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.