Hellraiser | Mimi Sebastian

Awww, ain’t he cute? Tooth fairy from Hellboy II.

It’s time for another list, this time featuring our favorite, ghoulish movie monsters. I’m not including Godzilla, Dracula, Frankenstein’s monster, King Kong, Jaws, and wolf man. (I make one exception with regards to werewolves as noted below.) As much as I love these crazy guys, I wanted to take an eclectic look at some more modern yet still classic creatures. Once again, the list is in no particular order. Please sound off in the comments and add your own favorites and check out my Pinterest for some images of the monsters.

Pinhead from Clive Barker’s Hellraiser. Iconic. A creepy sadomasochist. “I will tear your soul apart.” “We have such sights to show you.” I’m morbidly fascinated. Pinhead is the leader of the Cenobites, Theologians of the Order of the Gash, “ageless experimenters in the higher reaches of pleasure.” Really messed up monks. Read Clive Barker’s Hellbound Heart. It’s great and introduces aspects to the story not explored in the movie. I don’t know what it is about Clive Barker’s chilling ability to write about human’s relationship to their own flesh.

Alien Xenomorphs. Talk about awesome, ass-kicking design inspired by the surrealist H.R. Giger. (Google H.R. Giger alien lithograph for some awesome images.) Oh yeah, acid blood.

Guillermo del Toro gets two entries because he is just awesome that way. (When will we get At the Mountains of Madness? Pretty please?) First creature is Pale Man from Pan’s Labyrinth. Eyeball hands. Eats children. Pan was also very creepy and dark, but to pick one truly hellish monster, hands down Pale Man. Did I mention he eats children?

And second are the teeth fairies from Hellboy II, pictured above. They are soooo cute, just keep them away from your teeth! I also love the Angel of Death pictured here from Hellboy II. Del Toro definitely has an eye fetish.

The flesh eating crawlers from the Descent. Have you seen this movie? Talk about claustrophobic horror. Must. See. Now. (I think you can stream on Netflix.) We don’t know the origin of the crawlers, how they evolved in the caves, but they are humanoid enough for my over-active and sometimes twisted mind to just go there…

Brundlefly from The Fly. Just uck. The wonderful special effects in transforming Jeff Goldblum into a vomiting insect. Horror and pathos. I’ve said it before, the best horror movies bring both together brilliantly. The way Cronenberg directed Jeff Goldblum’s transformation was like someone suffering from a terminal disease and mourning the loss of his relationship with Geena Davis. Sad, powerful stuff.

The thing from The Thing. This scene alone:

Man, I miss old school special effects.

Evil Dead‘s Naturon Demonto (Sumerian Book of the Dead) demons, most notably possessed tree. You can’t beat Sam Raimi for campy, no holds bared horror blood fest, but mostly I love how over the top his demon possessed people act.

David Naughton’s American werewolf from American Werewolf in London. My one exception to the werewolf exception. One of the best or just flat out the best transformations in movie special effects history.

The velociraptors from Jurassic Park. Spielberg made a great decision in featuring these guys in addition to the T Rex. The T Rex is a big brute, but the velociraptors are smart, pack hunters. Best quote from Robert Muldoon, Game Warden: “They show extraordinary intelligence, even problem-solving intelligence. Especially the big one. We bred eight originally, but when she came in she took over the pride and killed all but two of the others. That one… when she looks at you, you can see she’s working things out.”

In attempting to find the right balance between blogging about releases, writing stuff, author guests, I thought I’d include the occasional, general post about stuff and am calling it The Front Yard, because I often have great conversations with my neighbors in our front yard, often after corralling their chicken. (Talk about free range and we get fresh eggs too!) We cover a myriad of topics from life in general to tv and movies because we are for the most part, geeks. Although I surprised my neighbor recently by admitting I had never watched Doctor Who. Even I have limits.

So I chaperoned my son’s kinder class on a school field trip to a local farm. While my voice grew hoarse constantly rounding up my charges, (the second you get one little critter next to you, the next one had taken off), I had lots of fun. We picked vegetables, walked through a corn maze, and, one of my son’s favorite moments, saw the llama poop.

TV: Holy cow. American Horro Story: Coven. I’ve been loving this season. Didn’t watch season one, couldn’t really get into season two (don’t need to see lobotomies and why the serial killer?), but Coven seems to have found the right balance, and Kathy Bates, Jessica Lange, and Angela Bassett??? How can it not rock? I appreciate these actresses even more, because they could totally go the scene chewing route, but while they do dominate their scenes, they know how to tone it down. But last episode’s zombie takedown via chainsaw!!! I wanted to shout. What awesome Evil Dead carnage. It was ridiculous, especially when she split the one zombie in half, vertically. I’m truly curious as to what’s going to happen with Sarah Paulson’s character (Fiona’s daughter) now that she’s blind but can see, and I called Zoe being the Supreme in the first episode 🙂 Can’t wait for next week!

Still trying to fit Marvel Agents of Shield. It’s one of those shows that just doesn’t feel right, like the shirt that’s too tight on the shoulders. I never read the comic, never got into Shield all that much, but have learned enough about Shield from their appearances in the comics I do read. And this tv group does not feel like Shield. They feel like the minor league Shield. And I can’t understand why they aren’t drawing upon the Marvel universe more. Maybe it’s ABC, making the show more wide reaching (read bland), but Whedon can do so much better! While he’s not writing the show, his brother and brother’s wife (I think) are the writers, he is the producer. Who knows? Maybe the Whedon formula is finally wearing out its welcome, or maybe you can’t just paste the Whedon tropes on meh actors and meh writing and expect it to work. We’ll see.

On a more exciting front, Marvel and Netflix announced a deal to bring multiple live-action series featuring Daredevil, Iron Fist, Luke Cage, and Jessica Cage, all in their own shows, leading up to a Defenders mini-series. Now that’s what I’m talking about. I think a Netflix series will be less constrained than a major network show and I find the approach intriguing, not to mention, characters like these will adapt well to the small screen.

Speaking of Marvel, can’t wait to see Thor this weekend. From what I’ve read and seen in trailers, this looks to be wider in scope, more of the nine realms, and a more hands on, grounded approach to the fighting and physical appearance of Asgard. And we get to see Heimdall with his helmet off = Idris Elba! Continue reading →

Mimi Sebastian

On the dark side of love

Tag Archives: Hellraiser

Ghoulish Tens: Movie Monsters

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