Welcome, foolish mortals, to Psychobabble’s House of 100
Monsters. Creak up the steps and over the threshold. Within this vile abode you
will encounter not 98, not 99, but one
hundred of the most terrifying, horrifying, unpleasantifying creatures who
have ever haunted the page, the screen, and the breakfast table. They are my
personal favorite freaks, ranked from terriblest to really terriblest. No Halloween is complete without a visit to a
spook house, and my house of horrors is as spooky as it gets. So I formally
invite you to freak out to Psychobabble’s 100 Favorite Monsters. Step right
this way…
100. Tar Man
First, allow me to guide you down into the basement where a
certain deceased individual has recently been resurrected by a certain
military-grade toxic gas. Don’t ask me who he was in life, but in death this
standout star of Return of the Living
Dead is like an E.C. Comics zombie in the oozing flesh and he wants one
thing only... brains!
99. Black Frost
Sidestep the Tar Man and take a break by our deep freeze.
Oops. Bad idea, because inside is a terrifying thingy that blasts
incapacitating frosty air from its jockstrap. This is how Black Frost brought
down The Mighty Boosh, and it traumatized many viewers of their surreal British
comedy by baring its unsettlingly white teeth before breaking into a hideous
dance of death. He’s one icy bastard.
98. Clayface
Wait a minute… that chap wasn’t Black Frost at all! His face
has morphed back into its natural state—that of one Matt Hagen, better known as
Batman’s hulking, shape-shifting nemesis Clayface, one of the nastiest and most
genuinely monstrous monsters to ever menace Gotham City!
97. Wampa
Back in the deep freeze is another terrible creature, a
towering snow beast with white, shaggy fur and clawed paws the size of trashcan
lids. Is it the Yeti? Nah. They wouldn’t know what the hell a Yeti is up on the
distant planet of Hoth. That’s where the Wampa whomps Luke Skywalker’s face off
in the shocking attack that kicks The
Empire Strikes Back into gear.
96. Pumpkinhead
Today is Halloween, and no Halloween is complete without a
Jack-o-Lantern. This Jack-O-Lantern doesn’t just sit around on the porch with a
candle in its head. It bites back. As created by special effects whiz Stan
Winston, Pumpkinhead is a fabulous creation and his movie is an underrated
Halloween treat.
95. Evil Laura Palmer
Now we will venture out of the cellar and into the
backyard where…wait! Watch your step! You’ve stumbled into the center of our
circle of sycamore trees and into the nightmarish netherworld known as the
Black Lodge where the white-eyed dopplegänger of deceased Homecoming Queen
Laura Palmer crawls toward you while screeching the scariest screech ever
screeched (and backwards, no less). The scariest thing about the terrifying
finale of Twin Peaks’ original run,
Evil Laura Palmer will plague your nightmares. Meanwhile….
94. Chernabog
…all hell breaks loose…quite literally. A mountain of the Bald
variety bursts through the Earth. All manner of spooks fly about it. Perched at
the top is the most threatening, hideous, horrific creature of them all: a
huge-horned Hell beast with musculature that would put Fabio to shame swirls Fantasia into the stuff that bad dreams
are made of. He has nice taste in music though.
93. Lady Stoneheart
From the woods comes a zombie lady bent on vengeance.
Apparently, she did not like having herself and her son slaughtered at a
certain wedding…a Red Wedding, that is. So she returned from the dead with a
bit of magic and is now on a killing spree, but only in the pages of George
R.R. Martin’s Song of Ice and Fire
books, not on the Game of Thrones
series. And that TV show is quite a bit less creepy because of her absence.
92. The Woodsman
Twin Peaks: The Return,
however, is a TV series never wanting for creepiness, and it experienced what
may be its creepiest moment when a creature who rode into our world on the back of
the A-bomb goes on a head crushing spree while transmitting a cryptic radio
message across White Sands, New Mexico. “This is the water and this is the well. Drink full and descend. The horse is
the white of the eyes and dark within” deserves a place with The Wolf Man’s “Even a man who is pure
in heart…” poem among horror’s great bits of doggerel.
91. Victor Carroon
The Woodsman may be a thing from another world. Victor Carroon
is an astronaut from our world who became infected with a thing from another
one after an ill-fated space trip. Upon returning to earth, he slowly
transformed into a big, nasty blob, but not before exhibiting more uncannily
frightening human characteristics that make this star of The Quatermass Xperiment a sympathetic cousin to the Frankenstein
Monster.
90. Boo Berry
You’ve been having a pretty rough night. Maybe it’s time for
another break. Step back inside the monster house, step into the kitchen, and
have a snack. I’ll just open up this box of cereal and….AHHHHH!... THE CEREAL
BOX IS HAUNTED! Fortunately, it is haunted by the tastiest of all of General
Mills’ monster cereals: the Peter Lorre voiced, Smurf-toned Boo Berry. One of
the biggest downsides of going vegetarian a few years ago is I can no longer
enjoy my favorite Halloween treat (hooves are a key ingredient in those mini
marshmallows, you know).
89. Delbert Grady’s
Girls
No one loves a good bowl of Boo Berry better than kids.
Those two dead-eyed little girls in the kitchen doorway could probably use a
few sugary bowls to pick them up. I bet they would eat it forever and ever and
ever.
88. Rancor
Suddenly the kitchen floor splits open and you are dropped
back into the basement, into a small nook you’ve yet to visit where you must
prove your mettle by doing battle with a giant beast I call the Rancor. This is
the creature who almost had Luke Skywalker for lunch in Return of the Jedi, and it is a horrifying creation despite the fact that it looks like a potato with big hands.
87. Lizard of Doom
Did you survive your latest ordeal? Good. Then perhaps you
will live long enough to get injected with a serum that may make you impervious
to burns but transforms you into a repulsive, chameleon-like being with serious
daddy-daughter issues. That is what happened to Steve Coogan’s mad doctor in an
episode of the uproarious horror series Dr.
Terrible’s House of Horrible.
86. Fluke Man
He may live in poop, but there’s nothing funny
about Fluke Man, a sewer-dwelling, Chernobyl-born, mutant parasite looking for
a host in the toilet of our haunted abode. Fear not, because Mulder and Scully
are on the case, but even these stalwart federal agents may not be able to
stomach a gape-mouthed creature who burrows under the skin and smells
absolutely terrible.
85. Madame Leota
All done in there? Well, wash your hands and be sure to
flush. So what’s next? Well, there’s only one way to see the future in this
domicile of the damned. Step into the medium’s chambers where Madame Leota’s
head floats in a crystal ball. Her incantations beckon the phantoms in our
Haunted Mansion to rap tables, shake tambourines, ring bells, and play music
from regions beyond. She is both a
marvel of theme park technology and a chilling spin on the evil fortune teller.
84. Groovie Goolies
And now the grim, grinning ghouls begin their tune. Drac is
pumping the pipe organ. Frankie is pounding on his bone drums. Wolfie is
strumming his harp thingy. Everybody shout…come on now, sing out. It’s time for
the Goolie Get Together, and cheap jokes and molar-rotting bubblegum pop is on
the docket. The horror. The horror.
83. Dr. Anton Phibes
Another macabre musician gets in on the act, but there is no
poppy joy in the melodies of Dr. Anton Phibes. He is still mourning the death
of his beloved wife, Victoria, and plotting the plague-themed murders of the
physicians he blames for her death. Phibes’s zeal for death and skull-like face
make him a monster through-and-through, but his love of music and art deco
design at least make him a cultured one.
82. Elizabeth Selwyn
Elizabeth Selwyn is another wronged creep out for revenge.
Way back in 1692, she was burned at the stake for allegedly playing footsy with
Satan. 300 years later, a woman who looks suspiciously like Selwyn is serving
as the concierge of our own little Horror
Hotel (or our own City of the Dead,
depending on which title you prefer). Whether she’s spitting on the assholes
that sentence her to death or orchestrating human sacrifices almost 300 years
later, Selwyn is as tough and self-possessed as Dracula.
81. Hitchhiking Ghosts
Wait! Where do you think you’re going? You can try escaping
these sundry horrors, but you’ll never be rid of them. Just look over your
shoulder. Why, it looks like you’ve picked up one of our Hitchhiking Ghosts. Is
it the little chain gang refugee with the Cousin-It beard? Or the portly fellow
with the top hat? You better hope it isn’t the skull-faced gentleman. It could
be any one of these marvelous illusions that have jumped from Disneyland’s
Haunted Mansion and onto your person.
80. Zelda Goldman
The grim grinner hijacks you and drags you kicking and
screaming back into our own Haunted Mansion. Your penance is to get locked in
the room of a woman suffering from spinal meningitis who needs constant
tending. And if she has her way, you will join her in never getting out of bed
again. Demonizing the infirmed is in terrible taste, but no one ever accused Pet Sematary of being in good taste.
However, many have accused Zelda Goldman of being the single scariest character
to ever appear on screen.
79. Candy Man
You dash out of Zelda’s sick room and take refuge in the
upstairs bathroom. Then in a fit of poor judgment, you peer into the
medicine-chest mirror. “Candyman,” you say once. “Candyman,” you bravely
repeat. Against all that is sensible, you say it a third time. “Candyman.” Now
twice more: “Candyman, Candyman.” Way to go. Moments later, you have the bloody
hook of yet another wronged individual—this time an elegant African-American man
who’d been tortured and murdered by vile white supremacists— skewered through
your torso. Serves you right.
78. Hill House
There is no sense in trying to run off again. No point in
trying to escape to another room. Our next monster is inescapable. It surrounds
you. It swells its doors unnaturally, transmits the booming of a bouncing
cannonball down its halls, and imparts chalky demands for your soul on its
walls. It is this house, Shirley Jackson’s (and Robert Wise’s) Hill House, and
it will come for you in the night…in the dark.
77. Rudolph (aka:
Gossamer)
You end up down a hall of barred doors. One swells, but not
because of the haunting. It swells because a massive beast is pushing behind
it, and he wants nothing more than to break out and… get a manicure. The door
bursts into splinters and before you stands a gargantuan, wiggy mass of ginger
hair wearing a rather sensible pair of tennis shoes. Monsters are such inter-esting people.
76. Grampa Munster
Up from the basement shuffles another creep who should be
quite familiar from the small screen. He holds a beaker brimming with a smoking
mystery concoction and wears a warm smile. Don’t be fooled though. This kindly
looking old gent is really a vampire, and he may torture you with Borscht-belt
jokes… or perhaps even run for mayor of New York. He is the patriarch of TV’s
most munstrous family and the only thing more unsettling than his thirst for
blood is his constant stream of goofy schemes that tend to blow up in his own
face.
75. Stygian Witches
In a corner of Grampa’s basement lab, three eyeless women
hover over a vast caldron. Be silent and still as a corpse, because their hearing
is exceptional, and if they sense anyone in the room, that person will end up
as another ingredient in their caldron stew. That is, unless you can snatch
away the enchanted glass “eye” they use to see. In Greek mythology, they were
known as the Graeae. Clash of the Titans
tied them to the River Styx by renaming them the Stygian Witches. Either way
they are a terribly terrifying trio.
74. The Kraken
Perhaps the Stygian Witches are not quite as terrifying as
the great beast who troubles the Grecian shore. In Norse mythology, the Kraken
is nothing more than a colossal squid. In Clash
of the Titans, Ray Harryhausen made this mythical sea bully much more
frightening and interesting by basically imagining the Kraken as a giant,
four-armed reptile man. Harryhausen was such a master monster maker that most
people now picture his beast rather than a big cephalopod when they hear the name
“Kraken.”
73. Maleficent
When they hear the name Maleficent, they wet the bed. That’s
because she is one of the very scariest of Disney’s scary villains. With her
bizarre horned cowl, corpse-blue face, and ability to transform into a
humongous dragon, she takes a fairly mediocre cartoon and transforms it into a
towering testament to Disney’s ability to traumatize children.
72. The Blair Witch
Maleficent will make the most hardened youngster run for the
exit. That’s exactly what you do when she appears, dashing out the back door
and into a vast, tree-crowded yard that seems to go on for miles and miles. How
did you end up out here so far from any trace of humanity? Well, there is a
trace up in that tree: a bundle of sticks tied to resemble a stick-figure man.
Was it made by the Blair Witch? You’ll go to your grave wondering that because
she will never appear even when she forces you to stand facing a corner right
before your lights go permanently out. That you never see her makes her
infinitely more terrifying.
71. The Grand High Witch
Of course, sometimes seeing a witch can be paralyzing too.
But that’s no witch! Why, it’s nice Angelica Houston coming to greet you. Wait
a minute…what is she doing? That’s no Angelica Houston face. It’s a mask, and
underneath is the most awful face you will ever see. That face is a nasty match
for the Grand High Witch’s intention to turn you and everyone you know into
mice.
70. The Wild Things
Now what?!? What the Hell are those hulking things plodding
out of the woods, things so uncontrollable that even the Grand High Witch goes
running in fear. Why, they’re not horrible at all. They just want to howl with
you under the full moon and parade around with you perched on their backs.
These wild things may be the most lovable monsters you’ll meet in this accursed
place, so you might as well enjoy their company while it lasts. Let the wild
rumpus start!
69. Chucky
Now who’s this little fellow? Another kid-friendly creature?
Then why is he cursing like a longshoreman and wielding a kitchen knife? Ack.
He must be one of those demonically-possessed dolls. At least you may get a few
laughs before he hacks you to bits.
68. Morty Ingles
That doll turned out to be an unpleasant surprise, didn’t
it? Well, that funny little ventriloquist’s dummy propped on Don Rickles’s lap
has to be totally benign aside from its cutting sense of humor, right? Another
façade falls away and underneath the generic dummy mask is Rickles’s mutant
brother Morty growing out of his hand! The most shocking twist in Tales from the Crypt’s long history of
shocking twists produces one of the most bizarre monsters on this list. And one
of the funniest.
67. Skesis
There’s nothing funny about these puppets, which resemble
rotting vulture corpses. Like Walt Disney and Roald Dahl, Jim Henson delighted
in traumatizing the kids he entertained, and many kids came away from The Dark Crystal with a serious fear of
beaked puppets. Sorry, Gonzo.
66. Elvira
Elvira made her name by putting a corny yet hilarious spin
on z-grade monster movies, but is she a monster herself? If so, what is she? A witch? A burlesque
vampire? A were-wig? There’s definitely something inhuman about Elvira and she definitely deserves a place among our other ghouls.
65. Carrie White
By now you're probably thinking that I deserve nothing less than having a
school gymnasium crush me to death. Fortunately, our next monster can take care
of that without so much as lifting a finger. Carrie White’s mighty telekinetic
ability comes as a shock since she seems so frail, but once she starts bugging
out her eyes and cocking her head, apocalyptic horror is in order. I bet you regret
dousing her in pig’s blood.
64. Skeletor
Okay, enough telekinetic chaos. Let’s head back into the
house and retire to the nursery where we’ll crack open the toy box and look for
something to play with. How about that muscle-bound skull man? Just be careful,
because as striking as his purple and blue get up is, he is pure evil. The Masters of the Universe universe was
lousy with similarly colorful, spectacularly designed monsters, so
intergalactic thugs such as Trap Jaw, Beast Man, Mer-Man, Evil-Lyn, Webstor, Whip Lash,
and Clawful could have easily found a place in our realm of ridiculousness, but
Skeletor wins the slot because he was the baddest bad of them all.
63. Spike
Uh-oh. Looks like you woke the baby. And that piercing cry
is not going to stop. That little baby (well, they’re not even sure it is a
baby) looks like nothing but head, neck, and swaddling, but it definitely has a
healthy pair of lungs…at least until its put upon dad pierces them with a pair
of scissors. Monster babies do not come more disturbing than the one who haunts
poor Henry Spencer in Eraserhead.
62. Regan MacNeil
The eraser-shaving-speckled explosion that finishes off
Spike wakes up another kid in our nursery, and she’s a Hell of a lot worse than
the baby. She’s a filth talking, puke spewing, head-swiveling, crotch-stabbing
bundle of puberty and Satan, and her antics completely revolutionized scary
movies in 1973.
61. The Evil Queen
While we’re in the nursery, maybe we can take in another
classic Disney tale for the kids. This one involves delightful plot in which a
woman schemes to have her stepdaughter’s heart cut out of her chest. The woman
is the Evil Queen from Snow White and the
Seven Dwarves and she’s two monsters in one. For the first half of the film
she’s a sadistic but beautiful wicked-stepmother. In the second half, the Queen
transforms into a terrifying, apple-wielding witch that could transform any
nursery into a nook of nightmares.
60. Flying Monkeys
Alright, turn off that video or you’ll have bad dreams all
night. Let’s watch this other kiddie flick about a little girl who travels to a
Technicolor Wonderland but wants nothing more than to return to a sepia pig
farm in Kansas. That’s not even the scary part. Actually, The Wizard of Oz has lots of scary parts, and for many disturbed
kids, the scariest are those grinning yet dead-faced blue monkeys capable of
snatching little girls and delivering them into the arms of an even scarier
being you’ll meet later in our terrifying tour.
59. The Man Behind
Winkies
The Winkie Guards are other scary characters in The Wizard of Oz, and that scariness
certainly inspired Oz-superfan David
Lynch to name the diner-of-doom in Mulholland
Dr. Winkies. Behind the diner is where a man comes face-to-face with an
entity straight out of his nightmares and drops dead from fright in a scene
often cited as cinema’s scariest.
58. Bruce
This kids’ room is too horrible, and not just because the
Diaper Genie hasn’t been emptied in a week. Let’s get out of here and adjourn
to the aquarium. Yes, friends, our eerie edifice has everything, even a fishy
gallery large enough to display a 25-foot, three-ton great white shark. Bruce
may not be the biggest carcharodon carcharias ever
discovered, but he is certainly one of the most preternaturally intelligent,
making him more monster than fish. He’ll swallow ya whole, make yer net look
like a kiddie-scissor class cut it up for paper dolls, and keep you out of the
water all summer long.
57. Argonaut-Killing
Skeletons
Just as mindless as Bruce the Shark, and just as deadly,
seven sword-wielding skeletons suddenly spring from the floor. I hope you’re
armed and an expert swordsman because stabbing something without flesh or
organs is a real challenge. I’m sure the same can be said of animating the
miraculous skeleton army that stars in the most unforgettable sequence in Ray
Harryhausen’s Jason and the Argonauts.
56. Zacherley
Those skeletons are among the screen’s coolest monsters, but
no one’s cooler than the Cool Ghoul. He’ll crack wise about classic monster
movies and maybe even croon a groovy tune about having “Dinner with Drac” or
joining the “Transylvania PTA”. He’s Zacherley, the horror host with the most,
and he’s here to guide you down into…
55. Princess Asa
Vadja
…our crypt where a woman burned at the stake and forced to
wear a mask of spikes for witchery or Satan worshipping or some other such
crime against Christian decency is entombed. Whoops. I think you just dripped a
little blood on her, and now Princess Asa Vajda is poised to return to life to
make yours miserable.
54. Irena Dubrovna
It’s hard not to feel sorry for someone who was tortured and
murdered by a bunch of religious fanatics, even if that someone is as
terrifying as Princess Asa Vajda. It’s even harder not to feel sorry for a
woman whose fanatical religious beliefs have rendered her unable to enjoy a
role in the hay without turning into were-cat…or at least believing she has
turned into a were-cat. Whether Irena Dubrovna is a real monster or only thinks
she’s one, she is certainly capable of cold-blooded murder. But you won’t hold
that against her when you fall victim to her cool charms in Cat People.
53. The Cookie
Monster
All this monstery mayhem is making you hungry. Then I shall
escort you back to the kitchen where you can take a cookie from our jar. Gasp! It looks like someone already devoured
them all! What wicked hell-beast would do such a thing? And it almost looks as
if he merely crushed them up in his mouth without even swallowing them…what a
waste! This could only be the vile work of that soul-shattering fiend known as
the Cookie Monster!
52. Large Marge
Oh, come on. I realize that the Cookie Monster is a thing of
unspeakable horror, but you’re actually trying to escape again? It hasn’t worked out for you so far. But I suppose that when
you saw that big rig parked out in front of our domicile of deviance, you saw
an easy way out. Well, good luck, because that normal-looking trucker has an
awful secret. It seems that on this very night, ten years ago, on this same
stretch of road, in the dense fog, just like this, she saw the worst accident
she ever seen. There was this sound like a garbage truck dropped off the Empire
State Building… And when they finally pulled the driver's body from the twisted,
burning wreck, it looked like... THIS!
51. Baboo Yagu
Wow. So you’re staying in that truck, eh? Possibly not a
good idea, especially since Large Marge pulls over to pick up yet another
passenger. This one is even more terrible than the phantom driver. He’s a
Cockney nut job…a green, witchy villain with a polo mint taped to his left eye
and an oversized thumb (a real boon to hitchhikers such as him). The tale of
how that thumb came to be is as disturbing as Large Marge’s story: born with a
thumb as tiny as a single sugar puff, Baboo Yagu hunted down a hornet who stung
that puny digit until it swelled to gigantic proportion. Ohhh the pus! The
pain! The black voodoo! The wet jigsaw puzzle! Baboo Yagu is the most nefarious creep to trouble The Mighty Boosh and the unsuspecting
comedy fans who expect hilarity rather than undiluted horror from the cult
British sitcom.
50. Ymir
Off in the distance, a strange craft from 20 Million Miles
from Earth crashes to the ground. Out totters a tiny creature smaller than
Baboo Yagu’s sugar-puff thumb. But the helpless space-reptile rapidly grows to
King Kong-size and engages in some very Kong-like behavior. Ymir is Ray
Harryhausen’s tribute to the big gorilla that inspired him to become a stop-motion
master, and the sweet, confused, unfairly pursued creature may even project
more inherent humanity than the king of apes.
49. Sparky
Another sweet-natured monster comes trotting down the road.
The last time it did, Sparky got squished by an oncoming car, but its inventive
young owner stitched his beloved wiener dog back together creating a lovable
little frankenweenie.
48. The GhoulLunatics
Sparky yips and dashes off, leading you right back to that
terrible place you so wanted to escape. Sorry. There’s no escape. Not when
we’re just halfway through our hundred horrible monsters. So you chase Sparky
back into the house, down the staircase spiraling into the basement (Hiya, Tar
Man! Still there, I see!), and down deeper still into a secret crypt where
three positively unpleasant looking individuals are vying for your attention.
The Vault Keeper beckons you to hear a terrifying tale of VENGEANCE FROM BEYOND
THE GRAVE!!! from his VAULT OF HORROR.
An Old Witch with a single bulging eye cackles over a criminally comic story of
INFIDELITY AND MURDER!!!! as she attempts to shroud you in THE HAUNT OF FEAR. Finally, a shrivel-faced Crypt Keeper yearns to
share his TALES FROM THE CRYPT!!!!!!!!!!!!
Which will you choose, kiddies? Maybe it’s best to just run back up those
steps.
47. Sweetums
Uh oh. Someone is blocking your escape route. And that
someone is big. Don’t worry though.
Despite his gargantuan fangs, tattered clothes, and poor grammar, Sweetums is a
friendly guy, and the coolest of the guy-in-a-costume Muppets (suck on that
one, Big Bird). Sure, he may try to eat you, but that’s just because he thinks
you’re so sweet. Endearing!
46. Im-Ho-Tep
Don’t fancy being a puppet’s canapé? Then you best dash back
down into the crypt, past the GhoulLunatics (Gasp!!! Choke!!!) and
into our Ancient Egypt section where a desiccated mummy is on display. Now he
looks nice and harmless, doesn’t he? Well, then feel free to read that scroll
rolled up on that table over there. Go ahead…
…Gotcha! The mummy’s hands begin to shift for the first time
in eons. He shuffles out of his sarcophagus, and the sight of this drives you
mad….MAD! (One would think you’d built up a resistance to this kind of thing
after encountering fifty or so other monsters tonight. Go Figure.) Now step
aside, because the most romantic of the classic monsters is off to reunite with
the love of his life. Isn’t that sweet?
45. The Phantom of the Opera
Erik the Phantom may take issue with that last statement,
because he’s pretty romantic too. He’s also a great lover of music. Sure,
terrorizing the chanteuse you adore and killing everyone who might get in the
way of her career is highly antisocial behavior, but cut the dude some slack.
He lives in a sewer, has a face like a melted skull, and is a monster. They play
by different rules.
44. Ash’s Hand
Enough monkeying around in the basement. Come on back upstairs
and have a seat at the kitchen table. Maybe you’d be interested in picking up a
plate. Hmmm. That’s odd. You didn’t intend to smash that plate over your head.
It’s almost as if your hand has a mind of its own. That’s right, Jack! Your
hand, much like Ash’s in Evil Dead II,
is all full of demons, and there’s only one way to deal with a hand like that.
Cut it off and tell it, “You’re going down.” If it runs off and still tries to kill you, you can always fight
back by attaching a chainsaw to the stump. Groovy.
43. Anthony Fremont
Ding-dong! You
step away from your latest confrontation to answer the doorbell. Why, it’s just
a sweet-faced kid from down the block. But what’s he holding? Some sort of
two-headed gopher? Better tell little Anthony Fremont that he did a real good
thing making that disgusting creature or he’s liable to wish you into the
cornfield or zap you into a jack-in-the-box. Then it would not be such a good
life.
42. Witch Hazel
Kids love cartoons, so you deal with Anthony by sitting him
in front of the TV and switching on Looney
Tunes. This is a good one! It’s the one where Bugs Bunny goes
trick-or-treating and ends up at the home of a hairpin-spouting witch! Sure,
she wants to eat Bugs, but is she so much more terrible than a coyote
constantly scheming to eat a helpless roadrunner or a talking pig? She’s a
delight, and her appearance means that Looney Tunes are about to indulge in a
bit of Halloweeny atmosphere, which makes a looney thing even loonier.
41. Vermithrax Pejorative
Suddenly there’s a deafening swoosh from above. We all run out onto the lawn: me, you, Anthony,
the TV. We gaze up into the sky to see a dragon with a massive wingspan swooping
through the sky. We have never seen a dragon like this. Nothing created with
stop-motion or CGI compares. Even Guillermo del Toro and dragon-master George
R.R. Martin agree that the star of Dragonslayer
is the greatest dragon ever conceived for film. Vermithrax Pejorative is not
only marvelously realized, but her name is totally hilarious.
40. Audrey II
Vermithrax may be a visually awesome giant monster, but can
she talk? Can she sing?? Audrey II can do all that and more. It’s an
intergalactic houseplant that exudes personality, feeds on human blood, draws in
record-breaking crowds of gawpers, and can probably do an amazing rendition of
“Reach Out, I’ll Be There” too.
39. Mr. Dark
Shhh. Listen. Is
that a calliope you hear? Hey, maybe a carnival has come to town! You skip down
the road, away from that terrible house whose grounds should be sowed with salt, away from that mouthy Venus flytrap, and toward a shadowy carnival ground. In the center stands a debonair gentleman
in coat and top hat who promises you everything you could want if you just take
a look at yourself in his hall of mirrors. You want to be forever rid of that
foul, foul house in which you’ve been recently imprisoned? Dumb wish, because
Mr. Dark of Something Wicked This Way
Comes may be one of the most charming demons on this list, but he’s also a
right bastard when it comes to fulfilling wishes.
38. Killer BOB
Ping! Wish
fulfilled. You don’t have to go back to that house, but you do have to spend
some time in our Hall of Mirrors. You peer into one, but it is not yourself you
see reflected. It is a grotesquely grinning man with shoulder-length, greasy,
grey hair. Looks like you’re back in the Black Lodge, and now Killer BOB is
with you. He may look like a set decorator, but he’s actually the embodiment of
man’s capacity for evil.
37. HAL
A beam of light falls on you and you are whisked out of the
Black Lodge and into a vast spacecraft hovering near Jupiter space. An
unsettlingly calm voice keeps calling you “Dave.” It’s just the ship’s
computer. Nothing too monstrous about that…except HAL is more like
Frankenstein’s creation than a laptop. He’s a sentient and surprisingly
emotional man-made machine willing to kill rather than be undermined or
disconnected.
36. Kang and Kodos
Silence, Earthling! This spacecraft has just been invaded by
a pair of one-eyed, tentacled creatures from Rigel VII, and your puny species
is downright prehistoric compared to the Rigellians. Look! They have even
replaced your primitive table-tennis paddles with an electronic, interactive
game called Pong! Cower beneath their spirit of hostility and menace!
35. Dr. Hannibal Lector
Fortune is on your side. You find a board with a nail in it,
and the makeshift weapon sends Kang and Kodos on the run. They beam you back to
Earth, where you end up in a high-security prison facility. You approach a
glass wall behind which is a pretty normal looking man with a talent for
sketching and psychoanalysis. You’re lucky that wall’s there, though, because
if it wasn’t, he’d eat your liver with some fava beans and a nice chianti.
34. The Grinch
Being consumed by a cannibal wouldn’t be too festive, would
it? Dr. Hannibal Lector is not the only beast on this list with an aversion to
festivities. The Grinch actually hates Christmas…the whole Christmas season.
Now please don’t ask why, no one quite knows the reason. Yet, there he
is…showing up every year near December 25th on your TV or in the
pages of that classic Dr. Seuss book. The good news about this monster is that
he always comes around to the niceness of Christmas in the end, he’s barely
bigger than a Who (who are so small, a whole population of them can fit on a
speck of dust), and it’s nowhere near December 25th.
33. Willie
Well, then why does it look like you just got a Christmas
present? Open up that box, and inside you’ll find a little, wooden man, but
he’s neither doll nor toy. He’s a ventriloquist’s dummy. Sit him on your knee.
Now have a drink. Make him tell a few jokes. Have another drink. Set Willie
aside and have another swig of bourbon. Wait. Did he just turn his head on his
own? You must be pretty drunk, because now you hear him haranguing you. You try
to smash him, but you’ve somehow destroyed a totally different dummy instead.
In one final, nightmarish twist, you become the dummy and Willie the grotesque
ventriloquist. Welcome to the Twilight Zone, sucker.
32. Betelgeuse
How are you going to get out of this one, Puppet Face? You
might need to get your biological body exorcised from that wooden one. Better
call in the bio-exorcist. Just say his name three times. Betelgeuse. Betelgeuse.
You sure you want to do this? OK, then… Betelgeuse! He may zap you back into
human form but Betelgeuse is causing all kinds of mischief, transforming a
harmless banister into a human-eating snake, scheming to marry your daughter,
and forcing you to participate in a Harry Belafonte lip-synch routine. Better
get rid of him fast. Betelgeuse, Betelgeuse, Betelgeuse!
31. Anyanka
That was a close one. I bet you wish you never even started
reading this list of Psychobabble’s 100 Favorite Monsters. Go ahead and wish
you never started it. Wish that there have never been any monsters at all. Go
on. Poof! A hideous wish-making demon
fulfills your wish, but since you wished all monsters out of existence, she
then instantly turns into the more human form of Anya Jenkins. The twist is
that Anya’s a Republican…so she is still a monster! Ahh! This will never end!
Fortunately, she is also very witty and the only member of the Buffy the
Vampire Slayer team willing to call everyone else out on their lameness, making
her the most amusing (ugh) “Scooby.” Just
keep the bunnies away from her.
30. Count Orlok
Looks like the vampire slayers have their work cut out for
them. Into this awful scene comes the big screen’s very first vampire of any
note…the true Master of all creatures of the night. Before Dracula became all
sexy, Count Orlok looked like a bald, beanpole rat. Boy, was he ugly! The
makeup and Max Schreck’s weird, marionette-like performance make this
particular Nosferatu cinema’s scariest.
29. Max Schreck
Don’t worry, though. Count Orlok is just a movie character
and Max Schreck is just an actor. Or…is he? Bah-dum!
Perhaps Schreck played such an effective Nosferatu because he really was
Nosferatu. At least that’s what Shadow of
the Vampire presupposes. As embodied by Willem Dafoe, this Max Schreck is
hilarious, slimy, kind of sad, and as awful as the character that made him
infamous.
28. Jack Goodman
Things are getting pretty hairy, but things look up when an
old friend enters the scene. Unfortunately, good old Jack Goodman was recently
mauled and killed by a wolf, and he still looks pretty mauled but a whole lot
less killed. Jack’s still as chummy as he was in life, but he’s going to look
worse each time he visits you. That is unless you slay the werewolf who made
him a charming yet terminally bored ghost.
27. Talky Tina
Hi! I’m Talky Tina, and I love you very much! I’m an
adorable little plaything with a newfangled mechanism inside by belly that
makes me talk, move, and murder! I have cute pigtails tied with little bows and
I don’t think I like you. In fact, I’m beginning to hate you, and I am going to
kill you, because that’s the sort of twisty thing that would happen in the
scariest episode of The Twilight Zone.
26. Ygor
Speaking of twisty, check out that guy’s neck! Looks like
someone tried to hang him but it didn’t take! Actually, that’s exactly what
happened. Ygor isn’t the garden variety assistant so many z-grade monster
movies assume he is. He is a master manipulator masterfully portrayed by a leering,
scheming Bela Lugosi in Son of
Frankenstein and Ghost of
Frankenstein. Lugosi did his finest work as what may be the most unsung
monster of Universal’s golden age.
25. Granny Hart
After that brief layover in Visaria, we are back in the
Zone, peering into the cottage of a bedraggled old woman bent over a bubbling
caldron. At the sound of your knock on her door, she gussies herself up in the
wink of an eye, welcomes you in with oodles of charm, and offers you a love
potion. All she wants in return is your soul, which is apparently the only
thing keeping you from poofing into a black panther every night at midnight.
“Jess-Belle” may be the most cinematic episode of The Twilight Zone, and Jeannette Nolan’s delighted/delightful
performance as Granny Hart is one of the series’ very best. No other witch on
this list is so overjoyed to be a witch.
24. Illyria
And perhaps no other monster on this list is so filled with
loathing as the demon Illyria. She has so much disdain for humankind that she
hollowed out the body of the most beloved member of Angel’s detective team and
used it as a vessel for her time on Earth. Illyria is a wild cocktail of
hatred, superhuman strength, and childlike confusion regarding the ways of
people. The greatest tragedy of Angel
is not that Illyria took over Fred Burkle’s body…it’s that Angel got cancelled way too soon after she did.
23. Animal
The sound of Illyria pummeling you with her demon fists is unexpectedly
drowned out by an even noisier din. It sounds like someone set Keith Moon, John
Bonham, and a four-year old loose on a drum kit. Back in the band shell (where
the hell are we now anyway?), a mad-brained drummer is beating his skins
senseless and jabbering like a caveman. “Eat drums! Eat drums!” No, Animal, you
don’t eat drums. You beat drums. And
no one beats them like you.
22. The Gremlins
You back away from the crazed monster playing a seemingly
endless drum solo then… oops! Looks like you knocked some fuzzy little thing
into a small pool of water. It suddenly sprouts a bunch of weird back babies.
They may look hungry, but don’t feed them…it’s way past midnight. No! I said don’t feed them! Does everyone around
here have hearing problems? Now you’ve done it. The spirit of mischief that Animal
sparked ignites like an inferno as your series of mishaps results in a swarm of
reptilian gremlins with the manners of toddlers. What we need here is a
parental figure to get them under control.
21. Other Mother
There’s one! She’s patient, good humored, and a great cook.
Just disregard those buttons sewn over her eyes, especially when she tries to
sew a pair over yours before imprisoning you in a nightmare nursery where she’ll
suck your soul until you’re an empty skin sack. The Other Mother is utterly
terrifying, the ultimate corruption of the person who’s main duty is to protect
her children. If you’re as cagey as Coraline Jones, you may be able to escape
her. If not, you’ll end up getting grounded... permanently.
20. Headless Horseman
A galloping sound emerges in the distance. Just as Other
Mother is about to give you a lethal spanking, the sound becomes deafeningly
near, and you are swept up into a strong pair of arms. Is this Other Father
coming to your rescue? No such luck. It’s the ghost of a headless Hessian
soldier who now uses a pumpkin to do his thinking. Or perhaps it’s just Sleepy
Hollow’s head rapscallion, Brom Bones. Either way, this guy does not mean you
anything but harm, and his petrifying presence causes you to pee all over his
saddle. Even the Headless Horseman has no tolerance for that. He drops you back
to the road, right in front of a toy store.
19. Killer Krusty
Doll
To sooth your beleaguered psyche, you sink back into
comforting, childlike behavior. So you go into the haunted toy store and buy
yourself a doll. Considering your past experiences with Chucky and Talky Tina,
dolls have not been ideal companions lately. Oh well. Some people never learn.
This particular doll is as murderous and trash-mouthed as Chucky and Tina… and
he’s even more hilarious than either of those two wads of plastic. Hey! It
looks like the Killer Krusty the Klown doll isn’t really that bad at
all…someone just flipped the switch on his back to “Evil.” You flip it back. He
tells you, “I love you very much.” All is right with the world.
18. Renfield
Psych! Things most
definitely are not right when some freak is glaring at you, giggling like a
stalled motor, and snacking on cockroaches. From the corner of the store stares
Renfield, minion of the king of the vampires and about a quarter-vampire
himself. That lingering remnant of humanity make this sniveling sycophant one
of the more sympathetic monsters on this list, especially when he is portrayed
by the magnetic Dwight Frye.
17. The Alien
Just as he’s about to slurp on your jugular, Renfield gets a
very queasy look on his face. Did he get hold of a bad roach? Nope. He’s
suffering from stomach problems of a different sort. In a geyser of blood and
flesh, his abdomen bursts open and out runs an adorable newborn alien. In record time, the thing metamorphoses
into a full-sized, alien murder machine with not one but two sets of
bone-crushing jaws, basically literalizing the term “overkill.” The sleek,
conscience-less creature corners you and is about to impale you on its jaws
when…
16. Godzilla
…something rips the entire roof off the haunted toy store. A
dinosaur-like monster the size of the Sears Tower flattens the Alien with one
stomp and lifts you up to stare into its gargantuan eyes. It lets out a roar
like iron rending and vomits blue flames into the sky. Is Godzilla friend or
foe? That depends on the movie. You cross your fingers and hope that this
massive monster is the one in Godzilla
vs. the Smog Monster rather than
the righteously pissed A-bomb victim of Gojira.
15. Dr. Frank-N-Furter
Music soothes the atom-age beast, and a silky voice lulls
Godzilla, who places you back on the ground and clomps off. You are left with
the strangest of creatures, a stunning vision in garter belts and afro. Don’t
get strung out by the way Dr. Frank-N-Furter looks, though. He’s just a sweet
transvestite from Transexual, Transylvania, and he thinks you look pretty
groovy. Frank is beyond groovy… a veritable force of nature who could put
Godzilla to shame, especially as portrayed by the divine Tim Curry (no one
rhymes “satanic” with “mechanic” like him).
14. Lady Sylvia Marsh
If anyone could make Frank-N-Furter seem almost tame, that
being might be Lady Sylvia Marsh. The Lady is a vampire/snake-priestess thingy
who worships a giant night crawler and just has to dance whenever she hears a
wind instrument in Ken Russell’s outrageous adaptation of Bram Stoker’s Lair of the White Worm. Russell’s
empathy is clearly with the vivacious, anti-religion, anti-priggishness, and
very funny Marsh and not with the dull prudes who would thwart her plot to feed
virginal Catherine Oxenberg to her wormy master. She can barely contain her
glee when blasting venom on a crucifix or baring fangs at her numerous victims.
13. It
Lady Sylvia Marsh is pretty evil. It is the embodiment of evil, an ancient force of all that is bad that
takes the form of the things its victims most fear before consuming them. At
its most deceptive, It takes the shape of a kid-friendly clown before
destroying the lives of those young people, but it might also appear as
Dracula, the Frankenstein Monster, The Mummy, or The Wolf Man, making Stephen
King’s It your one-stop monster shop
and Psychobabble’s favorite novel, horror or otherwise. And once again, Tim
Curry makes Pennywise absolutely compelling viewing.
12. Nessie
The last several monsters have taken you on a terrible globetrotting
trip from deep space to Japan to Transexual, Transylvania, to Wales to Derry, Maine.
Now you somehow end up in Scotland on the shore of a great loch. All is quiet
and still. A ripple appears on the water. Then a torrent of bubbles break on
the surface. The entire body of water quakes as an endless length of neck
spears through it. The head towers above you. You reach for your camera, but
you’re conveniently out of film. For the thousandth time, Nessie appears for a
photo op with a dopey human who botches the opportunity.
11. Dr. Jack Griffin
Still marveling at what you just saw, you are taken by
surprise when someone taps on your shoulder. Who’s there? Looks like no one,
but as you walk off, you are tripped to the ground by an unseen leg and bonked
on the skull by an invisible fist. The perpetrator quips his way through your
beating, and you must admit, he has a sharp sense of humor. Dr. Jack Griffin
pulls on a pair of trousers and the seemingly empty garment dances donuts
around you while singing “Here we go gathering nuts in May.”
10. The Gill Man
Then from out of the loch, another creature rises. One so
horrible that he scares off the Invisible Man, leaving you alone to face a
scaly evolutionary throwback that is part man, part fish, and all monster. It’s
your fault for invading the Gill Man’s watery territory. He reaches a webbed,
catcher’s mitt-sized claw out and takes hold of your skull. Will this night
ever end?
9. King Kong
Not soon enough! Because out of the surrounding woods trudges
a humongous gorilla who scares off the Creature from the Black Lagoon and eyes
you with curiosity. Aww. I think the big ape might be in love! He whisks you up
in his massive paw and makes off with you to the highest point in the woods.
Old King Kong may be big and gruesome, but you’re also kind of charmed by him
and he has your full sympathy when an assault from the sky attempts to rescue you.
8. Darth Vader
Among the old timey airplanes that blast away at King Kong
is a strange looking vehicle from a galaxy far, far away. The pilot of this
tie-shaped aircraft is part man, part machine, a monstrous abomination—twisted
and evil. So why is he trying to help you? Oh, he isn’t. He’s trying to blast
your face off, and when Kong drops you to the ground, the Dark Lord of the Sith
steps out of his TIE Fighter and raises his light saber over his head to slice
you in half.
7. Medusa
Something distracts Darth Vader. He halts in mid slice,
gazes forward, and instantly turns into a monument of stone. Better shield your
eyes or suffer the same fate, because the snake-haired gorgon Medusa has just
entered the fray. Is there anything more terror stoking than a creature so
hideous that her appearance has the power to kill? And has Ray Harryhausen ever
conjured a more magical creature than the Medusa who stalks Harry Hamlin
through her shadowy lair in Clash of the
Titans?
6. The Wolf Man
The monster onslaught is officially out of control as
Medusa’s stare is broken by the piercing bay of a wolf. She slithers off and a
furry, rabid, manimal drops from above. You’d give it a lethal whack in the
face with the silver dollar in your pocket if you didn’t feel so sorry for
Larry Talbot—the truly tragic man inside the wolf. You give him a sad, understanding
smile then dash off before he treats your jugular like a dog biscuit.
5. Mr. Hyde
The full moon fades behind a dense bank of clouds, and The
Wolf Man once again transforms back into Larry Talbot far behind you. Directly
in front of you, kindly Henry Jekyll does the opposite. His elegant features
grow soft and hairy. His well-kept teeth slump into a disarray of yellowed
tombstones. His behavior undergoes a similar devolution as he leers at you and
schemes to imprison you in an abominable love nest. As portrayed by Frederic
March in an Oscar-winning performance, Mr. Hyde is the most disturbing monster
of horror cinema’s earliest history. So you’d do well to get moving.
4. The Wicked Witch
of the West
At the end of the gas-lit street, cobblestones segue into
yellow bricks. Is that a path out of this endless nightmare of monsters? Nope!
Because down dives a green-faced witch on a flying broomstick. As she tosses a
ball of fire at you, she cackles something about ruby slippers. You glance down
at your feet. Now how did they get there? Better give the witch back her shoes
because she is a relentless hunter and won’t stop until she does to you what
she thinks you did to her sister. Many children got their first taste of horror
watching the Wicked Witch of the West terrorize Dorothy (and her little dog,
too), and she has not lost an iota of her nightmare-inducing potency in nearly
80 years.
3. The Bride of
Frankenstein
You lob your shoes at the Witch, which seems to appease her,
because she flies off leaving you stranded in the driving rain outside of a
looming, stone castle. You seek refuge from all this madness inside, where a
raving doctor and his more erudite mentor stand over a shrouded figure on a slab.
Oh good! She’s alive…alive! The experiment was a success, and a rather
glamorous woman with a fashion-forward tower of hair bolts upright on the
table. She only has four minutes of screen time in the film named after her,
but the Bride of Frankenstein packs a lot of living into them. She learns to
walk by leaning on the shoulders of her creators, takes in all around her with
a wide-eyed mixture of wonder and disgust, tentatively considers a romance with
an ugly but sensitive brute, and ultimately says “no thanks” to it all. That
concise arc from childlike hesitancy to aggressive self-reliance makes the
Bride a fully realized personality despite her lack of screen time. Couple that
complexity with an iconic appearance and you’ve got one of the most memorable
monsters in Monsterdom!
2. Count Dracula
Blah! The Bride’s birthday party receives a possibly
unwanted visitor as a tremendous bat flaps through the window. It morphs into a
man both elegant and repulsive. Whether he is the mustachioed rat-man with bad
breath Bram Stoker described or the enchanting chap in opera-wear that Bela
Lugosi embodied, Count Dracula is easily as iconic as Santa Claus, Jesus, or
Mickey Mouse. He is a being of multitudinous powers, able to turn himself into
a bat, a wolf, or mist; glamour his victims with a gaze; and live eternally by
imbibing blood. Dracula is nothing if not eternal—a character who has been
front and center in pop culture without a break for well over a century. He is
the source of nightmares and romantic fantasies. And his cape is super cool.
1. Frankenstein
Monster
Ka-BOOM! The wall
behind Drac crumbles as a colossal figure bursts through it. Is it the
Incredible Hulk? The Kool-Aid Man? No and no. It is the only monster who can
out-monster every single other monster among Psychobabble’s 100 Favorite
Monsters. His square head and electrode-adorned neck are all you need to see to
identify this undead being. He could twist your head off like it was a screw top,
but what he really wants more than the satisfaction of murder is love. Like so
many of the creatures on this list, his shocking appearance causes people to
treat him like he is less human than they—and doesn’t that make us the real monsters? Nevertheless, the
Frankenstein Monster is the ultimate monster because of his bizarre appearance
and the pure humanity just beneath that frightening outer layer. He stalks
toward you slowly, his huge mitts held outward in a tentative gesture.
“Friend?” he inquires. “Friend?” Well, are you? You step forward with your own
arms held outward. It’s been a hell of a night and you could use a nice, warm
hug from a great, big lug. Happy Halloween!
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| ...and to see who's who in Psychobabble's 100 Favorite Monsters! |
