New takes on classic horror monsters/villains

We've had the rebirth of the vampire (Buffy, Twilight, True Blood, etc)
We've had the rebirth of the zombie (28 Days Later, Resident Evil, Zombieland, Shawn of the Dead, The Walking Dead, etc)
We're re-inventing serial killers nonstop (far too many to list)
There's even been a mini witch/wizard revamp (Harry Potter)

What is next? Where can we take other iconic horror figures, such as mummies, werewolves, Dr Jekyll/Mr Hyde, Frankenstein, etc?

dig this idea

i'd like to see a decent frankenstein or jekyll/hyde.

werewolves have gotten a kinda reboot tho thx to twilight and that benecio del toro movie no one saw

Also the BBC show "Being Human" (which is fucking excellent BTW)

i feel like a decent frankenstein reboot seems really hard to do for some reason. idk part of it is prob that the story itself is sorta specific vs vampires/zombies which you can pretty much place in a bazillion situations/generative backstories.

Time for a brainy, eco-aware movie reboot of Swamp Thing, à la Alan Moore.

Well really, it's back to the basic idea of man creating life, correct? So remove the specificity of the Frankenstein story and suddenly you're also encompassing the realm of stuff like Species, Mimic and Splice; it's pretty easy to do thought experiments down that axis that would improve upon/do something different with the core idea.

(was an xpost btw)

Legion took the totally awesome idea of angelic possession and made it into something really silly.

Best animating-dead-tissue movie is Re-Animator.

I dunno that Frankenstein is *that* hard to transfigure from one time to a new setting - in terms of the more general themes of reanimation of the dead, the limits of science gone wrong. It's something that still resonates, in fact possibly resonates more with the advancement of science and surgery in some ways. Though, that said, you can see parallels in movies that aren't specifically *called* Frankenstein monsters, but of course right now I'm blanking on any specific examples.

x-posts duh

who could play frankenstein?

Best animating-dead-tissue movie is Re-Animator.

I retract this fully. It's obviously Young Frankenstein. What the hell was I thinking.

frankenstein = blade runner

I was thinking things like The Fly = Dr Frankenstein merges with his monster?

frankenstein = one of the central themes of fiction, the conflict between ambition and human fallibility. One could argue that Frankenstein (the novel) contains some essentially Buddhist ideas, as well.

I was trying to bend The Fly into the Frankenstein paradigm but it doesn't quite work for me because I don't see the main hubris there tied up in creating life, rather in science in general; it's more an excuse for body horror than anything else and that phrase is so nebulous that it could describe practically anything (see for example Cabin Fever).

Ooh... Aqua Buddha, The Movie!

guys reanimated dead flesh is like a general monster fixture

i mean zombies/frankenstein/mummy/vampires are all that, the key is science reanimating dead flesh but uh 28 weeks later does exactly that and no one calls it a frankenstein movie.

apart from the serial killer ones, all of the "new takes" you list have appeal because they offer a look at a whole different parallel society, either a hidden one or ours after some disaster. that's kind of different from a one-off creature feature kind of setup that happens in "our" world

I wouldn't mind seeing a new take on some Poe stories - The Black Cat, The Pit and the Pendulum, House of Usher

(Me, I'm waiting for Nu Cthulhu myself, but we've already had a thread about that recently.)

yeah creature features are kinda dead in the water at this point, were not likely to have a new blob or black lagoon anytime soon - although weirdly that shit flourished in the mid late 80's.

b-b-but, The Host?

i should clarify and say that the supernatural exception there seems to be ghost movies which are by nature small and insular in scope, and those have been pretty strong for a long long time now thx to ring/grudge/paranormal activity stuff.

also theres def lots of claustrophobic non-societal creature horror out there but almost none of it goes mainstream, which is what im thinking were talking about here.

Somebody call Del Toro! We need answers here, ppl!

would say that frankenstein-type stories are very much alive (ha) today. hi dere mentioned a few, vincenzo natali's splice being a good recent example. not really popular in the sense that vampires and zombies are, though. it's been suggested that this is because the classic frankenstein story/monster is too specific, allowing insufficient room for reinvention. perhaps, but another problem is that reinvented versions of the story don't share a core mythology or brand name. splice and the fly are of the same horror type, but there's no commonly understood set of rules for monsters of this type, and no easily-recognized name like "zombie movie" or "vampire movie". same is probably true of jeckyll/hyde stories. werewolves seem the most ripe for reinvention, but no one's made a good werewolf movie in quite some time (ginger snaps was 10 years ago).

the host is a weird case tho - it had a ton of power when it was out but there really wasnt any followup cultural vibe, maybe because cloverfield sorta stole some thunder from it.

I think if you're going to put together Splice and The Fly, the common thread goes from "man creating life" to "science is evil"

we need some big summer blockbuster style cannibal movies

Michael Bay's Cannibal Holocaust

hard to call creature features "dead" what with stuff like the mist, host, cloverfield, etc. turning decent profits. throw in sci-fi films like district 9, and i'd say they're alive and well.

i had some hope for a decent demonic possession revival for a while, but the reins seem to have been taken over by the goofy (drag me to hell) and the shitty (the last 10 movies with exorcism in the title)

it's more an excuse for body horror than anything else

Cronenberg has said that it's also a relationship metaphor. Something like, "It's about how in a relationship, one person always turns into a monster." Which is really weird and paranoid, but I can see it.

I was gonna say, Skyline looks to be a major upcoming release so I don't think you can call the creature feature DOA

the other thing that complicates things is that these are really blurry lines - Splice is a great example, because i see the creature feature argument, but its also def working on some aspects of possession mythos and at the same time working the "zombie bite u u become zombie" angle as well.

xpost skyline also looks like district 9's shittier dumber big brother to me so ehhh

xpost skyline also looks like district 9's shittier dumber big brother to me so ehhh

otm -- the commercial/trailer does not make this look interesting, but I'm probably not in the target demo, so

well, the fly inverts frankenstein. it's about an overly ambitious scientist whose reach exceeds his grasp and who winds up creating a horrible monster. that to me is the essence of the frankenstein story. sure, there's no "reanimation of dead tissue" business in it, and it's a stretch to say it's about the creation of new life, but the basic themes and mechanics are the same. reanimator is a more direct interpretation of the frankenstein story, but it's no more like shelley's frankenstein than the fly is.

frankly i blame the fact that the thing remake and alien were so influential on modern horror directors for a lot of this genre jumble - theres gold in the old body snatchers trope and these dudes know it and are working it to death

Splice is a great example, because i see the creature feature argument, but its also def working on some aspects of possession mythos and at the same time working the "zombie bite u u become zombie" angle as well.

uh, have you seen it. cuz these latter two story types aren't present in it at all. she's just a made creature, not possessed on any level, and not a carrier. unless you count biological reproduction as a version of the zombie plague story type. maybe i'm misunderstanding your point...

contenderizer and Wheal otm re: Fly/Frankenstein

Skyline actually looks like the exact opposite of District 9 from what I know of D9 (note to self: watch D9 this weekend)

creatures/people are infected with X, slowly a group of survivors realizes what is happening but is it too late and can everyone else be trusted.

where X=parasite/alien/demonic possession/rage virus/zombie bite/werewolf bite/vampire bite/etc

xpost oh hahahaha shit i said Splice and i was talking about Splinter sorry about that

i have not seen Splice and know v v little about it.

So long as it wasn't a Michael Bay joint or something, I would totally get behind a 3-D CGI update of The Blob.

and yeah HI DERE you should see D9 as soon as possible, its worth the hype for sure imo

It has been on my "must see" list since it first came out in theaters, I've just been lazy.

Something that I thought conceptually was a really interesting amalgamation of the demonic possession story and the voodoo doll idea was Mirrors, which apparently in execution was so stone stupid that everyone involved with it should be deeply embarrassed.

One word, guys:

manticore.

pretty sure Bad Biology is netflix streaming contenderizer if you need to punish yerself with it immediately. might also want to inform any others that are in your house that it is actually mostly a horror movie and only somewhat an excuse to make nonsensical softcore porn

There are all sorts of things you can do with the '80s template of the indestructible, impossible-to-kill Jason/Freddy monster.

http://24.media.tumblr.com/QTxz1PHElmohu9sjZgMgfm9qo1_500.jpg

the haunted office building is on the site of the world trade center. ghostbusters are called in to fly the marshmallow man into the tower and destroy the evil. won't be a dry eye in the house

Yeah, sort of trenchant if icky take on the classic "cursed Indian burial ground" trope. Make the protagonist a Muslim and you're golden.

on the idea of haunted locations, i'm much more unsettled with weird portals, unstable & shifting architecture, weird disturbances in the flow of time, labyrinths etc. -- all of which could pretty easily be applied to the conventional corporate office building imho.

more house of leaves, less poltergeist.

'm much more unsettled with weird portals, unstable & shifting architecture

yeah find this kid of thing really effective if done well

elmo that remind me a lot like Primer... not exactly since its not very trippy, or a horror film, but kind of on to the same ideas...

*reminds me a lot of* - me type english grate...

But office building as a contorting labyrinthine hellscape is basically how I think most people feel about them anyway so it would probably be pretty resonant with the audience.

i'm much more unsettled with weird portals, unstable & shifting architecture, weird disturbances in the flow of time, labyrinths etc. -- all of which could pretty easily be applied to the conventional corporate office building imho.

more house of leaves, less poltergeist.

― tangelo amour (elmo argonaut), Wednesday, November 3, 2010 2:19 PM (13 minutes ago) Bookmark

streamlined version of house of leaves (concentrating more on the house itself, less on the various unreliable narrators) could be fucking ace. wish someone would do it.

primer's quite trippy, and definitely has elements of horror imo

I see Primer more as a cerebral mindfuck rather than messing around with space-time in away makes the audience uncomfortable in a viscerally, which is what I think elmo might be getting at.

primer is the most accurate portrayal of startup culture i've seen, and to the extent that startup culture is viscerally discomforting, it works on that horror level.

there are also probably more ridiculous real-life startups than the premise behind primer, which lends to the credibility.

yeah I'm angling at the uncanny weirdness & dread rather than the straight out monstrous, but that's maybe outside the thread topic?

I think the elements of Frankenstein that are ripe for revival are the ideas of an intelligent (in the book) and empathetic (in the original movie) "monster" - ie a monster that can't help being a monster. Something else that's always been scary to me is the idea of someone becoming a monster and not being able to do anything about it - The Fly kind of does this but it doesn't really work because Goldblum isn't really empathetic and he's making himself the monster, instead of it being against his will. So yeah, that's something that's scary to me. I used to have nightmares as a kid where I was turned into a turtle or sheep and couldn't tell anyone (usually my parents) that I was me because I could only make animal noises.

Also I find situations scarier than monsters. I never saw that movie where the people go deep sea diving and when they come back up and their ship is gone and so their stuck in the middle of the ocean with no boat, because the idea was too scary to me. Or the first part of The Descent, where they're just spelunking, was probably scarier than what it became when the monsters appear. So those might not qualify as "horror movie concepts" but they're more frightening to me than monsters or serial killers.

why turtle and sheep? they seem like alright critters to draw in the animal lotto.

I guess there are often elements of "someone becoming a monster and not being able to do anything about it" in standard horror movie types (especially werewolf movies) but I feel like it's an emotional factor that isn't usually exploited

blair witch and paranormal activity are very situational and effective IMO

District 9 is kinda Frankenstein-ish in some ways.

and also becoming the monster too

(the 2nd act in partic)

oh shit dude elmo, have you seen "Outer Space" by Peter Tscherkassky? its prob the closest thing to evoking that sort of feeling ive ever seen.

John Carp's The Thing is also brilliant at both.

i would probably like to see a movie about evil kids that obliquely plays into the whole vaccination / autism controversy but otoh whoever made such a film would risk being lynched by jenny mccarthy et al.

xpost jjj i have not, but i will look into it!

haha a movie about a virus that makes non-vaccinated kids into monstrous cannibals would be amazing

or y'know... carriers for the thing the vaccine vaccinates against.

its short but its pretty o_O, v v experimental - i know its on the first "experimental terror" compilation other cinema put out (along with frankly a bunch of stuff that didnt much do it for me.)

As Gregor Samsa awoke one morning from uneasy dreams he found himself transformed in his bed into a gigantic insect..

yeah dan i think diseases are another medium that could be exploited for maximum creepiness & gore! tho tbh i am not so much a fan of the zombification-as-epidemic trope, we need our diseases to do weirder, mutating shit imo

seriously. so tired of zzzzzzombies at this point.

not a few zombie and werewolf movies deal with the horror of being monsterized against your will. it is an idea that could be taken further, though.

http://www.coldfusionvideo.com/f/franzkafkasitswonderful-a.jpg
there was a TV special called franz kafka's it's a wonderful life, but i don't remember this scene being in it

"cannibal = zombie" is a very common thing nowadays but I was thinking more along the lines of what n/a was talking about re: knowingly turning into a monster and being unable to stop it; ie, the kids' immune systems stop processing anything but human flesh and they are literally starving to death until the parents discover they can digest ppl, so cue the luring and hacking and manloaf etc

metamorphosis is one of the most viscerally disturbing things i've ever read (this side of a country doctor, anyway). especially the bit where his mom throws an apple at him which breaks his exoskeleton and sinks into his back. he can feel it but can't reach it, just has to let it rot away in the hole. yeeks. still gives me the willies just thinking about it.

or maybe it was his dad. can't remember. awful either way.

it might have been sister grete, at least that's what i remember from the comic book version.
hunger artist probably could have used that apple more.

Read a story called "Blood Music" by Greg Bear this week. Didn't realise he'd turned it into a novel after. Super creepy and moving and fits right into the helpless monsterfication idea.

tbh i would probably have a virus turn the kids into creepy but seemingly benign mystics / prodigies who then start fucking shit up with telekinesis, etc etc -- tie it into the whole "indigo children" thing, too

blood music was adapted into a "new outer limits" episode I think. the novel is weirdly utopian though.

The story ends ambiguously, v. reminiscent of Cronenberg's "mutation = improvement?" musings

love blood music (the novel). and it is weirdly utopian, but also terrifying, because the dominance of anyone else's utopia is always terrifying.

oh here it is:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G-U69y7w-2o&feature=related

it's on hulu, too.

jjj it is on fucking youtube!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mTarJ0Op7W8

ok i am not watching just now but this shit is totally bookmarked for bong rips

Seen that, not sure I'd wanna see it stoned.

I get really paranoid about looking behind every door in the house in those circumstances.

I wouldn't mind seeing a new take on some Poe stories - The Black Cat, The Pit and the Pendulum, House of Usher
― Darin, Wednesday, November 3, 2010 6:31 PM (4 hours ago)

david lynch's telltale heart

this is a long shot, but does anyone know of a documentary/mockumentary about a kid with psychic powers where they imply he drowned his mother using those powers? there's very ominous footage of their swimming pool. I want to say that the mother's body is floating in it, but that doesn't seem like the kind of footage either a documentary or mockumentary would show.

this is obviously more frightening if it's real...

I think the elements of Frankenstein that are ripe for revival are the ideas of an intelligent (in the book) and empathetic (in the original movie) "monster" - ie a monster that can't help being a monster.

This suddenly made me think of Ben Grimm. With Reed Richards as Dr. F -- not really the cause of Ben becoming The Thing, but they spent the first 10-15 years of the comic with Reed constantly looking for a cure for Ben and kind of treating him as a lab rat. "Here, drink this -- here, let me zap you with this raygun" etc, and it's something they still come back to every now and then, almost 50 years later.

^ the way superhero comics handle stuff like this is weird. like you have characters with absolutely astounding, universe-rending powers at their disposal, but certain things must remain unchanged, no matter what.