"Don't You Look At Me!" Matt's Picks for the Most Memorable Movie Monsters...May 23 '01 (Updated May 28 '01) Write an essay on this topic.
Popular Products in Blu-ray and DVD Players
The Bottom Line Creepier than you...
Warning: Spoilers abound in great numbers throughout this list... First off, this is not a list of the best monster movies, but rather the best monsters from the movies. So, what is it that makes a movie villain/monster memorable? Personally, I'd say someone with an emotional void large enough to swallow all others on screen and becoming the sole focal point of the viewer's morbid curiosity. Someone who's mere presence on screen makes you feel as if someone jabbed you in the side with a rusty nail. Considering they are just movie characters, that's pretty impressive. So without further ado, here are the ones that did just that, and made you feel dirty long after the movie was over... (Automatic disqualification for Freddy and Jason) Diane Ladd in Wild at Heart -- The first of two David Lynch villains to make this list. In Wild at Heart Diane Ladd plays mother to Laura Dern (her real life daughter) whose hatred for Dern's boyfriend, Nicolas Cage, as an Elvis-type drifter, prompts her to seduce the superb Harry Dean Stanton into tracking Cage down and killing him. Granted she's not the freakiest aspect overall about the film, she steals every scene she's in whether it's a drug-induced tantrum or a drug-induced "face painting with lipstick" frenzy (Honorable mention to Willem Dafoe for his role in said movie.) Bruce in Jaws -- Not exactly a ruthless monster. I didn't exactly feel "emotionally violated" by a mechanical shark named Bruce's portrayal of some ruthless sea monster, but nevertheless everytime I watch Jaws I do get incredible creeped out and I most definetly wouldn't if Spielberg had used stock footage or tried to train real sharks as some studio heads suggested (although that could have turned out funny in a violent sort of way and made for some interesting anectdotes on the Jaws DVD commentary.) Marlon Brando in Apocalypse Now -- I first saw Apocalypse Now at a very young age (must have been 9 or 10) and it was embedded in my mind for 4 main reasons: The infamous battalion of helicopters in battle, the very unforgettable, very real slaughtering of livestock, Harrison Ford's very brief screen time, and Colonel Kurtz. I saw it again several years later when I was old enough to better appreciate movies and the force some actors and actresses have, and remember being blown away by Marlon Brando's performance even more so than the first time. He successfully maintains an equalibrium of appearing completely ruthless, and if you aren't paying attention to what he's saying, perfectly sane when he's anything but. Merritt Nelson in Trust -- The lowdown if you haven't seen Trust. Trust is the story of Matthew Slaughter (Martin Donovan) and Maria Coughlin (Adrienne Shelley). Hartley puts quite the play on your emotions with practically all of his characters, with people becoming villains based upon being forced into situations due to unfair circumstances, but then we're lead to wonder whether they were actually a "repressed villain" before which causes you to wonder if this is something to hold against someone or simply something not worth pondering over. Enough incoherent babbling. All you need to know is know is that Merrit Nelson is the villain in this one as Shelley's mother. The story goes a little something like this: Shelley is a wild child but only at the beginning of the film. In a nutshell, she slaps her father, he has a heart attack and dies, she's blamed for her father's death by her mother who, in retaliation, kicks her out, she witnesses the kidnapping of a small baby, meets Matthew Slaughter who in turn is also kicked out of his house, whereupon the two decide to return to Shelley's house in hopes of being let back in all in a day's work. Anyway, this is the point where Nelson turns vengeful for thinking Shelley caused her father's death. Sure, to some people dealing with grief this would be something you'd expect to have held against you, but what really makes her ruthless is a conversation with Mr. Slaughter where she confesses she was actually sick of her husband and is grateful to her daughter for causing his fatal heart attack, using this to keep her at home as a slave of sorts. That's just plain evil. Roger Smith in Roger & Me -- The slimiest villain on this list... If you've never seen Roger & Me, and are oblivious to the evening news (as I am) odds are you might not know who Roger Smith is. Quite simply he's the ex-president of General Motors that layed off several thousand workers in the mid-1980's after closing several GM plants in Flint, Michigan which caused the small, once prosperous town to become practically a rat-infested ghost town which at one point became the crime capital of the U.S. due to people turning to crime to support themselves. Roger & Me is a documentary shot by super-sarcastic Flint native Michael Moore. Throughout the entire film, Moore simply tries to talk Smith into spending a day with him meeting with workers who were layed off because of the plant closing. Moore visits every polo club, crashes every parade, and asks practically every Flint citizen about Smith's whereabouts, but always seems to just miss him. He even sneaks into a press conference and prepares to propose his idea when his mic is cut off. Granted Moore does finally get in touch with Smith at a Christmas eve party/intercut with scenes of a family being evicted just hours before, Moore is once again shot down and drowns in the plethora of GM PR men surrounding the CEO. Smith was fired shortly after the release of the film. David Hess in Last House on the Left and The House on the Edge of the Park -- ...In Wes Craven's Last House on the Left he was probably one of the most ruthless characters ever committed to celluloid. Hess played an escaped convict who for the sake of control makes his son dependent on drugs and, along with 3 confidants kidnap, rape, and kill two teenage girls. ...In Ruggero Deodato's House on the Edge of the Park he sort of rehashed his Last House role but it seemed much more sinister the second time around. This time around he plays a vicious serial rapist who along with John Morghen crashes a party chock full o' yuppies who sexually taunt Hess, cheat Morghen in poker, and make fun of his dancing which when combined, manage to trigger Hess's sexually violent temper. John Morghen just wants to boogie, but Hess has a much darker idea in store as he soon rapes several of the women, smashes one of the guy's face repeatedly on a glass coffee table, cuts one girl up with a razor, and urinates on one of the guys and performs several other violent acts on his hostages. Even though the film is severely hampered by a bunch of improbabilities and a pretty ridiculous ending, Hess never once lets up. Usually the only way I'd consider a villain/monster truly creepy is if their performance is a strain on your energy, and in both of these films, Hess is pretty exhausting to watch... Dennis Hopper in Blue Velvet -- Perhaps the most infamous performance in Hopper's career, and rightfully so. Hopper plays Frank, a villain with the ability to corrupt practically everyone he meets. Frank is the ringleader of some severely twisted criminals, including Brad Dourif and Dean Stockwell, who is the mastermind of the kidnapping of a lounge singer named Dorothy's (Isabella Rosselini) family. Aside from the infamous voyeurism scene in Rosselini's apartment, Hopper kidnaps Kyle MacLachlan and introduces him his friends (whereupon the beat the sh^t out him) and is just plain creepy. Basically, he has such an unbelievably violent atmosphere surrounding him, that Dorothy becomes a masochist after being around him for so long. Christian Bale in American Psycho -- In all fairness, if Christian Bale hadn't played Bret Easton Ellis's title character in the adaptation of his novel, I doubt Pat Bateman would have made this list. A villain you can laugh at and fear at the same time due to the plaudible realism of his character. In short, he's warped. A person so obsessed by appearance that if he were rushing his mother to the hospital his first priority would be portraying a hero in a movie rushing someone to the hospital, ensuring it showed to all watching. Gunnar Hansen in The Texas Chainsaw Massacre -- The only trademark horror icon to make the list, and with good reason. As a small kid, long before I had even see The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, the mere idea of Leatherface, a human flesh clad madman wielding a chainsaw, had been responsible for several nightmares as I would flip through horror books in the back of book stores, and wonder away from my parents and sneak into the horror section looking at the backs of all the cases. Rightfully so, the guy's so evil he chainsaws a guy while in his wheel chair. Considering the lack of gore in the film, and considering this would usually be done for just that, it's very eerie. Dyanne Thorne in the Ilsa films -- If you've never seen an Ilsa film here's what you should know. Ilsa is a just another garden variety voluptuous Nazi doctor attempting to find out which sex (male or female, for the layman) has a higher tolerance to pain. In case you didn't get the jist of that I'm going to type it again. Ilsa is a just another garden variety voluptuous Nazi doctor attempting to find out which sex (male or female, for the layman) has a higher tolerance to pain. Not only that but she castrates all male lovers who fail to satisfy her. Granted Camille Keaton's stroke of the blade in Meir Zarchi's I Spit on Your Grave made me wince more, Ilsa does it for fun... Honorable Mention: Pinhead in Hellraiser 1 and 2 Jack Nicholson in The Shining Michael Wincott in The Crow Linnea Quigley in The Return of the Living Dead The Sumatran Rat Monkey in Dead Alive Anthony Wong in The Ebola Syndrome Mink Stole, David Lochary, and Divine in Pink Flamingos The Crimson Ghost (favoritism due to Misfits) in the Crimson Ghost (or Cyclotrode X if you wanna get picky) Dario Argento's gloved hands in any of his films and The FBI agents in E.T. (I love that little guy...but not really) There you have it.  |
| Read all comments (10)|Write your own comment |
