Today a very special Monster Mondays looks at the famous fathers of monsterdom. As a soon to be dad, I’m interested in what each of these earthbound abominations can teach me about what makes a good parent, and what makes an unholy creature of the night.

Monsters are ranked in order of parenting skills.

12. Dr. Victor Frankenstein.
While I normally live my life by the motto WWVFD? when it comes to parenting the good doctor is about as bad as it gets. After creating a man out of corpses, he neglects to name it, insults its looks, abandons it, and then hunts it down to kill it. It’s clear in the book and many of the movies that the monster sees Victor as his father, and since the Doctor never gave him a proper name, the family name of Frankenstein is absolutely correct as the only name of the creature. Frankenstein deniers say the only Frankenstein was Victor, a statement the Dr would find a relieving since it takes up his position of denying the creature its family and humanity. “Frankienstein’s Monster” my ass. And if that wasn’t bad enough, Dr. Frankenstein is no more capable of parenting when it’s his own flesh and blood and not a reanimated corpse. Son of Frankenstein, Barron Wold Frankenstein, is alienated and spiteful of his father, who was always more a mad scientist then a family man.

11. The Mask.
I know nobody saw the Son of the Mask, but we all know it doesn’t have Jim Carry in it. So there’s that. Then there’s Ace Ventura Jr, which also doesn’t have Jim Carry in it. So together I can only assume that all of Jim Carry’s characters knock up anonymous women in the first movie then vanish before the monster in shortpants is born. Upcoming movies also featuring the bastard children of Carry: Sons of the Cable Guy, Dumbest Baby, Riddler on Ritalin, and Eternal Sushine on a Spotless Diaper.

10. Jack Torrance (From the Shining)
It’s an easy mistake to make. Take the kid on a work trip. It’ll be great, the boy can watch daddy do what he does, which in this case is more drinking then writing, and it’ll be a good chance to bond, which in this case means chasing him with an ax before freezing to death in a hedge maze. Another lesson learned, always do background checks on children’s entertainers. The last thing anyone wants to see is the guy in the bear suit going down on some old banker.

9. Humanoids from the Deep
Mutated fish men always want human women, whether it’s the Creature from the Black Lagoon, Abe Sapiens from Hellboy or Link from Monsters vs Aliens. But while Abe had class, Link was kids stuff, and the bathing beauties in Creature were all carp-teases, only Humanoids actually shows what fishmen want our women for. In a word, breeding. Lots of gratuitous breeding.  The result of the Humanoids cross breeding was a hideous monster, but I think they’re just using fish on female rape to try and create mermaids. Also the Creature Jr. recorded a calypso track back in the 50’s that’s worth checking out.

8. Face Hugger

Typical, in the world of aliens and people, the queen gets all the credit for parenting and seldom do we stop to appreciate the faceless father.  In both his anatomy and behavior the face hugger seams like nothing more then a teenage boy, a brainless male, nothing but hands and penis, choosing people at random and sticking  his ovipositor in their throat, then running away, never to be seen again.  Now, aliens being a good family movie, they never actually show the ovipositor, but the creature designs make it clear this is man-junk being crammed down your throat. Early concept sketches were even more explict. Implicitly NSFW

7.Dr Moreau

Parents often make the mistake of thinking their child is just a minature version of themselves, and Dr Moreau proves just how creepy that can be. Dr. Moreau’s other children are mutant human hybrids that he tries to control and/or transcend their true nature with drugs and electrical punishment. His lack of recognition of his children’s own identities, and the fact that hes a drugged up looney and they’re tortured manimal monsters, leads to him being killed by a valuable lesson.

6. Gizmo

Gizmo is the reactionary father. His love is great, but it is not unconditional. If you piss him off, or turn out different from how he wanted, he will hunt you down and fucking kill you. Granted, mogwis are cute and gremlins are hideous monsters, but they’re still his kids. Gizmo seems out of his league when it comes to parenting, like he’d rather be friends with his kids then their dad. He skips over fatherly advice, tough love, and spankings and instead goes from friend to doormat to child murderer. But how can I stay mad at that cuddly face?

5. Dracula

Dracula does everything with class and excess, and fatherhood is no different. He is the big love vampire, with 3 wives, a crush he follows across the continent and a floozy he messes around with on the way. All that lovin is boundto produce a legacy, or in his case a lega-she. Dracula’s first and finest child is his daughter, Countess Marya. She inherits her dads class and charm, as well as flair for fashion, good looks, and imense power. Her younger brother is a much dimmer bulb of the bunch, going by the name Count Alucard and figuring no one will notice its Dracula spelled backwards. Dracula seems to be the only fertile vampire in the world, able to produce offspring through sex instead of just creating more vampires through feeding. In Van Helsing Drac’s almighty seed produce not a sexy daughter and an idiot son, but a hord of bat winged vampirlings who even from infancy he comands as his unholy army of conquest. That’s parenting.

4. Father McGruder (from Dead Alive)

Father McGruder starts the film as quite possibly the greatest holy man the cinema has ever filmed. When zombies start rising from the cemetery at this priests parish, he leaps into the undead thick of things with a mighty battle cry of “I kick ass for the Lord” and starts laying out zombies with Kung Fu. Inevitably he’s overpowered and becomes a zombie himself, but now freed from his vow of chastity he seduces a zombie nurse and they soon have a zombie baby. This makes him a rare, double father, or priest with a bastard, and as a bonus, zombie priest with zombie bastard. Father shows genuine affection for both his baby mama and the undead brat, and even though he can’t leave the basement where his shackled, gets a human to nanny his child and take him to the park where he can chase dogs and eat them.

3.Godzilla

Godzilla seems to be an awesome father, attentive, protective, fun on trips to the city, but I’m not quite sure if he should be on the list. I mean, sure, He’s always called the King of Monsters, but he’s a King who lays eggs and likes to snuggle. Is Godzilla actually a She-la monster?

2. Grandpa Munster

Like Dracula, to whom Grandpa is somehow related, the senior Munster is also an excellent father figure. Like Drac, he’s also blessed with a hot daughter, but he one ups his more famous fiend by raising 2 generations of monsters, and adopting the abandonned Frankenstein Monster, who now goes by the name Herman. We all know what a horrible upbringing Frankenstein had, so it’s no surprise that he takes his wifes maiden name upon marriage and is known from then on as Herman Munster.

1. Gomez Addams

Lots of dads get “Worlds Greatest Dad” t-Shirts, but only Gomez Addams actually deserves it. Sorry every other dad. Unless you can check off every single one of the following father qualities, you’ll always be in Gomez’s shadow : Fatherly advice, striped suit, let chldren play in his electric chair, paternal muostache, buried family members in the back yard, stogie, bug eyes, millions of dollars, and he didn’t just let his kids get away with murder, he encouraged it.

Comments? Questions? Monster dads left out? Post comments here

Earlier I wrote on Celtic origins of Halloween and the important changes that took place with the Holiday in America. Today for Monster Mondays I’m going to look at the early Monsters of Celtic Halloween. The traditional holiday bears little resemblance to the Halloween we know now. It was not a celebration of death, horror, and thrills, but a harvest festival and new years eve celebration. The most important practices involved fortune telling, making predictions for the coming year, and it was believed that on this day ordinary rules did not apply, and souls, spirits, and fairies could be present on earth.  Most descriptions of what souls,spirits, and fairies visit earth are rather vague, but a few specific supernatural creatures are named. As is usually the case, the first at the party are the first to go, and I don’t think I’ve ever seen any of the Celtic Halloween monsters doing the Monster Mash or out trick-or-treating.

Cailleach Bheur -Also known as Cally Berry (no relation to Hallie Berry), Old Woman Winter, The Blue Hag, The Storm Hag, and The Veiled One. In all respects, the Cailleach is a god and not a monster. She is the embodiment of winter reborn every Samhain/Halloween and turned to stone, or to a tree, or to a young woman every Beltane. Her staff can freeze anything with a touch and she is the gaurdian of the animals. Some say she carvedthe Mountains of Scotland with a hammer and pick. She once fell asleep while pumping a well, flooding the valley and killing hundreds. That valley is now Loch Awe.

Aillen Trechenn, The Three Headed Monster.  Also known as the Ellén Trechend. It emerges from it’s cave every Halloween to wreck havoc. It laid Ireland to waste with it’s fire breath and was killed not once but twice, by the heroes Amergin and Fion Mac Comhaill. Despite it’s appearance being an annual event and multiple heroes claiming to kill it. There’s a lot of disagreement on what it was. Somesay a three headed dragon, others a beast, others a bird, and some say it was not one but a whole swarm of three headed things.

Hwch Ddu Gota -The black swine or specteral pig. Some say this pig was the embodiment of the Devil. Long past midnight when the raging Bonfires of Halloween died down to embers, the black swine would be born from those embers to catch and murder any drunkards still lagging about at the festival. The ultimate blow off.

Stingy Jack – For the scoop on Stingy Jack, see my previous post on the origin of Trick or Treating

Cutty Sark is the nickname given to the sexy witch in Robert Burns’ classic1790  narrative poem Tam O’Shanter. The poem is not about Halloween per se, but at the same time sets a template for the American version of Halloween to come. Burns does have a poem called Halloween but it is much more in the Celtic Tradition of Bonfires, New Years, and Story telling, and little about the ghastly celebration we know as Halloween.

Tam O’Shanter however tells of a Scotsman out drinking (shocking right?) well past the witching hour. When he finally leaves the pub the streets are alive with horrors and the undead. He sneaks to the center of the horrors where he finds the devil himself dancing with a coven of witches. In their macabre merriment they cast off their clothes, but because they are all old hags,Tam nearly loses his lunch. In their midst though is one beautiful young witch wearing a “Cutty Sark” which I’ve found translated as short skirt, low cut top, or underwear. What ever she was wearing, it was given to her as a child and was now barely containing her bursting woman hood.  Tam got so excited he hollared out, as drunks are prone to do at sexy women,  and set the devil and all his witches chasing him.

Dancing, drinking, horrors and sexy costumes. Sounds like the Halloween I know.

Cutty looks good for being 219 years old.

From Tam O’Shanter

Inspiring bold John Barleycorn!
What dangers thou canst make us scorn!
Wi’ tippenny, [ale] we fear nae evil;
Wi’ usquabae, [whiskey] we’ll face the devil!
The swats sae ream’d in Tammie’s noddle,
Fair play, he car’d na deils a boddle,
But Maggie stood, right sair astonish’d,
Till, by the heel and hand admonish’d,
She ventur’d forward on the light;
And, wow! Tam saw an unco sight!

Warlocks and witches in a dance:
Nae cotillon, brent new frae France,
But hornpipes, jigs, strathspeys, and reels,
Put life and mettle in their heels.
A winnock bunker in the east,
There sat auld Nick, in shape o’ beast; [the devil]
A towzie tyke, black, grim, and large,
To gie them music was his charge:
He screw’d the pipes and gart them skirl,
Till roof and rafters a’ did dirl. –
Coffins stood round, like open presses,
That shaw’d the Dead in their last dresses;
And (by some devilish  cantraip leight)
Each in its cauld hand held a light.
By which heroic Tam was able
To note upon the haly table,
A murderer’s banes, in gibbet-airns;
Twa span-lang, wee, unchristened bairns;
A thief, new-cutted frae a rape,
Wi’ his last gasp his gabudid gape;
Five tomahawks, wi’ blude red-rusted:
Five scimitars, wi’ murder crusted;
A garter which a babe had strangled:
A knife, a father’s throat had mangled.
Whom his ain son of life bereft,
The grey-hairs yet stack to the heft;
Wi’ mair of horrible and awfu’,
Which even to name wad be unlawfu’.
Three lawyers tongues, turned inside oot,
Wi’ lies, seamed like a beggars clout,
Three priests hearts, rotten, black as muck,
Lay stinkin, vile in every neuk.

As Tammie glowr’d, amaz’d, and curious,
The mirth and fun grew fast and furious;
The Piper loud and louder blew,
The dancers quick and quicker flew,
The reel’d, they set, they cross’d, they cleekit,
Till ilka carlin swat and reekit,
And coost her  duddies to the wark, [cast off her clothes]
And linkit at it in her sark! [lookin’ at her nekkid]

Cutty Sark became a popular motif for the figureheads of boats, then the name of the Clipper ship with the Cutty Sark masthead, then finaly the scotch whiskey with the clipper ship on the label. It’s the perfect scotch for drinking until you face the devil.

Today Dapper Cadaver’s Monster Mondays goes deep into the Laboratory to find the freakiest flies man has ever made. See, fruit flies are like legos to scientists. They’re simple, cheap, and both easy and fun to tinker with. The result is swarms of strange mutant flies nature never intend but with cool new features and new insights into helping people overcome horrible diseases and disorders. Below Are some of the best. Oh, and by the way, genes are named like drugs.

White Rabbit- Add the gene white rabbit to a fruit fly and you’ve got a fly that can’t get drunk. Why? To win fly drinking contests and help find a treatment to alcoholism.

Cheapdate – These flies get staggering drunk off the tiniest portion of booze. Again the reason is to help treat alcoholism, but the name leads me to believe these flies are being taken advantage of.

Gr66a – Flies that drink coffee.

Kojak – Hairless flies

Groucho – flies with moustaches.

Ken and Barbie- flies with no external sex organs but lots of hot  outfits and cars.

Kenny – flies which die quickly and violently all the time, just like Kenny on South Park!

Van Gogh – flies with swirling hair patterns like Van Goghs Starry night. Bred to swarm fancy cafes.

I’m Not Dead Yet (INDY)- flies which don’t age and live twice as long as natural fruit flies.

Fruity – Male flies with a mutant gene that leads them to court with other males.

Dunce– mutant flies unable to remember anything, despite electric shocks.

Go-go – mutant flies that twitch and shake.

Hot Shi.TS – a mutant flie that acts normal at room temperature but acts drunk in the heat.

Living Dead – flies that look dead but act alive. Zombies Flies.

Sonic Hedgehog – messes up hair growth of larvae.

Tricky Dick – flies with distorted male genetailia.

But wait, there’s more!

Every muntant fly man has discovered or mad is listed here

Today, Dapper Cadaver’s Monster Mondays has some sad news. Word is pouring in from China of new Dinosaurs, fluffy and covered with delicate colorful plumage. First it was the Velociraptors, once proud ninja’s of the dinosaur world, now just toothed roosters, complete with cocks-comb and dwaddle. More recent finds of fluffy dinos include several Tyrannosaurids. The greatest real monster to ever walk the earth is about to get a make-over in fabulous feathers. It’s absurd. Imagine you’re in a broken down jeep on Jurassic Park, you hear a thump, the water in your cup does that dino sensing thing that you keep cups of water in the car for, then you hear a deafening “Gobble-gobble-gobble” as the largest turkey you’ve ever seen steps out of the woods.

It hasn’t happened yet. The feathered Tyrannosaurids the Chinese have discovered aren’t the King beast, Tyrannosaurus Rex, just his scrawny uncles and cousins, but storm clouds are gathering on the distant pasts future. In 5 years time our children won’t be able to tell Big Bird from Rex, and in 10 years time I wouldn’t be surprised if we stopped calling Tyrannosaurs, Drommeosaurs, and Oviraptors “Feathered Dinosaurs” and started calling them “Toothed Birds.” It must be stopped. If we can make Pluto a planet again through through the shear force of nostalgia, then science be damned, we can keep TRex scaly and terrifying. Join me!

The idea of wearing feathers sickens T Rex’s only living relative, Godzilla.

But Godzilla may not be the only surviving radioactive mutant T Rex for long, apparently, one of the scientists who worked on Jurasic Park (I knew it was a true story!) is working on genetically engineering Chickens to give birth to mutant chicken-osauruses. I couldn’t make this stuff up.

Kids need scary monsters to eat there smaller toys and to team up with Batman in kids crayon drawings, to fight cowboys, give King Kong a run for his money, and, scientifically speaking, be 51% MOTHERFUCKER, 49% son-of-a-bitch.

Will T-Rex still be the motherfucker we love and fear if he goes from this to this?

its the new you

In closing, I would like to once and for all establish T-Rex as the scaly Tyrant King of Pimps by giving the people what we always wanted- Tyrannosaurus Sex

If you’d like to support the keep T-Rex scaly movement, you can help by buying a Tyrannosaurus skeleton.

Today’s Dapper Cadaver Monster Monday comes from a hot tip that came out just this weekend. The English language “Gulf Times” ran a translation of a Qatar story that featured this creepy photo, and the following text

“A mysterious figure resembling a human being was sighted on the Doha Corniche’s parking lot, according to a report published in a local Arabic daily.
The report is based on the statement of an Arab expatriate lady who said she had seen the strange figure near the Oryx statue while walking in the area.
Quoting the woman, the daily said she took a picture of it in spite of being terribly frightened.
“She was very soon surrounded by a large number of people who also attested to the fact of what she had seen . But it suddenly disappeared out of their sight when they tried to go near it,” the report added.”

Some have speculated it’s an escaped Aye-Aye, a kind of hideous lemur native to Madagascar but known to have hilarious adventures adventures in other parts of the world thanks to their anthropomorphic penguin pals.

Others think its a childrens toy (below) and the report that it scurried away is desert induced delierium, like when your buddy starts looking like an ice cream cone.

However, the government of Qatar knew that living self aware half-beast toys would be a problem, which is why they banned them four months ago.  There’s a website called Gen-Pets that purportedly sells living toys that are genetically engineered creatures with a 1 year lifespan and a mix of human and animal genes. The Qatar press ran a front page story on it which led to them nipping the frankentoy craze before the rest of the world even heard about it. They probably had a big problem with them, and this is on of the many gen-pets living feral on the streets today. Always remember to spay and neuter your freaks of nature.

qatar bans gen-pets

The article states “ Qatar has banned a toy called Gen-pets and had sent letters of warning to all of the Arabic countries to tell them about this toy and to ban it.”

The article also states”

• That the Jordanian Cabinet prohibited its import into Jordan
• That religious scholars consider it a violation of human rights and Islamic law “which prohibits mixing human genes and animal genes” (This is a quote from a religion professor at the University of Jordan).”

Also don’t get them wet or feed them after midnight

Now I know a lot of nay-sayers out there are saying that gen-pets are a hoax and the government of Qatar would look pretty foolish if that were true, but the feral gen-pet seen in a grocery store parking lot proves either they’re real, the press has made the populace terrified of dolls to the point of delirious paranoia, or you can get anything into a Qatar newspaper.

Bonnacon is really a creature where the less said about it the better. So I’ll just go straight to the source. Pliny the Elder, author of the worlds first Natural History Encyclopedia and one of ancient Greece’s most brilliant writers. His Natural History is over 160 volumes long and holds the closest thing we have to a complete record of Greek knowledge at that point. He must have thought no one would possibly read the whole thing when he slipped in this gem.

“Pliny- “There are reports of a wild animal in Paeonia called the bonnacon, which has the mane of a horse, but in all other respects resembles a bull; its horns are curved back in such a manner as to be of no use for fighting, and it is said that because of this it saves itself by running away, meanwhile emitting a trail of dung that sometimes covers a distance of as much as three furlongs (half a mile), contact with which scorches pursuers like a sort of fire.”

Yes, Bonnacon is Buffalo followed by half a mile of flaming dung. But words aren’t enough to convey it’s might. We need ridicules illuminated manuscripts of knights getting buffalo shit on them. Better bring a shield.

Todays Monster Monday from Dapper Cadaver travels down the spine of the Americas to Peru, circa 2000 years ago for a kind of person bizarre and real, the Dolichocephaloids or Peruvian Coneheads. There is currently a video going around getting a lot of attention saying they were found in Siberia. This video is wrong, they are from Peru.

What we do know about the Dolichocephaloids is limited, what we believe about them is vast, and what we don’t know about them is enormous.

What we do know – These guys had really long squash shaped heads. They were human. They lived in Peru roughly 2000 years ago. There were a lot of them.

Most had brains the same size as other humans (1400-1600cc) others had larger brains, up to 2000cc or 2 liters. If you want to experience how much larger that is get a human skull and fill the brain case up with soda. Empty a whole 2 liter bottle. Whatever spills on your desk is how much bigger their brains are then ours.

What we believe – leading scientific theories about the coneheads is they were an elite class of Peruvian, they seam to show signs in their graves of wealth and power. They do seam to be a class rather then a race of Peruvians, as they are almost always found with many normal people around them. It is believed that the conehead shape was achieved by binding an infants skull at a very young age to warp its growth. We believe they believed these deformed skulls would give them power, possibly mystical powers.

Pseudo-science believes these people are human-alien hybryds, a lost race, mystical mutants, psychics, telekenetics, and more.

The documentary “Indian Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull” explains a lot of these theories.

It’s also possible they deformed their skulls for the sake of beauty, similar to the beautiful deformities of foot binding and augmented breasts.

Some believe the deformations were done as punishments. Although it is known the Peruvians would often use mutilation as punishment against conquered peoples or enemies, the Dolichocephaloids seam both privileged and deformed in a way that could not be done quickly against someones will. However, recent findings of a conehead in a lower-class village with clearly mutilated bodies is extremely mysterious.

Since we haven’t shaped a human skull into that form in over 2,000 years, we only can hypothesize, and not test, how it was done and what effect, if any, it had on the persons brain and mental abilities.

The Academy Awards, AKA,the Oscars, have a notorious history of nominating dramas beyond all other categories. In fact 49% off all the Best Pictures out there are dramas, according to Oscar. Fighting for the left over scraps of best picture awards are the genres, in order comedy, epic, musical, action-adventure, war, suspense, and crime. Horror doesn’t make the list, having only one win for best picture 90 years. And if you’re wondering about how comedy came in second, you’re not alone. According to the Oscars the greatest comedies of all time include Tom Jones (1963), The Sting (1973),The Apartment (1960), Terms of Endearment (1983), Driving Miss Daisy (1989), Shakespeare in Love (1998) and American Beauty (1999). Hilarious?

While they seldom win best picture, or anything at all, some really landmark horror films have been nominated for Oscars. Here’s a history of Horror at the Academy I like to call
“The Phantoms of the Oscars”

1927 – Metropolis
Nominations: 0
Winner for Best Picture: Wings
Why it should have won: Metropolis is a ground breaking picture way ahead of it’s time in calling for sex robots and middle management. The special effects are still mesmerizing as is the performance of Bridgette Helm.
Why it didin’t Win: Too weird, too nihilistic ,too German.
Verdict: Oscar the Grouch!

Nominations: 0
Winner of Best Picture: Cavalcade.
Why it should have won: Groundbreaking special effects, infectious enthusiasm. Hot monkey on girl action.
Why it didn’t win: Oscars known anti-monkey prejudices.
Verdict: I think Oscar is trying to make it up to the original King Kong by giving an Oscar to every King Kong since and even that imitator Mighty Joe Young. Unfortunately all this just feels like a slap in the face. Stop awarding the copycats and just give a honorary oscar to the OG already.

1935 – Bride of Frankenstein
Nominations: 1
Wins:0
Winner of Best Picture: Mutiny on the Bounty

1939 – The Hunchback of Notre Dame
Nominations: 2
Wins: 0
Winner of Best Picture: Gone with the Wind

1960- Psycho
Nominations:4
Wins:0
Winner of Best Picture: The Apartment

1968 – Rosemary’s Baby
Nominations: 2
Wins:1 Best Actress in a Supporting Role, Ruth Gordon
Winner of Best Picture: Oliver!
Note: We have our first horror movie to win an Oscar! Although the real stars didn’t win – Roman Polanski’s oscar nominated screenplay and the amazing lead actress Mia Farrow.

1971 – A Clockwork Orange
Nominations: 4, including best director, best picture, and best writing
Wins: 0
Winner of Best Picture: The French Connection
Note: Watch the French Connection back to back with A Clockwork Orange to experience what it must have been like to live in 1971, a time when Oscar had balls.

1976 – Carrie
Nominations: 2
Wins:0
Winner for Best Picture: Rocky
Should have won: Taxi Driver
Note: Still basking in the ballsy glow of Oscar in the 70’s

1980 – The Shining
Nominations: 0, 0? Seriously? That movie ruled.
Wins: You can’t win if you’re not nominated.
Winner of Best Picture: Ordinary People
Note: The 70’s ended with one of the greatest horror movies of all time not even getting nominated.

1980 -Alien
Nominations:2
Wins: 1 for best visual effects! We have our second Oscar winning Horror movie!

1982 – Poltergeist
Nominations: 3
Wins: 0

1982 – Blade Runner
Nominations: 2
Wins: 0
Winner of Best Picture: Ghandi
Note: We can all agree 1982 was an awesome year for movies and we can all agree cyborgs and ghosts in the TV could take Ghandi for a ride any time they want.

1984 – Ghostbusters
Nominations: 2
Wins: 0
Winner of Best Picture: Amadeus
Note: Since the telephone had only been invented early that year, American’s were captivated by it. The Ghostbusters “Who You Gonna Call?” theme song was nominated for best original song Oscar but lost to Stevie Wonder’s “I just Called to Say I love You.” Both of them make great voicemail messages.

1991 – Silence of the Lambs
Nominations: 7
Wins: 5 including Best Picture
FINALLY! Thank you Oscar. I’ll stop bitching now and let you go back to business as usual.

1993 – Nightmare Before Christmas
Nominations:1
Wins:0
Winner of Best Picture: Schindler’sList
Note: Lets see you try selling Schindlers List babydoll T’s at Hot Topic!

1995 – Se7en
Nominations: 1
Wins: 0
Winner of Best Picture: Braveheart

2005 – Pan’s Labyrinth
Nominations:6
Wins: 3
Note: It took 15 years but we finally have another Horror(ish) film winning multiple Oscars. That means on my top ten list of Oscar winning horror it’s number 2, right after Silence of the Lambs, and right before Alien, Rosemary’s Baby, and 6 empty slots.

If there’s any justice in the Academy Hellboy II will get the Oscar for best Makeup, beating out critic favorites Benjamin Button and the Dark Knight. Go watch the Troll market scene again and tell me that’s not as good as old age stipple and runny clown face.

dumbo-octopus, originally uploaded by Boju.

Today Dapper Cadaver’s Monster Monday Blog dives down to the bottom of the sea for one of the strangest, and rarest creatures on earth- the Dumbo Octopus.

They live all over the world in depths of 12,000 feet and below. They’ve discovered new species of them as recently as 2007 and while most are 20cm and below, some grow to over 5 feet. If you’re in Sarasota, Florida, then I highly recommend visiting the Mote Marine Laboratory which is offering lectures and encounters with their favorite sea monsters, including the dancing pink elephant with the weird ear-wings, the dumbo Octopus.

Watching the Dumbo Octopus swim is like watching a bird crossed with a pac-man ghost. It flaps its wings instead of jets around like it’s blue water cousins. It also has unnervingly human eyes, complete with what appears to be pink eye lids, whites, and irises. Their familiar eye just adds to their oddness though, as there is nothing else familiar about their face, and you can’t figure out which end is the front.

Closer to the ground they move by spinning and fluttering their webbed arms like a pinwheel.

The males are armed with a tentacle-like hectocotylus, which is a word you really ought to know if you watch enough anime.

7swims, originally uploaded by Boju.

Todays Monster Monday by Dapper Cadaver comes from the Inuit (eskimo) people of Alaska, behold the mighty Ugjuknarpak! The unkillable sea-mouse of the sea that is also a giant!

Ugjuknarpak’s name derives from the gurgling sound his victims make as he wraps his long prehensile tail around their necks and drags them under. His friends call him Ugjuk for short. Ugjuk doesn’t have any friends though, because no one goes near Ugjuk’s island. Ugjuk has exceptional hearing and speed, and a hide that cannot be pierced by any hunters weapon. Try kayaking over to his place and you’ll be dead before you leave the harbor. All that will be leftis your overturned canoe.

Do not f*ck with this mouse!