Rats: The Night of Terror (Spoiler monstar sorry)

 

First appearance: Rats: The Night of Terror (1984)

A post apocalyptic flick where a bunch of 1980s punks try to survive a night in a rundown building. Oh and did I mention the building is filled with evil rats! There's also these mysterious guys in yellow HAZMAT suits who show up and cart away some of the injured punks. Who are these  weirdos in yellow? I kinda blow that mystery by showing you in this edition of Monstars, sorry. I debated whether I should or not but the movie's pretty crummy (directed by Bruno Mattei so if you've seen any of his flicks you know what to expect) most people probably won't make it to the reveal, also I've seen trailers and posters featuring the "suprise twist" so I figure if the film makers let the Rat out of the bag so to speak so will I. Here's a trailer with one of the alternate titles: BLOOD KILL! whatever that means.

Deadly Spawn

First appearance: The Deadly Spawn, AKA The Return of the Aliens: The Deadly Spawn (1983)

Pretty cool little no budget movie about aliens eating people in New Jersey. Surprisingly and entertainingly gory, especially considering budget ($25,000). Faces get bitten off, old ladies get eaten not even kids are safe from the mayhem. The monsters start out as small tadpole looking things, like the worms in Slither, but the more they eat the bigger they get until they look like that thing I drew. There's an unofficial sequel called Metamorphosis: the Alien Factor, its not as fun but its still pretty decent and has a few more weird monsters.

Black Scorpion

 

First appearance: The Black Scorpion (1957)

A volcano erupts unleashing a bunch of giant scorpions in Mexico in this weird "Them"esque monster-movie! Really great stop motion scorpions fight tanks and trains and stuff, but for some weird reason they have really goofy faces in the close-ups. One of my favorite Giant Bug movies just behind 'Them" and "The Deadly Mantis."

The Prowler

First appearance: The Prowler (1981)

Normally I'd put the name of the character in the title of the post but I liked the Red Herrings in the movie so much that I think I'll save the mystery. The movie's another of those slasher movies where there's going to be a big dance in town, this time its a graduation dance, that everyone in town loves, until some people get murdered. The town decides from that moment on there are no more dances. Flash forward 35 years, someone decides its time to have that dance again even though everyone assumes the murdering will start again. Sure enough murdering starts again. Will small towns never learn.
The thing I thought was cool about this one was the WWII angle with the first batch of murders being committed by a Crazy GI back from the war to find his girlfriend has fallen in love with some other guy whom she has taken to her High School (?) graduation dance. He kills them and then disappears. 35 later the killing starts again. I really like the look of the killer in the movie, I think the full combat gear matched with a pitch fork was very striking and new.

David Lo Pan

  

First appearance: Big Trouble in Little China (1986)

One of my favorite movies of all time (weird how many of them are John Carpenter movies) is Big Trouble in Little China. If you haven't seen it its about an over confident truck driver's attempt to stop an ancient evil Chinese ghost from marrying two women with green eyes. One girl is a gambling buddy's girlfriend and the the other is some woman he met at the airport. Mayhem ensues. 

An interesting bit of trivia: The movie was originally set in the old west, which would have made it the only actual western John Carpenter would have made, but was re-written by the guy responsible for The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the Eighth Dimension.

You might also like to know you can get Dave on a bunch of stuff at my Cafe press store. So if you dig this and want it on a shirt or a keychain or on a teddy bear or something go to the store and buy something.

Mutant

First appearance: Mutant (1984)

Two Brothers on vacation run afoul of some rednecks when one brother tries to take his younger brother's mind off his crippling allergy to wearing his shirts buttoned up by driving on the wrong side of the road. The rednecks retaliate by running the brothers off the road. Eventually the brothers make it to a small town where strange things are afoot! When shirtless brother disappears its up to crummy driving brother to discover the secret. Why did shirtless brother disappear? Why are the towns folk turning into weird zombies that leak a corrosive yellow ichor from their hands?
Pretty decent variation on zombie flicks.

The Creeper

First Appearance: House of Horrors (1946)

The first time I saw The Creeper was in The Brute Man, which was a kinda prequel to House of Horrors. The Brute Man was a very strange movie and kind of tasteless since the origin of The Creeper as shown in the movie sort of mirrors the sad life of Rondo Hatton the actor playing the creeper. The main difference is that after hatton was disfigured he went on to become an actor instead of a creepy murderer.