I like my monsters easily killed and their malignancy easily dismissed

I’m not going to write about last night’s debate, because a) I only saw a few moments of it and b) I cannot bear it. I spent my evening grading exams while playing a movie in the background because that was a less agonizing use of my time. Maybe you’d like to hear about the movie instead? It was crap, but it warmed my heart anyway.

The movie was Die, Monster, Die, and I first saw it when I was 9 years old. It triggers a cascade of remembrances, most of which have nothing to do with the movie itself, but with the circumstances. If I had to pick a happy moment in my life to dwell in for eternity, it would probably be being 9 again.

The context first, what came before. My family had gone through a rough patch, what we’d now call “economically distressed”, where everything conspired to increase our misery. My father was, as he was for many years, struggling to feed his family. He was on the Boeing roller coaster, occasionally getting a job with good benefits at that company, only to be laid off shortly afterwards and have to scramble to find some miserable manual labor job. My mother, with 4 kids, had tried to get a job herself, and this had increased Dad’s distress — he was a man of the mid-1960s, after all (he got better). If I had to name a moment of misery in my life, it would have been the year before when my parents were fighting and threatening divorce and I was totally bereft.

But that was all over when this movie came out. Parents were reconciled, family was stable again, and honestly, I came out of the experience with a deep appreciation of family. It was all that got me through the 1960s, and 70s, and 80s, and 90s, and 2000s, and 2010s, and it’s my only hope for the 2020s.

I also had a grand extended family. In my childhood times of trouble, I’d stay with my grandmother. My Uncle Ed lived with my grandmother, and he was one of those man-children who doted on his nephews and nieces, and had a near-total lack of ambition. He was always cheerful, though, and he seemed to have a thorough understanding of what children liked, because he was one himself.

On a fairly typical weekend, my brother and I would spend it with my grandmother and Uncle Ed, and get indulged. A great Friday evening would start with getting out of school, having dinner, and then going off to grandma’s house. Uncle Ed would take us to Stewart Drug in downtown Kent, and we’d buy comic books, come home, and lounge about for a while reading. Then we’d head over to the Vale Theater if there was an interesting movie playing (I’m getting to the movie, don’t worry!). After the movie, we’d get home to put on the Friday night creature feature, and stay up ridiculously late while Ed fell asleep on the couch.

Paradise, right?

So finally, this one night, the movie in town was Die, Monster, Die, irresistible bait to a 9 year old. We piled into Ed’s old Ford and trundled off across town. It was going to be a thrilling experience, even if an honest assessment of the movie is that it was fairly typical American International Pictures cheese, mainly about milking the name of its star, setting the stage with nice set full of creepy staircases and cobwebs, and throwing an occasional jump scare at us. In the 1960s, though, a jump scare was the sudden appearance of a bunch of rubber bats on strings. That was enough.

The star was Boris Karloff.

The story was based (loosely) on HP Lovecraft’s “The Color Out of Space”. There was another recent remake of the story, I think because it’s a classic of familial anxiety. It’s about a family that finds a mysterious glowing rock that corrupts everything — it generates monstrous growth and slowly poisons the family and leads to horrifying mutations.

It’s a metaphor for capitalism, you know.

So Karloff has a greenhouse full of giant plants and a zoo from hell, all made by tainting them with fragments of glowing green rock.

But his intentions are good! He wants to feed the world, he thinks his mysterious rock will lead to prosperity and restore the reputation of the Witley name. He continues to think that as his loyal servant, Merwyn, sickens and eventually dies, leaving a greasy stain on the floor. His wife Letitia is confined to her bed, her skin turning grey and mottled, begging her daughter and her boyfriend to escape while they can. Eventually Letitia goes mad and attacks everyone, her head covered with horrible growths, and she dies and decays in front of everyone’s eyes. That finally convinces Boris that he’s wrong, and he goes to destroy the rock with an axe, but is attacked by the family maid, also made monstrous by the malignant influence of capitalism the color out of space, and she pushes Boris into the rock, and he starts glowing and raging and rampaging, until the boyfriend knocks him off a balcony and he falls, his glowing body parts explode in blood and fire, and the movie ends with the family mansion burning down.

For some reason, this cheaply made “B” movie resonated with young Mr Myers. I was on the edge of my seat the whole time — the ghastly fate of the Witley family worried me so much and I took the deaths personally. I still remember the highlights of that otherwise nondescript cookie-cutter horror movie.

The other thing I remember is the ride home in Uncle Ed’s 1950s era car, the one with the high bench seats and no seat belts, of course. Those seats weren’t flush with the floor, and I was positive there was a monster under them, waiting to grab my ankles with malformed glowing claws, so I rode all the way home with my feet up on the seat. It was the only way to be sure. I didn’t sleep well that night, either. It was a great experience!

So I rewatched the movie last night while grading papers. It was a trifle, not too distracting, and it was bad. Not recommended unless you’re also carrying similar baggage, and unless the alternative is some ghastly shitshow. I won that evening!

Come to think of it, though, it would have been entirely appropriate to title the debate “Die, Monster, Die.” Can we please get rid of the green glowing rock imbedded in the heart of America? I want a simple solution like that, even if it ends with the entire goddamn thing burning to the ground.

Cool story, bro

Every few years, stories of Organism 46-B rise up again, and of course, I’m starting to see it again in 2020. Organism 46-B is a mythical creature of extreme inaccessibility — it lives in Lake Vostok, the freshwater lake buried 2 miles beneath Antarctic ice. You’d think that would hamper the spreading of the tall tale, since you’re not going to have drunk tourists stumbling around the edge of the lake snapping blurry photos of phenomena they call the Lake Vostok Monster, but it also prevents skeptics from dissecting the claims. They think. Except this story has Russian scientists building an elevator and sending scuba divers down to visit. Not true and not possible! A couple of holes have been bored down to the surface, but no one is going for a swim.

The scary story claims that the Russians found a giant monster down there.

Organism 46b is a species of giant octopus, but with 14 arms rather than eight.

It also spits poison and can mimic human form. I think I see a bad B movie developing here.

I’m disappointed. It’s so implausible on every level, yet I think 2020 really needs a tentacled man-eating sea monster.

By the way, one truly cool story: the existence of deep Antarctic lakes was predicted by the great Peter Kropotkin.

The late, great Catface

I am sorry to report that, on my latest scan of my house, I have discovered that our beloved feral friend, the Cat-Faced Spider That Lives Under the Eaves of our Garage, has died. She seems to have passed quietly in her web, probably due to the dropping temperatures in the area. She simply curled up quietly and died, possibly just overnight.

Internment will be tomorrow. I’m warming the body in my house in case she revivifies.

We are having a viewing on Patreon and Instagram.

The Matinee of Pain starts in about an hour and a half

At 1pm Central time, I’ll be watching … The Giant Spider Invasion. It’s good, right? It’s one of the ones you guys recommended, so I’m sure it’ll be terrific. The description says,

A black hole hits North Wisconsin and opens a door to other dimensions. Giant 15 meter spiders emerge from it, who have an appetite for human flesh! Dr. Jenny Langer and Dr. Vance from the NASA try to save the world.

Totally scientifically plausible, sure.

Well, not ever gonna play Fall Guys now

Fall Guys is a popular video game. I’m not much into video games, so I probably wasn’t going to play it anyway, but now this illustration of the hypothetical anatomy of the creatures in it has totally turned me off.

What is the jaw connected to?

I understand some of you are repelled by spiders, but they at least have a logical structure. This is the kind of content that sends my brain screaming into the void.

Big busy day today!

I just finished dumping a load of stuff on my cell biology students — the answer keys for a previous quiz and a set of practice problems, and most horrendous of all, another take-home exam that will be due Sunday night. Yes, I have just ruined their weekend. Class today is a review session, and an opportunity for them to get me to clarify anything on the exam they’re finding difficult to understand. That’s my struggle today, and theirs for the next few days.

My weekend is going to be spent wrangling our grand fundraiser, the Carnival of Curiosity, which starts this evening. I’m still quarantined for another week, so it’s not like I have anything else I can do. Take a look at the schedule!

Tonight, 5pm PT-8pm ET, 1am BST, we’re doing introductions of people on the West side of the Atlantic. Meet some of our bloggers! Ask questions!

Because that’s a ridiculous hour for everyone East of the Atlantic, we’ll resume at 7am PT-10am ET, 3pm BST. Same thing! Meet the bloggers and socialize!

This is a fundraiser, so please do donate to our various buckets we’re putting out on the sidewalk.

It is an optional donation, though, so please do stop by even if your pockets are empty (no one can blame you in this particular moment in history). We’re also hoping to expose you to the breadth of cool authors here on FtB, so just having any audience at all is a win for us.

Halloween cancelled!

Bad news, everyone: Minnesota has cancelled Halloween.

Like many things in the year of the COVID-19 pandemic, Halloween might have to be virtual this year — or at least celebrated at a safe distance.

That’s the recommendation from the Minnesota Department of Health and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

What’s out? Trick-or-treating, Halloween parties and haunted houses are all considered high risk by health officials.

This virus is ruining everything.

You call them monsters?

Someone sent me a link to this page about using spiders in Dungeons & Dragons…as monsters. I am offended!

That’s right those creepy crawly bitey little buggers with all the legs and all the eyes. I hate them IRL [OFFENDED!], and will terminate any that cross over the agreed upon barrier into my home [<gasp> OFFENDED!]. Its a feeling alot of folks the world over share and that is easily exploited for your tabletop game. Which I suggest doing. Its amazing. So here we go – using spiders to torture your players in the best and most memorable ways.

First we have to establish a few things, the biggest of which are the types of spiders found in the game that can be used. Most people assume we mean either the tiny version or the giant version. There is however so~ many spiders that are all canon in 5e so don’t be afraid to mix and match them up to create more diverse encounters. For this blog we will just be talking about spiders not Drieders or spider demons, though I think those are also great things to add to the mix to spice it up. Below is just a quick list of those that can be found in the books. These are create starting points for an easy mix up to the normal spider.

  • Spider Swarm
  • Spider
  • Giant Spider
  • Giant Wolf Spider
  • Phase Spider

All right, if ever I were a Dungeon Master, first thing I’d do is replace all the player character races with that list. That’ll torture the players! Then I’d expand the list with more species of arachnids, and replace the Monster Manual with the Player’s Handbook.