace, and on and on.
By this installment, Karloff had bailed on the role and Universal had brought in Lon Chaney, Jr., the guy who played the Wolfman in the original, uh... The Wolfman and son of much more talented actor, Lon Chaney. Much as how you really were surprised how much better Peter Weller was as Robocop than Robert Burke as the cyborg cop, so Karloff is to Chaney. Chaney seems to believe just standing there or walking around stiffly is all that's required.
Lugosi and Chaney, Jr. are going to find a way to raise this child together
The plot... well, the villagers in the village of, uhm, Frankenstein, decide to tear down the castle, and it turns out Lugosi/ Ygor is still living in the castle despite having been shot point blank in the chest in the previous movie. The Monster sort of falls out of the wreckage of the castle (don't ask), and gets hit by lightning, and then they take him to see this brother of the son of Franken...
You know what?
This movie more or less marks the sure breaking point for the franchise into unintentional self-parody. From here on out, it seems the Universal Pictures are mostly monster meet ups and team ups, and the sort of stuff that more or less slowly squeezed the life out of the characters and turned them from big screen draw to kid's matinee material.
In short, it wasn't very good. Despite a plot that involved brain transplants and a weird subtext to the Karloff/ Lugosi rivalry when Lugosi's Ygor gets his brain put into the monster (thereby more or less killing Karloff's version of the monster), something just doesn't click. Anyway, you can't fault it for either jumping through plot hoops to make sense and tie into the previous films or a shortage of wacky ideas. Its just... I dunno.
And, yeah, there's a ghost of Henry Frankenstein for, like, three seconds and... it just doesn't really make any sense. But he is still very definitely into SCIENCE.
This sort of creepier than anything in the actual movie
I am not at all confident about Longhorns and Football going into today's game vs. Nebraska. Apparently the Huskers are still a bit peeved about UT's last-second win against them a while back and have done nothing but train for a year to figure out how to beat UT. And the UT team they planned to beat has graduated, leaving the "gosh, gee-willikers, it's a buildin' year!" Longhorns we're now watching. So... that's gonna be interesting. Right now our greatest hopes for success require a complete psychological breakdown for Nebraska, the 'Horns accidentally being bathed in Gamma Radiation*, and/or the spread of a nasty stomach virus this morning amongst UT's foes.
"I'm totally going to throw this ball 10 yards behind the line of scrimmage. Because that is what I am awesome at."
Heap upon this the fact that Colt "Oh, My Arm Seems to Have Stopped Functioning" McCoy is starting for the Browns against the punishing Pittsburgh Steelers on Sunday?
Ah, well.
2) Where are the entries for our Halloween Interactivity?
You've got several days, but we've only received ONE entry for the 2010 Halloween Monster Interactivity! People, this is going to be super-lame if we don't get more submissions, and I know you want your voice heard.
And don't forget: A submission means you receive an awesome Signal Corps Fun Pack!
3) Son of Frankenstein
Just look at these handsome devils. That's Lugosi and Karloff, btw.
So last night I watched Son of Frankenstein, the third in the series of the Universal Studios-produced Frankenstein movies. It's a bit embarrassing to admit that I had never made it past Bride of Frankenstein when I'm such a fan of the first two films, but in all fairness, there's no Elsa Lanchester after Bride of Frankenstein, so why go on?
Son of Frankenstein stars Basil "Sherlock Holmes" Rathbone as Wolf Von Frankenstein, son of Heinrich Von Frankenstein, the creator of the monster in the movies.** Bela "Dracula" Lugosi plays Ygor, Heinrich's old lab assistant, now a mad man living in the ruins of the laboratory, and Karloff returns as The Monster.
The story isn't as large in scope, nor as nail-bitingly over the top as the two James Whale directed Frankenstein films, and Whale's touch is sorely missed. The fever-pitch madness of Bride is almost completely absent until about the third reel, when Rathbone's Wolf Von Frankenstein realizes he made have made a mistake that' causing a whole lot of problems.
You would not believe the paperwork you have to do for the FDA before experimenting with the reanimation of monsters
It does establish some of what's actually going on with the monster, and basically sets up The Monster as the original Jason Voorhees. Basically, you find out that whatever Henry Frankenstein did to re-animate the Monster meant that the Monster no longer has the ability to die, in addition to being super-human.
The set design on the movie is pretty wild, and I have to give the film's creators credit where credit is due. Where Whale's forest and castles were gothic and detailed, the castle and sets of this film seemed to go back to German Expressionism, with vast spaces punctuated with odd angles, and twisted pathways. Which, of course, our Frankenstein just adores when he walks into the castle (because he's got the Frankenstein madness, see).
This is how the Frankensteins eat dinner. No, seriously.
If you've never seen Young Frankenstein, I pity you. Its one of my favorite comedies and has been since I saw the movie at the Dobie my freshmen year at UT. One of the best comedic casts I can think of***. Despite the fact I've seen Young Frankenstein a half-dozen times, Somehow it never occurred to me that the movie was actually referencing characters from movies beyond the first two Frankenstein movies, but Son of Frankenstein is somewhat the template for the movie, right down to the one-armed Burgomeister (who totally uses his wooden arm to hold his darts).
If you've seen the first two Frankenstein movies from Universal, its worth checking out this third in the series, but its sort of suffering from some of the sequel-of-a-sequel-without-the-original-director malaise that you'll see in movies like Jurassic Park III. I'll let you know how the 4th movie in the series is: Ghost of Frankenstein - the first film without Karloff as the Monster.
the terrifying "birthday cake" scene
*That's a Hulk reference, kids
** For reasons I can't fathom, Universal changed the name of the monster's creator in the movies to Henry Frankenstein from Victor, as it appears in the 1818 book.
*** Mel brooks directed, starring: Gene Wilder, Terri Garr, Madeline Kahn, Marty Feldman, Peter Boyle and with Gene Hackman in a brief cameo role.
I was going to write a post about how much I like War of the Worlds, but then I realized: I have been doing this a long, long time. I bet I already wrote something on that.
And then I thought: League, you clever bastard! You're good looking AND brilliant.
Lo and behold, there you go. Two posts to refer to. And I'm still a fan. I was looking at my copy of the DVD and realized I hadn't watched it in... oh, two years or so.
Perhaps I respond to the movie because (a) the radio play freaked me out when I first heard it, knowing exactly what the story was with the broadcast, not to mention I was listening to it on cassette, and (b) because I recall watching the movie with The Admiral and being too old to be genuinely scared by movies, but realizing this was really one of the first films I'd seen where "we" lost.
All that aside, some of what's nifty is in the details. I still like that the martians in the 1953 movie are truly non-humanoid (unlike, say, Klaatu).
They also don't come with a message to save us or demonstrate some sort of enlightenment. In fact, they basically show up with canisters of Humans-B-Gone.
I have only eye/s for you...
I haven't read enough criticism of the book, play or movies, but when I read the book and watch the movie, I can't help but think that the Martians more or less follow the pattern of colonization that humans have been fond of for our long duration, something Bradbury explored in the unrelated Martian Chronicles, which witnesses mankind slowly colonizing the Red Planet. Wells' martians aren't as stupid and slow about their "colonization", arriving in gas-spewing, death beam projecting blitzkrieg, but the idea is the same.
Land: they aren't making more of it. And on a gut level, we kind of understand the terror of clearing out the locals to make way for our strip malls and Tasty Freeze franchises (or whatever Martians ultimately planned to do) because that's what we're really good at. Just, you know, the audience reading the book hadn't been on the receiving end in quite a while.
And these sorts of fables stick with you, I suppose.
I'm also a huge fan of the design of the Martian vehicles as designed in the book (at least how its described, which is @#$%ing terrifying, and which Spielberg sort of got right), and while they couldn't animate the tripod legs for the 50's-era film and so made the vehicle a hovercraft, it's still totally rad. One day I shall own a model of the Martian invasion crafts. Oh, yes, I will.
A surefire way to not get cut off on the freeway.
The opening scenes in Grover's Mill (in the radio broadcast and movie) are epically freaky as humans try to apply reason, goodwill, etc... and are met by (spoilers!) deathray. From that point on, things just get worse, too.
There have been a few nifty cross-overs for fans like myself.
As you know, Superman appeared in 1938, the same year of the "War of the Worlds" Mercury Theater Broadcast. Somebody ran some numbers and put this out a while back, which I thought was a nifty read.
Superman tries to prevent these nefarious illegal aliens from dropping anchor babies
I just watched the original 1958 The Blob with JackBart, Jamie and Jason. I felt it was superior to the 1980's-era remake, which I had previously seen, but mostly because it stars a budding Steve McQueen as a teenager who looks roughly 32.
Aimed squarely at teenagers, the film helped set the formula we're still using today in teen-oriented horror flicks. The kids are sort of outsiders. The guy isn't all bad, and the girl is definitely a very nice girl. The cops won't believe a word of any of it from these crazy kids. And kids hang out acting goofy until its time for them to save the day.
The FX are really pretty awesome for their day (not War of the Worlds awesome, but really good), and there were a few shots I didn't quite figure out.
The weirdest part of the movie is the jaunty song written for the movie, no doubt to appeal to kids and get them singing at their hootenannies. Absolutely amazing, this is the beginning of The Blob:
Nothing sets the mood for horror like danceable late-50's coffee-house-inspired pop tunes. Especially when they are penned by Burt Bacharach (Jesus, that factoid really pulls this together).
Sure, you can question the logic of the movie and why Steve McQueen doesn't just explain the chain of events to get the cops off his back (or why the cops think he would come to the police station to bring them back to a crime scene as a prank)... but, heck, I like that monster.
The Blob is one big reddish-purple mass of "oh, holy crap" that's about as good a depiction of what aliens really will be like when they arrive as we're going to see at the cinema. As much as I wish they'd all be Twi-lek entertainers or Orion dancing girls, its just as likely some hunk of space protoplasm will show up and have us all dead within a week. Them's the breaks.
Our villain
JackBart lives in a condo with a cool little courtyard area, and we watched the movie projected onto the wall in the night air, so it was a pretty great cinematic experience for going over to someone's house to catch a movie.
We're trying to do a few more Halloween movies in the run up to the big day, so we''ll keep you guys posted as to our progress.
It's been a long, long time since we've played this particular game, but there's really no time like the present!
Let's talk MONSTERS.
In honor of Halloween, I'm going to ask you good folks to send in some content. We're going to talk about our favorite monsters AND our least favorite monsters! I love me a good monster, whether its on two legs and wears a two-tone sweater or whether its breathing fire and 30 stories in the sky. And I'm betting you guys ALSO have your favorite monsters.
But I'm betting some of you look at a few movie and TV monsters and are just left wondering what the hell the story is with that thing. And we want to hear about that, too!
"I hate going into the basement to flip the circuit breaker! Blah!"
Here's the rules:
Send in:
A picture (preferably in JPEG)
Name of Monster
Identify as Favorite or Least Favorite Monster
An essay of any length explaining why your monster of choice is your favorite/ least favorite monster
You must self-identify one way or another. Please include what name by which you'd like to be identified in the post
You can send as many as four monsters
Extra points will be awarded for monsters we've never heard of, creative responses and super-awesome essays
You can define "monster" pretty much any way you choose, but let's keep it light, kids. This is a Halloween fun-fest, not your personal soapbox, and we have readership of all stripes
All entries must be received by October 24th
Depending on the number of entries, we will begin rolling out essays the week before Halloween. I'm not sure which day yet.
Please be aware that all profanity will be replaced with "@#$%"
By submitting your essay to Signal Watch, you retain ownership and copyright, but are granting The Signal Watch/ League of Melbotis non-exclusive publishing rights*
"Honey, my train ran into a problem, and I'm going to be a little late..."
Where do I send it?signalwatch at gee mail dot com
What's in it for YOU?
Folks who send in entries will receive a Signal Watch Signal Corps Fun Club Package! (I have no idea what that means, but you can bet it will be awesome.) If you would like a Signal Watch Signal Corps Fun Club Package, please include your mailing address. And do not assume I have your mailing address. I do not.
You also get to get your writing up here in bright lights, right next to your name!
SO....!
So, my little goblins, I hope everyone has an idea in mind for a monster they'd like to talk about. Let's see if this can't get you in the Halloween Spirit!
"And those brains come with either steak fries or fingers..."
*I know, but these days I feel like that bit is necessary. Please read up on Creative Commons if you want to know what I'm getting at.
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