Impossibly Fast

[Menard]

The thread on excruciatingly slow monsters made me think of just the opposite: those times in movies when the laws of physics are broken (and apparently the speed of light as well) either for the purpose of the storyline, bad direction, bad editing, or any combination of those.

A slasher film from the early 80s (slasher primetime) called Final Exam is a perfect example of this. The killer, like in most any slasher film, walks, yet, he is able to be in two places at once apparently having killed someone in a dorm room while he was occupied chasing (scuse me) walking after someone else.

Car chases are prime examples of this. How many times have we seen a car go speeding past a sitting cop car to have the cop car go from a stopped position to right on the tail of the speeding car, but the cop car is apparently out of acceleration at that point and cannot catch them.

Dawn of the Mummy (what an excruciatingly boring film to watch) has an incredibly slow mummy who is still able to catch anyone running from him.

Of course, back on slasher films, how many times have we seen killer who were in the right place at the right time, even though they would have had to jog two city blocks to get ther, and they did it in under 3 seconds?

I guess I don't have to mention how easily a human being can apparently outrun an explosion.


What moments in film would you classify as impossibly fast?

[Duckmancgy]

Well one movie that comes to my mind, is Godzilla vs. King Ghidora (sp?)  Anyways in it there is an "evil android" whose running skills make the size of a country basically unimportant. Course it is funny to watch the actor wave his arms as the green screen behind him fast forwards through the landscape..

[JaseSF]

Yeah like movies ever cared for the laws of physics? Just how many sci-fi films have noise and fire in space?

Speaking of "impossibly fast", the Creature From the Haunted Sea seems to move impossibly fast, especially at the end of the move.  I still love that ending though even if I'm one of the very few who likes that movie.

[Andrew]

On my mind, from watching the movie fairly recently, but Santa from "Santa Claus" (1959) confuses me.  He spends around five minutes climbing down the rope ladder from his sleigh, then often has a problem getting into the house.  All told, I think that he must take ten minutes for each home.  Let's say that he has twenty-four hours to do the entire Earth.  That works out to 144 good children getting presents.

Santa always runs into this problem, but it seems much worse in that movie.

Also due to recent viewings, Jason from the "Friday the 13th" series.  Not only will he know where and when to be to kill someone, but he could quickly move from place to place.  Jason seems to be a combination of three X-Men:  Nightcrawler, Jean Grey, and Wolverine.

[Jim H]

On my mind, from watching the movie fairly recently, but Santa from "Santa Claus" (1959) confuses me.  He spends around five minutes climbing down the rope ladder from his sleigh, then often has a problem getting into the house.  All told, I think that he must take ten minutes for each home.  Let's say that he has twenty-four hours to do the entire Earth.  That works out to 144 good children getting presents.

Santa always runs into this problem, but it seems much worse in that movie.

Also due to recent viewings, Jason from the "Friday the 13th" series.  Not only will he know where and when to be to kill someone, but he could quickly move from place to place.  Jason seems to be a combination of three X-Men:  Nightcrawler, Jean Grey, and Wolverine.

As I recall, there's a point in part 8 on the boat where he's in a dead end alley and someone is just about to spot him after a kill.  He turns, then it cuts to the person running around the corner, who looks around the small area and Jason is totally gone. 

Apparently, he can teleport, so yeah, Nightcrawler it is.

[Dr. Whom]

Teleporting is one thing, being fast is another. Even with killers/monsters showing up in unexpected places, the hero still often has a chance of running away. Whatever the nominal speed of the monster is, the good guys rarely get caught in a straight race. I call this the Scooby Doo syndrome.

[Andrew]

Jason did some serious teleporting in IV.  One moment he is in the house, killing a guy, the next he is stuck to the side of the house like a human fly, then he is inside, then outside.   Crazy stuff.

How about the evil electricity in "Pulse?"  That stuff was pretty darn fast, as you would expect electricity to be.  One of its major challenges was finding a way to interact with the environment and kill people.  To get them it had to start the circular saw, then bring the blade into contact with the loose bolt on the workbench and it hit just right to nail the target person in the forehead - stuff like that.  Personally, if I were intelligent electricity, I would see just how far of an arc I could make from the outlets.

[Duckmancgy]

Hmmm.. teleporting eh.. Hows about a little movie I have called Deep Evil.  Not very good, but the bad infected alien things (or at least I think thats what they are) can appear first down a cavern, and then when the "hero" turns back to keep running, they appear infront of them.. impressive .. Course with the number of them I spose it could different ones, but they seem pretty unbelievably fast..

[BoyScoutKevin]

The white wyrm/worm/snake in "Lair of the White Worm" comes to mind. It is about ninety seconds from the time the toxic gas is pumped in at Stonerigg Cavern to it appears in the cavern below Temple House. At that rate, to get from Stonerigg Cavern to Temple House, it has to be traveling at about 35 mph.

[Jack]

Michael Myers was doing some teleporting in Halloween 4.  At one point he's on the roof of a house and the other characters are on the ground below, so they run to a nearby school.  Myers is already in the school.  I mean, c'mon, Myers never moves at anything more than a very slow walk.  Later some guys pull up in a pickup and Myers, who's apparently moving at the speed of the Flash, manages to zip around unnoticed and attach himself to the bottom of the pickup.  Of course the director has to include a shot where you can clearly see under the pickup, and there's nobody under there, then later Myers crawls out from underneath and attacks the guys in the bed of the pickup.