Greetings, faithful servants! Slip into that trusty white lab coat; wash those hands before sliding on your latex gloves; and don’t forget the proper eyewear! Get ready for a jolt to your electrodes as we mash some monsters for this month’s Roundtable! We’ve invited Speculative Chic contributors to share our favorite beastly horrors with you. From sexy to scary, bad to beautiful, creative to classic, we have something for everyone in this graveyard smash!
Calie Voorhis: I love vampires. And the Cenobites. And Jason Voorhees (which familial bonds obligate me to say).
I love Lestat (book version, not Tom Cruise), Dracula (Bela Lugosi but not Gary Oldman’s “King of the Wampyres”), adore George Hamilton in Love at First Bite, think Eddie Murphy is strangely sexy-campy in Wes Craven’s Vampire in Brooklyn; and Lost Boys is one of the best movies of all times. The music! The goth boys!
I love vampires. I love Chelsea Quinn Yarbro’s Comte St. Germaine series, Laurel K. Hamilton’s Jean-Claude, Anne Rice’s Queen of the Damned, Charlaine Harris’s Eric Northman, The Vampire Diaries; and Forever Knight (and its sequel, Blood Ties) is underrated. I THINK THE HUNGER IS THE SEXIEST MOVIE. EVER. And I will fight you about it. I love Spike and Angel and Drusilla.
And I even love the stupid silly sparkly ones of Twilight (both books and films. I love them wholeheartedly, if slightly abashedly). Why? Why would I admit to such perversions as enjoying sparkly vampires?
Because vampires are the sexiest of the monsters. Even the stupid ones would be fun to talk history with, and I like the idea of immortal companions; fellow travelers on a long journey. But mainly I like vampires because of one of their cardinal rules — you have to ASK them in. I like monsters who require one to be not only complicit, but actively engaged. You must give your consent to be a vampire; you must consent to be their lover.
And Cenobites, because they’re a cult — and like other cults, promise that which you most desire: the joys of your pain, expressed in eternal delirious torment. Pinhead is one of the scariest monsters ever and the films, stories, and comics only add to his strange appeal — as do the other members of the Cenobite cult.
Again, like vampires, you have to go find them. You have to solve the puzzle to be joined, and your punishment is the thing you must desire the most, given form in eternal torment.
I know I should answer Jason Voorhees, and I do quite enjoy my relative, but in the end, the monsters that scare and entrance me the most are not the ones that come upon you unwittingly, with machetes in the forest.
No, I like the ones you have to willingly search out, the ones you have to SAY, whether in a whisper or a scream, “I invite you in, I give my wholehearted consent.” Evil they may be, quite often vicious and intentionally cruel, but there is a delicious lure to joining either group.
P.S. — I’d be so into a movie or book or comic that combined aspects of vampires, Cenobites, and Jason Voorhees. Anyone out there able to guide me to that corner of the dark?
Kelly McCarty: Like many vampire fans, it all started for me with Anne Rice. I distinctly remember being twelve years old and reading her Vampire Chronicles books after the kids I babysat went to sleep. The combination of the semi-scary books and the family’s sliding glass door freaked me out. In spite of the fear factor, I adored those books. Middle school was not a good time for me and Anne Rice transported me to a sophisticated new world.
I loved Louis, the vampire with a conscience, and Claudia, the vicious child vampire, in Interview with the Vampire. But my favorite was Lestat de Lioncourt, the devilish French aristocrat, who turned his own mother into a vampire in The Vampire Lestat and passes himself off as a human rock star in The Queen of the Damned. Although there are twelve books in the original Vampire Chronicles, the first three, Interview with the Vampire, The Vampire Lestat, and The Queen of the Damned, are by far the best.
I don’t think it should come as surprise to anyone why teen-aged girls become obsessed with vampires. The exchange of blood between human and vampire can be seen as a sexual metaphor, but vampires themselves have tons of sex appeal. Vampires are beautiful, libertine, and supernaturally strong. After living for centuries, they’re wise and wealthy beyond imagination. They live outside the boundaries of normal human society. The film version of Interview with the Vampire starring Brad Pitt as Louis and Tom Cruise as Lestat helped convince me that vampires are the sexiest monsters. It’s the only time Tom Cruise has ever made me forget that he’s Tom Cruise in a movie. I’ve always loved the scenes when Louis cries tears of blood because seeing vulnerability from an immortal creature is oddly alluring.
My favorite sexy vampires of all time are the ones from the HBO series True Blood. Loosely based on Charlaine Harris’s Southern Vampire Mysteries book series, the show follows the lives of various human and supernatural citizens of Bon Temps, Louisiana. My heart belongs to Eric Northman, the Viking king turned sheriff played by Alexander Skarsgård, but Bill Compton (Stephen Moyer), the brooding Civil War soldier vampire, gave him a run for his money in the first season. They both fall in love with telepathic waitress Sookie Stackhouse (Anna Paquin). True Blood knew how to appeal to my inner teen-aged girl because the vampires were always shirtless, passionate, and rescuing Sookie from danger. The scene in which Eric turns Willa into a vampire is an incredibly erotic scene but nothing overtly sexual actually happens.
While I do adore a gorgeous vampire, I also love vampires because I am a history buff. It’s been twenty-five years since I read Interview with the Vampire, but I still want to live in 1800s New Orleans with Louis and see the catacombs of Paris with Lestat. How cool would it be to experience hundreds or thousands of years of history? I can’t imagine wishing to be a zombie or a werewolf, but I still secretly want to be a vampire just as much as I did when I was twelve. I’m a night owl and as you can see from my photo, I’m already quite pale. Lestat, if you’re out there, hit me up.
Kristina Elyse Butke: I’ll admit — I don’t quite know what to call the monsters I love. “Hybrid” is probably more technically accurate, but I prefer the term chimera, in honor of the eponymous creature slain by Bellerophon from Greek myth: a fire-breathing monster with the head and body of a lion, a second head and udders of a goat, and a snake for a tail. Three creatures in one, the madness! These monsters are weird and interesting, precisely because they are an amalgam of multiple beasts assembled in a unique and horrifying way. I love the creativity that goes into their design. Here are my favorites:
The Jötunn from The Ritual. This creature, called Moder, is based on Nordic myth (the jötunn historically are the giants who dwell in Jötunheimr), and is referred to as a “bastard son of Loki” in the film. Moder is a cluster of man, horse, and deer, and while it could’ve gone the way of the centaur, monster designer Keith Thompson was so inventive with how he played with the human torso in this film. There’s a scene where Moder rises up on its haunches and its body recomposes itself slightly, becoming in essence its own altar (as it is a monster that requires worship from all who look upon it); it’s such a visually memorable scene. The Ritual itself is a great horror flick about grief and guilt, but the monster alone is worth the viewing.
The Bear from Annihilation. The creatures that dwell in the Shimmer are all genetic anomalies due to an alien phenomenon that smashes together the DNA of every living thing trapped inside of it. The major creatures that stalks the main characters — Lena and an all-female team of scientists — is one of the most disturbing and devastating I’ve seen. The Bear is mostly bear, but you’ve got human and what looks like essence of pig in there, too. It is a tragic, awful animal; the brilliant result of an intrepid team of visual, conceptual, and sfx artists: Alex Garland, Andrew Whitehurst, Gwilym Morris, Mark Digby, and others. The most haunting moment is when we get the best look at the Bear: it enters the house, sniffs at Lena and the team, and then…cries out in a human voice. *shudders*
The Amygdala from Bloodborne. Actually, I think all the creatures in Bloodborne are ugly-beautiful, and it’s overall one of the most gorgeous, atmospheric games out there. The Amygdala (and I’m including the Lesser Amygdala here) are particularly creepy because they’re invisible until you reach a certain level of gameplay. Once you hit 40 insight, wham! Suddenly there’s a giant eldritch creature chilling on the outside of a cathedral — one that looks like a spider, squid, fallen tree branches, and burrs mashed together in an unholy spawn. Lead character designer Ryo Fujimaki and game director Hidetaka Miyazaki deserve so much credit for these and all the other magnificent creatures of Bloodborne. It’s a world I never want to leave, as nightmarish as it is.
The Chimera of Orvien from Garo: The Animation. Garo is an anthology anime centered around the fabled Makai Knights, and each season is its own self-contained story. The first series, also called The Carved Seal of Flames, is set in a world resembling Inquisition-era Spain, and centers on a world of alchemy, witches, and demons that possess and transform humans. Makai Knights are tasked with fighting off these demons, known as Horrors, and the greatest Horror of them all is Anfel, aka the Chimera of Orvien. What the heck did Anfel do to be transformed into this monstrosity? I can’t believe this thing used to be human. We’ve got a living mausoleum — something that looks straight out of Rodin’s Gates of Hell, crossed with the Grim Reaper from Basilica di San Pietro. Add to that the thousands of bodies of those it has conquered, physically lugging the gates around, and then the weirdness behind the door. Every aspect of this creature is alive and moaning and writhing, and I love it. It’s a brilliant monster in a vastly underrated series.
Nicole Taft: People have always been enamored with vampires, which has never resonated with me. But I’m not here to talk about that. I’m here to talk about the other monster that is as well-known as the undead Dracula — the werewolf.
I love the idea of a full moon (which, incidentally, I’m writing this on a full moon during Friday the 13th. Oh my.) having the power to transform someone into a supernatural creature. A creature that is powerful, unstoppable (almost), and dangerous. That it can take only a single bite to create another. That unless you have some silver bullets handy, you’re going to have a bad day. The change itself is often painful and sometimes even grotesque. It also creates a struggle in the people who are so cursed as they try to stop the oncoming change. When they beg loved ones to chain them up or lock them away so they don’t hurt anyone. There’s also the occasional amazing internal battle when someone has already transformed, but they fight so hard against their dark, paranormal nature that they’re able to see out of those golden wolf eyes and somehow manage to stop themselves to keep others safe.
Yes, please bring me that big bowl of conflict.
Werewolves have also evolved over the years to enter mainstream media more than ever. From movies to the plethora of romance books featuring shapeshifters, werewolves are both good and evil, running solo or, more often these days, running in packs. Someone somewhere finally remembered that wolves are pack animals, put two and two together, and here we are. But because I am also a fan of real-world wolves, sometimes the pack dynamics chucked into books and movies drives me up the wall because it is so incredibly wrong. Humans ruining things again, I guess.
I should probably clarify that my favorite werewolf is a particular kind. While the original movie The Wolf Man (1941) features the version that scared the socks off my dad, guys just getting super hairy with some sharp teeth don’t frighten me. They don’t hold any interest for me, either. To me that’s not a werewolf. It’s just, well, a hairy dude with pointy teeth (and also most likely based off historic hand-me-down tales of people with hypertrichosis, which is unfortunate).
There have also been a slew of truly awful-looking werewolves, from American Werewolf in Paris to Remus Lupin’s transformation in Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. Underworld werewolves were better, but not by much until you hit William, the first werewolf, but you’ll have to watch three other movies and 97% of the fourth to get there. I always longed for a full wolf-human blend, something I had only ever seen in Batman: The Animated Series (“Moon of the Wolf”).
Imagine my delight when Van Helsing came out. The werewolves looked like I had always imagined them, and watching sexy Hugh Jackman transform into one was amazing. I loved it. I don’t care what people say about that movie now, or how the CGI has aged. THAT is my kind of werewolf. That’s the creature I always wanted to see. To me, that is a werewolf done right.
A few years later, my dad and I stumbled upon a British movie called Dog Soldiers, and though their effects budget obviously wasn’t in the millions, by golly they tried and that makes it a pretty great little horror flick — with werewolves that are stamp-of-Nicole approved.
I will admit, I’ll also accept transformations into actual wolves as some movies/books have done….including Twilight, even if they are weirdly large. As long as they look like proper wolves or wolf-human blends, I’m down to see what’s in store.
Stephanie M. Wytovich: My interest in horror has always surrounded the feminine, so needless to say, nothing makes me happier than seeing a strong, powerful, female monster take control of the scene, especially when she’s serving a heaping dose of stay-the-hell-away-from-me-or-pay-the-price to her male suitors and/or would-be captors. I like the bite and the fight in female monsters, and the five that I’ve chosen today have remained some of my favorite creatures since childhood.
Succubus: What’s not to love about a horrifying female demon who gets her jollies off by seducing men when they sleep? These ladies have always been fascinating to me because they’re so in control of their sexuality that they wouldn’t dare think of concealing it or downplaying it for the comfort of others, and goodness knows I love a monster that plays off of lust and vulnerability! One of my favorite representations of succubi can be found in the television show Lost Girl and the movie Jennifer’s Body.
Siren: She’s beautiful, she has the voice of an angel, and if you get too close to her, she’ll rip your flesh right off the bone. Talk about my kind of woman! Much like the succubus, I enjoy the fact that these monsters are using their innocence and their beauty (oftentimes, a play on the femme-enfant) in order to survive by luring sailors to their death. The Lure, a 2015 Polish film directed by Agnieszka Smoczynska, is an interesting take on these salt-water beauties, as is Spring, a film about monstrous love, which was directed by Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead. For a more traditional siren song, check out the film Siren and one of my absolute favorite guilty pleasures, Killer Mermaid.
The Gorgons: According to Greek mythology, these three sisters (Stheno, Euryale, and Medusa) were most famously known for their hairstyle of writhing snakes and their uncanny ability to change a person into stone by meeting their stare. I like to think of Medusa as the queen of the resting bitch face, the judge and jury of cat-callers. After all, there’s a reason she’s grown to be a feminist icon in modern film and art, and my favorite representation of her is Luciano Garbati’s 2008 sculpture, “Medusa,” which presents her as a fierce goddess warrior holding the severed head of Perseus.
Lamia: So we all know that Zeus wasn’t exactly the definition of a faithful husband, right? Well, the story of Lamia exists due to one of his more offensive indiscretions. Hera, a rightfully jealous wife, is said to have taken one of two courses of action to punish Zeus’ mistress: a) she killed all of Lamia’s children or b) she forced Lamia to kill her own children. Either way, we’re left with a painfully anguished woman whose grief turned her into a monstrous being who was forced to hunt, kill, and eat children. In some lore, it’s even said that Hera cursed the Lamia’s eyes so she could never sleep, but Zeus — being the sympathetic hero that he is *gags* — gave Lamia relief by bestowing her with removable eyes. The Lamia is often depicted as a half-woman, half-serpent, and she’s most closely associated with Lilith, the mother of monsters.
Scylla: Because I refuse to call Circe a monster, I’m going to talk about Scylla here, a once-beautiful nymph who started cozying up to the wrong sea god. See, Circe had a thing for Glaucus, and quite honestly, wasn’t a big fan of Scylla to begin with, and when her jealousy was at its highest point, she used her magic to transform Scylla into this hideous sea monster with six long necks equipped with mouths full of razor sharp teeth. According to lore, she likes to hang out amidst the rocks opposite the whirlpool of Charybdis, and like a game of Hungry, Hungry Hippos, when sailors would get too close, one, two, or all of her many necks would spring from the rocks and devour them whole. What can I say? I fancy a girl with a good appetite!
It looks like vampires take top marks this year, coming in at the most popular among our contributors. What do you think? Are vampires worthy enough to be considered king of the monsters? What other creepy creatures deserve our attention? What loathsome, whimsical beastlings cry out for our love? Feel free to let us know in the comments, and we’ll see you in November for our next Roundtable!
I’ve read the books The Ritual and Annihilation but I haven’t seen the movies. Just looking at the photos of the monsters makes me not want to because even the tiny pictures are giving me the heebie jeebies. The Bear wasn’t part of the book, which was already super creepy.
If you like Greek mythology, you absolutely have to read Circe by Madeline Millers. It’s fantastic.