Pop Vultures

Monsters are on my mind these days. This is not a metaphor for some tormented mental state, either; I’m just thinking about monsters. What with the reappearance of Lost and Supernatural on the same night, it rather feels like Monster Week on the TV, ten months early. This week’s Friday 5 looks at some of the creepiest, scariest monsters from the last few years.

5. Show: Lost
Episode: Several
Monster: The whomping island…thing?

The only reason this doesn’t rank higher is that no one is actually sure what it is. It seems like a monster. The pilot who was ripped from his cockpit in order to be an afternoon snack would certainly agree. Everyone who’s been dragged across some bumpy jungle terrain would also think so (after all, that’s got to chafe). But, in the end, no one knows whether it’s an actual monster, or a monster representing the island itself, and the island may or may not represent purgatory, a religious schism or the current US political parties. Its power to inspire fear comes from its unknown quality and its unpredictability. Unfortunately, on the days when the special effects department makes it seem like little more than a nasty storm, the fear factor is mitigated somewhat.

4. The show: Supernatural
Episode: “Bedtime Stories”
Monster: Grandma

It’s likely there’ve been scarier monsters on this show, but this is the most recent one that sticks in my mind. The episode’s plot involved fairy tales coming to life, and none were creepier than Hansel & Gretel with its smiling, lemonade-swilling grandmother. This show delights in corrupting sweet and saintly icons in some way (my inner six-year-old still hasn’t recovered from what they did to poor Santa Claus), and grandma doesn’t come out well here. After poisoning two hikers that stumble across her quaint little cottage, she grabs a knife, carefully checks the edge and then happily swipes it across her victim — without once losing her sweet smile or mussing a strand of her white hair. Evil is bad enough; evil with a grin is downright creepy.

3. The show: Doctor Who
Episode: “Blink”
Monster: Weeping angels

“Don’t blink. Blink and you’re dead. Don’t turn your back. Don’t look away, and don’t blink.” Did you blink? Are you blinking now? Of course you are. You can’t help it. And with that message, delivered by the Doctor, we were drawn into one of the scariest episodes of Doctor Who, ever. The basic premise was that the statues of weeping angels could only stalk their prey when it wasn’t looking, but a single blink gave them enough time to swoop in and claim a life. On their own, they weren’t especially terrifying — a bit grotesque in expression, but it’s not like they were dripping in gore or anything — but the brilliance of this episode was the way it upped the psychological terror. Your survival is entirely in your hands; all you have to do is not blink. And, eventually, everyone blinks. You’ll never trust a stone statue again after watching this one.

2. Show: X-Files
Episode: “Irresistible”
Monster: Donnie Phaster

Plattie, our resident X-Files fiend and David Duchovny-stalker, chose this as the scariest X-Files monster of them all — and it’s a human. In a series that gave every paranormal ghoul and goblin its time to shine, this episode proved that little is scarier than what humans are capable of doing to each other. Donnie was a death fetishist who liked to desecrate graves in order to, ahem, do stuff. His obsession with both sex and death dropped this character right into the middle of our subconsciouses, where it could play hacky sack with our desires and fears. When he moved on to live people, it only served to highlight how thin the line is between the living and dead. As Mulder himself said, “The fear of violent death and the primitive impulse to survive are as frightening as any X-File, as real as the acceptance that it could happen to you.” Terrifying.

1. Show: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Episode: “Hush”
Monster: The Gentleman

Buffy has a long list of effective monsters, but none were as genuinely scary as the Gentlemen. The silent characters did not utter any of the quips we’d come to expect from our Whedon villains. Instead, they floated about with their menacing grins and occasionally cut out a heart from an incapacitated — but awake — student (apparently, they didn’t need any livers, as I’d imagine a university would be a poor place to find a healthy one). Not only do they do this in absolute silence, but they also steal the voices from Sunnydale’s entire population. Like all good horror, it tapped into a primal fear, that of the inability to cry out for help, to be heard in any way. It was bad enough that the things had a nasty habit of collecting still-beating hearts, but it was made so much worse when these gentlemen lacked the courtesy to let their victims scream while they did it.

What do you think? What television monsters haunt your nightmares?