Monsters weren’t always monsters. Just as every superhero has its own origin story, monsters are born from the most unlikely of places and situations. Once alive and animated, their flesh-eating crusades are trapped in a mindless vat. They must endlessly chase their prey to tame the beast within them. Escape can be found; the hexagon can be lifted, but only with the utmost faith and meticulous procedures.
Innocents have little precious time to fathom the reversal process or kill the switch to the maddening monster chaos. Friends become enemies, quick decisions become slippery slopes and men become monsters. The kismet killers turn into obelisks of terror and warn witnesses to look no further, they too fall away from fear and horror. Transformations that make puberty look tame and insane, it’s never easy going through or getting through these bodily changes.
8/8 Frankenstein (1931)
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Scientists are not the only ones who make mistakes. dr. Henry Frankenstein’s Monster (Boris Karloff) was born from a series of grave-robbing cadavers and a seized brain. His hunchbacked assistant and accomplice, Fritz, snatched the latter from Henry’s college. He initially grabbed a normal brain, but damaged its contents, so he stole the brains that belonged to a criminal instead. In a metaphysical personality transplant, the live-action board game Operation took place with exciting results. To play God by invoking the laws of nature and bending them to your will was a lofty goal with minor consequences.
7/8 dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1932)
Academy Award winner for Best Actor Fredric March plays Doctor Jekyll who discovers a formula to unleash your inner demons. He takes the form of Mr. Edward Hyde, an immoral and violent alter ego. The possessed doctor was an early Two-Face, capable of bringing about the uncontrolled dark nature of man’s duality. A chemical concoction seems like a loophole, but the transformation is a homely sight that… bypasses the line between inhibitions and malpractice.
6/8 The Wolfman (1941)
Lon Chaney Jr. played the Wolf Man in four future sequels following the success of his lupine debut. Before turning around, Chaney Jr. Larry Talbot, who fell in love with antiques shop owner Gwen Conliffe (Evelyn Ankers) in his native Wales. He buys a silver walking stick with a wolf’s head on it and marked with a pentagram. Gwen and the villagers are familiar with the legendary beast and often recite the famous verse: “Even a man who is pure in heart and who says his prayers at night; Can become a wolf when the wolfbane is blooming and the autumn moon is bright.” The supernatural dogma of the townspeople, coupled with the superstitious artifacts and inevitable doom, makes this werewolf insatiable like his gaze on a full moon.
5/8 Cat People (1982)
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An erotic horror that will curl your tail, cat people is a modernized version of the self-titled classic from 1942. Instead of werewolves, there are werecats who have to kill humans to take back their human form. The fleshly tensions and predatory ferocity run high as a divorced family has to deal with their feline heritage. The effect is maladjusted as intended, with the grotesque skin of the female protagonist turning into a black panther coat. Nothing can limit this ferocious fräulein feline except bestiality. It’s the Beauty and the Beast remake Disney Adults could never have imagined!
4/8 The Venomous Avenger (1984)
New Jersey’s first superhero was a real-life blue nerd named Melvin Ferd Junko III from the fictional town of Tromaville. With arguably the world’s most geeky name, tragedy had to befall our unlikely hero. Sadists everywhere rejoiced when Melvin’s bullies harassed him from a second-floor window and ended up in a barrel of toxic waste. He runs to a bath that turns into a boiling cauldron. His muscles pulsate and blister, his hair falls out and the whimpering Melvin is replaced by the lumpy, ungainly Toxic Avenger!
3/8 An American Werewolf in London (1981)
Teen Wolf (1985) can indulge! John Landis, director of schlock (1973) and National Lampoon’s Animal House (1978), found the balance between horror and comedy. After Landis’ script lay dormant for ten years, David Kessler (David Naughton) is attacked by a werewolf one night in England. He survives, but his friend perishes and only appears to him as premonitions where he warns David of the werewolf’s curse. When a full moon catches David’s eyes, the transformation begins with bone-breaking body horror.
2/8 The Fly (1986)
David Cronenberg ups the ante in body horror with his remake of The fly (1958). Seth Brundle is played by Jeff Goldblum, a devoted but over the top scientist. He experiments with a teleportation device to instantly transport living organisms from one location to another. He succeeds and decides to teleport himself, unknowingly teleporting a housefly with him. The greatest freak accident known to mankind occurs and turns him into a freak of nature. The biological anomaly is proof that science, with all its advancing benefits, can go too far in the wrong direction or be detracting.
1/8 The Thing (1982)
John Carpenter brings body horror and monster transformation to its perverted peak. In this remake of The thing from another world (1951), the plant monster from the original becomes a parasitic host for a team of American researchers in Antarctica. It takes on the identity of its flesh puppets, undetected until it rears its ugly, shell-like, mangled forms. It’s enough to make HP Lovecraft shudder.