Tuesday 10 April 2018

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


I is for ...

I do not know why, but I have never been fond of the letter I. However, it does have some great monsters attached to it. Welcome to my blog and I hope you enjoy my choices for today.

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)

Imhotep (The Mummy)

Imhotep is one badass monster. Mummified alive and placed in a sarcophagus with flesh eating scarab beetles under the Hom Dai curse, he was supposed to stay buried forever. Unfortunately, Hamunaptra, the city of the dead did not stay lost and a passage from the Book of the Dead brings him back to life.

To become unstoppable he has to take body parts from all those who were there when his burial place was disturbed. He is incredibly strong, he has power over the sand, scarab beetles and all the of his priests who were mummified with him.

What he really wants to do is to resurrect his dead lover Anck-su-Namun, which is what got him into trouble in the first place.

His only weakness is cats, and the only way to kill him is to read a passage from The Book of the Living to make him mortal.

The Mummy is a superb movie. It's fun, it's action packed and Imhotep is a great villain. The Mummy Returns is also a fabulous movie, but let's not mention the third one.

The Invaders


There are no pictures of the Invaders, because they are aliens who can make themselves look just like us. They are invading earth from their own dying planet, planning to take over, and it is almost impossible to tell who they are. Even worse, when they are killed they just incinerate as if they never were, leaving no evidence for those who know the truth.

The Invaders is a 60s TV show where David Vincent spends 2 seasons trying to convince the rest of humanity that we are in danger. It used to be on once a week in reruns when I was a teenager, although I'm not sure how many episodes we ever got on this side of the pond.

The Invaders are great monsters because they are (mostly) emotionless beings who care nothing about what they are doing, except making sure of their own survival. Their lower ranks have small flaws that can be seen, but their higher ranking members are even harder to spot. When special effects were somewhat primitive and expensive, this was a great premise for a show.

The Id (Forbidden Planet)

The Id monster from Forbidden Planet scared the bejeezus out of me when I saw the film as a child. Animated by hand, the effects aren't quite up to CGI standards, but they are very impressive.

The monster kills members of the crew of the starship C-57D after they land on the planet Altair IV, seeking to rescue survivors of an expedition ship that landed there many years ago. The biggest problem is that the survivors tell them to leave.

The monster killed all members of the previous expedition, except Dr Morbius, his wife (now dead) and his daughter, who appear immune to it. The Id monster cannot be stopped by forcefields or destroyed by weapons and it can melt through any metal. It kills at will, an unstoppable force.

Q: Do you enjoy mid 20th century sci-fi, from the fifties and sixties? What do you think of their monsters? Are there any I monsters I should really add to the list?

AtoZ List of All Participants

21 comments:

  1. hi Tasha - just not my scene ... but it's great to see your enthusiasm ... cheers Hilary

    ReplyDelete
  2. Totally agree that the Mummy was a hugely enjoyable film. Imhotep in real life was anything but a monster of course - a hugely talented fellow :)

    ReplyDelete
  3. Imothep has been my all time favorite..Not because of his looks but his name facinates me

    Tongue Twister for I

    ReplyDelete
  4. When the Mummy came out in theaters, I was so scared of the first 10 minutes of it that I left the room XD And then I became an archaeologist. Go figure.

    The Multicolored Diary: Weird Things in Hungarian Folktales

    ReplyDelete
  5. Hari OM
    My fave 60s sci-fi were Time Tunnel and Star Trek. There was a mischevious moggy-mutant in Trek called "Isis"... sidekick to the real baddy and reminciscent of a Bond storyline, nuclear threat and all that. YAM xx

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Ah, yes, that was the episode that was supposed to be a pilot for a new TV series that never happened. Embarrassed, as a Trek fan, to say I can't recall the title. Did you know Time Tunnel used a lot of footage from old movies?

      Delete
    2. Hari OM
      Hi Sue - yes I did - re TT... The ST ep was "Assignment; Earth" and as you say, was destined elsewhere but went nowhere! One of my less favourite of the series I must say... Yxx

      Delete
  6. Imhotep, as you say, was a badass! He was much more subdued in the Mummy Returns but the first one...ooh boy wasn't he evil personified!

    I is for Innocence

    ReplyDelete
  7. I love all these! As I recall, the invaders could only be discovered because of the way they hold their little fingers. Angela Cartwright from Lost In Space told a story about how the women in the show were fed up with never getting much to do and in one episode, when the male characters were in front doing all the talking, all three of them stuck their little fingers out a la Invaders. She couldn't remember which episode, dammit!

    Forbidden Planet is one of my all time favourite movies, along with The Day The Earth Stood Still. When you think about it, having a monster coming from a human mind would be REALLY scary!

    Can you count Gort from The Day The Earth Stood Still? Not really a monster, a policeman, but if you were one of the soldiers he zapped, you wouldn't think that way! And he nearly zapped Helen Benson, the nice human lady. Ah! "Gort! Klaatu Borada Nikto!"

    And yes, I adore movies from that era. There were some truly awful ones, but there were brilliant ones as well - and there was Ray Harryhausen.

    i Is For Illustrators

    https://suebursztynski.blogspot.com.au/2018/04/a-to-z-blogging-challenge-2018-i-is-for.html

    ReplyDelete
  8. I loved the first two Mummy films, so I'm glad that Imhotep made it onto the list. You're right about the third film, it was atrocious!

    Is This Love by Whitesnake

    ReplyDelete
  9. I have seen The Mummy ...interesting story line

    ReplyDelete
  10. I'm going to have to rewatch Forbidden Planet to remind myself of the Id. The Mummy films just got worse as they went on!
    https://iainkellywriting.com/2018/04/10/i-is-for-iasi-romania/

    ReplyDelete
  11. I love the original Mummy film from 1932, with Boris Karloff. I don't know if I've seen any of the modern remakes.

    ReplyDelete
  12. I love The Mummy, I watched it again the other day :)

    ReplyDelete
  13. I always felt bad for Imhotep since all he wanted to do was hook up with his lover. Maybe if he had gone about it a less destructive way he would have been good.

    ~Patricia Lynne aka Patricia Josephine~
    My A to Z’s of Dining with IC
    Patricia Lynne, Indie Author

    ReplyDelete
  14. I absolutely love mid-century sci-fi and will happily marathon them any day. The Mummy is fabulous, but then again I'm entirely into all Mummy madness beginning with beloved Boris and his infamous bandages.

    ReplyDelete
  15. Id has to be scary given his origin. Great movie - a classic SF film with an interesting cast, some better known for other roles.

    ReplyDelete
  16. Last night I went to bed and was going to read some blogs and comment. I got to yours and didn't even look, I decided I'd rather look at monsters in the light of day. These weren't as bad as some.
    http://findingeliza.com/

    ReplyDelete
  17. Oh my gosh, I love The Mummy! I'd be lying if I said it was a good movie, but I do enjoy it a lot for sure.

    Song a Day
    I is for Ill Niño

    ReplyDelete
  18. The Mummy is so much fun and I love the music and the original is also quite good. That’s a funny story about the Invaders which was a creepy show. I thought of Igor from Frankenstein who was a mean jerk and took some glee in tormenting the monster

    ReplyDelete
  19. Imhotep is my favourite mummy :-) He's such a tragic, yet monstrous, character.

    Ronel from Ronel the Mythmaker A-Z road-tripping with Everything Writerly: I is for Ill-prepared

    ReplyDelete

Thank you so much for reading. I love to hear from people. Please leave your comments below.