Blog Archives
Shelob
The conspicuous presence of spiders in J.R.R. Tolkien’s Middle Earth imaginarium is rooted in Arachnophobia, an irrational fear Tolkien’s son, Michael, was affected by. In the universe of Arda, the spiders were originally spawned by a single being — Ungoliant, a massive demonic entity which entered Middle Earth before the First Age, perhaps one of the Maia corrupted by Melkor. The Sindarin (Elvish) word for spider is, in fact, ‘ungol’. The creature gave birth to innumerable progeny, among which was Shelob, “the last child of Ungoliant.”
Watcher in the Water
“Frodo felt something seize him by the ankle, and he fell with a cry. Bill the pony gave a wild neigh of fear, and turned tail and dashed away along the lakeside into the darkness. Sam leaped after him, and then hearing Frodo’s cry he ran back again, weeping and cursing. The others swung round and saw the waters of the lake seething, as if a host of snakes were swimming up from the southern end.
Out from the water a long sinuous tentacle had crawled; it was pale-green and luminous and wet. Its fingered end had hold of Frodo’s foot and was dragging him into the water.”
-J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring
Originally, executives maintained that the Watcher sequence in Fellowship of the Ring could be excised, being essentially superfluous; Peter Jackson was against the idea and was adamant in retaining the scene. “I loved the notion of the scene,” Jackson stated, “and I thought the film needed a good Monster sequence at this [narrative] point in time. I fought for it.” Compared to the scene in the novel, the Watcher in the Water’s attack in Peter Jackson’s Fellowship of the Ring film adaptation was greatly emphasized. In the original version of the sequence, the Watcher attacks the Fellowship with its twenty-one, faintly luminous green tentacles — remaining otherwise unseen. In the film, the action of the scene is larger, and the Watcher reveals its appearance, emerging from the water.
Flame of Udun
“Something was coming up behind them. What it was could not be seen: it was like a great shadow, in the middle of which was a dark form, of man-shape maybe, yet greater; and a power and terror seemed to be in it and to go before it.
It came to the edge of the fire and the light faded as if a cloud had bent over it. Then with a rush it leaped across the fissure. The flames roared up to greet it, and wreathed about it; and a black smoke swirled in the air. Its streaming mane kindled, and blazed behind it. In its right hand was a blade like a stabbing tongue of fire; in its left it held a whip of many thongs.”
-J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring
Crusoe
The Water Horse director Jay Russell first developed the appearance of Crusoe, the titular creature of the film, with concept artist Matt Codd. The core concept was to have a design that would channel the classic depictions of the Loch Ness Monster — like the iconic 1934 photo hoax by surgeon Robert Wilson. “We felt that since we were creating our own version of this legend we wanted to have something unique.” Russell and Codd also attempted to make the creature a realistic, animal-like character, that would have a familiar element to it.
Horror of the Han River
“I really hate the creature film convention that says you have to wait until the end to see the monster,” said Bong Joon-ho, director of The Host, addressing the horror’s early revelation in the film. “One hour and all you’ve seen is just the tip of the creature’s tail. I really wanted to break that convention, so I show the entire creature early in the film.”
Monster Legacy 