As we near the climax of our annual Major Spoilers Halloween festivities, I’ve enjoyed a lot of entertaining discussion about fear, surprise, ruthless efficiency and things that go bump and drag Katie down the stairs at night. Maybe it’s the fact that my child is insisting that we watch seasonally scary movies, or this week’s spooooky Top Five topic, but I’ve been ruminating on the topic of monsters (especially those that were once human.) I firmly believe that the scariest creatures are those that are recognizable as human-ish, making you wonder what horrific fate twisted them so terribly, which in turn begs a query…
The MS-QOTD (pronounced, as always, “misquoted”) is also a little twitchy from this week’s harrowing ‘Zach On Film’, asking: What terrible monster has the most tragic origin story?
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The little girl from the Ring. Left to die cold and alone at the bottom of a well for seven days before she finally passed. No wonder she’s salty about it.
Frankenstein’s Monster is pretty tragic. He started out trying to be nice and helpful, then everybody turned on him.
The Toxic Avenger. He was just a horny little nerd who didn’t deserve to be humiliated by dressing in a tutu and pushed into a barrel of toxic waste!!
Actually, I have to go with Frankenstein’s monster as well. It was such a sad story (the book, not the movies).
Greek mythology monsters, like Scylla. People more or less warped into horrible creatures at the petty whims of the gods.
Or Medusa cursed by the Gods for the terrible crime of being too pretty.
Bruce Banner. Never bought the retcon about his perfect rampages.
The Wolf Man. Cursed by the bite of Bela the gypsy, Lawrence Talbot becomes a bloodthirsty ravenous uncontrollable beast under every full moon, often killing those he loves the most. He wants nothing more than to put an end to his torment…yet can never truly die.
Probably Frankenstein’s monster, but you have to have some sympathy for Cthulhu. I mean, the dude’s city sank; that’s sad, isn’t it?
Zombies. depending on the universe you are working in though. Night of the Living Dead only required you to die, but since then most stories have you dying from being bit by a zombie to become one. I don’t know about you but that is a horrible way to become a monster, only to then try to eat other people all the whilst avoiding being bludgeoned or shot in the head.
Aside from that if we are going true literary tragic then I would have to agree that Frankenstein’s monster probably has the most tragic origin.
Actually, the classic monster with the most tragic origin story was The Wolfman. Lon Chaney played a decent fellow who was bitten by a warewolf through no fault of his own and has his humanity stripped from him, in spite of all he could do. The movie Frankenstein monster was a dumbed-down parody of the monster in the book, who was hyper intelligent, decent, and was very handsome until the procedure that brought him back to life began to deteriorate – not a mindless brute with bolts in his neck, but he chose to pursue and murder Dr. Frankenstein out of revenge, so he was not a nice person. Dracula went out of his way to be evil so there’s no tragedy there, he deserved a stake through the heart. The Wolfman practically begs the hero to put an end to his misery with a silver bullet. The story continues because he resurrects unaccountably and then goes on to act in a bunch of lousy Abbot and Costello movies… which was even more tragic than his backstory.