With the reboot of The Blob, The Mummy, Frankenstein, and monsters like Godzilla soon to be scaring moviegoers once again, I feel I must go over monster rules. Follow all the rules and you’ll at least have a chance of survival. Choose not to and, well, it’ll be your last monster movie. That is if you find yourself in a monster movie.
I’ve been watching monster and science fiction movies since The Fly’s 1965 debut at our local drive-in. (If you’re wondering how can a fly be a monster — it was a really big fly.) Monsters have changed a lot since then, but these rules haven’t.
Rule number one: If you’re in a group, never for any reason, leave that group — unless you want to be eaten or even worse. What could be worse than being eaten? Just ask any zombie out there.
I’ve done my part to warn the actors and moviegoers around me. Just last weekend, I was shouting at the big screen trying to warn the actors not to split up. There’s strength in numbers. But did they listen? Nope. And they all got eaten.
Rule number two: Don’t open a closed door, especially if you hear a strange noise coming from behind it. Why would you? A monster is stalking around and you are trying to escape. Don’t waste time opening closed doors; just go out the nearest window to get away.
Let the guy who split up from the main group open doors with strange noises behind them. If he gets eaten, no problem. He wasn’t going to make it out anyway. Refer to rule number one above.
Rule number three: Under no circumstances look under the bed. It’s the entrance to an alternate universe or there’s a monster under there or the monster’s going to come out of the closet and eat you while you’re not paying attention.
So why are you spending valuable runaway time looking under the bed in the first place? Back on Flamingo, there was no worry about monsters being under my bed, The Sister’s, or any of my brothers’. We always had a lot of dirty clothes stuffed under there for that very reason. There were no clothes stuffed under our parents’ bed, and we were never allowed in their room unless invited. They never invited us in when there was a monster hiding under their bed. I know, I looked and never saw one.
Rule number four is really two rules in one: Monsters never die the first time they are knocked unconscious, and don’t turn your back on a dead/unconscious monster while walking away. Screaming at the movie or television screen will not alert and save the actors from impending death when the monster gets back up. Why should we have to warn them anyway? Haven’t they ever seen monster movies before? They should know better.
The fifth, and probably most important rule to remember about monsters: Monsters have babies. The number of babies said monster will leave behind for others to stumble onto and be eaten by (or worse) is directly correlated to the strength of the franchise. The exceptions to this rule are aliens, mummies, and Frankenstein. There was, is, and forever will be only one Frankenstein.
There are a few other rules, but I must leave now or be late for a new monster movie. Seems a giant Kaiju (a monster-like Godzilla) has two monster Kaiju friends and are about to destroy Tokyo … again.
The only thing standing in their way are three giant fighting robots, and one little one, called Jaegers. Each Jaeger has two pilots inside their heads operating weapons while controlling the arms and legs. This movie is going to be awesome!
I just hope they remember all the monster rules, but if they don’t, you can be assured of one thing. I’ll be screaming out all the rules to the actors in the movie.
[Rick Ryckeley has been writing stories since 2001. To read more of Rick’s stories, visit his blog: storiesbyrick.wordpress.com.]
