The Colossi (Shadow of the Colossus)
Not a big shocker really, it's my favourite game and probably as close as any game has come to reinventing mythical storytelling in an interactive format (no, God of War, you're not even in the top 10). What it seems to understand better than most games is the necessity of a simple set up with a distinctly un-simple conclusion, aka development. Look at any Greek myth, particularly ones like Perseus and Theseus, the set up is always somewhat basic but houses mysterious complexities, such as the origin of the Minotaur, the motives of King Minos or the true nature of the gorgons (yeah there were actually three of them, one of which had brass hands). Within other related stories these things were explained but as isolated myths the creatures described were perfect vessels for fear and intrigue, mysterious, malevolent and inevitable obstacles for the hero. What's great about Shadow of the Colossus is that while in those stories the hero's motive is a hallmark of his bravery and you identify with him as he presses on, in a game you're controlling the hero, initially you know very little of the backstory, Wander arrives in a mysterious wilderness with a young woman who's either dead or in a very deep sleep indeed, he pleads with a demon god to revive her and it tasks him to kill 16 colossi in order for this to happen. You control him and while he's driven by his love for this girl you are driven by intrigue, marred by the gradual apprehension of seeing that the black essence bled from each dead beast is slowly killing Wander, but you must go on, much as he refuses to stop. The crystallising moment in this respect is (spoilers approaching) when just before the final colossus a bridge crossing goes horribly wrong and your faithful horse and only real companion on this quest plummets into oblivion. Wander clearly mourns his loss deeply but has no choice but to press on, it becomes painfully clear at this point that while you merely wish to know what happens in the end, Wander no longer holds his own life in any real value, so long as he kills this last colossus.
I'm rambling now, anyway, to the m
onsters themselves. What's so effective about them is that they feel almost god-like, a higher presence with a very clear purpose (albeit one that doesn't become clear until the end). They don't feel like a blight on the land they live in but almost integral to it, they have grass growing all over them, rocks protruding from their bodies, many of them actually crawl out of the ground, most however are found sleeping, you get the impression they have been sleeping for a long time. Their actions feel tired and laborious, like they are ageing, their attacks against you seem less like malevolence and more like function, they have to protect their territory, as long as you remain you are a threat. Some don't even openly attack you unless you attack them first, one doesn't attack you at all. Most importantly of all, when they die it is a mournful thing, they sigh a last, heaving breath and slowly sink to the ground to the hums of a solemn choir. They are monsters in the sense that they pose a threat to you and they seems detached from nature, but they only feel detached in the sense that they look more ancient than any animal or plant, elemental. You feel as if you are facing something as old as the earth it walks on and often feel uneasy watching them die, like you've done irreparable damage to the balance of the land. What makes the confrontations so unsettling (and equally the exploration of the eerily quiet landscape) is that you feel like an intruder, a disturber of a peaceful balance. The colossi would never attack a bird or lizard, but you, you don't belong there.
Grendel (Beowulf)
What I love about Grendel in most if not all of his incarnations is the simplicity of his nature, yet the mystery of his motives. He goes to the same hall at the same time of night and does the same thing, kills as many men as he can, drags their carcasses away and leaves. Why? Hatred? Hunger? Boredom? Who knows, who needs to know, really? Grendel is a malevolent creature and his presence is a constant looming threat. In some circumstances knowing what a monster is going to do is just as frightening as not knowing (we'll come back to that). I wasn't so sure about how they portrayed him in the recent Robert Zemeckis film, much as I enjoyed it, a lot of the intrigue was taken away when we found out he was doing it because all the partying was playing havoc with his ultra-sensitive left eardrum. I did like the fact that he was the illegitimate son of a king and a creature posing as a seductress, scarred and deformed with hints of humanity behind a mask of pain and rage; my preference however is for the Grendel in the 90s animated version of Beowulf narrated by Derek Jacobi. I have fond memories of watching it at school and the Grendel seen in that was a merely a black, almost formless shadow with a green glow centred around where the head would be, his movements unnatural, he almost seemed to be made out of darkness, the abstract nature of his movement and attacks giving the impression that this is not his literal form but rather a traumatic recollection recalled from the mind's eye of a disturbed witness. That notion neatly brings us to another hallmark of monster effectiveness, the less you know, the scarier the beast, keeping that in mind...
The Demon (Paranormal Activity)
Certain of my friends from university will gleefully recount to you the stark contrast between my enthusiasm to see this film and the genuine fear that took hold of me about half-way through it, with the emphasis very much on the latter part. I was so scared at points watching Paranormal Activity that I could feel the hairs on the back of my neck standing on end, a fact that my friend Dave is often swift to remind me of (as well as my having shed a tear or five at the end of LOST). The fear of the unknown is implemented so masterfully in this film because for all the speculation about what the creature is or what its intentions might be, they remain just that, speculation. The best part is that the creature is completely invisible so its true appearance remains almost entirely unknown, though it most definitely has physical form (in an attempt to track its movement, Micah lays down some talcum powder outside the door, which reveals the creature to have cloven feet). Once again predictability is key to its effectiveness, every time the hand-held camera switches to the tripod night shot of the bed, you know it's coming. The video will fast forward as the couple toss and turn in their sleep, then slow to normal rate when an 'encounter' is imminent. The best ones are those that wrong-foot you. In one you the usual heavy footsteps as the demonic creature approaches but then they peter out, to give way to silence, the couple wake up, clearly unsettled, sit for a while, then out of nowhere a blood curdling screech and and a huge bang. When they eventually summon the courage to go downstairs and check what's happened, nothing is unusual at all. What the creature is actually doing is often unclear, but in direct opposition to Grendel, its motives are. It wants Katie and it wants her boyfriend Micah out of the way, his interference only serves to enrage it (hence the shrieking, which directly followed a daytime scene involving a medium). While what it wants is clear, what it's going to do to get it is a constant concern, sort of like David Blaine when he was trying to keep us interested. Beyond that, possibly the best thing about both the demon and the movie is that it becomes increasingly clear how little either character can do about it, ultimately they have no power to defeat, bargain with, control or even escape from this thing and when this becomes clear it's one of the most bitterly terrifying moments in film history.
The Truck (Duel)
I suppose Jaws would be an equally va
lid entry considering the concept and ideas are very similar indeed but I found the truck to be more effective a monster than the shark, although in fairness that's mainly because up close the shark looked like the result of a collaboration between Roger Corman's design department and Jim Henson. One could argue that Duel is actually about a psychotic truck driver but I always thought the intention was to portray the truck as the antagonist and I don't care what you say, a 16 ton truck that is actively trying to kill you is definitely a monster. What's most effective about this one is that it's something you see every day, something that because you're used to you never see for the colossus, the lumbering, dangerous, ugly brute of a machine that it is, just something that slows you down on the way to a business meeting. This is exactly what happens to Dave Mann, the protagonist of Duel, then when he cuts it up it decides it wants him dead. Something familiar is transformed into something malevolent but the idea of that happening is so outlandish that nobody else is going to believe it unless they see it, as shown in a palpably frustrating scene in which Dave stops to try and push start a school bus but attempts to evacuate the children in a panic when the rig reappears, the driver and kids dismiss his panic as stupidity and then to add insult to injury the truck push starts the bus as the children drive off gleefully chortling at him; seconds later the truck is back on his tail. The best characteristic of Duel by far though is the way it initially defines the road as a danger and being on foot in diners and such as safe (if tense) then in one short sequence near the end utterly shatters that one modicum of security we clung to and absolutely jacks the tension for the remainder of the film. The exact same thing happens in Jaws admittedly but watching Quinn get munched by the shark I always end up picturing the countless times he must have burst out laughing had to do the take again, because he was essentially in a giant rendition of the squeaky shark that played a minor role in the first Toy Story.
lid entry considering the concept and ideas are very similar indeed but I found the truck to be more effective a monster than the shark, although in fairness that's mainly because up close the shark looked like the result of a collaboration between Roger Corman's design department and Jim Henson. One could argue that Duel is actually about a psychotic truck driver but I always thought the intention was to portray the truck as the antagonist and I don't care what you say, a 16 ton truck that is actively trying to kill you is definitely a monster. What's most effective about this one is that it's something you see every day, something that because you're used to you never see for the colossus, the lumbering, dangerous, ugly brute of a machine that it is, just something that slows you down on the way to a business meeting. This is exactly what happens to Dave Mann, the protagonist of Duel, then when he cuts it up it decides it wants him dead. Something familiar is transformed into something malevolent but the idea of that happening is so outlandish that nobody else is going to believe it unless they see it, as shown in a palpably frustrating scene in which Dave stops to try and push start a school bus but attempts to evacuate the children in a panic when the rig reappears, the driver and kids dismiss his panic as stupidity and then to add insult to injury the truck push starts the bus as the children drive off gleefully chortling at him; seconds later the truck is back on his tail. The best characteristic of Duel by far though is the way it initially defines the road as a danger and being on foot in diners and such as safe (if tense) then in one short sequence near the end utterly shatters that one modicum of security we clung to and absolutely jacks the tension for the remainder of the film. The exact same thing happens in Jaws admittedly but watching Quinn get munched by the shark I always end up picturing the countless times he must have burst out laughing had to do the take again, because he was essentially in a giant rendition of the squeaky shark that played a minor role in the first Toy Story.Vermithrax Pejorative (Dragonslayer)
Okay first things first, if you've not seen Dragonslayer, fix that. It's an amazingly good 1980s mythical adventure with plot twists up the wazzoo and possibly the most incredibly, fist in the pumpingly jumping on the couchingly screaming at the roofingly awesome climactic moment in cinematic history. Vermithrax Pejorative (man I could say that again and again) is a dragon, or technically a wyvern if you're conscious of the taxonomy of a fictional creature (if this is you, stop reading this immediately and bang your head repeatedly on the desk until you're either cured of your boring-to-the-point-of-justifiable-homicide-syndrome or braindead, whichever comes first).
Pejorative is reputedly indestructible and the pr
otagonist is tasked with killing it, so you know it's going to be a long, hard road. The best thing about this monster though is her absence from the first half or so of the film, when she turns up she's every bit the hideous, unrelenting, bloodthirsty killing machine y ou expect, but beautifully animated to boot. The speculation is what makes things interesting, an unknown entity is always going to merit speculation on its nature and motives, two elements that keep coming up in this who's who of monsters, the film cannily experiments with this notion having people trying to kill it, trap it, reason with it and even worship it (an interesting cameo from Ian McDiarmid serves that purpose, his lightning bolt hands would have done him no good against this bugger). Granted it all ends the same way, but the idea of this ambiguous, lurking threat that everyone's trying to come up with an answer to is a genius way of tackling the monster problem and is as far removed as possible from the 'here it is, it bad, you kill' approach of shockingly bad efforts like Outlander or that stupid Godzilla remake. Keeping the latter in mind...
Pejorative is reputedly indestructible and the pr
otagonist is tasked with killing it, so you know it's going to be a long, hard road. The best thing about this monster though is her absence from the first half or so of the film, when she turns up she's every bit the hideous, unrelenting, bloodthirsty killing machine y ou expect, but beautifully animated to boot. The speculation is what makes things interesting, an unknown entity is always going to merit speculation on its nature and motives, two elements that keep coming up in this who's who of monsters, the film cannily experiments with this notion having people trying to kill it, trap it, reason with it and even worship it (an interesting cameo from Ian McDiarmid serves that purpose, his lightning bolt hands would have done him no good against this bugger). Granted it all ends the same way, but the idea of this ambiguous, lurking threat that everyone's trying to come up with an answer to is a genius way of tackling the monster problem and is as far removed as possible from the 'here it is, it bad, you kill' approach of shockingly bad efforts like Outlander or that stupid Godzilla remake. Keeping the latter in mind...Godzilla (Godzilla)
I'm keeping him within the context of the original movie and almost nothing beyond it here, there are dozens of Godzilla movies and many of them are an utter joy to watch if only for their hilarious disregard for the laws of physics (watch this, fucking watch this) but it's the underlying idea that spawned Godzilla that interests me the most. I know I said I wasn't looking at monsters as a metaphor, but Godzilla remains the exception that proves the rule. One of the biggest scars on the façade of the world's wartime history is the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, that's not to ere on either side of the argument but just to say that it was a tragedy and a sad day for humanity. Japan were the first nation to experience an atomic bombing and now they are the front-line of the effort to make sure it never happens again. Godzilla is a prime example of that ethos, the story goes that he is the result of nuclear testing. He's huge, violent, ugly and incredibly angry, he is the embodiment of everything that's bad about nuclear arms. Sure enough the plot is pretty cut and dry but the idea that the persistent memory, the guilt, the knowledge that we created the most horrific, mass murdering weapon in history is not just a memory in that world, it's stomping around Tokyo breathing blue fire on people. In one of the movies they even try and unleash him as kind of an anti-monster insurance policy against King Gidorah, but of course once he wins the fight he turns on humanity again. In the same film his origin as a surviving dinosaur is seen, the man who discovered him had an emotional connection to that creature, but is killed when he tries to reunite with the monster after he's been mutated, showing that a creature once capable of compassion is now left twisted and, once again, inconceivably angry, it's like Godzilla is angry at the human race for creating nuclear weapons, his constant rampages a ceaseless reminder of that. Until he sold out and turned into a good monster that is. Also, fun fact, his roar was originally the sound of a gloved hand being run up and down the strings of a double bass.
The Weeping Angels (Doctor Who)
Man I love these things. If you are
n't a fan or follower of the newer version of Who, then the monsters you're most likely to associate with it are sentient tin cans and octopus men. Even then you'd be generalising, some of the stuff that turned up in the old Doctor Who was far more interesting than Daleks, Cybermen and the like but they've really gone all out in the new one. Granted they are still some duds and they spend a ridiculous amount of time rehashing matter from the old series but every now and again they introduce a creature that really gets your attention, the empty child, the Krillitanes, the clockwork men, the Isolus and of course, The Weeping Angels. Their debut episode, Blink, is genuinely the best episode of Doctor Who I've ever seen and one of the best pieces of television in history, I reckon. The angels themselves are statues of angels covering their faces, or at least they are when you're looking at them. The hook is that if you turn your back or even blink they'll be able to move and attack you. Initially the blow is softened by the fact that they kill you be displacing you in time, throwing you back in time so that, from anyone else's point of view in the present day you'll immediately be either dead or dying, but you yourself get to have a long, fulfilling life in the past. They canned that in later episodes and just had them break people's necks, as if they weren't scary enough already. What's brilliant about them once again draws on the unknown, as well as a lack of control, it's almost infuriating that you can see them, interact with them, touch them, but you can't stop them because they are strongest when you are weakest, when you can't see. Equally, because you can only comprehend them when they're 'dormant', you never see them express their intentions or any form of character or personality, just cold, hard stone. Being completely powerless against something is a terrifying idea and never has it been better explored than with the weeping angels.
The Diclonius (Elfen Lied)
These are possibly the most deceptive monsters in the entire list, in that they look like normal people, for the most part. In fact, the Diclonius actually look like young girls, the only thing to distinguish them from other humans being the horns on their heads which are usually only barely visible. The Diclonius are the next stage of human evolution and posses something called vectors, extruding limbs that are made up of concentrated kinetic energy, both invisible and impossibly powerful, their range and power varies between each subject. These things needn't be regarded as monsters, but the show creates a beautiful irony by suggesting that they have become monsters by being treated as such. One in particular is kept in high security store for her entire child-life, the only communication she gets is via intercom, when first released she appears docile but quickly turns, brutally murdering her carer without a single hint of regret or hesitation. The psychology of them and the definition of the rift between their monstrous side and their human side makes for some fascinating and often disturbing characters, it's often difficult to know who to side with in Elfen Lied, ultimately however the Diclonius come across as tragic, abused characters whose violent actions are a result of inhuman abuse at the hands of their masters and nearly everyone they encounter, as a result of being 'different'.
That's about all the ones I can think of, there are more great examples but they'll have to wait for another entry, as will all the monsters I've ever come up with in my short stories, hopefully one day I'll come up with something as good as the above examples.
Man I love these things. If you are
n't a fan or follower of the newer version of Who, then the monsters you're most likely to associate with it are sentient tin cans and octopus men. Even then you'd be generalising, some of the stuff that turned up in the old Doctor Who was far more interesting than Daleks, Cybermen and the like but they've really gone all out in the new one. Granted they are still some duds and they spend a ridiculous amount of time rehashing matter from the old series but every now and again they introduce a creature that really gets your attention, the empty child, the Krillitanes, the clockwork men, the Isolus and of course, The Weeping Angels. Their debut episode, Blink, is genuinely the best episode of Doctor Who I've ever seen and one of the best pieces of television in history, I reckon. The angels themselves are statues of angels covering their faces, or at least they are when you're looking at them. The hook is that if you turn your back or even blink they'll be able to move and attack you. Initially the blow is softened by the fact that they kill you be displacing you in time, throwing you back in time so that, from anyone else's point of view in the present day you'll immediately be either dead or dying, but you yourself get to have a long, fulfilling life in the past. They canned that in later episodes and just had them break people's necks, as if they weren't scary enough already. What's brilliant about them once again draws on the unknown, as well as a lack of control, it's almost infuriating that you can see them, interact with them, touch them, but you can't stop them because they are strongest when you are weakest, when you can't see. Equally, because you can only comprehend them when they're 'dormant', you never see them express their intentions or any form of character or personality, just cold, hard stone. Being completely powerless against something is a terrifying idea and never has it been better explored than with the weeping angels.The Diclonius (Elfen Lied)
These are possibly the most deceptive monsters in the entire list, in that they look like normal people, for the most part. In fact, the Diclonius actually look like young girls, the only thing to distinguish them from other humans being the horns on their heads which are usually only barely visible. The Diclonius are the next stage of human evolution and posses something called vectors, extruding limbs that are made up of concentrated kinetic energy, both invisible and impossibly powerful, their range and power varies between each subject. These things needn't be regarded as monsters, but the show creates a beautiful irony by suggesting that they have become monsters by being treated as such. One in particular is kept in high security store for her entire child-life, the only communication she gets is via intercom, when first released she appears docile but quickly turns, brutally murdering her carer without a single hint of regret or hesitation. The psychology of them and the definition of the rift between their monstrous side and their human side makes for some fascinating and often disturbing characters, it's often difficult to know who to side with in Elfen Lied, ultimately however the Diclonius come across as tragic, abused characters whose violent actions are a result of inhuman abuse at the hands of their masters and nearly everyone they encounter, as a result of being 'different'.
That's about all the ones I can think of, there are more great examples but they'll have to wait for another entry, as will all the monsters I've ever come up with in my short stories, hopefully one day I'll come up with something as good as the above examples.
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