Remember "Monsters"?

A retrospective by Michael O'May

It’s hard to, because for some reason the show just doesn’t stick on you like it should. It’s by no means a bad show it’s just forgettable, washed away by everything else from the 80’s that too wants our attention.

A few years ago I picked up the pretty impressive entire run of the show, all 72 episodes, abet with very shitty VHS taped from TV quality. For some reason I’ve let the set sit around and collect dust for the last 2 years and I’m finally now getting around to writing about it, because I feel it has that certain kind of shit quality that we love at Micro-Shock. Now while I don’t have time to watch every fucking episode I can just randomly pick a few and hope for the best.

What follows is like a glory hole; you stick your dick in and hope for the best.

Episode 2: Holly’s house.

What a mind fuck this one is. Holly’s house is a poor man’s kids show that looks like shit, and I’m guessing that’s just the shows limited budget, it’s about a living doll named Holly and her idiot cast of friends as they do retarded kid’s shows things to please the little ones. Holly is actually a robot who is controlled by a washed up voice actress, Kathy, off screen who is in the middle of a mid life crisis. As Kathy unravels so does the Holly robot, can anyone survive the rampage?

This is a perfect example of what bugged me about monsters. You really can’t do much in the 24 or so minute run time. You meet the characters, the said monster of the episode gets just one chance to be creepy, then they kill the monster or there’s some sort of E.C. comics twist. The Holly robot really isn’t scary beyond its big retarded robot doll head because the costume is horrible and clearly a midget in a suit. She kills special delivery Dan with some scissors and ultimately gets her head ripped off by Kathy minutes later.

The episode is creative in how it twists a kids TV show which to my knowledge really hasn’t been explored for horror but beyond that it falls flat.

2 Z’Dar’s out of 5

Episode 4: The Vampire hunter.

This is a much better but ultimately unfulfilling episode. What we have here is a good old fashioned vampire hunter tale.

In a nut shell a Victorian era vampire hunter is led into a trap by an old nemesis, a Vampire he horribly scared but forgot to kill. The plot has a few twists with the vampire’s cute familiar being used to make the viewer think she’s a victim. The hunter is lead away and his dim witted apprentice gets killed by the Vampire.

The rest plays out like a pretty standard battle of wills and wits between the Hunter and the Vampire that is pretty cool if you like that Hammer horror style of things, and yes the vampire dies in a pretty ruthless way. How you ask? With a stake still protruding from his chest he asks his rival for a moment of compassion, to put his mask back on so he can die in dignity hiding his scared face. Instead of being a nice guy the vampire hunter stomps the stake into his chest and spits on him, he then takes the vampire’s hot companion away for some hot butt sex.

It’s a fun episode that does a lot with its budget and has many elements of old Hammer horror not to mention a mean streak not seen in an 80’s TV show. Not great but pretty good.

3 Z’Dar’s out of 5

My Zombie Lover:

This first season episode is a personal favorite of mine for a few reasons. Its takes advantage of the short run time to tell an almost fat free story that sticks to the points to get the story where it needs to be and doesn’t stray off in odd character moments, set pieces or reliance on effects, which when you have 20 minutes to tell a story you should never do.

The brisk plot concerns a world where the dead get to roam around and eat people 1 day a year, Z-day or something like that. On this one day people board up their houses, and head outside to kill as many zombies as possible before they become dinner. A family heads out like any other family but their college age daughter decides to stay home and study. One lone zombie makes it through the mobs of people to said family’s house and the daughter mistakenly lets him in. But instead of eating the girl the zombie reveals his true intentions; he just wants to share his feelings, as when he was alive he had a crush on the daughter. Can Joe-Zombie resist his urge to gut munch long enough to get the girl? What will her parents think when they come home to find their daughter snuggling with a corpse? You get a lot for your buck this episode trust me.

Beyond the short and sweet plot you also get an all black cast which includes  Cosby’s Tempest Bledsoe, which gets played like your typical 80’s bread and butter family, but works best for the black nerd lover to be zombie, who comes off as very effeminate, and yet also blood thirsty. But to top it all off you get some amazing Dick Smith inspired effects for the only zombie you really see in the episode, the nerd. His skin looks like a dried lake bed covered in cracks and broken pieces and his throat is a mess of dangling mangle flesh and all with out a drop of blood, making it TV friendly and at the same time gruesome.

If you must see an episode of monsters, let this be one of them.

4.5 Z’Dar’s out of 5

.5

The Moving Finger- (the show’s final episode)

This episode is considered by many to be the shows best. They’re pretty much right.  

The plot is beyond simple but it keeps you so enthralled you have to wonder where it came from. That’s right it’s from a Stephen King story of the same name. What we have here is Tom Noonan doing battle with a snake like finger that comes out of his bathroom drains and just annoys the shit out of him when he’s trying to take a leak. That’s it end of story. An otherworldly, impossibly long finger that comes out of sink and toilet drains and pokes around, mind you it isn’t hurting anything, it just shouldn’t be there. “Not in MY bathroom”, you can hear it in Noonan’s mind (and that’s a credit to his great acting) but it touches something in the soul of a man that has to remove a nuisance in his house and have some sort of control, be it a mouse or an endless finger. You route for Noonan as he tries industrial drain cleaner, and you cheer when he’s had enough and gets the hedge clippers.

It’s as simple and as great as you can get, it’s a shame that Monsters peaked at its final episode, but alas it’s best to go out on top than not at all.

5 Z’Dar’s out of 5

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