Anne Ramsey was not officially a plant, so she is excused from this list. The same goes for Maude Adams, Jack Elam, and that thing on Aaron Neville.
Also, fuck The Happening. And here we go!
20. Biollante
Exterior: Scary yet beautiful. A mess of flowers and tentacles.
Interior: A hard working Japanese man.
The Film: Godzilla vs. Biollante (1989)
Leafy Truths: Biollante’s a girl! Grows to massive size. Shoots acid. Can take spore form and float around town. Tentacles can wreck buildings. Poisonous gas can infiltrate the mind and make the citizens embrace sappy manga books. It’s the only way to explain Love Hina.
Root of Evil: Rose DNA and Godzilla cells are combined with the DNA of a scientist’s dead daughter [oddly, the exact same plot as Clint Eastwood’s Gran Torino] to create a sentient flower/marauder.
Gardening Tips: The rose portion of Biollante craves [rising] sunlight and thirsts for the sweet nectar of rainfall. The Godzilla portion enjoys skirt steak, mashed potatoes, and surprisingly enough, brussel sprouts (cannibalism alert!). The dead daughter portion craves a VHS tape to be haunted into, because every unjustly dead Japanese girl becomes a goth poltergeist. It’s a FACT.
Godzilla gardens Biollante by shooting radioactive inferno into her mouth, which is rude.
Godzilla vs. clay Biollante! If only they used claymation in these films…
Its Place in Plantdom: This may be the least known of all the Godzilla films as it’s not available on DVD in America and has always been one of those offbeat selections in the canon. It’s not the most America friendly Godzilla flick already with its eco-plot, so it’ll probably going on being the green sheep of the franchise this side of the sea. Since I’m a sucker for gigantic smashers, this is actually one of my very favorites. Plus, Biollante sounds like an Italian dude.
Happy Ending: Stop by Biollante’s Pizzeria in Grand Rapids and you’ll see how a world-beating plant can make up for past mistakes and becoming a functioning member of society. If you’re lucky and the crowd has died down, Biollante will saunter up to your table and croon ‘I never promised you a rose gargantuan’ as you sip wine and inhale stromboli.
– Nick Nunziata
19. Baby Eatin’ Tree
Exterior: A tree. With faces.
Interior: Blood and grue and baby slaughter sauce.
The Film: The Guardian (1990)
Leafy Truths: When is a tree not a tree? When sex-crazed chick druids keep sacrificing children to them. This is the kind of shit that happens to perfectly benign trees, giving them a horrible name. Of course they develop bloodlust. Of course they begin to annihilate everyone who comes near. Confucius had it right when he said “Never trust a goddamn druid“. Granted, the tree is a guardian spirit but it’s simply a pawn in the fatalistic game of kiddie killin’ hate chess orchestrated by the nanny bitch druid asshole.
Root of Evil: I believe I mentioned the part about dead babies fueling its malevolent thirsts.
Gardening Tips: In reality, this film would have been rendered anticlimactic as a few frisky loggers kicked the ass of the film’s villain after a Michelob bender, but a tree like this so thirsty for human essence, trivial things like water and the sun’s glorious rays are no match. It’s a shame for us all. This is a tree that sustains itself on the killed.
The Tormented Fetal Arbor Tot never caught on with folks as a holiday mascot.
Its Place in Plantdom: Considering it’s a horror movie based on a novel directed by William Friedkin and very few people know about it should tell you about the quality of the Guardian and its Druid (AC:8, HP: 34) counterpart. That said, there’s considerable mayhem and when this DVD goes back into print there are worse ways to hate an hour and a half.
Lumber. Jack.
Happy Ending:
The Guardian explodes in a mess of pulp and dead people. The sequel is a shot-by-shot remake with Ashton Kutcher and Kevin Costner.