Nosferatu: Symphony of Horrors (1922)

This was the first vampire film I ever saw, and as a teen, it creeped me out. The film is a classic as far as vampire movies go. Nosferatu is a Slavonic word meaning plague carrier. By all accounts, this film uses the terminology as a reference to Count Orlok, the vampire of the film. Played by Max Schreck, Nosferatu is a haunting figure. While he is to be reviled, at times one can't help but to feel pity. Unlike the handsome, charismatic portrayals of most men in vampire movies, Schrek's Nosferatu is the kind of vampire you'd want to cower in front of. It is a must see if you're an avid vampire lover.

Dracula (1931)

Bela Lugosi. Enough said. He paved the way for future vampires, and he did a splendid job. The movie was originally based on the Broadway play adapted from Bram Stoker's book. Lugosi is charming, whilst eerie at the same time. The use of shadows helps to set the mood of the film. Also, the characterization of Renfield is sublime. Dwight Frye who plays Renfield puts the crazy in his character. While the film is campy at times, there are those moments that are quite creepy.

The Lost Boys (1987)

One of my favorites as a kid. Put a bunch of good looking guys in a movie, and you have my undivided attention. Two teenage sons move to California with their divorced mom, only to find vampires inhabit the city. You have to love Corey Feldman's trash-talking character. Kiefer Sutherland plays a remarkable , charismatic vampire, that is a trademark signature for these kind of roles. The movie is smart and funny as far as vampire movies go, and has easily become a cult classic.

Interview with the Vampire (1994)

While this movie is epic in the portrayal of vampire characters, I must say Kirsten Dunst's portrayal is what did it for me. A child vampire throwing a tantrum is quite a site to behold. With Louis and Lestat acting as father figures for the perpetual child-like Claudia, they put the dysfunction in dysfunctional. The story is told through Louis, recounting 200 years of love, death, betrayal, and the curse that it is to be a vampire.

30 Days of Night

I must admit, the acting was hard to get into. But it's a horror movie, so what can you expect? It's the idea of the plot that plays psychologically with your mind. Imagine being trapped in the middle of nowhere (Barrow, Alaska) during a period where the sun will not emerge from darkness for 30 days. Throw in some psychotic vampires, and you have what nightmares are made of. The vampire dialogue is hilarious when listening to their guttural discourse, and the gore is just out there. Nevertheless, it is entertaining at times.

Blood: The Last Vampire (2000)

I love anime. And as far as anime goes, this film is awesome. Saya, who herself is a vampire, is the last of her kind. Trapped in the everlasting body of a 16 year-old, she's a sword-wielding, demon-killer who works for the U.S. government. Nothing is said of her background (why she became a vampire), but it doesn't matter because the viewer becomes enraptured with the quality of techniques used in this animation film.

Near Dark (1987)

Oh the dilemma of becoming a vampire. Caleb is young man who is seduced by the “gentle” vampire Mae. Of course she bites him, and then Caleb is forced to learn how to kill, yet he can't find will to do it. And Bill Pullman's performance as Severen is notable. The film revolves around Caleb's transformation, and his choice of living with the undead or his family.

Jigsaw Killer

Among any other killers in a horror movie, Jigsaw can be considered as the most cruel among them. He mysteriously kidnaps his victims and put them into the game of death. He always say that everybody should follow the rules and if anyone violates it, he or she shall die. Every segment of the game is specific to every participant depending on their past. He would be showing a video clip showing the past of the player, and that would also be the hint that the game already started. From the very beginning of the series of this movie, Jigsaw has been consistent even to the time he died.

Leatherface

This character is from the movie "Texas Chainsaw Massacre". He wears a mask to cover his destroyed face. He was a cannibal who was raised up by his family. Unlike any other villains, he was mentally retarded and only followed what his family told him. He likes to use a chainsaw in killing his victims.

Pinhead

He is a notable different killer unlike any other villains (e.g. Leatherface) from other movies. He can speak, and he can be bargained with. In one particular scene, a lady bargained that she will be giving him more souls in exchange of her own. He kills not due to revenge or of insanity, but he kills because he is summoned by the entities in hell. This fictional character can be considered as the scariest horror villain, since he is physically invulnerable. He was a captain during World War I, but seeing his comrades got killed lead him to lose hope in humanity.

Dracula

If the count was right, Dracula was able to kill 40,000 victims during his lifespan. This fictional character would feed with blood from his victims. Unlike the usual known way of Dracula's killing technique, this character would also kill his victims by ways of severe torturing. He often had people skinned, boiled, decapitated, blinded, strangled, hanged, burned, roasted, hacked, nailed, buried alive, stabbed and many more ways.

Pennywise the Dancing Clown

After the movie "It" was released, many children and even adult people became afraid of clowns. They were horrified the fact that the clown in the movie killed many people. If you were able to see the original movie, the clown was very horrifying because of its ability to do unusual tricks.

Elizabeth Bathory

According to history, this female was very beautiful, but her insecurities caused her to believe that the blood of her victims can be the source of eternal youth. She killed every young lady and bathed and drank every drop of blood to satisfy her needs. What started it all is when she slapped the face of her young servant; the blood splashed to her face, and later she realized that the part of the face where the blood hit became revitalized again. She cannot just be executed by the court, since she was of noble birth.

Michael Myers

This fictional horror character is one of the most scary slaughterers ever created. This character is described as pure evil because of showing no mercy in killing his victims. This character is the primary antagonist in the slasher movie named "Halloween". At first he killed his elder sister, he left but later went back to kill more. The inspiration of the making of Michael was drawn by a mental patient.

Hannibal Lecter

Among any other horror villains, I can say that Lecter can be considered as the wisest on account because of the way he speaks throughout the movie. Although the security was very tight, he was able to escape by literally taking out a cop's face and wore it.

Chucky

From the time I saw this movie, I never wanted to see dolls anymore because I feel they are alive. In the very first movie of Chucky you could really see that he was a very frightening doll but as time went by, he became more like of a human, but then the intention of killing was still there.

Dracula

A lot of people have forgotten how absolutely frightening this guy is. I mean, he wakes up at night, turns into a bat, finds unsuspecting people and inserts his razor like teeth into their necks to suck their blood. What the hell are people doing not making more movies about this guy! He drinks blood for sustenance! Isn't that enough to make you squirm!? Doesn't the fact that this guy can suck you dry kinda creep you out? Sure, he has a few obvious flaws that make his character a bit cheesy but put into the hands a competent screenwriter and a good director and you've got a scary movie that's able to make people cry. Isn't that what we've been aiming for people! The only Dracula movie that's even come close was the 1992 version “Bram Stroker's Dracula” and even that had a quite a bit if fagginess in it. Where is the badass Dracula we've all been waiting for. Well wherever it is, it needs to come out and make people buy truckloads of garlic.

Modern Day Monster Comparison: “Saw”

Believe it or not, the guy from the “Saw” movie franchise is the closest thing we got to Dracula. He seems to enjoy seeing people dying in blood.

Frankenstein

There has always been the monster that will almost never be too frightening. In fact, Frankenstein has pretty much been the idiot of monsters. He manages to make everything he does funny is some way. Frankenstein could be ripping the limbs apart off a cute little child and the child's parents would be laughing while he's doing it. Hell, even the child would find it comical if the searing pain wasn't stopping him from laughing. You see, that's the problem with Frankenstein, no one takes him seriously. That's because besides the original 1910 ver sion there have been no serious Frankenstein movies. Even in the 2002 movie “Van Helsing” Frankenstein was the retarded monster who just wanted to be human. The fact that Frankenstein is always used to benefit someone else doesn't help his case either. But there is hope for our freak of a friend. Put into the hands of a good director and an even better special effects artist Frankenstein can become quite the scary beast he should be. It would also help a lot if someone cut the emotional crap from him. The “I just wanna be human WAH WAH WAH!” emotions he always feels. When someone goes to see a horror movie they don't want to see emotions, they want to see freaky looking things be freaky. Frankenstein needs to come back, just not so gay.

Modern Day Monster Comparison: Any Zombie Movie

When you think about it, Frankenstein is just a reanimated corpse with different people's body parts. In other words, he's a zombie.

Godzilla

The gentle giant has never been a term to describe Godzilla. (Or as the Japanese like to say “GOJIRA!”) Godzilla has always brought upon death and destruction wherever he goes. Well, except when he's fighting other mythical creatures, but even then he manages to destroy some buildings. Godzilla's first appearance in 1954 scared the living chumba wumba's out of the Japanese. Then it scared the chumba wumba's out of the rest of the world by taking King Kong and actually making it sca ry. Imagine how scared you would be if a giant lizard would pick up your house and eat its inhabitants in one bite. The only problem is that there hasn't been a decent Godzilla movie since 1954. You would think the 1998 rendition of Godzilla would make some people scared but all it did was make them angry. With all of our technological advances, it's completely possible to make a spine crushingly scary Godzilla movie.

Modern Day Monster Comparison: “Cloverfield”

The crab crapping monster from Cloverfield

Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde

I know what you're thinking. What the hell does Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde have that's even remotely scary. Well let's look at it from a logical point of view. Other than the 1931 film there has never been a Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde movie that is even worth mentioning. That contributes to most of what's keeping Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde very timid. But another small portion of what's kept him so laughable is the fact that the movie made him out to be just another Frankenstein when he's in his Mr. Hyde form. When you think about it Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde can be one of the scariest monsters of all time. Simply because of the fact that he is human and he created himself to be a monster. Dr. Jekyll was responsible for his own fate. One of the things man has feared most is himself. Mix that fact with a good screenplay, clever directing and a nasty-ass version of Mr. Hyde and we got ourselves one hell of a scary movie. Now I am the first to admit though that it would not be easy making a genuinely scary version of this monster but put in the right hands and it can be done. Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde have been aching to make their triumphantly horrifying return. Someone just needs to be courageous enough to bring them back.

Modern Day Monster Comparison: “The Hills Have Eyes”

They were human, then they we're ugly humans. (But “The Hills have Eyes” monsters are always ugly)

I've always had a curiosity about the world of fantasy and I was always deeply immersed in watching TV shows and movies about the undead as well as the upbeat side of the world of the superhero.

But for some strange reason I never understood, even though I had over 1,500 comic books, I never built up a single superhero model, even though they existed, and I only built up models of monsters, like Frankenstein, Dracula and the Wolfman. This cycle was only broken a short time ago, when I bought a model of Captain America, a famous Marvel Comics© superhero.

One of my favorite monster magazines was Famous Monsters of Filmland. Famous Monsters featured reviews and commentary on many monster movies and I drooled over the magazine every time I could find an issue of the magazine, as distribution where I grew up in Long Island, NY was very sporadic. It was a very slick publication and had really great photographs and lucid reviews.

Famous Monsters introduced me to the world behind the production of the movies too. How creative teams worked on the movies, and who did the special effects makeup - like Jack Pierce (Frankenstein) and the Westmore family (The Creature from the Black Lagoon by Bud and Star Trek, The Munsters and Star Trek by Mike) and similar topics were explored in the pieces in the magazine.

The magazines I read and the movies I watched motivated me to stage a Frankenstein play when I was very young boy, between 6 to 8 years old, while I was living in Canarsie, Brooklyn, NY and that was over 40 years ago. I wanted to play the monster but they made me the good doctor and I was murdered. It sort of is the story of my life.

At this point in time I bought Collosus Rex who was one of the Colorforms© aliens. He was muscular outer space man from the planet Jupiter and this presaged my becoming a weightlifter later on. In addition to this, I also bought the Scorpio action figure from the Major Matt Mason © astronaut series.

Since then I have delved into horror and science fiction books, magazines and movies with a passion for understanding what makes a quality media piece in that genre. Generally speaking, I think that the older movies and shows were better than the recent offerings.

I know a number of independent movie producers like Warren Disbrow and Brian Coposky. I actually hired them to do molds and make masks for me as well as hiring Mark Alfrey as mentioned later on in this piece.

To be sure, Famous Monsters was not the only horror magazine I ever read. I also read The Monster Times and saw issues of Monster World, and I remember picking a magazine off a street one day when I was a little boy that featured Hammer Films© versions of Dracula and The Daughter of Dracula. I was horrified by the overt portrayal of blood sucking demons, killing weak human beings in their quest for a perverted form of eternal life.

I had a love/hate relationship with these magazines. I was both repulsed by and attracted to these movies and shows. I couldn't understand my feelings towards this genre of literature and media. I had friends who were also involved with these movies and we all shared a common interest in understanding what made our attraction to these magazines tick, so to speak in the common vernacular.

Psychologists and psychiatrists claim that people who engage in watching these movies are usually children who are trying to work out the issue of their mortality. Watching shows in this genre help children to cope with the idea that one day they will pass on and there's a heavy concentration on the idea that death is not final. In that regard, these shows have a sort of cult, religious type of orientation.

For example, psychologists claim that the radioactive, fire-breathing dragon, a mutant tyrannosaurus, stegosaurus hybrid, Godzilla, is actually a psychological attempt by the Japanese to deal with the after effects of the atomic bombs that were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

The carnage those bombs produced became incarnate flesh and blood in a nigh invincible entity, an engine of devastation that was eventually killed by a weapon called the oxygen destroyer. Needless to say, the A-bombs did their damage to Japan and were not stopped by that country.

Godzilla never really died because based on the second series, there was a second Godzilla (aka, Gigantis the Fire Monster) who had a run in over 20 movies after the first Godzilla was killed. And I make rubber masks for a hobby and Godzilla is one of my favorite topics to sculpt. I made him for my nephew years ago.

The monsters fascinated me because, just like superheroes, they were physically superior and stronger than normal mortals. In fact, in one Godzilla comic book produced by Marvel Comics©, the Norse God of Thunder, Thor fought the monster Godzilla and prevailed calling upon his Godly might. Thor prevented Godzilla from knocking over a skyscraper with only one hand.

As per the monsters, Dracula supposedly had the strength of 10 men according to one review I read in Famous Monsters years ago and similarly Frankenstein had double that strength and Frankenstein fought the Wolfman in Frankenstein Meets the Wolfman.

I always enjoyed watching the monsters fight each other more than just watching humans fight them. Humans can't battle monsters and demons using physical strength. The humans have to call upon spiritual might to battle the monsters or at least good detective work and good weapons coupled with a lot of resolve to survive. The Dracula

and Terminator movies portray the latter very well.

Of all the monsters, the one I identified with the most was the Wolfman, played by Lon Chaney Jr., and it was a Universal Studios©, from Hollywood, CA movie. The very first mask I ever made was a werewolf mask. The Wolfman movie featured a cursed man, named Larry Talbot, who killed a werewolf. The werewolf Larry Talbot fought bit him and infected him with the werewolf curse.

There was a poem in the Wolfman movie that went like this:

Even a man who is pure in heart and says his prayers by night,

Can become a wolf when the wolf bane blooms and the autumn moon is bright.

My own life wasn't easy even as a child. I was in conflict with many of my classmates over certain religious differences and I was one of the weakest children in the grade because my family stressed scholarship and not physical prowess.

One of my early fantasies was that I owned Godzilla as pet and he defended me against my bullies. There is actually a movie called Godzilla's Revenge wherein a little boy named Ichiro befriends the Son of Godzilla, aka Minya, Tadzilla or Minira. It's too bad I'm not Japanese because my fantasy actually predated that movie or was invented around the time of that movie.

Eventually, when I was 10, I took up weight lifting and in a few years I became one of the strongest children in my grade. I tried to become like my favorite superheroes.

Still, it's worthy to note monster models were my fascination and I built up models made by Aurora. Back in the late 1960's and early 1970's I had all 12 of the Aurora monster models. I even remember all of the monsters: Frankenstein, Dracula, the Wolfman, the Mummy, King Kong, Godzilla, the Forgotten Prisoner of Castlemare, the Witch, the Hunchback of Notre Dame, the Phantom of the Opera, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, and the Creature from the Black Lagoon.

Aurora discontinued their Bride of Frankenstein kit at the time I was collecting these kits, but I'm currently looking for it as it was reissued recently. I'll probably build it up and give it away. In the old days, I used to horde all my possessions but in my old age I just do it for the fun of it and try to give the joy to other people.

Back over 30 years ago the kits came with two sets of heads and hands. The first set was the regular type of part and the second was glow in the dark. I used the glow parts on my models.

I used to do something really crazy with the Godzilla heads. The glow head I'd put on the built up model but I'd shoot underarm deodorant through the neck of the regular head and I'd light the deodorant after it came out of the mouth, simulating the monster's fire-breathing, radioactive breath. I'm lucky I didn't blow myself up! It's not funny, I could have.

As a side note, my bedroom used to glow in the dark for about an hour after I turned my lights out at night due to all the glow parts on those monster models. I really used to get a kick out of all of this.

One day, my mother got tired of all of these aberrations of nature and demons from the fire pits of Hell. She threw them all out without warning. It's too bad because they are actually worth a pretty penny these days.

One of my friends from my elementary school days and I used to play Dracula vs. Dr. Van Helsing all the time. My friend and I used to switch off which roles we'd play. We used to always argue as to whether or not flashlights warded off Dracula. It was slanted. If I had the flashlight it worked and if my friend had the flashlight it didn't.

In the movies the good doctor and his descendents were the sworn enemies of the demon, Dracula, and they killed him every time he was resurrected and became undead again. But it is hard to keep a good demon down.

We also used to watch Dark Shadows and read Dark Shadows books, which were about a vampire named Barnabas Collins who lived in England, and the show featured werewolves, vampires and witches and other assorted types of monsters. My friend gave me a whole bunch of Dark Shadows books. All of this was back in the 1960's.

One day, my family adopted our German shepherd as a watchdog. His name was Zeus and he eventually became very large and powerful. The weekend we adopted him, on Friday night, there was a monster movie time slot called ”Fright Night” and they played Daughter of Dracula. There were wolves howling in the movie and my little puppy Zeus was howling right along with them. It was very comical.

My family used to also watch The Munsters, which featured a family of monster parodies. Herman was the Frankenstein Monster, Grandpa was Dracula, Lilly was Dracula's daughter and Eddie was the wolf boy. I always got a kick out of the show and its gallows humor. As a side note, I was at a car show some years ago that had the Munster Coach vehicle in the show. It was kept in good condition many years later.

One year around 1990, I bought a horror/sci-fi magazine called Fangoria and I saw an ad by David Ayres (he worked on Close Encounters of the Third Kind) about learning how to make rubber masks as I mentioned earlier in this piece. I started learning this craft but it became obvious to me that I would never attain the skill to make a top-notch mask.

I went to a horror convention called Chiller Theatre, named after the old horror movie time slot of many years ago, around 1992 and met Warren Disbrow, John Dods and Brian Coposky and I contracted with Brian to do a life cast of my head. Brian dragged his friend Mark Alfrey into the deal and Mark led the life casting session.

Later on, I went to Mark's apartment in John's complex (I bought some items from John - he worked on Beauty and the Beast, Cats and the Monsters TV show) and saw all the fantastic sculpts that he did and I decided to have him design a line of masks for me.

I called the line, The Twilight Delights Legion of the Undead and my favorite mask, a werewolf skull, was named after my beloved dog Princess.

One of my former therapists noted that I had been dealing with the other side for a long period of time. He seemed to have a respect for my involvement with the dark side. And I wanted to capitalize on it. I found a struggling and starving artist in Mark Alfrey and I wanted to become a patron of this art and craft. I'm still working on it.

If you see Mark's Website you will see how he sculpted demons, vampires, aliens, mutants and similar themes for TV shows like Angel, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Hercules the Legendary Journeys, Babylon 5, etc. Just look at the amazing talent of this man and recently he “graduated” from horror and is working doing bronze sculptures.

More recently, I have watched shows like Hercules, Sabrina the Teenage Witch and Charmed all of which featured a variety of monsters and supernatural beings like witches. I never lost my fascination with this genre and I'm not the only one. It seems that quite a few baby boomers watch these shows too.

So to wrap up, I'd like to say that watching monster movies and TV shows is healthy for people of all ages, and I still have a few Godzilla movies in my apartment. I find all of this to be relevant, even in my old age and I hope I adequately covered why people watch these types of shows.