4

Reproduction And Freedom

Universal Studios

John Carpenter's The Thing is awesome in so many ways that if it came to your house and ordered you to make a sandwich, by God you'd do it without question and then let it have the comfy seat on the couch. It's a nearly flawless horror film, due in no small part to the fact that the villain is incredible. What the hell is the Thing? It doesn't even get a name, just general terminology, because it's so hard to wrap your head around. Every piece of it is alive, every piece wants to live, but somehow they can work together as a whole as well, and its only goal is to get free. And if that means eating Wilford Brimley, then so be it.

Universal Studios
Though many find his blood to be unbearably sweet.

In the original film, the aforementioned diabeetus spokesman is convinced the Thing could consume the entire world if it escapes, and it very well could, but you have to wonder if it wants that, since it does try to build a spacecraft to leave. And it showed up in a spacecraft as well, so it has intelligence. It's advanced, probably more intelligent than the humans it replicates, even though at no time does it attempt to establish a dialogue or explain what it wants. It doesn't care what the hell the humans think any more than it cares what the dogs think. They're a means to an end.

Imagine you crash on an alien world and you're incapacitated. The locals find you, you wake up, and what happens? You're going to want to get the hell out of there, because if there's one thing we can all be assured of it's that aliens (in this case humans) want to probe asses. Even the Thing knew that. And since its physiology is so fluid, it could literally turn into nothing but asses and be probed until time ends. Who would want that? Actually ... well, no, that would get tiring.

Universal Studios
"What? This is what asses look like on my planet."

3

Preventing Greater Evil

20th Century Fox

Clive Barker, the man who gave us Pinhead, also dropped an under-appreciated film back in the day called Nightbreed, based on his story Cabal. And maybe it wasn't a faithful adaptation, but that doesn't make it any less of a cool movie, especially in terms of the monsters -- this movie went balls-to-the-wall with monster effects, possibly even literally in some scenes. But those aren't even the bad guys.

20th Century Fox
It's like Ocean's 11 on Thalidomide.

Canadian director and extremely unsettling-in-a-super-calm-way dude David Cronenberg stars in the movie as a psychologist treating a patient who has terrible serial killer dreams. And his dreams come true. And here's a 25-year-old spoiler for you -- the real killer is the doctor himself.

So, long story short, the hero goes to this insane Canadian cemetery where an entire city of monsters exists underground, and the doctor follows to try to kill them all, also while explaining his evil plan along the way -- Dr. Decker has been killing Breeders. The kind of people who become Nightbreed are the ones he's knocking off. What a bitch, right? The Nightbreed are presented as noble, almost like an oppressed native tribe, just trying to live their lives while the world of man stomps a mud hole in their dirty hides. What shitty jerks we all must be.

20th Century Fox
"Especially the one you call 'Chad.'"

2

Sporting Fun

20th Century Fox

Across three real movies and two terrible versus movies best forgotten, Predators have been hunting mankind for shits and giggles as we all try to get to the choppa before a tiny, wrist-mounted nuke destroys the neighborhood. And so far it's worked out A-OK for mankind. If Danny Glover and Adrien Brody can fight off a Predator, then your mom probably can too. But should you? Well, probably. But don't feel bad if you die.

"It's all part of the circle of lAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA-"

As brutal as Predators seem to be with their giant laser cannons and hot knives and big spears and that boomerang-pie-plate thing, the guys are just here for fun. Earth is their rich guy's African resort. And we're their rhinos. Except they're a little more noble than human hunters, because clearly humans aren't endangered and, unlike every animal humans hunt, we can fight back. We do. We Danny Glover the shit out of them every time they come to Earth. So these aliens are really earning their kills.

1

Survival

Universal Studios

Bram Stoker is responsible for at once making vampires awesome and terrible all in the same character. Dracula is completely badass but also is the grandfather of all candy-ass loser-pires that have long since befouled pop culture with their bloody ennui and shiftless hipster assholery. Before Dracula, vampires were basically ghouls -- rotting, monstrous fiends who ate your face because you deserved it. Dracula was refined and gentlemanly, if somewhat prone to rage, and that was wicked cool. He was the James Bond of the undead. And he killed you because he had to. Sometimes because he wanted to, but often because he had to.

Universal Studios
"There's a lot of overlap."

Dracula, and most any vampire, needs to eat. They eat blood. And if a vampire is no longer human, then when it kills, it's simply taking out livestock to sustain itself. It's the same as when I go to White Castle and kill those Ultimate Jalapeno Cheese Fries like you don't even know.

White Castle
It's the tastiest genocide you'll ever see.

The only reason vampires are considered monsters is that we're their preferred food source. You could say the same about zombies, except those shiftless brain-munchers don't really need to eat anything; the little shits are already dead and rotting, so it's less a necessity and more of a crappy habit. Vampires, though, are just doing what we all do. And just as PETA hates you for eating cows, so would you probably hate a vampire for feasting on you. It's not so much a moral thing as a perspective thing. Like when you see a lion eating a gazelle, you kind of cringe a little and maybe root for the gazelle to get away, but deep down you're OK with the lion eating it, because what the hell else is he going to do, order pizza?

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