The Monsters of the Aughts
Posted on October 31, 2008 - Filed Under Uncategorized
Back when Stan Winston passed away I briefly pondered the state of the Modern Movie Monster and what monsters from our current decade have scared me the worst (so far). Now, when I say “monster” I mean to conjure up an inhuman, ghastly, monster-riffic appearance, not a monstrous human being like Patrick Bateman or Mick Taylor. Anyway, I made a list of my five favorites. Here they are.
The Pale Man, Pan’s Labyrinth - Undisputed; the champ. Give credit to Del Toro (not to mention the genius beneath the make-up, Doug Jones) for a long future ahead of sleepless nights for ourselves and our children and our children’s children with this fine fella. I expect loads more creature-y goodness from Del Toro with Hellboy II as well.
The Crawlers, The Descent - Director Neil Marshall gives these mole-people monsters just enough of an evolutionary bullshit back-story to make them seem credible enough, and then let’s them run amok with a kinetic shit-storm of gore-hued horror. The make-up work is damned fine - the opaque skin and eyes, ruddy and slick, is shudder-inducing. And then there’s the lady one…
The Mouth of Sauron, Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King - This creep only shows up in the extended DVD version of this flick, but I’ll be gosh-darned if he isn’t scarier than every single orc, Ringwraith, Fell beast and Sauron himself all thrown in a blender and set to “Terrify”. That… that mouth. Ugh!
Grendel, Beowulf - While I haven’t revisited the film since it plucked my eyes outta my head in IMAX-3D, the bit that lingers most favorably is Crispin Glover’s alternately heart-breakingly sad and back-smashingly scary performance as the monster Grendel. (Grendel also benefits the most from his character not having to look fully human, and therefore not being as dead-eyed as the rest of the cast.)
The Medeiros Girl, [REC] - That is not The Medeiros Girl pictured above, but rather a character reacting to The Medeiros Girl; not enough people have seen [REC] yet for me to go spoiling the film’s creepiest surprise. But let me just tell you, I am not shitting you that this girl deserves her spot here. Holy effin’ shit! Ahhh!!! [edited to add that I have since seen the American remake Quarantine and the scary-quotient of this character remains fully intact therein - eep]
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