Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with monsters

Simpler Pokemon

Eddie Mars — Mon, 28 Dec 2009 17:00:25 -0800

My twin nephews love to collect Pokemon cards, but are too young to really get the rules. I think I have the basics down after reading instructions on the web, but I'm only visiting for the week, and when I'm gone none of the grown-ups will remember the rules.

Is there a simplified rule set that they can use to play the game? If not, does anyone have a recommendation for a similar card game that might be easier for them (and their parents) to pick up?

Books about cryptozoology?

spockette — Wed, 13 May 2009 11:57:23 -0800

I'd like some recommendations for books about cryptozoology. A broad overview of the subject would be welcome, but I'd prefer books that are more specific to a single kind of creature, like lake monsters, Bigfoot, yetis, the Jersey Devil, Mothman, or any other fantastical creatures. I really don't want anything about the Loch Ness monster (but other lake monsters would be fine). I grew up in a wee village a few miles from Loch Ness, so, as you can imagine, I've had more than enough Nessie to last me a lifetime.

I'm not looking for books that debunk this kind of thing - I'm already a skeptic, I just think monsters are cool.

Horr Haus for the Vroog ...or something like that.

y2karl — Tue, 14 Apr 2009 11:07:05 -0800

Having had such luck in my last AskMe post, I trying again. I want to find if anyone recalls the title of another science fiction short story I read when I was young*. It involved a nightmare scenario where sinister predatory aliens were snatching drivers and passengers from speeding vehicles on a fast moving freeway. *Which means this story was written in the late 50s to early 60s.

It was about a man who had invented some sort of transport or teleportation machine that carried people to other various dimensions. In the story, the inventor had fallen on hard times and was looking for some venture capital and took someone, possibly an amusemnt park owner, to another dimension where the people--or nonthreatening alien beings--there drove around on enormous freeways at insanely breakneck speeds while being preyed upon by some larger and very sinister creatures in larger and very sinister vehicles--monsters in monster trucks, so to speak--who were snatching (and presumably eating) drivers and passengers from their vehicles almost as if they were opening cans of tuna.

At the next to last moment in the story, the monsters--who went by some one syllable, four or five letter long, name ending in the letters 'oog,' as in hroog, droog. vroog or something similar--ended up breaking on through from the other side and snatching the putative venture capitalist and/or amusement park owner from the inventor's lab.

After this the inventor allowed as to how he was going to build 'a horr hous for the vroog.'

Does anyone remember this story ?

Spoiler alert: it was not, by the way, the story Roog by Philip K Dick.

Help me remember a mid-90s adventure game

fvw — Wed, 17 Dec 2008 13:29:50 -0800

I'm trying to remember a DOS game I used to play. It was an adventure type game where each level you had a task to complete in a dungeons-and-dragons type setting, so mages, archers, skeletons, that sort of thing. After each level you could hire new people to be on your team, and I think the ones that died during the level stayed gone permanently. You could switch between the various people on your team instantly by hitting a key (pgup/pgdn?). There was something of an overarching plot between the levels where a dark lord was using skeletons and zombies to take over towns and castles (that doesn't narrow it down much, I know). I also remember the mages could teleport to a random spot, and the druids(?) could plant trees which you could use as walls. Each character had a health bar and a mana bar.

On the technical side, this was very low res (must have been 320x200), and it used DOS4GW (and for some reason I think overlays too). There was a cooperative mode where you had a split screen and you two people could each control a team member at the same time. The terrain consisted of a large rectangle which you had a scrolling viewport onto, and I don't think the mouse was involved at all.

I realise each part of that describes hundreds of games, but the hive mind is so good at tracking these things down I figured I'd give it a shot. Thanks for reading anyway.

GODZILLA!!!

god particle — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 15:08:06 -0800

What are some classic, old sci-fi movies? By classic & old I mean films from the 1950s or 1960s. Particularly, I'm looking for films that feature things like monsters (such as Godzilla), robots, aliens, science experiments gone wrong. One that I can think of is "The Day the Earth Stood Still". I'd prefer them to be good films rather than MST3K fodder.

And if such a place exists (these films might be old enough to be in the public domain), where can I watch these online?

Add a new category to this list: Aliens, Monsters, Ghosts...

Flying Saucer — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 20:51:29 -0800

Aliens, monsters, and ghosts. The big three. But is there a fourth? I am working on a writing project and am struggling with a conundrum that I thought I'd bring to the hive mind.

It seems to me that in speculative fiction (which encompasses science fiction, fantasy, and horror), there are three major elements, or adversaries:

1. Aliens
2. Monsters
3. Ghosts

The brave souls who fight these creatures have been the basis of all kinds of exciting stories.

For example, in the comic book and the movie, the Men In Black fought aliens.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer fought monsters.

Ghostbusters fought ghosts.

Mulder and Scully fought all three.

So my question is...is there a fourth category? Spirits, maybe? Elves? Combining the categories has already been done -- remember the alien ghosts of "Final Fantasy"?

Any thoughts?

I am sure I can find monsters in my closet, but they don't come pre-mounted.

silkygreenbelly — Tue, 03 Jun 2008 18:00:53 -0800

Colorado Craft Filter: I am looking to find how to procure another mounted monster head. My sister gave me Silky Greenbelly for Christmas last year. She said she saw it at an Arts and Craft show in Colorado and thought of me. She thinks she remembers that it was a husband/wife; one would create the mounted heads and one would write a brief placard about them. She does not remember where the craft show was (other than colorado) or what it was called or even if the artists are based in Colorado.
I can find no distinguishing artist marks/signature on the placard or the actual monster head.

A good friend of mine saw Silky Greenbelly and thought she was awesome. I am moving away and would like to get her one as a gift before I go. But I have been unsuccessful in my google search efforts (so far all I have dug up is my own twitter account and numerous links on how to mount animal heads). If anyone has information on who the artist is or how to get another mounted head I would be very happy.

(I would rather give her Silky Greenbelly than make my own monster, so please, no suggestions on how to make one myself).

trying to find THE most brutal whale picture

domakesaypat — Sat, 19 Jan 2008 16:08:12 -0800

I've been trying to find a really brutal picture/print/woodcutting of an old-school whale/sea monster for awhile, as a potential tattoo. You know the kind, double blowholes that look more like horns, fangs, the kinds you see in the corners of old maps. Bibliodyssey has some ok ones, but I'm looking for the perfect one, because I know if I settle for another, I'll just find the perfect one the second I've permanently inked myself with a mediocre monster. Any ideas of where I could look?

A huge head and a short stumpy body

markovich — Mon, 26 Nov 2007 19:48:02 -0800

What monsters are still scary? When described with words only? When I read books, the monsters all seem pretty mild. A man with fangs is not scary, and we've seen slimy slugs on TV hundreds of times. These written descriptions of monsters no longer scare because we've actually seen depictions of them on TV and no longer use our imaginations.

What monsters can be described that are actually still scary?

There is an artist that does these weird, hyper realistic sculptures of human-animal-monsters and I can't remember the name...

BigBrownBear — Sun, 21 Oct 2007 10:55:39 -0800

There is an artist that does these weird, hyper realistic sculptures of human-animal-monsters and I can't remember the name... I might be wrong but I think it's a woman and they are very great, almost tender pieces. One that I saw was a human/dog naked mother with her pups breastfeeding. There is an exhibit right now in Vitoria, Spain of the work.

I've tried google searches but you can just imagine what comes up for human-monster.

Where are the monsters?

steinwald — Mon, 15 Oct 2007 06:55:06 -0800

I'm looking for female monsters. Mythological, literary, cultural, etc... So far, I've got: Medusa Grendel's Mother Witches

Making Zelda toys for a 3-year-old

blueshammer — Fri, 24 Aug 2007 08:14:27 -0800

DIY fantasy toys -- I've been playing The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess on the Wii, and my 2-year-old loves to watch and play along, to the point of sticking a foam sword down the back of shirt and running around with a Nerf slingshot and fishing pole. He turns 3 in September and in addition to his "nutritional" presents, I thought I would also get/make him some fantasy-enabling stuff. What are some existing toys that do a good job of mimicking Zelda-esque accoutrements, and/or what should be avoided, and/or what's easiest to make myself? An even bigger issue is finding "safe" stuff for him to swing his sword at ... some kind of indoor/outdoor monsters that are at least a foot tall or so. I can see making something out of pillows, or lampshades, or even buying a cheap toy if it's properly durable. Any ideas?

Strangling the monster in the crib

commander_cool — Tue, 10 Jul 2007 12:08:46 -0800

What are the origins of the idiom "strangle the monster in the crib"?

Looking for a specific children's book

comfortinsound — Mon, 02 Apr 2007 19:10:27 -0800

i am looking for a children's book that my friend read when she was in elementary school (5-10 years ago.) the book is about a boy and a girl who go on an adventure through a magical world and save the people from a monster. then, the girl dies, and the boy has to boil her in a pot to bring her back to life. my friend and i are despretely searching for this book. she can remember a lot of its details: the main character lives a normal life until creatures come out from behind his stove and tell him that he needs to go on a mission in his (dead, i think) father's place. he and his friend encounter all of these magical beings, but then she dies. he somehow knows that he needs to climb up this mountain using her bones, sort of like icepicks, and then he defeats a horrible monster and saves the people. then he boils her dead body in a pot to bring her back to life.
i know the plot sounds strange, but i have been helping my friend look for this book for a long time, and any information you have about it would be much appriciated.

Similar books to The Terror

i_am_a_Jedi — Wed, 10 Jan 2007 08:49:37 -0800

BookRecFilter: One of my favorite authors has just knocked my socks off with his most recent book. I love what he did so much that I'd like to find other historical fiction like this. *Small spoiler for The Terror inside* The Terror by Dan Simmons just came out and it is amazing. Here's a review from The Agony Column (great site btw).
I read a lot of science fiction, but not much historical fiction. The basic premise is that HMS Terror and HMS Erebus were lost while searching for the Northwest Passage through the Arctic. The ships were never recovered and the crews perished. This is fictionalizing of the events.

I'm having a difficult time trying to pin down what I liked about it. I think that it was because there was a supernatural element to the story (hunted by an artic monster), but that was far from the emphasis. This wasn't aliens coming to get them or the monster eating everyone. The twist of the story was that despite this monster, ultimately it was nature and man's hubris that doomed them.

So any historical fiction recommendations that feature not-so-much-in-your-face supernatural things, uncertain fates of the characters, and is a page-turner?
I've already read and loved S.M. Stirling's Island in the Sea of Time

The lighthouse ghost

zek — Mon, 11 Dec 2006 15:33:47 -0800

Does anyone recognize this old Scottish lighthouse ghost story? I haven't heard anything like it since I first read it.

Basically there's a lighthouse keeper in a remote area of Scotland. Every time the lightkeeper goes to bed, some weird monster drifts from the depths of the lighthouse into the room, hovers over the bed, and is sufficiently frightening or hypnotic to where the guy in bed can't get up. The monster somehow drinks a fill of blood, and the lightkeeper can't remember what happened in the morning. Eventually it goes on long enough, night after night, to where he dies of blood loss.

This was in a ghost story collection (probably Victorian era, maybe M. R. James or the like) that I checked out at the school library about 25 years ago. I seem to recall there were some other interesting spine tinglers in there, too.

Sound familiar?

I need a Latin translation for "In books, truth, and in truth, monsters."

Faint of Butt — Thu, 07 Sep 2006 22:54:14 -0800

I need a translation into Latin here. The phrase is: "In books, there is truth, and in truth, there are monsters." I'd like it to be as short and concise as possible, perhaps something like "In books, truth, and in truth, monsters." I'm working on a rather odd story right now, so I may have some more strange questions in the coming weeks. Thanks.

Name this old horror movie about strange proceedings at sea!

scamper — Tue, 01 Aug 2006 22:37:00 -0800

FlickFilter: This scary movie, perhaps from the early 60s, finds our cast stranded on a ship which has become mired in some kind of dense seaweed. They see another galleon nearby and debark to explore it. Each member of the crew dons individual helium (/hydrogen?) balloons--harnessed to their backs like water-wings--and snowshoe-like shoes, and walk across the water to the other boat. This definitive scene is very eerie, and is the clearest in my memory. The rest I've pieced together from scraps, but may help anyway: At some point I think our crew learns that the captain of the other ship periodically feeds his crew members to a giant sucking mouth on the other side of a trapdoor in the floor of the ship. Teeth are involved. Weird things ensue.

All I need is enough information to hunt the title down online. I've seen all the horror/sci fi movies from my childhood, but this one has eluded me. (A friend recommended "Mysterious Island" but I don't think that's it, judging by synopses I've read.)

Favourite scenes from B-movie monster flicks?

Yogurt — Mon, 31 Oct 2005 10:20:55 -0800

Favourite scenes from B-movie monster flicks? I've been asked to make a game... I'm looking for favourite scenes or bit players from B-movie monster flicks.

A board game publisher has asked me to submit a prototype of an adventure game where players guide classic monsters through 1940s San Francisco. In this case, classic monsters means the wolfman, gillman, vampire, mummy, Frankenstein's monster and a scientist/beetle.

The game includes a deck of encounter cards, so I'm trying to collect familiar or canonical scenes to feature on the cards. For example, the monster encounters a child, peers through a window, is mistaken for human, is confronted by gypsies, fights on a rooftop, emerges from a secret tunnel, and so on.

I'm cheerfully watching old movies for ideas, but I don't want to leave anyone saying "how could he forget X...?"

Happy Hallowe'en!

Eat the Humans!

wanderingmind — Tue, 11 Jan 2005 19:30:45 -0800

So let's say, hypothetically, I wanted to throw a party of some kind, themed around monster movies. The twist, though, is that we'll be rooting for the monsters. To this end, I want to find human-shaped food. [crunchy bits inside]