Tuesday 17 April 2018

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


O is for ...

Can you believe how far through we are already. To everyone visiting, if I have no visited you back yet, please accept my apologies, I got behind last week and I am playing catch up - I will get to you I promise. And not on to my monster choices for 'O'.

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)

The Other Mother (Coraline)

If you haven't seen Coraline, I cannot recommend it more. It is a stop motion dark fantasy adapted from Neil Gaiman's novel of the same name. It is brilliant.

One of the reasons it is superb is The Other Mother. Coraline is a young girl who is unsatisfied with her life. She just moved, she has no friends and her parents are so busy with a book project they have little time for her just at the moment. She finds a door into another world where everything seems perfect.

The Other Mother is a perfect version of her own mother, who cooks and does everything for Coraline. But she has buttons for eyes and wants Coraline to let her sew buttons into her eyes too. When Coraline won't let her she isn't so nice. The piccie is from after she's begun to reveal her true self.

Frankly she's a bit terrifying! If I had seen this as a child I am sure I would have been hiding behind cushions.

Count Orlok (Nosferatu)

Okay, so I'm cheating a little because I do have V is for vampire coming up, but how could I do O without the original movie vampire Count Orlok (well almost there are two lost films that predate him).

Nosferatu is an obvious knock off of Dracula and, in fact, we are lucky to be able to see it at all because the producers lost a court case and all copies were ordered destroyed.

Count Orlok is basically Dracula, but, as you can see, he's no where near as pretty as most portrayals of Bram Stoker's original. Orlok is very much vulnerable to daylight, unlike Dracula who is only weakened by it, and it is his nemesis. Other than that he's pretty much the same, sleeping in coffins, preying on others for their blood.

Nosferatu is a classic and well worth seeing at least once.

Ocatman

Octaman is an old fashioned movie monster in that he is a man in a rubber suit. He's from the 1971 film of the same name. Now this movie starts with a voice over, so you can guess the level of story telling, but he's a classic example of the genre, so I had to include him :),

He's the result of radiation in a remote Mexican fishing village. Half man, half octopus he's out to get all those who might threaten him and his creatures. In true monster movie fashion he's also after the girl. There are even also smaller octopi-hybrids that can move on land.

The effects are terrible, but sometimes, that's what makes such films fun :).

Q: What would you do if you suddenly discovered a perfect world you could visit at will - would you stay? Any 'O' monsters I am missing?


AtoZ List of All Participants

12 comments:

  1. I loved the movie Coraline, both for the story and the style of animation. And that Other Mother was scary!

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  2. Hari OM
    As a classic of cinema, Nosferatu is indeed worth viewing - and because of distance of time (or something) I can watch that! Perfect world? By what measure? it cannot be countenanced, for to know perfection there must be some imperfection... nothing to offer for O baddies... YAM xx

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  3. Coraline was such a wonderful movie, I liked it way more than I had anticipated

    Song a Day

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  4. Oh I remember that Coraline movie! Yes, that character was pretty scary! She creeped me out.

    I totally can't wait to see your take on X, as IMHO, there is only one movie monster that stands out (not that I'm all that up on movie monsters, lol) but one for X is from my husband's absolute favorite movie. :)

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  5. Coraline is such a great movie. Not what I was expecting and very creepy!

    Only The Strong Survive by McFly

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  6. I would be VERY suspicious if anyone offered me a perfect world. There is always something wrong. For example, in Ambelin Kwaymullina's The Tribe trilogy, there is a world where everyone is now treating the earth with respect and looking after the environment, but... there are concentration camps for people with certain unusual powers.

    Well, there are always ogres. I know that in recent years there has been a cuddly ogre, Shrek, but I can't help remembering Jack The Giant Killer, in which there was a two-headed one! The stop-motion animation was wonderful, supervised by the company that did The Time Machine. One of the animators was Jim Danforth, who later worked with Ray Harryhausen on Clash of The Titans(he did Pegasus).

    Anyway, I saw that film when I was a child and that ogre scared the hell out of me!

    Aussie children's writers: O Is For Wendy Orr

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

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  7. Nice one including Nosferatu, one of the original horror / Dracula film versions.
    https://iainkellywriting.com/2018/04/17/o-is-for-ogre-latvia/

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  8. A while ago Netflix had Nosferatu and I watched it. Loved it and it was so fun seeing how they did movies back then.

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

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  9. I can't think of another O. And I haven't seen Coraline, either, but I want to!

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  10. Nosferatu is a brilliant film, and one that I have seen a few times. Orlok is very scary as played brilliantly by Max Schreck. Like the 1979 remake with Orlock played by the versatile Klaus Kinski. Of course, there may be more to the tale, according to Shadow of a Vampire (2000). I recommend that film for true Orlock fans that want a twist on the tale.

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  11. Count Orlok is a great pick and he is one terrifying dude even the actor’s name Max Schrek means Terror. Gram Stoker’s widow didn’t like the fact that this movie was being made hence the different names attached but thank goodness this film survived.

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  12. The Other Mother is absolutely terrifying. Saw the movie and read the book -- I'm not sure which version is scarier!

    Ronel from Ronel the Mythmaker A-Z road-tripping with Everything Writerly: O is for Opening

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