Top Ten Tuesday: WATER MONSTERS!

Ya know ’em, ya love ’em, ya can’t live without ’em. Thats right, those lovable Water Monsters! You luvvys are swimming around in all kinds of water tah boot – rivers, lakes oceans – even sometimes on land. Equal opportunity terrors. In honor of your fellow fallen brethren, along with the release of PIRAHNA 3D, we salute you beasties with this week’s Top 10 lists.

Honorable Mention: PINOCCHIO

The first underwater monster that many filmgoers first encountered may be Monstro the whale from Walt Disney Productions’ animated classic feature film from1940, PINOCCHIO. Finding out that Geppetto (along with Figaro and Cleo) has been swallowed by Monstro the whale, Pinocchio (along with Jiminy Cricket) jump to the bottom of the sea to locate the beast. Just the name Monsro causes all the sea creatures that Pinocchio befriends to quickly swim away. Finally Pinocchio and Jiminy find him and are swallowed up as the beast scoops up his supper. Reunited with their friends, they must know find a way to escape the whale. Staring a fire on Geppetto’s boat causes the beast to sneeze and blow out the raft with Pinocchio and his pals aboard. But Monstro will not be denied. In one of the most exciting animated sequences in the history of the movies, the whale comes charging after our heroes. Many animation scholars believe that PINOCCHIO is the crown jewel of Walt Disney’s animated features and the thrilling conclusion involving one of the great underwater menaces, Monsro the whale, contributes greatly to its classic status.

10. LAKE PLACID

Steve Miner’s 1999 monster croc flick was a surprise hit, better than your typical genre outing and boasted quite a reputable cast with Bill Pullman, Bridget Fonda, Oliver Platt, Brendan Gleeson and, of course… Betty White. Who doesn’t love Betty White? However, the cast was equaled by the massive killer crocodile on which the story was centered. Steve Irwin would have never dared wrangle this bad boy, or would he? Perhaps one of the best scenes was when the star croc leaps out onto the lake shore and gobbles up a grizzly bear. yeah… that’s right. A full grown grizzly! Wicked!

09. THE DEEP

What ever happened to good old fashioned pirate treasure hunts? I bet pirates wouldn’t have gone that far down in an attempt to gain treasure. If they did, they would at least have been smart about it! This isn’t about pirates though… this is about Nick Nolte and his sweet mustache. One thing is for sure, I would never have the guts to face what these money grubbing treasure hunters did, and I’m afraid  just talking about the ocean itself. The ocean is the real monster here!

08. ATTACK OF THE CRAB MONSTERS

Ah, ATTACK OF THE CRAB MONSTERS. Actually, there’s really only one crab monster to represent them all, and it’s an ambitiously large styrofoam puppet with waving claws and crazed, staring eyes. To keep this 1957 cheapie from being too routine, director Roger Corman (who else?) had the wacky notion to make these creatures telepathic, so when they devour their victims they adopt their personalities and can speak with their voices, projected into the minds of their next potential victims. It can be very amusing indeed to hear the unfortunate actors whose characters have been bumped off dubbed over the big, ugly monster. But for all the affection that this movie is held in, it’s pretty minor Corman and the low budget is painfully obvious.

07. FRANKENFISH

HAHA… Just Kidding! Now, The Real FRANKENFISH!

What can we say about FRANKENFISH? Well, it was a made-for-TV movie, so that should say a lot right there, but the truth is… this is one of those ridiculously bad monster animal flicks that’s just so bad its a downright hoot! While only 80 minutes long, this flamboyant fish-flick has b-movie glory written all over… with nudity, Chinese mafia, floating trailer parks, lesbians and, of course… giant, mutant killer fish! This terrible tuna has a massive dorsal fin and some insane incisors, but the humor truly sets the mood for the monster as it munches on some human bait.

06. THE BEAST FROM 20 FATHOMS

This underwater monster (dubbed an prehistoric Rhedosaurus by the film’s Professor Elson) is one of special effects wizard Ray Harryhausen’s first great screen creations. This 1953 classic inspired by Ray Bradbury’s Saturday Evening Post short story built on the giant-monster-on-the loose plot of the legendary KING KONG. Those unpredictable atomic weapons tests at the North Pole unleash this huge dinosaur from its icy, millions of years’ slumber. It quickly makes a beeline for the warmer waters with stops along the way to sink a trawler and destroy a lighthouse. Later it gobbles up the unfortunate Elson when he takes a diving bell to the ocean floor and sees the beast gulp down a brawling shark and octopus. Soon the beast leaps up onto the docks of New York City and sends the residents running for their lives. In one of the great movie monster scenes of all time, a lone policeman empties his pistol to no effect as the beast scoops him up and swallows the officer. Later we find out that besides its destructive abilities, the beast is a deadly virus carrier! The only thing that can destroy it without harming the populace is a radioactive isotope fired from a special rifle by an expert marksman (played by Lee Van Cleef!).THE BEAST FROM 20,000 FATHOMS was an exciting forerunner of the many nuclear giant monsters (including GODZILLA) that would be filling movie houses for the next few decades.

05. PIRANHA

Let me start out by saying that this movie rocks my FACE OFF! Never again will I dip my feet into an unknown body of water… nor will I ignore whenever a little fish nibbles at my toes. Piranha teaches us that you should pay attention to signs that say “NO TRESSPASSING”, and most importantly, you shouldn’t feed the fish!

04. THE HOST

THE HOST is Joon-ho Bong’s Korean monster thrill ride, a creature-feature as funny and hip as it is scary. The 2006 film quickly became a cult favorite with its innocently humorous take on the genre of nature-turned-monster by man’s actions genre, with top notch action and special effects. The creature in THE HOST is one ugly part-fish, part-amphibian whatchamacallit, with a long tail, webbed feet and frightening speed and strength both in and out of water.

03. 20,000 LEAGUES UNDER THE SEA

One of the highlights of Walt Disney’s 1954 production of Jules Verne’s 20,000 LEAGUES UNDER THE SEA (directed by Richard Fleischer) is the futuristic submarine The Nautilus’s encounter with a giant squid. A pulsating electrical charge from the vessel does not face the monster at all after the ship returns to the ocean’s surface during a violent storm. James Mason’s Captain Nemo and his men are tossed about like rag dolls as they battle the sea beast on the top of the sub. After breaking out of the ship’s brig Ned Land ( played by one of the silver screen’s most macho leading men-Kirk Douglas!) decides to rescue Nemo by battling the killer squid armed only with a harpoon spear. Unlike many film monsters, the squid is a full size effect engineered by Walt Disney’s staff. This exciting scene helps make the first all-live action feature from the studio a classic.

02. CREATURE FROM THE BLACK LAGOON

The best and practically the only original 1950s movie monster was everyone’s favorite Amazon dweller; THE CREATURE FROM THE BLACK LAGOON. Dreamed up by Universal in 1954 when they and most other studios were putting their resources into outer space and giant bugs, The Creature, aka The Gill Man is a stunningly designed and executed fish-monster, the best rubber suit Hollywood ever produced. He has an immediate graphic personality barely tapped by his three starring vehicles and holds a timeless appeal for kids and adults who like their monsters scary, slimy and mean.

01. JAWS

“…what we are dealing with here is a perfect engine, an eating machine. It’s really a miracle of evolution. All this machine does is swim and eat and make little sharks, and that’s all.” That statement by Matt Hooper in JAWS is pretty much the thriller in a nutshell. It’s the eating part that horrified movie goers and ocean swimmers alike in 1975. Ringing the dinner bell for Bruce the Great White Shark consisted of terrifying sequences of teeth, fins, swimmers and blood and no one was safe from being killed off. Frank Rich of The New York Times wrote, “some of the most frightening sequences in Jaws are those where we don’t even see the shark.” That is until you heard John Williams’ scary score announcing his arrival. Without a doubt, Spielberg’s masterpiece is what make JAWS We Are Movie Geeks #1 pick as the king of all Water Monsters.