Favorite Monster?

[Pilgermann]

Hm, my favorite is probably Godzilla in his various (Japanese-made) incarnations.  The one that scared me as a child was the Blob.  Oh, I also liked/was afraid of the thing in the crate from Creepshow.

[claws]

Bruce, the shark from Jaws, King Kong (1933) and the ants from Them! Those were my favorite monsters when I was a child.

[AndyC]

In terms of coolest monster, I'm a big fan of Gigan. He combines the best of kaiju and giant mecha. A giant cyborg monster from space with built-in buzzsaws, hooks and blades, and one big, glowing red eye. I've always been curious what sort of creature Gigan was before aliens made him over.

For scariest, I would have a hard time choosing. As a kid, mutants tended to scare me. They started out as ordinary people or animals, and now they're grotesque and ferocious. Prophecy, for example. Notwithstanding the sleeping bag scene, that movie scared me when it came out.

These days, the scariest monsters are the human ones. Human psychos scare me because they're based on real people who commit real acts of brutality, and they seem perfectly normal, maybe even charismatic. It could be argued that a lot of fictional monsters are also based on real human brutality.

In that way, I kind of like the traditional portrayal of Frankenstein's monster. The Karloff monster wasn't evil. He just had no moral compass, no understanding of consequences or of his own strength. He functioned on animal instinct and minimal intelligence. The monster playing with the little girl was chilling because he meant no harm, but ended up killing her because he had a powerful body controlled by an impaired and twisted sense of reason. Throwing pretty things in the river is fun. No more flowers. Throw pretty girl in the river.

[Allhallowsday]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r9t6NHlPJHA