Monsters

Originally this was going to be a post entirely on zombies, but then I got to thinking, "How many people have done posts on zombies?"  The answer is a lot.  What I haven't seen is a comparison.  A side-by-side rating of monsters.  Now I'm a horror movie fan, so I probably know more monsters than you, but I will stick to the 3 most popular (vampires, werewolves and zombies) and then rate them...in my opinion.  Without further ado...

Who: Vampire

     Okay, seriously.  If you don't know what a vampire is you may have stumbled onto this article by mistake.  Well, for those 3 people who don't know what a vampire is, here is a visual approximation.

 

 

Left: Vampire.  Right: Whiny Emo

     Vampires are predators of the night.  We're talking about Dracula, Nosferatu, Deacon Frost, and Leslie Nielson in Dracula: Dead and Loving it (more accurate portrayal of vampires than Twilight).  Through mysterious means by a curse or a virus or whatever, they are cursed to prey upon people and drink their blood to prolong their own existance.

Pros: Super speed, super strength, turning into a bat/wolf/mist/demon monster, hypnosis and flight are all things that one incarnation of vampires demonstrated at one time or another.  And do you know what?  Everything on that list is freakin' awesome.  Remember the vampires in The Lost Boys?  They were bad-ass. 

Kiefer Sutherland in 1987 as David

Those guys partied all night and slept all day.  So, it's kinda like your college years, except drinking blood instead of watered down Miller Lite and if the football team messed with you, you could just punch a hole through each of their chests, unless they were all vampires too, in which case you take the swirly they gave you. 

Cons: If you're reading this, odds are you are kinda like a vampire in that you hate the sun and stay up late.  You may be a morning person (for whatever reason), or you may not, but regardless, say goodbye too the sun.  With the exception of some cultural vampires from around the world and certain bastardizations of the vampire mythos (Twilight), vampires are turned to ash when they are caught in the sun.  It can even be a weak sun on a cloudy day, one ray of that sun and your ass is ash.  According to the Blade canon, it's not just the sun, it's all ultraviolet light.  Try going to a rave or into your stoner brother's room as a vampire and say goodbye to your most of you as you get burned alive. 

     Also, in certain mythos, a vampire is only as strong as the amount of blood he has in his body.  A hungry vampire could be taken out by a 4-year old with a wiffleball bat, given time. 

     Then there's also the problem of becoming a jaded asshole like in Vampire Hunter D.  Suddenly this whole vampire gig is not as cool as it seems.

Final Rating:

     Despite all of the downsides, being a vampire is still pretty metal, so ****.

Who: Werewolves

     Werewolves are, depending on the source, people that change into wolves during a full moon, people who are essentially shapeshifters, but limited to lupine shapes, or defenders of the Wyld (that is the proper spelling) who can become 9-foot tall engines of supernatural rage and blood enemies against vampires. 

                      

                                                              Pictured Above: Metal as fuck

Pros:

     Werewolves are renowned for their Wolverine-like healing abilities.  With the exception of silver and fire, werewolves can shrug of or regenerate almost any damage.  So, unless you're juggling silver chainsaws that are on fire, there's very little chance of you getting seriously hurt.

     Wolves are pack animals so to extrapolate that and put it into the framework of werewolves, someone has always got your back, and in most cases 4 or 5 someones. 

     This is where the werewolf mythology gets murky, but I'm going to go with the Werewolf: The Apocalypse interpretation and say that you're in control of your transformation into a hulking abatoir on legs.  Let's say, for the sake of argument, that some douche takes your parking spot that you've sat patiently waiting for for 15 minutes.  As a human you might yell and scream and honk your horn.  As a werewolf, you can 'roid out and throw him to the other side of the parking lot and then pummel the crap out of his BMW. 

Cons:

     Going to more traditional mythology, say some jerk cuts you off in traffic.  If you're like every other American who drives, you're going to 'roid out right there and probably destroy your car.  As a small consolation, you'll probably hunter that guy down and all sorts of murder his face.  But your car is ruined.  Now take that scenario and say you were driving on the highway.  Suddenly gives you a greater impetus to keep your cool.  I worked in a tech support call center where I would rage out on a daily basis.  I would have been fired after I ripped the 3 people around me apartthe first time.

     I also don't know where your clothes go when you go all werewolf, but I'm guessing it's like the Hulk where you're buying khakis in bulk and friends stop letting you borrow their hoodie for the weekend. 

     Unless you're reeeeeeally good at it, you will flip the kill-o-matic switch to "on" in public at least a few times.  This will prompt your city to either hire Douchey McGoon as a werewolf hunter armed with silver bullets that burst into fireballs when they hit you to follow you around in a chopper all day, or you will be required by law to have a handler like the elderly and high functioning autistics. 

     Also, just because you shrug off the damage doesn't mean you don't feel it.  You may shrug off a shotgun blast to the stomach, but you sure as shit felt it. 

Final Rating:

     So, werewolves are technically mortal which makes them both less and more cool than vampires.  But what I can't get over is how you destroy your clothes everytime you go wolf, unless you run around naked all the time, which come to think of it, would be pretty fun.  Okay, so despite all of the cons against them, werewolves are still pretty hardcore, ***&1/2*.

Who: Zombies

       The walking dead, the undead, ghouls, whatever you want to call them, you know what they are.  For reasons not adequately explained, the recently dead reanimate to eat the brains of the living. 



"Mmmm.  Gatorade's new 'Brains flavored G2' really hits the spot and gives me the edge I need."

Pros: I don't think anyone really wants to be a zombie, so I will discuss the advantages that zombies have over humans.  Zombies possess 2 things that make them superior to humans: resilience and determination.

     To say that zombies are resilient is something of an understatment.  Zombies can take an incredible amount of punishment and keep on going.  You blast them with a shotgun and them may stagger back and now sport a brand new exposed intestinal tract, but they are not destroyed.  Similarly, if you lop of their legs with a chainsaw, they're still a threat, unless you put on your frogstompers and go American History X on all of the zombies. 

     Say what you will, but zombies know how to set a goal and work towards it.  In short, zombies have 1920s style gumption.  Corporate America could learn a thing or 2 from a zombie's determination (I of course mean the lower level workers, not the CEO assholes with their palaces and sexy servants on call).  If I come at you and you push me away, eventaully I'll get bored and go home and play Castlevania.  If you push a zombie away 100 times, he will come at you 101 times. 

     Also zombies don't have to breathe or eat or use the bathroom.  This means that a zombie could win that game we all played as a kid at the pool known as "who can hold their breath long enough to acquire permanent brain damage".  It also means that while you're dropping a dook, the zombies are amassing outside the gas station.

Cons:

     In order to be a zombie you have to die first.  You could also get infected with the virus that causes zombie-ism, but that causes you to die, so, yeah.  That's kind of a deal-breaker in my book. 

     Also, according to Romero-ian mythology, zombies move slower than an arthritic quadriplegic.  That means even my sister's obese cat could outrun zombies. 

     To be a zombie you also have to give up personal hygiene, but you're dead, so you don't care.  As a newly turned zombie, you might not stink that bad yet, barely a hint of death.  As you age though, you will start to smell like your farts after eating 15 White Castle sliders; so in other words, terrible.

     Do you know why you stink like a pair of Kobe Bryant's shoes if he used Indian food as socks?  Your body's decaying, bro (sis).  Your immune system used to keep those microbial squatters at bay, but now that you're dead, your body is like a soup kitchen for homeless composters.  That bacteria is eating your ex-body as you shamble around.  If you were a smart zombie you'd move to Arizona or someplace dry to slow your decaying ass, but odds are, you'll wind up someplace near the coast where the ocean weather will rot you faster than a tooth dipped in Coca-Cola syrup. 

Final Rating:

     Zombie movies are pretty metal and one would think that translates to zombies being pretty metal, but when you look at all of the disadvantages piled up against him, a 7-year old who has access to a jungle gym can stave off a horde of zombies as long as he packed enough gummi bears.  Fighting against zombies is way more awesome than being one.  I give him **&1/2* (the extra 1/2 is for his gumption).

If you liked this and want to see more monsters analyzed and rated, write which ones in the comments below.  If you have an idea for a post that you'd like to see written, put that in the comments below too.