CT: A Guide to Monsters - Killer Plants

[espanolbot]

By Me

Comments

[icon_uk]

Audrey II was voiced by Levi Stubbs, If a plant had a voice like that I'd probably be grinding up puppies and orphans by hand if he asked me to.

[skemono]

Motto.

[skjam]

"Frank Merriwell Down South" has Frank run into a man-eating plant in the Florida Everglades, which came off as distinctly odd in an otherwise semi-realistic book series.

[donnblake]

I really enjoyed Day of the Triffids- it focused a lot more on *how* they were going to go about rebuilding society than a lot of post apocalyptic films which wind up focusing on "Ah, zombies! Shoot them!" Or, "Ah! Fascist survivors! Shoot them!" or "Ah! Marauding murderous post apocalyptic hippies/punks/bikers! Shoot them!"

[janegray]

I can't believe you didn't include this one.



http://nrai.deviantart.com/art/Mario-vs-Piranha-plant-51484229

[superfangirl1]

I love Mario expression.

[icon_uk]

Also worthy of mention is 1966's The Navy vs the Night Monsters, a movie about which even the usually quite positive Maltin's Movie guide could say "1) Re-read that title. 2) Be aware that the plot involves carnivorous trees 3) Don't say we didn't warn you."

Also the Krynoid in the Doctor Who episode The Seeds of Doom and The Avengers episode Man-eater of Surrey Green, wherein Steed and Mrs Peel have to fight a killer plant which has a rather unsual weakness, hearing aids.

[rdfox]

Oh god. I was probably too young to be watching Who at the time, but when I first saw "The Seeds of Doom," I got through the first episode and then never watched another Who episode for literally twenty years. The concept of "the plants eat the animals" scared me THAT much. x.x

[icon_uk]

Aside from the monstrousness of the Krynoid itself, Harrison Chase, the REAL villain of the piece, was an astoundingly creepy performance. when asked where a UNIT sergeant was he looks over at his industrial composting shredder and replies signficantly, but calmly "He's in the garden"

[arilou_skiff]

All this talk about monsters makes me want to go and check out old Dungeons and Dragons Monster Manuals...

[icon_uk]

Oh and there's a somewhat revisionist review of "The Happening" here, which discusses whether it might not actually be a clever subversion of all the standard horror movie tropes of such things...

[q99]

Just because it's a subversion doesn't mean it's good!

[icon_uk]

Indeed, as I've never seen it all the way through I refrained from comment on whether I thought they were right.

[mrstatham]

I think it's worth it for the hilariously narmy scenes with the old woman and Wahlberg's 'NO MAAA'AAAAM NOOOOOOOOO' moment.

[q99]

Just because it's bad doesn't mean it's not so bad it's good :)

[q99]

Ah yes, the bane of Red Shirts everywhere :)

[salad_barbarian]

I think the "Plant Men" from Edgar Rice Burroughs' Barsoom series would count for this.

[donnblake]

Well, if we accept certain suggestions about the origins of life on Barsoom, everyone there might.

[salad_barbarian]

While it's possible that all life there came from plants most of the intelligent races don't really count as "monsters".

[dcbanacek]

The original "The Thing" aka "The Thing From Another World" was described as an "intellectual carrot"...

[werehawk]

Don't forget a mess of short stories in comics with killer plants in the 50s or so. A Turok one comes to mind when he and Andar fight a pitcher plant. Groot's first appearance, originally a villain, is another.

[donnblake]

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle wrote a short story called The American's Tale, but enormous as it is, I'm not sure the man eating plant in that story can really be called a monster. After all, if you choose to hide all night in an oversized Venus Fly Trap...

[cainofdreaming]

Ruins had a quite icky variant of a plant monster, a vine that burrowed into people and grew there. The scenes where it moved under the hapless protagonists' skins were especially technicolor yawn inducing.