We promised you a monster brawl, and we delivered! Many thanks to all who attended Rose City Comicon and supported the Scariest Things. We had a blast, and your vocal enthusiasm was infectious, but not in a COVID way. And in the words of Ken Watanabe “Let them fight!”
The Scariest Things took an idea that we used for our 100th Episode, a bracket fight to determine, instead of the greatest horror movie of all time, this time we set out to determine our best movie MONSTER of all time. We were a presenting panel at Portland’s Rose City Comicon, where after being canceled for COVID last year, the convention was back, as long as you had proof of vaccination and wore masks. It was more lightly attended than RCCC events in the past, but there was still a good buzz at the convention. The artist alley had lots of great booths, a few genre celebrities were bravely doing meet-and-greets, and in general, there was a celebratory mood, and there were certainly more people in attendance in costume than not. It was a good year to be a masked superhero, and we saw plenty of clever masks that were costume-specific.
We were joined at our panel by about 150 attendees who lustily cheered for their favorite creatures in a monster showdown. 64 monsters enter, one monster leaves! And, by monsters, we mean beasties. Creature feature showpieces… if it has tentacles, claws, fangs, and more (or less) than two eyes, congratulations, you’re in! No slashers, vampires, zombies, werewolves, or witches here… those will have their own brackets. In addition to being a complete hoot to present, we were rewarded with a number of big upset surprises. Who won? Listen in and find out. Tee shirts were given out to our fans who guessed the winner, and the biggest upset.
We knew we had something special happening when we got the awesome crowd reactions. Ooohing and ahhing in recognition of the matchups. Plaintive sighs when a tough decision had to be made. Which one do you pick? Not as easy as you might think. If you want to check out the final bracket matchups, we created a PROGRAM that describes all the movies in greater detail that we handed out, and you can follow along with the selections. If you want to fill out your own bracket as we move through this you can go to Bracketfights HERE.
To Summarize the Bracket Seedings:
The Eiji Tsuburaya Quadrant (Designer of Godzilla, Rodan, Mothra, Varan, Ultraman, and most of the Showa Era Kaiju) Where would the monster movie world be without kaiju? The designer of the golden era of the rubber-suited movie monster, the Showa period, Godzilla is an iconic figure instantly recognizable the world over, despite the number of redesigns the big fella has gone through.
(1) Godzilla
(16) The Horror From Party Beach
(8) Fluffy, from Creepshow (1984)
(9) The Giant Crab from Love and Monsters (2013)
(5) Clover from Cloverfield
(12) The Eurypterid Sea Monster from Deep Star Six
(4) The Crawlers from The Descent
(13) The Triffids from Invasion of the Triffids
(3) The Gill Man from Creature from the Black Lagoon
(14) The Venusian from It Conquered the World
(6) Mothra
(11) The Monster from The Monster
(7) Toxie from The Toxic Avenger
(10) Aliens from Attack the Block
(2) The Brundlefly from The Fly (1986)
(15) Humanoids from the Deep
The Stan Winston Quadrant, the legendary creature designer for Jurassic Park, Alien, The Terminator, The Kathoga (The Relic), The dog Thing (The Thing), Leviathan, Predator, and Pumpkinhead among many others. Winston was a technical wizard, a special effects savant.
(1) The Thing (1981)
(16) La Carcagne from The Giant Claw (1957)
(8) The Krites from Critters (1986)
(9) The Creeper from Jeepers Creepers (2001)
(5) Christine (1983)
(12) Sil from Species (2006)
(4) Gwoemul from The Host (2006)
(13) The Davies Baby from It’s Alive! (1974)
(3) Tyrannosaurus Rex from Jurassic Park (1993)
(14) The Tingler (1959)
(6) Pumpkinhead (1988)
(11) Bioraptors from Pitch Black (2000)
(7) The Kathoga from The Ritual (2000)
(11) Calvin the amoeba from Life (2017)
(2) The Predator (1987)
(15) Octaman (1971)
The Willis O’Brien Quadrant. The grandfather of all creature effects masters. O’Brien was responsible for King Kong, and before that the stop motion dinosaurs in The Lost World. He later would do Mighty Joe Young, a follow-up to Kong, but with a smaller gorilla. His stop motion effects were the inspiration for Ray Harryhausen and all who followed him.
(1) King Kong (1938), (1976), (2005), (2017)
(16) Ro-Man from Robot Monster (1953)
(8) The Mutant Bear from Annihilation (2019)
(9) Audrey II from Little Shop of Horrors (1960) (1986)
(5) The Pale Man from Pan’s Labyrinth (1984)
(12) The Green Slime (1969)
(4) The Tentacles from Planet X in The Mist (2007)
(13) The Feast Beast in Feast (2005)
(3) Pinhead from Hellraiser (1988)
(14) Nancy Archer from Attack of the 50-foot woman (1958)
(6) The Death Angels from A Quiet Place (2018) (2021)
(11) Edward Pretorius from From Beyond (1986)
(7) Otachi from Pacific Rim (2013)
(10) Marybeth from The Faculty (1998)
(2) The Blob (1953) (1988)
(15) Belial from Basket Case (1982)
The H.R. Giger Quadrant. Sick and immensely imaginative, the Swiss artist not only is responsible for bringing the form and imagery of the xenomorph, but he also was the designer for the lovely (and then not-so-lovely) Sil in the sexy sci-fi horror thriller, Species. The xenomorph is now a familiar and beloved silhouette, but in 1979, the movie-going world was not ready for the biomechanoid monster before them.
(1) The Xenomorph from Alien (1979)
(16) The Tabonga from From Hell it Came (1957)
(8) Gloria from Colossal (2018)
(9) The Rhedosaurus from The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms (1953)
(5) The Medusa from Clash of the Titans (1981) (2010)
(12) Dren from Splice (2010)
(4) Stripe from Gremlins (1984)
(13) The Giant Ants from Them! (1954)
(3) The Cyclops from The Seventh Voyage of Sinbad (1958)
(14) The Metaluna Mutant from This Island Earth (1955)
(6) Graboids from Tremors (1990) (1996) (2001) (2004) (2015) (2018)
(11) The Jötunn from The Ritual (2018)
(7) The Jotnar from Troll Hunter (2010)
(10) Grant Grant from Slither (2006)
(2) Pennywise from It (1990) (2017) (2019)
(15) Cannibalistic Humanoid Underground Dwellers in C.H.U.D. (1984)
Apologies for the audio. It is admittedly quite muffled. The convention hall plugged in our Zoom recorder but the audio transfer didn’t happen quite right, but discernable enough to present to you. You still get a sense of the energy in the room. A HUGE thank you to all of our friends, old and newly found, who showed up for our presentation, getting their vaccinations, and supporting all that is monstrous and wonderful.
Here’s a bit of video from our presentation, so you get an idea of what it was like LIVE, and to see what your regular hosts look like, in action:
And as always, the full audio podcast is below!
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