Things That Need to Die: Random Assortment Edition

I have been talking with my partner, and the two of us have come to a conclusion about things that need to die. There are so many things in culture right now that are beyond overdone. They are oversaturated to the point that when I see there is a new entry in their genre, I think to myself – ugh, not another one. We don’t need more! Popular culture is at a turning point where they are in desperate need of a shake-up, and I am going to list the things that desperately need to go, based on what my partner and I have been talking about. This is in no particular order, so don’t go thinking there is any delineation of how much I dislike the things I think need to go. Just assume that I hate all of these things continuing as a genre equally.

Superhero Movies
I’m sorry, but this market is beyond oversaturated. The MCU got lucky in how they were able to get past the law of diminishing returns, but it hit the high water mark with Infinity War, and it cannot get past that again. Disney should have realized that people want a break from the capeshit, but instead they wanted to double down and build it all up again. This genre of films is overdone and it needs to go. Don’t even get me started on DC. At least they realized that making an MCU clone was not going to happen and they ditched it. But it’s time for all of thise to end.  The ONLY reason that the MCU is still not seeing diminishing returns is because of the lockdown.  I bet, if the lockdown hadn’t have happened, nobody would have gone to see Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, and if anyone goes to see Marvel’s Eternals, I will be shocked.  That looks like the blandest movie to ever hit cinemas.

Star Wars
This franchise should have been put out to pasture over 30 years ago. There are now SIX mainline entries in the franchise that are either mediocre or terrible. There is no middle-ground between those two points. That’s double the good entries in it. Don’t even get me started on the stand-alone films. The ONLY thing propping the franchise up now is The Mandalorian, and apparently they mean to end that after the next season. It’s time to let this franchise go the way of the dodo.

Star Trek
It breaks my heart to see what this franchise has become. Watching CBS turn it from a smart series of shows about exploration and dealing with complex issues, to a special effects extravaganza that is all about swearing and violence and nihilism and bad comedy just kills me. When I saw the trailer for Lower Decks, a fourth-rate Rick and Morty clone, I realized that this franchise has no more potential and needs to be let go. And don’t even get me started on Picard. Shitting on one of the most iconic characters in all of science fiction for the purposes of raking in that cheap nostalgia views pisses me right the fuck off. This franchise hasn’t been good since Enterprise, and even that was not that good. It’s time to admit that this franchise has reached the point that it has been done to the point that there is nowhere else they can go with it.

Urban Fantasy
This was a pick from my partner, and I can see why. This genre has been on the way out for a while, but it has not been good in a VERY long time. I think the last time that urban fantasy was any good was with the two series Buffy and Angel. After that, spurred on by YA novels all trying to ape off the success of Twilight, there was a TON of them. I even remember myself getting swept up in it with Final Fantasy XV, but that game didn’t even try and really make something special with its premise. I’m DYING to know what the trailers for Versus XIII could have amounted to if Square Enix hadn’t pulled the plug on Nomura because China doesn’t like ghosts. But yeah, this genre has been played out, but thankfully it is on the way out already.

Sequels
Gaming, I am looking at you.  You know what I miss – when good games could stand on their own.  When every stupid thing didn’t need to be a franchise.  When you could have a game that is just nice by itself.  Maybe it gets on sequel.  Maybe two.  But then, you leave it there and it is done.  That time feels like a century ago now, with every game franchise having so many sequels that you don’t even care anymore.  You can’t even get invested because the interesting idea has been driven into the ground.  Instead of making more interesting games, they have to make games that are sequels because those sell on name recognition.  I hear they are doing a direct sequel to Mass Effect, and I can’t even pretend to care.  Bioware as it once was is dead, so now I know that their chances of making anything good are gone.  I am curious AF to see what Casey Hudson and the people at the new indie company made up of Bioware veterans are cooking up, though.

Every Single Nostalgic Film Franchise
I’m talking about Alien.  I’m talking about Predator.  I’m talking about Terminator.  I’m talking about ALL of the franchises that cannot seem to be led out to pasture by the film companies who are so void of ideas that they have to ape off the success of past glories until their brand recognition is a ghost town of nobody caring anymore.  Or of the smooth-brained idiots who go to see movies in America who will run to the theaters to see the latest iteration of the franchise they like just because they want to watch something.  I have no idea when all of this will be enough for the fanboys/girls of things, but it cannot come soon enough.

Nostalgia Culture
I am 110% over nostalgia bait in movies. I am 110% over nostalgia as a concept. There are things I am nostalgic for, but at this point, when I hear something about how X entry into a franchise that should have been lead out to pasture has so much nostalgic things in it, I immediately know that it is shit. Complete shit. I cannot be alone in wishing that someone, anyone, was brave enough to create something new that looks at a new genre or takes an old genre and shines it up and brings it back into the mainstream.

Those are the things that I am absolutely over and that need to die already.  I could go on.  This list will grow longer.

Until next time, a quote,

“Advice is a form of nostalgia.  Taking the past from the disposal, wiping it off and painting over the ugly parts.” – Baz Luhrmann

Peace out,

Maverick

Everything is Getting Worse…in Fiction

I recently saw that one of my favorite authors has written a new book.  I ordered that thing so fast that it made my head spin.  I knew that I had to have it the second that I heard it was out.  I have been going through every single detail of the World of Cyberpunk 2077 book over and over again.  The universe it inhabits is so cool and has this personality that I cannot wait to play in video game form.  CDPR has promised that this game is an RPG first, an FPS second, and I believe them.  This company has set a benchmark standard as to what makes a great game, and while I still believe that the most recent delay was because of the new console generation, at the very least I know that this will give them more time to make sure everything is as flawless as possible before shipping the game out.

Great fiction is such a wonderful thing.  It’s rare, you know?  Max Brooks, who wrote the criminally underappreciated World War Z is my favorite kind of author.  You know that he does his research, and everything he puts to paper has rules that it follows to the letter.  America believed in its own exceptionalism, and that’s why we were so utterly unprepared for the zombie infection.  China hid the truth about what was happening because they would rather not look bad as a country than warn the world about the danger.  Of course the one who figured out the solution to survive the apocalypse would be a bigoted Afrikaner, who put his twisted and tactical mind to the task with absolute zeal.  It makes sense that a young man in Japan who was keeping tabs on the zombie infection would be malnourished hikikomori who ends up being hopelessly unprepared and nearly killed once he can’t hide in his room anymore.

That level of dedication is so lacking for so much of entertainment now.  I keep seeing these ads for Disney’s latest live-action abortion of one of their classic movies.  This time, they took on Mulan.  Oh boy, look at all the wire fu!  All that wire work so they can make this like from a story about a bunch of soldiers in a hopeless battle against overwhelming odds prevailing because of Mulan and her quick thinking.  Nope, instead now we get super-powered woman who can do the wire fu like no one else.  Doesn’t that look great?!  Disney wants you to pay $30 to see it, on top of their bullshit subscription to their streaming service.  Because how else can they make ludicrous profits while COVID-19 is demolishing their finances?

It’s been just awesome to see what CBS has done to the Star Trek brand.  From trash fire shows like Discovery and Picard, to animated abortions like Lower Decks, where one of the “funny” lines is about the blast shield going up and down.  You get it?!  It’s funny because it’s like the windows of your car!  Aren’t you laughing?  I’m so glad that they have taken a franchise that took itself seriously and told engaging stories about seeking out new worlds and boldly going where no one has gone before and made it into third-rate Rick and Morty.  To think that the franchise I grew up with, and love from the bottom of my heart has been reduced to this.  I love The Next Generation, but that wasn’t the Star Trek I grew up with.  The show that I grew up with, that me and my family would watch every week was Voyager.  That series was magical, and I still remember getting to talk about it with my parents even to this day.  I didn’t love Deep Space 9 at first, but once things got going with the Dominion, I came around.  It got so much better.  The episode “In the Pale Moonlight”, and the confrontation between Garak and Sisko is still haunting in how well it was done.

Not a lot to say about what’s happened to Star Wars.  I genuinely don’t get why Kathleen Kennedy wasn’t fired after Rise of Skywalker.  I would have.  Disney paid $4.04 billion for that franchise, with the understanding that the license prints money, and they expected the money they spent to come right back, with friends.  After a mainline numbered film was a trash fire, and Disney had to outright lie about how much they lost on Solo: A Star Wars Story, only for Galaxy’s Edge to have unbelievably poor attendance, Disney has made money on this franchise, but part of me wonders if the money they made has recouped on investment.  It sure as hell hasn’t brought the friends that Disney was expecting.  If I was in charge of that company, after seeing how badly the franchise was managed by Kennedy, she would be gone.  I would fire the dumb cunt that day.  Or, if it is a contractual thing, I would make sure there is no misunderstanding that once her contract is up, she’s gone.  And tell her that from now on, she has no power to choose what is green-lit for the franchise, moving forward.  She will keep her position, but have no real power over Lucasfilm.

There was that god-awful Predator movie.  A god-awful Rambo movie.  A god-awful Terminator reboot that died at the box office.  A couple of terrible films in the Alien franchise, along with the infamous reboot of Ghostbusters that thankfully has been led out to pasture.  I have no hopes for the next film in the franchise, but at least Sony has decided to take their Groj-awful reboot and take it out back like Old Yeller.

Why is so much shit being made now just awful?  Like, I really want to know.  What is it about modern film and modern fiction that is so bad.  Gaming has been something of a desert oasis for me in this regard, but it’s not safe.  After the terrible ending to Mass Effect 3, EA and Bioware couldn’t leave well enough alone and made a terrible spin-off game, Andromeda.  What drove them to create that piece of shit is beyond me, but it looks like this franchise is being led out to pasture as well.  Fine with that.  Studios should know when to let things die, so new ideas can be made.

Then we had Neil Druckmann’s piece of shit sequel to one of my favorite games, The Last of Us.  The sequel was just a giant flag where Neil could show us all what an “amazing” and “visionary” game director/writer he is.  He wanted this game to be the benchmark of his work, not to mention the flag planted for Sony this year.  No wonder the game journalists were so angry when, just a couple months later, there was a game set in Japan, made by western devs as a love letter to old samurai movies, which not only sold like gangbusters, but received huge positive reviews across the board.  Critics and gamers loved it, while The Last of Us: Part II was hardcore polarizing.  Not to mention didn’t sell as well as they anticipated and was being sold in Japan en masse as it seems no one there liked it.  I bet when Druckmann thinks about Ghost of Tsushima, it must leave the most bitter taste that has ever been in his mouth.

Why is so much fiction becoming bad now?  A lot of people are thinking that it is the whole “get woke, go broke” thing.  I think that is part of it, but there is another part.  See, Hollywood is getting nervous.  Even before COVID-19, things weren’t looking good.  Huge amounts of money were dropping on big name franchises that was not recouping investment.  The aforementioned Predator and Terminator movies were huge box office flops.  More and more money was having to be dropped in to make films that were something people wanted to see.  Now, that isn’t happening.  Marvel hit its peak.  It will never again rise to anything close to what it did with Endgame.  That film is the high water mark to which no Disney film will ever surpass.

What’s more, once things finally come back together after COVID-19, I can guarantee that Disney is going to be doing some major overhauling.  I think they see the writing on the wall.  They have seen that IPs can make lots of money, if people like them.  The Mandalorian was a smash success.  The smart money right now would be on smaller projects.  Instead of big superhero collaborations, make smaller projects that can be done on a tighter budget and see what sticks and what doesn’t.  The same is true with Star Wars.  It may be a good thing that this plague hit, as now Hollywood is going to be trying to figure out how to make more with less.  They are going to have to get creative with limited budgets.  That is a very good thing.

On the digital front, gaming is seeing a lot of change happening, most of it being in the right direction.  Sony just announced a HUGE piece of free DLC for their summer smash hit, Ghost of Tsushima.  A multiplayer mode, without a single microtransaction, and totally free.  That’s huge.  It’s won them a TON of brownie points from gamers.  CDPR’s latest game is, failing some huge component utterly failing, looking to be the assured Game of the Year.  I cannot tell you how excited I am.  Games journalism can whine and bitch all they want, but what’s good sells, what isn’t good doesn’t.

Lots of stuff is sucking right now, but there’s a chance, however small, that it could get better.  I want to believe so.  I really do.

Until next time, a quote,

“I like to expect the worst.  There’s a small chance that I’ll be pleasantly surprised.” – Garrus Vakarian, Mass Effect 2

Peace out,

Maverick

Top 10 Movie Villains

I’ve already done a post about my favorite video game villains, so now I thought that I’d do another top 10 for my favorite movie villains.  I may end up doing my favorite book and TV villains, but that’s a list for another day.  Film has some amazing villains, and it is hard to have a list for just 10.  Feel free to tell me what some of your favorites are in the comments.  Me and my friend Quinn talked about this for hours and I have come up with my list of the villains who stuck out to me the most.  I want to be clear that when I say villains, I mean characters or monsters who meant harm to the protagonist.  So it isn’t just creatures with bad intentions.  Sometimes it’s just a creature doing what it does without any malice at all.  Let’s get started.

10. Sauron
Lord of the Rings
I just love that this villain has so much presence all without having a body at all.  The reason he is so low on this list given the pure evil power he has is because in the film they categorized him as having a giant flaming eye.  In the books he had no form at all.  His evil was absolute.  When I do the book list, he will be much higher.  But this guy is evil with a capital E, and can corrupt the purest souls he finds with the promise of power.  He nearly brought Middle Earth to its knees, hence why he is on the list.

9. Capt. James Hook
Hook
This guy is so iconic!  I’ve loved pretty much every iteration with him.  Even the live action Peter Pan film from the early 2000’s, he was the best part.  Granted, there he was played by Jason Isaacs, who can make evil just roll off the tongue.  But my favorite version by far is the one by Dustin Hoffman.  Hook was a great movie.  The cutesy shit aside, this film had everything right.  The casting was almost pitch-perfect, with Pan’s kids being the only problem.  They were insufferable.  But never has this character had more character than when Hoffman brought him to life.  He was manic, he was diabolical, and he was so damn classy!  Hoffman could make this guy into quite the charmer.  He can smash clocks to pieces, then rally his crew to battle.  This guy was so much fun.  Not all villains have to be super serious.  This guy had it all while being funny as fuck from time to time.

8. Sid
Toy Story
Maybe this is my nostalgia goggles on a little to tight, but when I was a kid, this dude freaked me the fuck out!  Sid is so delightfully evil, but the thing that really makes him stand out among the villains on this list is that he isn’t really that evil.  Something you don’t think about as a kid but do when you get older is that he is honestly just a kid.  He’s a weird-ass kid, but he’s still a kid.  I’m talking to boys for the most part now, but how many of you have horribly mangled or mutilated your toys when you were really little?  It doesn’t mean you’re evil.  It means you’re young.  This character isn’t really malevolent.  He is just an ADHD little shit who has weird hobbies.  But man did that kid freak me out.  At the time I saw the film, I was around Sid’s age, and yeah, I admit to being weird little shit myself.  Scary, funny, but never truly evil

7. Shere Khan
Jungle Book
Disney has such an amazing library of villains to choose from.  I could make an entire list just of my favorite villains from their library.  But one of the ones that truly stood out to me was Shere Khan.  Not just because of the AMAZING voicework.  I mean pitch-perfect.  This dude is such a badass and he knows it.  This dude has absolutely zero fucks to give because he knows that anyone who fucks with him is dead.  And the entire jungle knows that if he is mad, you are fucked.  But the way he can be so damn classy just takes the cake.  He never raises his voice, but you know beyond a shadow of a doubt that he means business!  This pussy isn’t fucking around, and that’s what earns him this spot.  Scar wishes he could be this cool.  The scene where he interrogate Kaa is just the best.  He knows that the snake is fucking with him, but he just lets it go on.  So badass.

6. Predator
Predator (franchise)
It was such a hard pick between this and the xenomorph.  I knew I could only pick one.  But to me the Predator is much more fascinating of a villain.  It doesn’t kill people from some sense of malice.  It sees all other life as merely prey.  Does it care that we are sentient?  Nope.  That’s part of the fun.  We’re a lifeform worthy to hunt, and it goes after the biggest badasses it can fine.  A bummer that so many of the films with this creature are either really mediocre or suck.  I admit that Predator 2 is a guilty pleasure.  It hunts with violent precision, and will attack you no matter where you are.  It’s an apex hunter, that hunts the most dangerous game in the galaxy.

5. Mark Hamill’s Joker
Batman: Mask of the Phantasm
A lot of people will be mad at me for not picking Heath Ledger’s Joker.  Or even Jack Nicholson’s.  Don’t get me wrong, I think both performances are amazing.  But here’s the thing, as great as both of them are, Mark Hamill always seemed to capture the madness so much better.  With Nicholson, you believed that he is evil.  Hell, he’s been playing that roll for forever.  And Ledger seemed to be trying to make a point.  But Hamill’s voice-acting was able to bring this character to life by having you never really being able to know just how insane he was, or how much he thought things out.  Violent, twisted, funny, and always having you guessing.  This character is iconic, and this film had him doing a great role too.  The scene in the councilman’s office was my favorite.  How he can go from being happy and taunting, to fearful for his safety, to twisted and evil in the span of a few seconds is just great.  There are a lot of great portrayals of the character, but Mark Hamill has always been and will always be my favorite.

4. Hans Landa
Inglorious Basterds
Quentin Tarantino has a real gift when it comes to making villains who aren’t just evil for the sheer joy of it.  He has this real talent for making three-dimensional villains who have a ton of depth.  I like it.  Nowhere is this more exemplified than in Hans Landa.  This guy is so damn charismatic.  He has all the class and charm of a gentleman, but has the twisted sense of darkness and evil of the biggest scenery-chewing Bond villains.  The thing I really love about this guy is that all of how he does is bravado.  Landa is in it for himself.  He’s a twisted, violent monster who can play it off so smoothly to Aldo that even when he is going to fuck him up, he still buys the narrative.  This guy is a twisted monster who can put on a sheep’s clothing seamlessly.  It’s pretty great stuff.

3. Hans Gruber
Die Hard
Another villain who is equal parts evil and classy.  Only Alan Rickman could have done this villain justice.  There is no other.  This guy is just the best.  He’s a cocky, greedy intellectual who is so in love with the sound of his own voice.  Hearing him play off Bruce Willis’ character is just the best.  Especially when they are in the same room together.  But this guy is sure of himself, and even when it all starts falling apart, he is cool and collected.  There’s not too much to say about this guy.  He’s just got the most charm that any villain will likely ever have.  It’s Alan Rickman at his most Rickman.  May he rest in peace.

2. Maleficent
Sleeping Beauty
Classy women who are evil can never, EVER be matched up with Maleficent.  This woman is badass with a capital B.  All it took is someone snubbing her by not inviting her to a party and she spins an elaborate plan to kill the daughter whose birthday she was not invited to.  The poise and elegance that this woman carries herself with is so profound.  Not talking about the live action version!  Fuck that movie.  The 1959 version of this character is what I’m really talking about.  I wouldn’t cross her if my life depended on it, because those who do learn very fast that the price of fucking with her.  When you do get under her skin, and make her mad, this woman will fuck you up!  Or your children.  No evil queen has as much presence as she does.

And my favorite movie villain is…

1. Velociraptor
Jurassic Park
When you talk about the apex predator, in my mind, there is not that can hold a candle to the velociraptor.  Not evil at all, it’s just a hunter.  But what it lacks in malice it makes up for in sheer cunning.  This creature will hunt you down and rip you to pieces.  The scene where the warden is hunted is just perfect.  He never stood a chance.  Before he even got started, he was dead.  These things are what nightmares are made of.  You don’t see them coming.  Their claws and teeth rip you to pieces.  You are still alive when they start eating you.  They feel no fear and you are no match for them.  When you’re out in the woods, alone, that’s what you should really fear coming after you.  Because once the hunt is on, it’s already over.  At least if you are the prey.  I love these things so much.  It kills me how the sequels fucked over the cool factor, but it is what it is.

What are some of your favorite villains?  Let me know below.

Until next time, a quote,

“Clever girl.” – Robert Muldoon, Jurassic Park

Peace out,

Maverick

Top 10 Movie Monsters

Okay, so, I thought I might mention that February is Top 10 month.  I have a lot of top ten ideas that I want to get off my chest, so I thought I would do a lot of them this month.  Now, I have a lot of other ideas that I would like to do, but yeah, this is the month I am going to do them in.  And while I am in the spirit of things, I thought that I would do my top ten list of movie monsters.  I am not much for horror movies, but every now and again, a monster comes along that really just tickles my fancy.  So, with that in mind, I thought that I would give you all my list of monsters.

10. The Shark
Jaws
Say what you want about the cheesy effects, but it was by sheer chance that Spielberg happened upon a great film that he created.  The shark from Jaws represented everything to fear about water.  It was a creature that hunted, mercilessly.  It would attack you, no matter what.  It made an entire generation of people afraid to go in the water.  It was also a very primal hunter.  Unlike monsters like the Alien from the Alien series, this was something that could actually attack you, actually kill you.  It was pretty freaky.  Something to think about every time you decide to take that plunge.

9. Ginger
Ginger Snaps
Here is a very human monster, but what I love so much about this was that she was slowly becoming a monster.  Body and soul, she was slowly turning more and more into a creature, and because her little sister, who was clearly the smarter of the two, loved and depended on her so much, she covered this transformation.  She hid it from the world.  But Ginger was definitely a fun character.  This film proves that you don’t need a huge budget to make a scary and suspenseful film.  Katherine Isabelle was perfectly cast, playing the manipulative and slowly more and more evil sister, eventually culminating in her becoming a monster completely, and her little sister having to end things, once and for all.

8. Tyrannosaurus Rex
Jurassic Park
This was such a cool movie.  The book will alway be a hundred times better, but this film definitely brought the terror to life like no film had before.  And here you have one of the star attractions.  T-Rex was not only huge, but terrifying.  He was a creature that had no equal.  This was the kind of monster that wasn’t really a monster at all.  That’s the cool part.  This isn’t a creature being malevolent for no reason.  It’s a dinosaur doing what it was always meant to do – hunt and kill its prey.  And it is so freakin’ cool!  Every scene with this guy in it is too cool for words.  Everybody who has seen this film thinks of T-Rex when they think of Jurassic Park.  He’s on the cover, he’s an iconic piece of film.  An epic creature for all time.

7. Alien
The Alien series, along with Alien vs. Predator series
This is another classic monster.  When it was first created, the maker of the original film knew that it was just going to be a guy in a rubber suit.  So he didn’t make it about the creature.  He made it about the crew.  The suspense in this movie was elevated to the highest levels because of the monster that was among them, picking them off, one by one.  Then the sequel showed what could be done with a horde of these creatures, able to destroy and kill, even among well-trained marines.  Whenever one thinks of what could be in space, this is what comes to their mind.  Merciless, ruthless, misunderstood, it is many things, and all of them make what was said on the cover of this movie very true – in space, no one will hear you scream.

6. Cloverfield Monster
Cloverfield
This is a monster that really came out of left field.  A lot has been said about it, and some of it is good, some of it is bad.  I had always thought this was some kind of alien creature, but the internet says otherwise.  But honestly, for me, what made this monster so interesting was the fact that it was totally misunderstood.  The military is trying to fight it, but you see them totally outmatched, seeming to do little to no real damage to the creature.  Even at the end, you don’t know if they actually dispatched it or not.  There is some contest about it, which I think is kind of cool.  Online debates are fun to watch.  But for real, it’s big, it’s destructive, it is able to take unbelievable amounts of punishment, what’s not to love?

5. The Inhabitants
Rose Red
For being a TV movie, I thought this was a pretty good film.  Given the absolute AWFUL track record Stephen King adaptations have in that department, I think this was very cool.  And it was legitimately freaky, too.  You can tell that all these monsters are either done with makeup or animatronics, but here, they actually made it very believable, and it was freaky.  The voice-overs they got were scary, and the situation was great for it.  The character interactions with these creatures made the fear that much bigger.  I don’t think there is a single aspect of this film that I didn’t like.  These are the kinds of people that you have nightmares about.  When I watched this film with my two cousins, we were so freaked that when it got to the intermission, none of us wanted to leave.  Very well done, for sure.

4. Zombies
A whole bunch of films
I think I will always like this concept.  In the book, World War Z (A novel I hope they NEVER make into a film), they were able to show how this concept is not only scary, it’s actually literature worthy.  That book I do believe to be literature.  But on film, it has been done well, and it has been done poorly.  George A. Romero’s films generally do this concept very well.  What is most terrifying about the undead is that they are an enemy who will always hunt you.  They are like a disease.  They don’t tire.  They don’t fear.  They will never stop, until you are dead.  You can run, but eventually, you will tire.  But they won’t.  It’s the most merciless enemy that there is.  To imagine it in real life is actually pretty terrifying.  Ones that can run even moreso.  A timeless concept that still brings fear to the mind.

3. Vampires
A whole bunch of films (that aren’t Twilight)
Whether they be the owners of a night-time strip club, or refined gentlemen, the vampire will always be the staple of fear.  These are creatures who aren’t stupid, like zombies.  Nor are they animals, like werewolves.  These are monsters who are careful, methodic, smart.  They look at us humans like a farmer inspecting his chickens, choosing which to slaughter for the night.  They will forever immortalize the creature of the night, and will  forever be in our dreams.  Something to lust after, and something to fear, they may just be the perfect predator of the moonlit night.

2. Predator
The Predator series, as well as Alien vs. Predator series
Now, after putting something like the vampire down, how can I possibly put the Predator above them?  That’s what you’re thinking, I know.  But this is such a cool monster!  It doesn’t really want what any of the other monsters on this list want.  It wants a worthy foe.  It is hunting us, trying to find a hunt that is worthy of their talents.  They come to Earth, looking to find the worst combat areas, the worst parts of death and carnage, so they can find prey that is actually worthy.  They have incredibly cool tech too!  Another cool aspect about them is that they aren’t just merciless killers.  They have a very complex society of hunters, and when one of them dies, they show respect.  It is shown that they have an an almost spiritual look on things.  Their adornments show this.  These aren’t just psychotic killers, but a society of hunters that is always looking for the perfect prey.  And I love them so.

These are all a lot of cool monsters.  What could possibly top them?

1. Velociraptor
Jurassic Park
Now, maybe it is just my huge childhood love for dinosaurs that is motivating me here, but honestly, I love these guys.  I loved them in the book so much more.  In the book, they were 20 times as terrifying, because you could see more of their intelligence, and they actually had some cool adaptations.  Some of them mutated in ways nobody foresaw.  One version of raptors was able to change skin colors!  Fucking raptor chameleons!  Now that’s awesome!  But in the film, they were still awesome.  Intelligent, resourceful, and always hunting you.  They not only symbolized the ultimate primal predator, but if you think about it, had it not been for the asteroid that struck Earth, we might all be a raptor society right now!  I don’t know about you, but I think that that’s really freakin’ cool.  In any case, these are always going to be the greatest predator in my eyes.  I hope you enjoyed them too.  They are certainly the perfect movie monster.

Until next time, a quote,

“You bred raptors?!”  -Alan Grant, Jurassic Park

Peace out,

Maverick