AtoZ2018 - H is for ... #MovieMonsters #AtoZChallenge

H is for ...

Good morning, afternoon or evening, I hope we are still having fun. Today we are on to H and I have many more monsters for you. Enjoy!

Scariness Rating

The little skulls by their name are my scariness rating as to how monstrous and scary I think the creatures are when seen in their films.

•  1 skull (not scary at all) - 5 skulls (very scary)
•  and there is a special rating for a few - 5 red skulls (utterly terrifying)

Hellboy

Hellboy is a hero, but he's also a monster. He is a half-demon who was summoned as a child to earth to act as harbinger of evil against the allies. Luckily he is found and rescued by the allies and he has chosen to be a good guy.

He files off his own horns so that he doesn't look so demonic, but he's a hard hitting, cigar smoking, cat loving hardass. He works for the Bureau of Paranormal Research and Defence in secret, but keeps managing to break cover.

A dire threat faces the world in monsters that reproduce and divide at will under the control of Rasputin. Hellboy is both a possible threat, but the only possible saviour.

I love the Hellboy movies - they are fun and action filled with great effects. I've had a soft spot from Ron Perlman since Beauty and the Beast, and he never disappoints, neither does director Guillermo del Toro.

Horace Pinker (Shocker)

Horace Pinker is a serial killer. As a man he is a monster, but when he is executed in the electric chair he becomes one for real. Having made a deal with the devil he becomes pure electricity, able to travel anywhere and possess people.

An evil man with evil desires, Pinker is a great villain and he is played very well by Mitch Pileggi who most probably know better as Walter Skinner from the X-Files. If you want to see him playing mad and bad, this is the movie for you.

It's not what I would call a classic, but Pinker is a character that stuck with me after I first saw the movie, so he made the list.

Hector (Saturn 3)

How could a robot that seems to have no head not be a monster?

Hector is a Demigod series robot that uses fetal brain material as a processing centre and is connected directly to a human for programming. The problems with Hector begins when he is connected to Benson (Harvey Keitel), who has homicidal tendencies. Of course he turns into a monster.

Given that there are only 3 people, a dog and Hector on the Saturn 3 space station, things are bound to go downhill quickly.

Saturn 3 is a film that begins kind of slowly and ends with a real bang. It's a 1980s film, but always feels to me like a product of the 70s with something of a downer on many ideas, but with a spark of counter culture still in there from the 60s. I will admit I watch some of it in fast forward, but Hector is such a great monster he's worth watching,

Hydra (Jason and the Argonaughts)

The Hydra is another Ray Harryhausen monster that I remember very clearly from my childhood. Jason and the Argonaughts used to be on at Christmas Eve and I never did see the end of it for years because we always had to go to the Crib Service before it finished (no VCRs or pause in the 70s :)).

The Hydra is the guardian of the golden fleece, the artefact Jason needs to secure to prove his hero-ness. With its many heads and prehensile tale it is a fearsome monster.

It probably sticks in my memory so well because it took me so long to actually see this part of the film :). The Hydra is a nightmare creature and it is animated so beautifully in the stop motion. It looks like it could really eat you. It's not overly scary, but it is great to see.

Of course the effects do not stand up to modern CGI, but these older stop motion movies are classics for a reason and well worth watching with the family.

Q: So, Horace Pinker or Hector, which would be scarier to go up against if they were real? Any H monsters I should have considered for the list?

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