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Posts Tagged “

Monsters

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mike mignola

Why Mike Mignola Draws the Best Fight Scenes Ever

A masked avenger named Lobster Johnson should always fight a skeleton army with two guns and some kind of glowing-goggle mask. And yet so few people seem to understand this. That's why comic book artist/writer Mike "Hellboy" Mignola, creator of Lobster Johnson and many other mysterious heroes, rules. He is the man who understands how a fight scene should happen. How the monsters should be. How explosions should be. How giant robots should enter the picture, or giant scorpions, or brains inside bubbling vats. More Mignola fights below. More »

7:00 AM on Mon Apr 28 2008
By Annalee Newitz
3,617 views, 26 comments

Latest by LicenseFarm: @Plague: It's an adaptation of Baltimore, his illustrated novel with Christopher Golden. We're likely to see that long before a HBIII; Del Toro is going to be busy a while with hobbitses, and I think Mignola has said he's more »

It's Finally L.A.'s Turn To Get Crushed We were wondering what would replace plague movies and dystopian futures as the next trend in movies, and it's looking like we have our answer: alien invasions and space battles. On the heels of Universal greenlighting Earth vs. Moon, Columbia Pictures is making Battle: Los Angeles, based on a spec script from Chris Bertolini (The General's Daughter). Battle: L.A. is about "a Marine platoon's encounter with an alien invasion on the streets of L.A.," and it'll have a low price tag, similar to Cloverfield. But no shaky handheld cam, promises producer Neil Moritz. [Slashfilm]

3 comments

plant monsters

How to Destroy an Evil Plant Monster

Plant monsters are making a comeback, with The Ruins giving us an ancient Mayan plant thing in theaters and M. Night Shyamalan about to try our patience again with his forthcoming plant toxin movie The Happening. But there's a long history of evil plants on film, which seemingly has been forgotten in these new offerings. Now it's time to water the soil of the scary plant genre, and remind you how plant slayers in history have defeated their chlorophyl-loving foes. More »

10:42 AM on Wed Apr 9 2008
By Annalee Newitz
8,731 views, 31 comments

Latest by kevinjwoods: And The thing was also remade as a 5 page UNIT backup in the Doctor Who comic featuring the zygons, and talking of Who what about the Krynoid which was blown up twice. more »

cloverfield

Cloverfield Monster Demolishes Japan

In a move that surprises only those who have seen the movie, Cloverfield has demolished the Japanese box office this past weekend, taking in 26.4 million yen and beating previous boffo box office movie Dreamgirls by 30.2% despite the musical's playing on more screens across the country.
More »

11:31 AM on Tue Apr 8 2008
By Graeme McMillan
2,633 views, 26 comments

hellboy 2

More Monstery Goodness in New Hellboy II Trailer

Yahoo's got the full theatrical trailer for Hellboy II: The Golden Army, and once again it's clear that director Guillermo Del Toro won't be skimping on the monsters. Here we get to see more of the Golden Army itself, and the plot arc becomes clearer. Creatures from one of those other hellish dimensions have come to our world to reclaim it as their own. And of course Hellboy is brought in to fight them. Along with Abe Sapien, who is now more intriguing to me than ever because Hellboy creator Mike Mignola has just given Abe his own spinoff comic. [Yahoo]

1:11 PM on Thu Apr 3 2008
By Annalee Newitz
4,796 views, 73 comments

Latest by lukeoneil47: There is no difference between sci-fi and fantasy. It's a pointless, nitpicking distinction. This site should broaden, rather than narrow, its scope. more »

plant monsters

"The Ruins" Proves Plants are the New Big Bad

With all this eco-consciousness making everybody freak out, it was bound to happen that plants would start to haunt our nightmares. Freaky-ass pollen makes people kill themselves in M. Night Shyamalan's new flick The Happening (coming in June). And in The Ruins (coming out this Friday), a bunch of U.S. teens hiking in Mexico get their comeuppance from some angry vines. Yup, our super-evolved leafy pals are getting pissed. Light spoilers for The Ruins ahead. More »

12:53 PM on Wed Apr 2 2008
By Annalee Newitz
2,133 views, 41 comments

Latest by Adam Fields: The Wines more »

retro science porn

Eighteenth Century Microscope Monsters

Europeans learned about the wonders of the microscopic world from drawings like this one, created by amateur microscope enthusiast Martin Frobenius Ledermüller in the 1760s. He put bugs, plants, and crystals under the microscope and produced fascinating, highly-symmetrical renderings of what he saw. We've got some etchings much weirder and more alien than this fly below. More »

7:00 AM on Mon Mar 31 2008
By Annalee Newitz
1,755 views, 12 comments

Latest by physik: I love this site. When I start to feel like I am too dorky you guys have an argument about kingdom classification. Nice. more »

dragons

Six Bite-Your-Head Brilliant Dragons from Science Fiction

Although the flying, fire-breathing, lizard-esque creature known as a dragon usually appears in fantasy stories full of elves and magic, the scaly beasts show up in scifi too. Sometimes they're apocalyptic killing machines, like the "ancient species unearthed by subway digging" in that Christian Bale flick Reign of Fire, and sometimes they're more like a psychic alien version of the horse from Black Beauty. And frankly, they are always freaking awesome. Check out our list of six brilliant dragons from science fiction — all of whom are ready to bite your head. More »

9:30 AM on Wed Mar 26 2008
By Annalee Newitz
6,305 views, 94 comments

Latest by Chiper: @femto: It's unlikely we'll see any good movies from her books after she's dead either. more »

monsters vs. aliens

50 Foot Tall Alien Kicks Monster Ass

Dreamworks Animation is pitting monsters against aliens in its cleverly titled film Monsters Vs. Aliens, due out next year. Why didn't they stick with the original title of the comic it's based on? Rex Havoc and the Ass-Kickers of the Fantastic is a much cooler sounding movie. Reese Witherspoon will be voicing one of the "monsters" as Ginormica, a girl who was hit by a meteor on her wedding day and grew to be 50 feet tall. More »

10:20 AM on Tue Mar 11 2008
By Kevin Kelly
3,378 views, 30 comments

Latest by Chiper: This cast list is full of WIN! more »

interview

Doomsday's Neil Marshall Explains Apocalypses Without Monsters

The Descent was one of our favorite horror movies of recent years, so we were automatically excited about director Neil Marshall's new movie, Doomsday. And that was before we found out Doomsday was going to be Mad to the Max. In Doomsday, the government walls off Scotland to contain a deadly plague... only to send a team into the shattered country 30 years later. We talked to Marshall about strong women, genre confusion, and why Doomsday has no monsters. More »

12:07 PM on Mon Mar 10 2008
By Charlie Jane Anders
2,810 views, 20 comments

Latest by IntoAshes: @aspiringexpatriate: They didn't? Looking at those clips you could have fooled me. more »

scifi art

Cyclops Robots Want Our Women

Nate Wragg is a cool artist from Davis, California who draws colorful scenes of monster battles and women-snatching cyclops robots on alien planets. In this 2007 piece, he illustrates a fight between Yeti and Bigfoot using acrylics, gouache, and paper cutouts. Okay, Wragg's actually not just some dude from California. He's a hot shot artist for Pixar — you can see his work in movies like Ratatouille. Click through to see his (maybe NSFW) homage to scifi pulp art. More »

8:20 AM on Mon Mar 10 2008
By LISA KATAYAMA
1,950 views, 8 comments

Latest by strider_mt2k: I like it. (I thought Samurai Jack too.) I've been to Davis, CA. The gentlemen I hung with was a co-worker. He and his wife showed me a great time out there. First and only time I've ever been to a shooting more »

concept art

When Monsters Squirt

A monster from the scifi MMO Tabula Rasa has something worth squirting about. I'm pretty sure that's poison and not whatever you were thinking. In fact, squirty monsters are a regular staple of scifi — there were even squirting dinosaurs in dino-genetic engineering thriller Jurassic Park. So cut this squrty guy some slack. Tabula Rasa monster via UGO.

8:20 AM on Tue Mar 4 2008
By Annalee Newitz
839 views, 9 comments

Latest by cde: That alien monkey just slung poo at you! more »

horrorhead

How Pollution Created the Creepiest Movie Mutants

Welcome back to Horrorhead, a column where we explore the intersection of horror and scifi. Back in the 1950s, it seemed like every monster was created by radiation: giant ants, a giant tarantula, and even a giant dinosauroid thing called Gojira. But ever since the 1970s, an even scarier byproduct of human invention has been creating gloopy crawlies: pollution. These aren't your friendly Toxic Avenger "fall into a vat of waste" types though. These are the real deal, created by environmental pollutants and industrial waste dumped into the natural world. Read on if you want to take a look at movie mutants who were made by our environmentally-degraded world . . . More »

Feature

11:00 AM on Wed Feb 6 2008
By Annalee Newitz
2,731 views, 32 comments

Latest by Klebert: @annalee: Well, sure - but not just Overfiend... Maybe the Anime/Manga world was a lot milder when I was 5. -Kle. more »

call of cthulhu

In Which Cthulhu Kicks Cloverfield's Ass Without Ever Showing Its Face

All this talk of the Cloverfield monster has made you forget the original monster from the sea — the monster whose aspect imparts such eldrich horror that to look upon it is to GO INSANE. Luckily some have kept the true faith, and in 2005 released one of the greatest monster movies in the past decade: The Call of Cthulhu, a pitch-perfect recreation of H.P. Lovecraft's original short story, complete with the melodramatic fear-awe. The best part? It's a silent film. More »

5:30 PM on Mon Jan 28 2008
By Annalee Newitz
5,182 views, 57 comments

Latest by jinchoung: yeeesh... that was awful. just awful. what the heck. seriously. who wrote that recommendation? yeck. more »

poll

What Should Happen in Cloverfield 2: The Reclovening?

Box office for Cloverfield this past weekend fell 68% from its opening weekend, but the giant monster flick made so much in its first week that talk is still in the air about a sequel. The question is, where do we go from here? If it's inevitable that we'll get The Reclovening, what do you want to see in part two? Take our poll and make your voice heard above the din of viral marketers. More »

12:25 PM on Mon Jan 28 2008
By Annalee Newitz
7,115 views, 50 comments

monsters

Ten Great New York Monsters (OK, One is from New Jersey)

New York is famous as a breeding ground for monsters. With the metropolis about to get ripped to shreds on Friday in giant monster flick Cloverfield, NY's love affair with deadly, inhuman beasts is on our minds. HP Lovecraft wrote back in the 1920s that the Red Hook neighborhood was built over a vast, subterranean chamber where demons worshiped ancient monsters; and in 1933, the first King Kong movie gave the world an iconic view of a giant gorilla battling planes on top of the then-ultra-modern Empire State Building. But there are some other New York monsters you might have forgotten. We've got ten to remember. More »

11:50 AM on Wed Jan 16 2008
By Annalee Newitz
81,271 views, 47 comments

Latest by Master Aramil: @OldDog1: They are probably attracted to the pretty lights. No one said that monsters are smart. Maybe they like pretty lights. It doesn't have to be complex. more »

found footage

All The Nastiest Parts Of Pitch Black

Pitch Black, starring Vin Diesel, is a slow boil that gets awesome at the end. For the first hour and a half, our heroes are trapped on a mysterious planet that has like 5,000 suns, and then all the suns are eclipsed and it's permanent night. It takes a while to get to scenes like this one, where the foppish antique dealer ignites his own booze breath and discovers he's surrounded by spiky bat creatures. Then we watch the creatures dismember him and fight over his corpse, thanks to Diesel's altered night vision. Two more bizarre Pitch clips, after the jump. More »

11:20 AM on Thu Jan 10 2008
By charliejane
3,249 views, 25 comments

Latest by strider_mt2k: We enjoyed that one quite a bit. Yes, excellent movie. Yes, sequel...okay but not as good. more »

rumors

Guillermo Del Toro Done with Hellboy -- No More Sequels

An insider tells io9 that Guillermo Del Toro, the monster-obsessed director behind Hellboy II and Pan's Labyrinth, is definitely not doing Hellboy III. Apparently up until a few weeks ago, he was talking about a third installment as a possibility but now this looks very unlikely indeed. Losing Del Toro could ruin the franchise — but could get the director working sooner on a very cool project slated for 2010. More »

7:00 AM on Mon Jan 7 2008
By Annalee Newitz
1,717 views, 19 comments