The 10 Most Visually Badass Monsters According to ME! (2009)

I'm generally wrong on most things and it can be debated that I may actually only be using a small fraction of what the normal human brain should be using...

So... please feel free to add your personal picks to the comments section because I haven't seen every movie ever. I've seen a lot... but to be honest, I spend a lot of time not watching obscure horror/monster movies. Because if I did ... I wouldn't be getting married in 8 months... or sober.

I'll try to keep it short and sweet!

Enjoy!

10. Dog Soldiers (2008)
There are a lot of great werewolf movies out there... and believe me this is tough. But look at that thing! Shut up... I am right on this one!








9. The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974)
This is the only "real" not mutated/post mortum person you will see on this list... regardless... one can debate the true nature of what makes a monster... But fuck it... Leatherface is scary... He's badass and wearing a skin mask. Sounds like my friday night.














8. The Fly (1986)
One Word: Disgusting!
Two Words: Jeff Goldblum!

















7. Nightmare On Elm Street (1984)
Robert Englund is the only Freddy. That is my response to the remake.
This fucker is even scary in silhouette form!









6. The 7th Voyage of Sinbad (1958)
I had this on Beta Max. It's probably one of my most watched films of all time and even as an adult (and I use the world adult loosely) This cyclops brings back vivid memories of fear. Ray Harryhausen is my idol.











5. Alien (1975)
No matter what sequel, spinoff , remake or video filmed by not me in the basement of my apartment while my lady is away... these constantly droolin' monsters are exactly why H.R. Giger is awesome.













4. IT (1990)
Nope... Not scary at all.









*editors note: I just pulled a "who's on first" moment with The Thing and IT.

3. The Thing (1982)
It's like if anything and everything had a baby and then made it all John Carpenter-y and slimy! Gross. Also, and I know this doesn't really apply... but... Kurt Russell.














2. King Kong (1933)
Had this on Beta Max as well. Even more watched than The 7th Voyage of Sinbad... this may also be based solely on my childhood boner for Fay Wray.
HOT DAMN!









1. Nosferatu, eine Symphonie des Grauens (1922)
Oh. Hey! I'm all silent and shit... but I will haunt your nightmares.














Yeah, yeah... I know there's no Godzilla on the list! Sue me!

The Video Dead (1987)

Looking back out at our previous post regarding VHS covers, what we have here is a movie that epitomized the art of cover...well, art. The Video Dead has gotten a huge following over it's 20+ year course due mostly to that amazing box art. I mean LOOK at it! A zombie tearing through a TV at you with blue lightning glittering behind it. The image up there is uber-mega-ultra high res for everyone's pleasure. And not only is the art amazing, but this movie has the distinction of being the very first direct-to-video film, now a pretty standard practice. And the movie is a hell of a lot of fun too. I would say it's unlike the earlier Romero works because it lacks social commentary, but it does kind of, albeit accidentally I think. There's definitely some sort of too-much-tv-watching message that can be inferred. But that's not what we came to see now, is it?

The movie opens by ruining the excitement of getting mystery packages (maybe the unabomber ruined that already) by sending a posessed TV to the wrong address. Unfortunately for the poor sap who gets the package, a zombie movie is on tv rather than a bikini contest. Then off we go! Zombies bust out of what's a pretty awesomely titled movie in its own right, Zombie Blood Nightmare, and kill the guy. About 3 months later a new family moves in, and then they have to deal with magic TV. The story itself doesn't make much sense, like how do the zombies get out of the TV, where were they in interim 3 months, why don't they want to eat anyone's brains, how does locking a zombie in a basement with a mirror make it go crazy...

The Video Dead for me is one of those amazing Troll 2-like experiences with the perfect combination of dim witted story, terrible yet earnest performances by first time actors and its ability to keep all the fun on repeated viewing. I think this is what's lead to its pretty rabid fanbase, that has in recent months been revived in the wake of its killed DVD release this month. Myspace and Facebook pages have popped in support of the release and a recent cast reunion on the Diabolical Radio podcast have all been cultivating its cult status. The interview is great, documenting the process to get the movie on DVD and a ton of fun info and trivia about the making of the movie. Listen online at the link above or download here:

Diabolical Radio - The Video Dead cast reunion

While The Video Dead is still crawling its way to a DVD release, make sure you go and sign up for the fan pages to get MGM moving it. It sounds like they've been supportive and are monitoring these pages frequently so go! Until it gets an official release, it's being put up on youtube in installments, currently only the first few are available, so subscribe to see the rest as it comes up, part 1 below:

You're Ghana Love These

On the heels of the previous video covers post, I have to share these hand painted movie posters from Ghana. They're amazing! Explanation:

In the 1980s video cassette technology made it possible for “mobile cinema” operators in Ghana to travel from town to town and village to village creating temporary cinemas. The touring film group would create a theatre by hooking up a TV and VCR onto a portable generator and playing the films for the people to see.

In order to promote these showings, artists were hired to paint large posters of the films (usually on used canvas flour sacks). The artists were given the artistic freedom to paint the posters as they desired - often adding elements that weren’t in the actual films, or without even having seen the movies. When the posters were finished they were rolled up and taken on the road (note the heavy damages). The “mobile cinema” began to decline in the mid-nineties due to greater availability of television and video; as a result the painted film posters were substituted for less interesting/artistic posters produced on photocopied paper.

The artistic freedom that these artists were given allowed for the creation of some very interesting and sometimes bizarre posters that, as screenwriter Walter Hill wrote, were quite often “more interesting than the films.”

Text and posters from: ephemera assemblyman and the accompanying links within. Click for mega sizes.


















If you're into these, some are available rather inexpensively considering how cool and unique they are. One could only wish some of these movies were half as interesting as these representations. Steven Seagal never looked so good standing next to a corn cob.

20 Epic VHS Covers

As a young kid in the '80s, I grew up smack dab in the middle of the home video market boom. All sorts of low budget, straight-to-video schlock hit the shelves with no advertising of any kind other than the cover you were presented with. It really had to sell since you'd probably not seen any trailer or read any reviews for these films; there just weren't any. And being a kid during this boom was great, so many of these covers were better than the movie they packaged, the story you made up in your mind was probably far superior. And the art was so awesome and uniquely "video." So anyways, here're 20 epic video covers that would've have intrigued my 9-year old self, click for larger, more epic views.

The Barbarians (part 2): Barbarian Queen 1 & 2

Let me get two things out of the way immediately. First, Barbarian Queen sucks. Second, Barbarian Queen II sucks. I hope I haven't offended any prepubescent genre lovers out there, but there is little to find of worth in this pairing. They are however, completely hilarious. One of the only redeeming parts is the endearing performances by the late Lana Clarkson, yes the Lana Clarkson that Phil Spector murdered. She stars in both, though she plays different characters in each, and neither are related in any way unless you count Clarkson, swords, boobs and Clarkson's sword wielding boobs. It may be the downer of knowing her fate that make's these hard to watch because she's so young and anxious looking here. It's unfortunate her career never took off, though her acting isn't the best truthfully, she really is the best thing about the movies.

screen from mcbeardo.com

The second best thing about them are the quotables, for just one example, "My stomach...it feels like there's bears in it." Typing it now doesn't do it justice, context is key I guess. Ok, plots in 20 seconds: First Clarkson's sister is kidnapped by horny Roman dudes, she fights back! Second time around Clarkson's emperor dad dies and evil dudes wanna take his magic sceptre, she fights back!



I think, if you were to hold my feet over a vat of boiling pig fat (or you were flickchart) and make me choose a favorite of the two, I'd have to go with part 2, if only for the more hilarious plot involving the magic sceptre and prissy young princess who, via magic and wishing, ages to be a woman and is then killed by her father. Oh, spoiler alert.

Here's a funny clip

All this being said, as I usually do, I recommend these as a double feature at least one viewing. Get some friends, some booze, and a sense of humor, and you'll be a-okay. And the posters are amazing, everyone remember Boris Vallejo? He lives in Allentown! Who knew?

Buy Both Barbarian Queen 1 & 2 as a double feature

Flickchart

The Internet is a cruel and unjust place when you are forced to choose the better between Ghostbusters and Back to the Future. Such is the battle one faces on Flickchart, where I've just lost an hour of my life, and increased self doubt when pitting cinematic apples to oranges. I mean seriously, what kind of hell have we entered when a faceless operator asks, "Please choose between Die Hard and the Goonies..."

And I've inexplicably got Shrek near the top of my personal rankings.