31 Days of Monsters: Echidna, Mother of Monsters

Echidna, daughter of Tartarus (The Darkness) and Gaia (The Earth) is called the Mother of Monsters by the Greeks. With her brother Typhon, she bore an almost endless line of mythology's greatest terrors: Cerberus the three-headed guardian of Hades; Orthrus, his two-headed brother; The Lernaean Hydra; Medusa and her sister Gorgons; Ladon, the dragon protector of the golden apples; The Colchian Dragon, guardian of the Golden Fleece; The Caucasian Eagle, tormentor of Prometheus; The Chimera, The Crommyonian Sow; The Nemean Lion; The Sphynx; Scylla and Charybdis and more. She is described as incredibly beautiful, with the upper half of a woman, and, below the waist, the body of an enormous serpent. She is eternal, and undying, and although her brother was imprisoned within Mt. Etna after the siblings attacked Zeus, Echidna and her children were allowed their freedom as a challenge to all future adventurers.

That wraps up this year's 31 Days of Monsters. I hope you enjoyed the selection this year. Please feel free to drop me a line at any time to tell me what you think. Happy Halloween.

31 Days of Monsters: The Little Bald Doctor

In Stephen King's "Insomnia", Ralph Roberts is a widower who starts seeing some very frightening things after weeks of being unable to sleep. The "little bald doctors" as Ralph calls them, are supernatural beings whose job it is to sever a persons life line when it's time for them to pass on. Two of the doctors, Clotho and Lachesis, serve Order, but the third, Atropos, is chaos incarnate, serving "the Random" and claims lives through accidents, tragedy and murder. Aided by Clotho and Lachesis, Ralph becomes locked in a deadly battle with the insanely vicious Atropos and the forces of evil he serves with the fate of one young boy hanging in the balance.

31 Days of Monsters: Anton Chigurh

When I sat down to watch the Coen Brothers' "No Country For Old Men", I expected to see an exciting crime tale like "Fargo" or "Blood Simple". I did not expect to be scared almost to death by one of the most chilling characters in film since Hannibal Lecter. The hit-man, Anton Chigurh, played by Javier Bardem is a cold, calculating killer that operates by his own set of morals. He is the ruin of anyone who crosses his path. It doesn't matter if you're a criminal like himself, or innocent bystanders, all are potential victims of Anton Chigurh. I know it doesn't have the reputation as being one, but "No Country For Old Men" is a horror film by my book, and Chigurh is a true, modern monster.

31 Days of Monsters: The Peking Homunculus

A lot of people talk about the monsters of Doctor Who as having an indelible imprint on children who watch the show. The Daleks are cited foremost as one of the big monsters that terrorized viewers through the years, but for me, The Peking Homunculus from the Fourth Doctor, Tom Baker's adventure, "The Talons of Weng-Chiang" is the one that really freaked me out.
The Peking Homunculus (a.k.a Mr. Sin) was a child-size cyborg created in the 51st century utilizing the brain of a pig as a logic circuit. The creature, created as gift for a royal family, went on a murderous rampage and disappeared. It resurfaced in Victorian London under the control of the time-traveling war criminal Magnus Greel, masquerading as the chinese god Weng-Chiang.
The character was played by actor Deep Roy, and played upon a fear of ventriloquist dolls. This critter entered my nightmares more times than I can count.

31 Days of Monsters: The Banshee

Like the Black Dog, the Banshee (From the Irish: bean (woman) + sidhe (the fairy folk)) is a portent of death. To hear the Banshee wail means someone has been marked for death. Often the Banshee could be glimpsed on riverbanks washing blood from the clothes of those who would soon die an untimely death.

31 Days of Monsters: Pipes

Ghostwatch was a British Halloween TV special broadcast in 1992 that terrified many viewers who believed the fictional program was a real investigation of a haunted house. The show made use of recognized TV personalities, and told the story of a single mother of two daughters who's council estate home was being haunted by a ghost known as Pipes (The mother blaming strange noises on the house's water pipes). As the story continues, a history of ghastly goings-on in the neighborhood comes to light, of which the figure of Pipes is the latest chapter. The terror takes on national scope as the "live" broadcast acts to magnify the hauntings across the country resulting in a climax that lead to a decade-long ban on rebroadcasts of the show. Good wholesome fun. It's worth watching if you can track down a copy.

31 Days of Monsters: The Frog Monsters of the Sadu Hem

In the Hellboy and B.P.R.D. comic books, the Frog Monsters are the offspring and plague-like army of the Ogdru Jahad — the Dragon of Revelation — and its 369 children, the Ogdru Hem. By maniacal followers of the Ogdru Jahad, the frogs are seen as the next race of man. To those members of the B.P.R.D. they are an almost unstoppable disease bringing they must stop at all costs.

31 Days of Monsters: Sea serpents

For as long as humans have attempted to travel over and make a living from the planet's oceans, they have told tales of monstrous serpents that hunt beneath the waves. Whether the stories were fantasies spun by sailors too long at sea, or misunderstood natural occurrences, the fear of something lurking beneath the waves has a permanent place in the nightmares of mankind.

31 Days of Monsters: Pukwudgie

The Pukwudgie are small goblins from East Coast Native American legend. They are normally not hostile to humans, but when pushed can kill with a touch. They are extremely fast, seeming to appear and disappear instantaneously. They are expert marksmen with a spear and clever masters of disguise. It's not known whether they are just good at appearing as other creatures, or are natural shapeshifters, but they most often turn into porcupines or full sized humans.

31 Days of Monsters: Goatman

 

The Goatman is the kind of monster that haunts Lover's Lanes in a variety of locations across the country. Most stories describe him as being a cross between a goat and a human with goat-like legs and a goat's head. In most accounts he terrorizes people and on occasion attacks unfortunate people with a blood-stained axe.

Stories diverge as to his origin. Some say he used to be a scientist who was turned into a goat by one of his experiments. Others say he was a circus freak who escaped to seek revenge on the gawkers who used to taunt him in the sideshow. Still others say he is a farmer who sold his soul to the devil.

31 Days of Monsters: Triffids

In "The Day of the Triffids" by John Wyndham, the world has become home to a strange, deadly plant called a Triffid. Able to move about in its roots and communicate with one another, the creatures are meat-eaters, that hunt animal prey with a long stinger that projects from its "head". Over time, Triffid cultivation has become commonplace since the de-stingered plants produce oil that is superior to other vegetable and fish oils.
The problem for mankind comes when a rare green meteor passes close by the Earth, blinding anyone who looks at its light. Largely robbed of its sight, mankind becomes easy prey for wild Triffids with only a scattered, sighted few left to try and save humanity from extinction.

31 Days of Monsters: Ghouls

Ghouls are pathetic human monsters with a cannibalistic taste for human carrion. A ghoul will usually haunt cemeteries to find the freshest graves available for its nocturnal dining habits, but isn't above killing to bring home the bacon.

31 Days of Monsters: The Bunyip

The Bunyip is an legendary Australian creature said to inhabit swamps, ponds and billabongs. The variety of descriptions of the Bunyip have lead many to believe that the monster is entirely fictional. But that doesn't explain all the missing people does it?

31 Days of Monsters: The Mapinguari

The Mapinguari is a legendary beast of South America with backwards facing feet; disgustingly stinky, matted fur; a single eye in it's featureless head; and a large gaping mouth in its belly. The Mapinguari can move silently through the forest in order to ambush its prey, but it's thick, powerful arms and legs are capable of tearing whole trees from the ground. Cryptozoologists believe the creature may actually be a vestige population of giant sloth, but that doesn't explain the Mapinguari's strange appearance.

31 Days of Monsters: The Manchurian Ape-man

In "Horror Express," a frozen, fossil ape-man is being transported to Europe on the Trans-Siberian railway. The creature thaws, and the hapless passengers learn that the creature is possessed by an otherworldly intelligence that feeds on people's memories, and is capable of jumping from body to body in order to stay alive. 

31 Days of Monsters: Slenderman

Slenderman is a monster of the child-snatching, bogeyman variety. Witnesses describe him as incredibly tall and freakishly thin with no facial features, wearing what appears to be a black suit, though this may be some sort of camouflage the creature has adopted to blend in around humans. From his back project numerous whip-like tendrils which people believe he uses to snare his prey, but like the Mothman, nothing is seen of the Slenderman actually doing harm to people. Rest assured, however, whenever and wherever Slenderman is seen, disappearances and tragedy are soon to follow.

31 Days of Monsters: The Roc

The Roc was an enormous predatory bird of Arabian legend. White and pale blue in color to help it blend in with the sky, the Roc was large enough to pick up elephants and carrie them away to it's mountain nesting grounds. It is said that sailors marooned at sea would disguise themselves as cattle by wrapping themselves in cowhide, in order to lure a Roc to pick them up and carry them back to mainland. This sounds like a plan of dubious merit since, I imagine many of those sailors ended up as breakfast for the terrible Roc.

31 Days of Monsters: Bloody Mary

It's said that if you stand in front of a mirror, close your eyes, and chant the name Bloody Mary three times, you will conjure forth a gruesome, blood-drenched figure of a ghostly woman. Shall we see if it works?

31 Days of Monsters: Basilisk

The basilisk was said to be the king of serpents because of a crown-like crest on its head. Basilisks are born when a chicken hatches an egg from a snake. One look from a basilisk is said to be able to kill an average man, and if stabbed, their blood can flow up swords to poison their slayers. They are aggressive to all living things, and when they cannot find animals to attack, they preoccupy themselves withering plants with their breath. Weasels and mongooses are said to be the only animal that is immune to their stare, but one of the easiest and surest ways to kill a basilisk is with a rooster. If a basilisk hears a rooster crow, it will drop dead instantly, no muss, no fuss.

31 Days of Monsters: Sleestaks

The sleestaks were the main antagonists of the 70s children's show, "Land of the Lost." Sleestaks were bug-eyed, reptile-like humanoids that menaced the Marshal family in a primitive, dinosaur-filled world. It was eventually revealed that the Sleestaks were a devolved version of the technologically advanced Altrusians, who live in a perpetual time-loop of cultural ascension and decline in the Land of the Lost.