Frankenstein’s
Monster. Dracula. Freddy Krueger. Leatherface. Godzilla. Henry
Kissinger. These are some of the monsters whose names get evoked every
year at Halloween, the monsters with the highest Q ratings and maybe
their own personal publicists. But there are many more monsters out
there, monsters who kill, terrorize and stalk their prey far outside of
the limelight. For the next few weeks, we’re going to be paying tribute
to these Forgotten Monsters of Filmland.
Some
of these monsters are just a successful film away from making the
mainstream. Some were more popular years ago and have fallen out of
favor. Some are just sort of utterly bizarre. Some of these monsters
will be familiar to the loyal readers of CHUD.com, while others will
make just about everybody scratch their head. All of them deserve more
love. That’s where we come in.
“I’d like to accept this award on behalf of Ray Charles, my costume designer.”
Name: Baragon
AKA: Filled with Jap. The Toho Hoho. The Why The Fuck?
Appearances:
Frankenstein Conquers the World (1965)
Destroy All Monsters (1968)
Godzilla GMK (2001)
Monster Type: Bag O’ Smashes.
Its Place in the Film: Baragon’s a unique and retarded kaiju creation, a burrowing and jumping beast who bounced from the hilariously atrocious Frankenstein Conquers the World to the classic giant monster smash-up Destroy All Monsters all the way into more recent memory in the sublime Godzilla GMK. That’s quite a track record for a monster who looks like someone strapped TNT to a Godzilla suit and rolled it into a tire shop and then glued the explosion sauce into a roughly man-shaped pile. He’s all throughout his debut film, battling an inexplicably gigantic Frankenstein’s monster all around town jumping around and digging and firing heat rays until the world gets smart and swallows the two half-cocked creations into its gaping dirty mouth crevice.
Distinguishing Characteristics: Fucked ears. Fucked body. Cute Godzilla face with a horn that has no idea what it’s like to be a real horn in this day and age.
Why It Is Forgotten: It’s actually less forgotten than many “man-in-suit” monsters but for a creature that has appeared in three rather seminal films in the course of Japanese sci-fi history, he’s still kind of a small fry.
Why It Shouldn’t Be Forgotten: Because he’s kinda cute there’s been a few very sweaty and very Japanese gentlemen who went home to their wives at the end of a long day and got a quick Bukkake in because they spent fourteen hours “being Baragon”.
Ever the literalist, Rawhead Rex tried to give his girlfriend head.
AKA: Modestly Articulated Mask Wearer. The Pagan Punisher. Starr Jones.
First Appearance: Rawhead Rex (1986)
Monster Type: Priest pisser.
Its Place in the Film: When you’re doing yard work you should always contact your local utility companies to find out where your electric lines and gas pipes are located. Also get in touch with your local folklorist to make sure you don’t have a seven foot pre-Christian cannibal pagan demon thing tucked under a stone. Awoken by an industrious farmer, Rawhead Rex proceeds to wreak poorly planned havoc on the Irish countryside, especially Irish trailer parks. Blundering around without a motivation and possibly without a finished script, he eats a whole bunch of people and hypnotizes others into doing things like setting themselves on fire. The lucky ones get peed on in a crudely shot mockery of baptism. And then get eaten later.
Distinguishing Characteristics: Glowing red eyes that look like marbles. A mouth full of ugly teeth. Receding hairline. If his first name is any indication, uncircumcised. Impressive bladder capacity. Terrible hatred of fat lady statues.
Why It Is Forgotten: Rawhead Rex is a terrible movie. An absolute piece of shit that takes a very short story and stretches it far beyond reason. Boring and ineptly made, Rawhead Rex is a film that’s forgotten in much the same way people repress memories of childhood sexual abuse. Also, it stars a guy named David Dukes, and people get confused and don’t want to seem unPC by supporting his career.
Why It Shouldn’t Be Forgotten: Few monsters have straddled the line between looking cool and looking silly quite like Rawhead Rex does. Sure, he appears to be an ape-faced mutant biker hyena with a terrible hairdo, but he’s also incredibly badass, especially if you’re 13 years old and/or living in the middle of the 80s. Rawhead is truly a take-no-prisoners monster, and he even eats the hero’s son (while the hero’s back is turned)! Also, he’s based on cool pagan concepts, which automatically makes him edgy. But while Rawhead Rex shouldn’t be forgotten he shouldn’t be remembered too clearly; based on a great Clive Barker short story, Rawhead Rex is better in concept than execution, and the same goes for the main beastie.