The 5 Most Half-Assed Monsters in Movie History
#2.
The Lift
The Monster:
Killer elevator.
Why it Could Have Been Scary
Computers, robots, nanobots--technology has often played the boogeyman in horror films. Mankind has a love/fear relationship with technology. Sure you enjoy texting with your iPhone, but you keep a suspicious eye on it, wondering when the day will come that you walk in on it having sex with your wife.
The producers of The Lift must have assumed that fear of technology extended to elevators. What? It's not 1885? So elevators aren't considered high-tech anymore? "Okay," the producers said, "let's install super smart A.I. in the elevator." Now we're talking scary.
Why it Didn't Work
"Take the stairs... take the stairs... for God's sake, take the stairs... " That's the actual tagline from the awesome trailer for this movie. It's amazing when your tagline manages to kill the entire concept of the film in one shot. Why don't we just take the stairs? After, say, the second person dies at the hands of the elevator, just stick an "Out of Order" sign on the fucker and call it a day.
This doesn't occur to the people in the film, however, as right in the trailer we hear one protagonist ask, "Why not go to the police?" only to be answered, "There's no evidence."
Oh, so that's the reason they won't just arrest its ass. Well, try to beat a confession out of it then!
Worst Attempt at Horror
The following clip presumably takes place right after this exchange:
"Hey, the elevator's acting strange."
"Sure, let me just stick my goddamned head in there."
As with the Mangler, you have the evil elevator killing a man in the exact way that a regular elevator could. They even show it killing a blind man... and by "killing" we mean it sits there innocently while the blind man stumbles straight into the empty shaft.
Wouldn't a blind guy poke around with his cane a little and make sure there's a freaking floor there before he goes striding in? When the cops finally throw the lift in jail, we're thinking its lawyer can easily get it off the hook for that one. That was his own fault.
#1.
Night of the Lepus
The Monster:
Giant bunnies.
Why it Could Have Been Scary
The movie is based on a book called The Year of the Angry Rabbit (we shit you not) written by an Australian guy named Russell Reading Braddon. Amazingly, Braddon wrote 31 more books; including The Naked Island, a chronicle of his four years as a Japanese prisoner of war during WWII that sold more than a million copies.
All we can say is what those Nazis did in their prison camps can't compare to what the Japanese were doing if they managed to warp a celebrated writer into a man who wrote a book called The Year of the Angry Rabbit. Hell, they could have made a scary movie about that instead.
Why It's Not Scary
Let's just state the obvious: A giant rabbit doesn't sound like a monster, it sounds like next year's must have Christmas gift. Fuck that animatronic triceratops toy. We want an enormous Mr. Fluffers! We want to ride him around!
The studio must have had a hunch their monster was pretty lame, because they didn't even feature it in the trailer. "Wow that movie looks scary. I gotta find out what the monster is." That's what filmgoers back in the 70s said when they were exposed to this trailer. We're picturing a guy running out of the matinee, waving his arms at the people standing in line. "IT'S RABBITS! DON'T GO IN THERE! THE MONSTERS ARE BIG FLUFFY RABBITS! SAVE YOUR GODDAMNED MONEY!"
Most Pathetic Attempt at Horror
The first 40 seconds of this attempt at terror is cuter than that hamster on a piano video. Look at the herd of huge, adorable bunnies with their big twitching noses!
Then, it turns right into the rabbit attack scene from Monty Python and the Holy Grail, complete with the ridiculous splatter of blood around the neck as the rabbit claws out her throat for no fucking reason.
Holy shit, you thought we wanted to own one of these before? Science, get to work on making these things. We've got a town we want to terrorize, from the back of our huge, killer bunny.
[Just to pre-empt those of you who are about to ask why we didn't call out The Day of the Triffids and its ridiculous huge, lumbering killer flowers, we already did that in this article. We didn't want to seem like we were piling on.]
For movies that are depressing for a whole other reason check out 5 Awesome Movies Ruined By Last-Minute Changes. Or find out if there really is a killer elevator out there, in 6 Bizarre Real World Versions of Fictional Monsters.
And visit Cracked.com's Top Picks to find your very own giant killer bunny.
I'm pretty sure that the elevator at work is evil. It always smells like piss and plays horrible music. Also, the Close Doors button is a troll device.
Reply"There, a worker accidentally cuts himself and bleeds a gallon of blood over the mixture that he bakes anyway..."
ReplyEw. Where's the health department when you need it?
Ah yes, as a kid I visited "Old Tuscon" movie set in Arizona, and they had just finished filming "Night of the Lepus" there. They were trying to promote it, but you could tell that they already knew it was a POS, but people weren't making westerns then, so they weren't being picky.
ReplyWheres the farting/highly flammable sheep from Black Sheep?
ReplyThey are not here cause that movie was actually good, comical, and badass monsters humanoid sheep. And besides it was not trying to be a complete horror movie, it was, like I said, a comical horror.
Where's a holy hand-grenade when you really need it?
ReplyOH noes the large bunny rabbits that are barely the size of a 13 year old RUN!!!
ReplyI remember in an episode of "Everybody Hates Chris" Chris's dad Julius was scared of rabbits because he saw Night of the Lepus. That cracked me up.
ReplyThe Gingerdead man couldn't aim for shit.
ReplyAnd the guy below me needs counseling.
you right he needs major counseling
...and heavy medication.
I want one of those bunnies so very, very badly...I'd sattle that mofo up and ride it everywhere, and all the ladies would be like "OMG it's so cute! Can I pet it?" and I'd be like "Yeah, you could even come for a ride if you want" and then they'd come for a ride and handle my man parts and my bunny would get extra alf-alfa (or however that's spelled) for acting as my wingman. Then when we got home it could graze in my yard and I'd throw heads of cabbage out to it, and I'd stroke its bunny ears and we'd be best friends and fight crime together. If it was really fuzzy and overheated then I might even shave it too and make a blanket or something out of the excess fur. Now granted, the bunny would need, like, a pile of firewood to chew on, and would drop some pretty huge bunny-turds, but shit...we're talking about about gigantic, ride-able bunnies here. I'd give my right nut for one. Only if it was taken under anesthesia though and only if it was just the one, since in reality I can get by with just one without much of an issue.
ReplySomeone obviously didn't hear about the attack of the killer tomatoes
ReplyThe difference there being Attack of the Killer Tomatoes was never meant to be taken seriously. These movies try to convince you its terrifying, while AotKT was meant to be a silly movie with a ridiculous premise. It was a spoof of all the old horror movies from the 50's and such.
Wait Gingerdead was ment to be taken seriously?
random Monty Python reference...
ReplyMel Gibson.
ReplyNeed I say more?
if i was a giant anything and saw a thing with a nose like that and it wasnt a pig i would rip its throat out too
ReplyTeeth. Vaginas that eat people!
ReplyOH s**t I SAW THAT MOVIE AND IT SCARED THE f**k OUT OF ME!
In case anyone wants to know, in the short story version of the Mangler, they DO run away (even if there was a time when Stephen King just crapped out whatever and it got printed, it wasn't as bad as the movie) I remember the guy gets home and the machine follows him, he he's in his house and hears the noise of the machine as it shows up at his house
ReplyWell, and I think the idea is that it's supposed to be more than that. I really think it was also not necessarily meant to be taken THAT seriously. From what I've been told it was supposed to be that there was a machine in a factory that was causing all sorts of trouble and whatever, trying to get people to put their body parts in it, but it continually kept growing or something like that. Then the protagonist and its group find out it's possessed and will continue to get worse and worse until the spirit eventually breaks free, and they try to put a stop to it, but they f**k something up and end up making it really powerful. At that point it, um, somehow it ends up running away out of the factory to attack people...
Again, I don't think it was meant to be that serious, as obviously that isn't exactly that menacing a monster and if you really wanted to stop it you could probably just get a mechanic to take it apart. The idea of making a movie out of it though is just incredibly stupid. It's already questionable as a short story for god's sake.
that story's pretty scary if you're a sleep deprived 13 year old reading it at 2am
Thankskilling.
ReplyMurderous turkey-puppet (supposedly a real turkey) with the foulest mouth I've ever heard.
Just watched this on netflix instant! awesomely stupid but it was supposed to be, it was actually pretty funny. Especially when they get to the girls house and the turkey has already killed her cop father but is wearing his face like a mask, and everyone thinks the turkey w a mask and a badge is her father. Even the turkey makes fun of how dumb these kids are, until one of the kids walks in on him moving the body of the real cop, and says "OH my GOD you're not mr. so and so!!! (i dont rememeber the name)
NICE TITS, BITCH!
Three words for you: The Giant Claw.
ReplyLamest monster on a movie EVER!
Gary Busey playing a giant, deranged, blood-thirsty horrible-pun-spewing cookie is scarier than it ought to be.
ReplyWow. Did the makers of that movie have a giant bunny phobia or what? That is the most unexplained horror movie ever.
ReplyI knew *Night of the Lepus* was gonna win this.
ReplyLook, guys, I admit that Watership Down showed you can have badass bunnies in the right context.
*Ben* was a scary film because it had hordes of rats.
That said; a whole bunch of rabbits? That's a petting zoo.
My dad tried raising rabbits when I was a kid and when one died I cried my eyes out and he promised a funeral before throwing the poor bastard out behind the house.
That's how shoddily this film treats rabbits.