The 100 Greatest Monsters From Movies And Television #41 - #50

50. SLEESTAKS

Land of the Lost was a 1974–1976 TV series relating the adventures of the Marshall family (including Will and Holly and their father, later replaced by their uncle). The Marshalls become trapped in a pocket universe populated by dinosaurs, ape-like creatures called Pakuni, and anthropomorphic reptilian creatures named Sleestak. This article concerns these characters, along with other human and alien visitors to the Land of the Lost.

Sleestaks are devolved, green humanoids with both reptilian and insectoid features; they have scaly skin with frills around the neck, bulbous unblinking eyes, pincer-like hands, stubby tails, and a single blunt horn on top of the head, and bear a resemblance to the hypothetical "Dinosauroid". Sleestaks often communicate with a hissing sound that rarely changes in characteristics. However, like their Altrusian ancestors, they possess some rudimentary form of telepathy as well. Sleestaks are more sophisticated than Pakuni and are able to manufacture crossbows, rope, nets, periscopes[9] and other relatively advanced technologies. Sleestak are typically equipped with a crossbow and a quiver full of metal bolts which hang from their waist. The Sleestak have a current population of about 7,000 according to the Library of Skulls, but there were only three Sleestak costumes available for the show's production, which sometimes required creative editing to create the illusion that they were that numerous.

Sleestaks live in the Lost City, an underground tunnel complex originally constructed by the Altrusians. They hate bright light and rarely venture out during the day. Sleestaks also have a "hibernation season" during which they cocoon themselves into rocky alcoves using some sort of webbing; cool air keeps them in hibernation, and the heat from lava in a pool that the character Peter Koenig (see below) dubbed "Devil's Cauldron" inside the caverns of the Lost City revives them again on a regular schedule. The Sleestaks are very defensive of the Lost City. They know that their ancestors built it, but do not know how or why. They have occasionally tried exploring beyond the chasm that separates the Lost City from the rest of the Land, but their expeditions generally do not return; they consider the City to be their only refuge. However, after the earthquake at the beginning of season 3 the Sleestaks are afraid and try to kick the Marshalls out of the temple. Fortunately, Jack gets the door shut and the Sleestaks are trapped outside.

The Sleestaks have encountered many other humans who have become trapped in the Land of the Lost before the Marshalls arrive, and regard humans as a terrible threat; they attempt to capture and sacrifice humans to their god (an unseen beast who dwells in a smoky pit) at every opportunity.

49. MR HYDE

Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde is a 1931 American horror film directed by Rouben Mamoulian and starring Fredric March. The film is an adaptation of The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (1886), the Robert Louis Stevenson tale of a man who takes a potion which turns him from a mild-mannered man of science into a crude homicidal maniac.

The film tells of Dr. Jekyll (Fredric March), a kind doctor who experiments with drugs because he's certain that within each man lurks impulses for both good and evil.

Dr. Jekyll develops a drug to release the evil side in himself, becoming the hard drinking, woman-chasing Mr. Hyde. Jekyll quickly becomes addicted to the formula, and unable to control the violent and unstable Mr. Hyde. The film ends when Lanyon, Jekyll's friend, and the police try to capture Jekyll, who slowly begins to transform into Hyde. Realizing that the jig is up, Hyde tries to escape from the lab by climbing to a window, but Lanyon shoots him, causing him to fall onto Jekyll's laboratory table. Hyde begins to transform into Jekyll, while Jekyll's butler, Poole, begins to cry for his late master.

48. THEM!

Them! is a 1954 American black and white science fiction film about man's encounter with a nest of gigantic irradiated ants. It is based on an original story treatment by George Worthing Yates. It was developed into a screenplay by Ted Sherdeman and Russell Hughes for Warner Bros. Pictures Inc., and was produced by David Weisbart and directed by Gordon Douglas. It starred James Whitmore, Edmund Gwenn, Joan Weldon and James Arness.

One of the first of the "nuclear monster" movies, and the first "big bug" film, Them! was nominated for an Oscar for Special Effects and won a Golden Reel Award for Best Sound Editing. It is significant that the film starts off as a simple suspense story, with police investigating mysterious disappearances and deaths, all from no explainable cause. The giant ants are not even seen until almost a third of the way into the film.

The film begins with New Mexico State Police Sergeant Ben Peterson (James Whitmore) discovering a little girl wandering the desert near Alamogordo, New Mexico, mute and in a state of shock. They track her back to a trailer owned by an FBI agent named Ellinson, who was on vacation in the area with his wife and 2 children. The side of the trailer is found to have been ripped open from the outside, the sugar bowl is spilled across the table and the parents are missing and presumed dead. The girl briefly responds when strange sounds echo out of the desert wind, but the troopers miss this moment.

More mysterious deaths and disappearances occur in the area. A general store owner named Gramps Johnson is found dead, his store literally torn apart. With all the money left in the register but all of the store's sacks of sugar missing and Gramps' empty rifle bent on the floor, the cops think that there is a maniac killer on the loose. But, as Peterson's boss points out (after Peterson's patrol partner Ed Blackburn, played by Chris Drake, was killed too, while strange ullulating echos mingle with his gunshots and cries), Gramps' 30-30 was emptied and "Ed Blackburn was a crack shot. He could hit anything he could see. So unless your killer is armored like a battleship, there's no maniac in this case." It's up to the coroner to deliver the verdict that "Gramps Johnson could have died in any one of five ways: his neck and back were broken, his chest was crushed, his skull was fractured, and here's one for Sherlock Holmes: there was enough formic acid in him to kill twenty men."

The FBI sends in local agent Robert Graham (James Arness) to assist. A single strange track as big as a mountain lion's is found in the desert near the trailer and a plaster cast of it is made and sent to Washington, DC. When the FBI is unable to identify the footprint, it attracts the attention of Doctors Harold (Edmund Gwenn) and Pat Medford (Joan Weldon), a father/daughter team of entomologists from the Department of Agriculture.

The elder Doctor Medford arrives on the scene with a theory, but will not disclose it until he tries an experiment on the Ellinson girl, having her smell the contents of a vial of formic acid, which frees her from her state of near-catatonic withdrawal, screaming "Them! Them!" Returning to the destroyed trailer with Peterson, Graham, and his daughter, Medford has his theory dramatically given its final proof when the group encounters a foraging ant, mutated by atomic radiation to the size of an automobile. The ants produce loud, distinctive stridulating calls that become the iconic signature of the beasts. The lawmen kill the creature with a Thompson submachine gun after finding that their revolvers have little effect. They aimed for the antennae on Medford's advice that they were helpless without them.

A company of the US Air Force is brought in, led by General O'Brien (Stevens), which locates the ants' nest and exterminates the inhabitants with poison gas. The younger Dr. Medford, who accompanies Peterson and Graham into the nest, finds evidence that two young queens have hatched and flown away to establish new colonies. Trying to avoid a general panic, the government covertly monitors and investigates any reports of unusual activities as sightings of "flying saucers". One of the queens ends up in the hold of an ocean-going freighter loaded with sugar, which is then overrun by the ants and subsequently sunk by a US Navy cruiser. From the rantings of an alcoholic, and an investigation into the death of a father protecting his two young, now missing, sons from an apparent ant attack, the other queen is finally tracked to the Los Angeles storm drain system, forcing the Army to openly declare martial law and launch a major assault.

During the assault, Peterson finds the two missing boys, named Mike and Jerry, alive, trapped by the ants in a side tunnel, which is also the entrance to the nest. Peterson calls in for backup, but instead of waiting for it, he bravely goes in alone, heroically rescuing the two boys and killing two threatening ants with his flamethrower. Peterson leads the two boys back to the pipe through which he came, intending that they all crawl back through it to safety. After hoisting up the first boy, Jerry, however, another ant appears from behind, and thinking quickly and selflessly, Peterson saves the second boy, Mike, but after lifting the boy into the pipe, Peterson is left without time to save himself. As he tries to climb up into the pipe at the last minute, the ant grabs Peterson in its mandibles, "stinging" him with its lethal formic acid.

Graham arrives at the scene quickly with the reinforcements, and kills the ant attacking Peterson. He rushes over to Peterson's side just in time to hear Peterson's last words, confirming that the boys made it to safety, before Peterson dies. Graham returns to the battle, nearly getting killed himself when a cave-in temporarily seals him off from the rest of the men as they march towards the egg chamber; several ants charge him, but Graham is able to hold them off long enough for the other troops to tunnel through the debris and come to his rescue. The nest's queen and egg chamber are then destroyed with flamethrowers after a short but fierce battle, but the senior Dr. Medford issues a grim warning that the atomic genie has been let out of the bottle, and further horrors may await mankind.

47. ALEX

A Clockwork Orange is a 1971 British darkly satirical science fiction film adaptation of Anthony Burgess's 1962 novel of the same name. The film concerns Alex (Malcolm McDowell), a charismatic delinquent whose pleasures are classical music (especially Beethoven), rape, and so-called 'ultra-violence'. He leads a small gang of thugs (Pete, Georgie, and Dim), whom he calls his droogs (from the Russian друг, “friend”, “buddy”). The film tells the horrific crime spree of his gang, his capture, and attempted rehabilitation via a controversial psychological conditioning technique. Alex narrates most of the film in Nadsat, a fractured, contemporary adolescent argot comprising Slavic (especially Russian), English, and Cockney rhyming slang.

In the near-future of London, Alex and his friends, called "droogs", Pete (Michael Tarn), Georgie (James Marcus), and Dim (Warren Clarke), are partaking of "milk plus", a milk with various drugs mixed in, at the Korova Milk Bar prior to an evening of "the old ultra-violence". They proceed to beat up an elderly vagrant (Paul Farrell) under a motorway and interrupt an attempted gang rape of a woman in an abandoned casino by a rival gang of camouflage wearing Walts led by Billyboy[2] (Richard Connaught). They subsequently get in a brawl with their rivals. Upon hearing the sounds of police sirens, Alex and his gang flee, stealing a car and driving into the countryside. They then gain entry to the home of Mr. Alexander, a writer, under false pretenses and assault him while violently raping his wife (Adrienne Corri), all while Alex sings Singin' in the Rain. When they return to the milk bar, Alex strikes Dim when he interrupts a female patron who is singing the Ode to Joy from the final movement of the Ninth Symphony of Beethoven, a composer Alex admires.

The next day, Alex skips school and has an encounter with probation officer Mr. P. R. Deltoid (Aubrey Morris). Deltoid is exasperated with Alex and talks about all his hard work with him. Deltoid is the one person who easily sees through Alex's lies. After picking up and having sex with two girls from a record shop, Alex regroups with his droogs in his building lobby, but finds Georgie insisting the gang be run in a "new way" that entails less power for Alex and more ambitious crimes. As they walk along a canal, Alex attacks his droogs in order to re-establish his leadership.

That night, the gang attempts to invade the home of a woman (Miriam Karlin) who lives alone with her cats and runs a health farm. In the process, she gets into a fight with Alex, and Alex bludgeons her with a phallus-shaped statue. Dim smashes a milk bottle across Alex's face, temporarily blinding him and leaving him to be found by the police as Dim, Georgie, and Pete flee the scene. During his interrogation, Alex is told by Mr. Deltoid that he is now a murderer, because the woman died from her injuries.

Alex is tried for murder, convicted, and sentenced to 14 years in prison. Two years into his sentence, Alex becomes friends with the prison chaplain and takes a keen interest in the Bible, primarily the more violent passages. The Minister of the Interior (Anthony Sharp) arrives at the prison looking for volunteers for the Ludovico technique, an experimental aversion therapy for rehabilitating criminals. Alex eagerly steps forward, wanting only to get out of prison, and not caring at all about the technique, much to the disgust of Chief Officer Barnes (Michael Bates). At the Ludovico facility, Alex is placed in a straitjacket and forced to watch films containing scenes of extreme violence while being given drugs to induce reactions of revulsion. The films presented includes real scenes in Nazi Germany as Beethoven's Ninth Symphony plays over it. Alex realises this will probably condition him against Beethoven's music and makes an agonised though unsuccessful attempt to have the treatment end prematurely before the conditioning sets in. Two weeks later, after the treatment is finished, Alex's reformed behaviour is demonstrated for the audience. He is unable to respond to an Irish actor's (John Clive) shouting insults and picking a fight with him, and a feeling of sickness attacks him when he is presented with a young naked woman who sexually arouses him. The Minister declares Alex to be cured, but the chaplain asserts that Alex no longer has any free will.

Alex is immediately released from prison. He returns home only to find that his possessions have been confiscated by the state and his parents have rented his room to a lodger named Joe (Clive Francis), leaving him on his own. On the street, Alex comes across the same vagrant he had assaulted before the treatment, who shouts for his friends and they attack Alex. Two policemen arrive to break up the fight, but Alex discovers the policemen to be his former droogs, Georgie and Dim. They drag Alex out to the countryside, where they brutally beat and half-drown him in a cattle water trough, before leaving him for dead.

Battered and bruised, Alex wanders to the home of Mr. Alexander, who does not recognise him from two years previously, due to the mask Alex had worn at the time. Permanently crippled from that attack, Mr. Alexander now lives with a personal bodyguard, manservant, and physical trainer named Julian (David Prowse). Mr. Alexander takes Alex into his home, aware that he had undergone the Ludovico treatment due to the story published in all of the country's newspapers. Mr. Alexander tends to Alex's wounds, but the memories of his assault return when Alex sings "Singin' in the Rain" while he is taking a bath. Mr. Alexander drugs Alex, locks him in the upper floor of his home and plays Beethoven's Ninth Symphony at full volume through a powerful stereo on the floor below, knowing that the Ludovico treatment will cause immense pain to Alex. In order to escape the torture, Alex becomes suicidal and throws himself out of the room's window.

Alex recovers consciousness days later to find himself in traction, with dreams about doctors messing around inside his head. Through a series of psychological tests, Alex finds that he no longer has a revulsion to violence. The Minister of the Interior comes to Alex and apologises for subjecting him to the treatment, and informs him that Mr. Alexander has been "put away". The Minister then offers Alex an important government job and, as a show of goodwill, has a stereo wheeled to his bedside playing Beethoven's Ninth. Alex then realises that instead of an adverse reaction to the music, he sees images of sexual pleasure. He then states, in a sarcastic and menacing voice-over, "I was cured, all right!"

46. THE THING

The Thing from Another World (often referred to as The Thing before its 1982 remake), is a 1951 science fiction film based on the 1938 novella "Who Goes There?" by John W. Campbell, Jr. It tells the story of an Air Force crew and scientists at a remote Arctic research outpost who fight a malevolent plant-based alien being. It stars Kenneth Tobey, Margaret Sheridan, Robert Cornthwaite and Douglas Spencer. James Arness appeared.

A U.S. Air Force re-supply crew is officially dispatched by General Fogerty (David McMahon) from Anchorage, Alaska at the unusual request of Dr. Carrington (Robert Cornthwaite), chief of a group of scientists working at a North Pole base, Polar Expedition Six. They have evidence that an unknown flying craft of some kind crashed nearby. Ned Scott (Douglas Spencer), a reporter in search of a story, tags along. A minor romantic sub-plot involves Captain Patrick Hendry (Kenneth Tobey) and Carrington's secretary, Nikki Nicholson (Margaret Sheridan).

Doctor Carrington briefs the airmen, and Doctor Redding (George Fenneman) shows high speed photos of an object moving downward, up and on a straight line - not the movements of a meteor. Hendry wonders to the doctor, "Twenty thousand tons of steel is an awful lot of metal for an airplane." "It is for the sort of aeroplane we KNOW, Captain," Carrington responds. From Geiger counter readings, Hendry's crew and the scientists fly to the crash site aboard the supply team's ski-equipped C-47. The craft is buried in the ice, with a vertical stabilizer protruding from the surface. They are shocked to discover that the shape of the craft is that of a flying saucer. They try to free it with thermite heat explosives, but in doing so accidentally destroy the craft. Crew Chief Sergeant Bob's (Dewey Martin) geiger counter locates a body nearby, frozen in the ice.

They excavate the tall body, preserving it in a large ice block and return to the research outpost as a major storm moves in, making communication with Anchorage very difficult. Some scientists want to thaw out the creature immediately, but Hendry orders everyone to wait until he receives orders from Air Force authorities. Feeling uneasy guarding the body, Corporal Barnes (William Self) covers the ice block with a blanket, not realizing it is an electric blanket, and the creature thaws out, revives and escapes to the outside cold.

The creature wards off an attack by twelve sled dogs, and the scientists recover an arm, bitten off by the dogs. As the arm warms up, it ingests the blood from one of the dogs and begins to come back to life. They learn that, while appearing humanoid, the creature is in fact an advanced form of plant life. Dr. Carrington is convinced that the creature can be reasoned with and has much to teach them, but Dr. Chapman (John Dierkes) and other colleagues disagree. The Air Force men are just as sure it may be dangerous.

Carrington soon realizes that the creature requires blood to reproduce. He later discovers the hidden body of a sled dog, still warm, drained of blood, in the greenhouse. He has volunteers from his own team, Dr Voorhees (Paul Frees), Dr Olsen and Dr Auerbach, stand guard overnight, waiting for the creature's return.

Later, Carrington secretly uses blood plasma from the infirmary to incubate and nourish seedlings he has taken from the arm, failing to advise his colleagues or Capt Hendry of what he has done, or of having found the bodies of Olsen and Auerbach, drained of blood. Dr Stern (Eduard Franz) is almost killed, but escapes to warn the others. Nikki reluctantly updates Hendry when he asks about missing plasma. Hendry confronts Carrington in the greenhouse, where he sees that the creature's planted seed pods have grown at an alarming rate. Dr Wilson (Everett Glass) advises Carrington that he hasn't slept, but Carrington is unconcerned. The creature returns and the USAF crew, after gunfire has no effect, trap it in the greenhouse.

The creature escapes and tries to break into another part of the camp. Following a suggestion from Nikki, Hendry and his men set it alight with kerosene, causing it to flee into the night.

Nikki notes that the temperature inside the station is dropping quickly, probably due to a cut fuel line. The cold forces the scientists and the airmen to make a final stand in the generator room. They rig a booby trap, hoping to electrocute the thing. As the creature advances on them, Carrington twice tries to save it, once by shutting off the power, and then by trying to reason with the creature directly. It throws him aside, before falling into the trap and being reduced to a smoldering husk. Its seedlings are also destroyed. Scotty files his "story of a lifetime" by radio to Anchorage, warning his listeners to "Watch the skies!"

45. EUGENE TOOMS

On the 1993–2002 television series, The X-Files, there developed two main types of episodes. "Mytharc" episodes were recognized as the canon "mythology" of the series, comprising the central storyline concerning extraterrestrial life and a conspiracy to hide it, while "MOTW" (Monster of the Week; also "MoW") came to denote the rest of the episodes, a majority of each season. Episodes of this type dealt with all kinds of paranormal phenomena—mutants, science fiction technologies, horror monsters, and comedic episodes that parodied these genres, other TV shows, and even The X-Files itself. Some of these episodes had indirect ties to the X-Files mythology. A number of "monster of the week" characters became notable and were later referenced by other episodes and by fans of the show.

Eugene Victor Tooms, played by Doug Hutchison in the episodes "Squeeze" and "Tooms". An animal control worker in Baltimore, Maryland, Tooms was a mutant, capable of stretching and contorting his body into positions that would be uncomfortable or physically impossible for a normal human. This gave him access to his victims through small openings such as ventilation shafts, chimneys, and toilets. Every thirty years, Tooms came out of hibernation, killing five people to obtain their livers for sustenance. It is possible that Tooms was over one-hundred years old when Mulder and Scully encountered him; he was linked to similar murder sprees in 1963 and 1933, as well as a single murder in 1903. In the episode "Tooms", Mulder tracked him to his "nest" underneath a shopping mall. When he attacked Mulder, Tooms was assumably crushed to death under a moving escalator. He was one of only three MOTW characters to star in more than one episode. In the episode The End, Eugene is seen on a newspaper article in Mulder's office. Eugene was rementioned in the episode Alone.

44. MARTIANS

The War of the Worlds is a 1953 science fiction film starring Gene Barry and Ann Robinson. It was the first on screen depiction of the H. G. Wells classic novel of the same name. Produced by George Pal and directed by Byron Haskin from a script by Barré Lyndon, it was the first of several adaptations of Wells' work to be filmed by Pal, and is considered to be one of the great science fiction films of the 1950s. It won an Oscar for its special effects.

The story from the 1898 novel of H. G. Wells is updated to the 1950s for this film, and the setting is moved from the environs of London to southern California. Dr. Clayton Forrester (Gene Barry), a veteran of the Manhattan Project, is fishing near the town of Linda Rosa when a large meteorite lands nearby. At the impact site, he meets Sylvia Van Buren (Ann Robinson) and her uncle, Pastor Dr. Matthew Collins (Lewis Martin). As the meteorite is radioactive and too hot to examine closely, he decides to wait in town for it to cool.

The meteorite unscrews and disgorges a Martian war machine. When the three men who remained behind approach in friendly greeting, it kills them without warning with its Heat-Ray. Forrester and the sheriff are also attacked when they return, but survive. Amid reports of other meteors landing throughout the world, the Marines surround the Martian ship. Three war machines deploy. Pastor Collins approaches them in peace, but they kill him without attempting to communicate. The Marines attack, but the Martians are protected by an impenetrable force field. The invaders use their Heat-Ray and disintegrator rays to vaporize most of the military.

Forrester and Van Buren hide in an abandoned farmhouse but are trapped inside when another meteorite crashes into the house. An "electronic eye" inspects the ruins but fails to spot them. Forrester and Van Buren wound a Martian when the creature leaves its machine; they get a sample of its blood, and the electronic eye. They rejoin Forrester's co-workers at Pacific Tech in Los Angeles, who seek a way to defeat the aliens. With the blood sample and the technology from the farmhouse, the scientists learn about Martian physiology; in particular, that the aliens are physically weak. Their war machines and heat-rays are, nonetheless, defeating all opposition worldwide.

A United States Air Force YB-49 drops an atomic bomb on the Martians' camp as they advance on Los Angeles, without success. The government evacuates cities in danger, but with military force useless the scientists are the last hope for defeating the Martians which, they calculate, will conquer Earth within six days. Widespread panic among the general populace scatters the Pacific Tech group, wrecks its equipment, and separate Forrester and Van Buren.

All seems lost, with humanity helpless before the aliens. Forrester searches for Van Buren in the burning ruins of a Los Angeles under attack. He finds her with others awaiting the end in a church. An approaching Martian war machine suddenly crashes. Forrester realizes that the seemingly all-powerful invaders are dying. As in the book, they have no biological defense against viruses and bacteria which "God in His wisdom had put upon this Earth", saving mankind.

43. RODAN

Rodan (ラドン, Radon?) is a fictional Japanese pterosaur introduced in Rodan, a 1956 release from Toho Studios, the company responsible for the Godzilla series. Like Godzilla and Anguirus, he is designed after a type of prehistoric reptile (the Japanese name "Radon" is a contraction of "pteranodon". Radon is usually referred to as "Rodan" in the United States, possibly to avoid confusion with the atomic element Radon; any time his name is written in English in Japan, it is written as Rodan. He is occasionally portrayed as enemy of Godzilla but is usually depicted as one of Godzilla's allies, much like Anguirus. Rodan and Anguirus both started out as enemies of Godzilla, which explains the occasional enmity between the creatures and Godzilla himself on the rare occasion that they are pitted against one another.

In Rodan, two Rodans were unearthed and awakened by mining operations in Kitamatsu along with a swarm of prehistoric insects called Meganulons. After devouring several people and reducing Sasebo to ruins, one Rodan is maimed in a bombardment of their nest in Mount Aso and falls, apparently fatally, into a volcanic eruption triggered by the attack. The other Rodan, in a doomed attempt to save its mate, flies into the mouth of the volcano as well. Also, as with Godzilla, the American version differs from the original Japanese release by more than simple matters of language translation; the original Japanese version is much darker in tone. It also has one of the Rodans damaged by a jet fighter, hindering its ability to fly at supersonic speeds.

Rodan went on to cross over into the Godzilla series. It is explained that one Rodan from the 1956 film is resurrected by accumulated volcanic gas, appearing in Ghidorah, the Three-Headed Monster to help Godzilla and Mothra defeat King Ghidorah. In this appearance and all subsequent appearances in the Showa series, Rodan is as tall as Godzilla. Rodan appeared with Godzilla again in Invasion of the Astro-Monster, where both were mind-controlled by Xilians to destroy Earth's cities and later fought King Ghidorah again when the mind control was broken.

In Destroy All Monsters, Rodan was again used by aliens to wreak havoc on Earth, this time by the Kilaaks. Again the mind control was broken and the monsters fought King Ghidorah. Rodan would only appear again in the Shōwa series in stock footage used for Godzilla vs. Gigan, Godzilla vs. Megalon and Terror of Mechagodzilla.

42. MARIA

Metropolis is a 1927 German expressionist film in the science-fiction genre directed by Fritz Lang. Produced in Germany during a stable period of the Weimar Republic, Metropolis is set in a futuristic urban dystopia and makes use of this context to explore the social crisis between workers and owners in capitalism. The film was produced in the Babelsberg Studios by Universum Film A.G. (UFA). The most expensive silent film ever made, it cost approximately 5 million Reichsmark.

The film is set in the massive, sprawling futuristic mega-city Metropolis, whose society is divided into two classes: one of planners and management, who live high above the Earth in luxurious skyscrapers; and one of workers, who live and toil underground. The city was founded, built, and is run by the autocratic Joh Fredersen.

Like all the other sons of the managers of Metropolis, Fredersen's son Freder lives a life of luxury in the theatres and stadiums of the skyscraper buildings. One day, as he is playing in the Eternal Gardens, he notices that a beautiful girl has appeared with many children of the workers. She is quickly shooed away, but Freder becomes infatuated with her and follows her down to the workers' underworld. There, he experiences firsthand the horrors of the workers' life, and is disgusted when he sees an enormous machine, known as the M-Machine, violently explode and kill dozens of workers. In the smoke, Freder envisions the M-Machine as Moloch, a monstrous deity to which the hapless workers are sacrificed.

Disgusted, Freder returns to the New Tower of Babel, a massive skyscraper owned by his father. There, he confronts his father and starts crying about the accident at the M-Machine, otherwise known as the heart, but Fredersen is more annoyed about hearing about the accident from his son and not from his clerk Josephat. Grot, foreman of the Heart Machine, informs him of papers resembling plans or maps, which have been found in the dead workers' pockets. Again, because he had not heard the news from Josephat first, Fredersen fires him, and also charges his spy, a slim man, to keep an eye on his son.

Freder keeps Josephat from committing suicide and hires him to help with his quest to help the workers. Freder descends to the workers' underworld again and meets someone named Georgy 11811, who works a machine that directs electrical power to the enormous series of elevators in the New Tower of Babel. Freder persuades Georgy to exchange clothes with him, go to Freder's apartment, and let Freder work at the machine. Georgy, who finds large blocks of money in the pocket of Freder's clothing, goes to Yoshiwara, the city's red-light district. While Georgy enjoys a night of wild and passionate partying, Freder works at the machine until he becomes delirious, having visions of being crucified to the factory clock.

Fredersen, wondering about the papers found, decides to consult the scientist Rotwang, his old collaborator, who lives in an old house contained in the lower levels of the city. The two were friends but then became rivals over the love of a woman. Rotwang loved a girl named Hel but when he introduced her to his friend, Hel abandoned him to marry the much more wealthy and powerful Fredersen. Hel died giving birth to Freder, leaving both Rotwang and Fredersen heartbroken and loathing themselves and each other. While Fredersen has moved on, the scientist's love for Hel and his hatred to Fredersen remain as strong as ever. Rotwang introduces Fredersen to a Maschinenmensch he has constructed and which he intends to give the image of Hel and marry her.

When Fredersen seeks Rotwang's counsel about the papers, Rotwang explains that they are maps to the 2,000-year old catacombs that are deep under the lowest levels of the worker's city. The two decide to go exploring the catacombs and climb down a tunnel. From a gap in the rocks, they observe the workers gathering in a cathedral hewn from the rock. There, the beautiful Maria appears and begins preaching to the workers (among them the disguised Freder) about the Tower of Babel and about how they must wait for the coming Mediator and also that the heart must be mediator between the mind (the planners) and the hands (the workers).

At the end of the sermon, Fredersen turns away and begins thinking, while Rotwang notices one worker staying behind, and talking to Maria, revealing himself as Fredersen's son and telling her that he realizes that he is the Mediator that they have been waiting for. Fredersen instructs Rotwang to give the machine-man the image of Maria to then sow distrust between her and the workers. Rotwang agrees but has ulterior motives, intending to use the machine-human to ruin Fredersen's life. While Fredersen returns to his offices, Rotwang captures Maria and imprisons her in his house. There, he performs experiments on her and transforms the machine-human to look exactly like Maria. He then instructs it, by any means that does not hurt Rotwang or herself, to destroy Fredersen's city and murder his son.

Rotwang demonstrates the machine-human's abilities to Fredersen by dressing it up as an erotic dancer at the Yoshiwara, where it drives the sons of the owners into homicidal fits of sexual jealousy. The body count is enormous; meanwhile, the machine-human also visits the workers' city and encourages the workers to rebel. They storm out of the workers' city in a full-scale riot and destroy the Heart Machine, the city's power generator. This results in a complete hydraulic breakdown. The city's reservoirs overflow and flood the workers' city to the brim, and seemingly drown the children of the workers. In fact, the children were saved by the real Maria and Freder in a heroic rescue.

When the workers realize what they have done, and that they have killed their children, they blame Maria. Under Grot's leadership, they dash to the upper city and run through the streets, chasing the real Maria, rather than the machine-human. They run into Yoshiwara and meet the owners' sons, led by the machine-human. In the ensuing confusion, the machine-man is tied to a stake and is burned to death.

Meanwhile, the real Maria is chased by Rotwang, who takes her for the machine-human and now wants to give her the likeness of Hel after all. In a climactic scene, Fredersen watches in horror as Freder and Rotwang fight on the cathedral's roof. Rotwang falls to his death, and Freder and Maria return to the street and unite Fredersen and Grot, thus ending the brutality of the city

41. PURITY

The Colonists are an extraterrestrial species in the science fiction television show, The X-Files, and also in the first feature film. The mystery revolving around who they are and what they are planning is revealed across the course of the series. In the series' plot, the Colonists are collaborating with a group of United States government officials known as the Syndicate in a plan to take over the Earth and "colonize" it, hence their name.

Purity, more commonly referred to as black oil, and called the "black cancer" by the Russians, was an alien virus that thrived underground on Earth, in petroleum deposits. The virus was capable of entering humanoids and assuming control of their bodies. It had sentience and was capable of communicating. It was revealed to be the "life force" of the alien colonists, which they seemingly used to reproduce their kind, as well as infect other alien races in order to conquer the universe.

The Syndicate in cooperation with the alien colonists, developed a way to quietly introduce the virus into an unsuspecting public, through the use of bees. The colonists would then be able to use human beings as a slave race. The Syndicate, however, secretly try to create a vaccine to protect themselves, which they codename "Purity Control." While the Purity Control project ultimately fails, a rival Russian shadow group was successful in developing a weak vaccine which eventually fell into the hands of the Syndicate.

The plot to cooperate with the alien colonization plan was implemented with the aim of being given access to the black oil, in order to try and develop a vaccine. This attempt was semi-successful, as the "weak vaccine" administered to Scully while in the Antarctic alien ship caused the entire ship to depart its underground residence.

(Monster Info From Wikipedia)

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