[quote="AArdvark"]Monsters.

Was in line at Wegmans and seen the tabloid about them Twilight vampire people getting hooked up. Started me thinking about monsters in general. About how twilight vampires are not 'real' vampires because of the sparkly skin thing and uh, other traits. Vampires are in the cultural psyche, they have to have certain powers and traits in order to conform to the accepted category.[/quote]
Yeah, and any concept of Hell has to be that of Dante Alleghori and the flaming brimstone model. The true answer is, if the story ignites the audience and moves them you can break the mold and create a new myth on a subject.
[quote="AArdvark"]Zombies are mostly the same way. that's all I could think of before the overweight cashier put all of our stuff in the reusable bags and told us to have a nice day, even though it was Seven o clock at night.[/quote]
What do vegetarian zombies moan out for? "Grains! Grains!"[quote="AArdvark"]What other monsters do we have that are classified as uh, monsters... and I don't mean pedophiles and serial killers.[/quote]Uh, tax collectors and politicians? Uh maybe that's still too close to pedophiles and serial killers.[quote="AArdvark"]I'm thinking along the classic Universal Pictures monsters.[/quote]

TVTropes discusses it, and I think you're talking about an "eldrich abomination", something horrible and unexpected. Around 1969 Michael Chrichton invents one: [i]The Andromeda Strain[/i], a type of virus with a near 100% fatality rate that kills fast. So it's extra frightening. Now we have Ebola and AIDS which are merely tragedies rather than frightening because they're not unusual. When it's something we expect it's any annoyance, a pest or a pestilence. When it's an unusual, unstoppable killer then it's a horrible monster.

700 deaths a year - 2 a day -from automobile accidents in a metropolitan region of a couple million people becomes something we live with as an unfortunate tragedy. 1 person a month dead from a serial killer becomes a terror to the entire population that mobilizes the police and the populace. The difference is we expect the deaths from auto accidents but the serial killer is the unexpected, the intolerable "eldrich abomination."

[quote="AArdvark"]So how come they are able to change the rules for vampires?

I guess it would be hard to do a romance movie with a zombie as the leading man.

'Oh, John!'

'Rrrrrhhhhh!'

'OH! JOHN!'

'RRRRRRRRRRRRRHH!'

[/quote]

Does that scene from Return of the Living Dead [II?] count?
Skip ahead to 7:25 in this clip to witness this classic moment of "girlfriend meets zombie boyfriend... zombie boyfriend eats out girlfriend's brains..." and she actually orgasms! lol!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y6H4MXgx62Q&feature=related

So how come they are able to change the rules for vampires?

I guess it would be hard to do a romance movie with a zombie as the leading man.

'Oh, John!'

'Rrrrrhhhhh!'

'OH! JOHN!'

'RRRRRRRRRRRRRHH!'


Now that I think about it, If you change the characteristics for any of the other types of monsters they cease to actually be monsters. They would just be people/ things with problems. Which is exactly what happened to the Twilight vampires. Change vampirisim to say, Tourette's syndrome and BAM! They aren't monsters anymore, any more than Spider-man is a monster. I guess it's all point of view.


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Witches?

Leprechauns?

Wrestlers?

I didn't see mummies in there. Mummies have a certain set of rules -- typically they contain magic, were imprisoned somehow, and then awoken in their a-tombs ...

Zombie rules are pretty tight, except that there are fast moving zombies and slow, lumbering zombies.

I think I would lop Cloverfield in with the "oversized rampaging monster" genre (if there is such a thing) along with King Kong, Godzilla, and all of those.

There's also the genre of mad scientists who turn themselves (either on purpose or accidentally) into monsters -- The Invisible Man, Dr. Jekyl and Mr. Hyde, etc.

You also left out aliens, but they range from War of the Worlds to E.T., so they're pretty hard to classify.

Oh, and the movie you were thinking of was Silver Bullet.

gotta eat right now, back in a mo

OK back now. Please note that I had a couple three beers at dinner and I was gonna move this to the drunk base but I figured what the hell.
(Edit: thank god for spell check!)

Monsters.

Was in line at Wegmans and seen the tabloid about them Twilight vampire people getting hooked up. Started me thinking about monsters in general. About how twilight vampires are not 'real' vampires because of the sparkly skin thing and uh, other traits. Vampires are in the cultural psyche, they have to have certain powers and traits in order to conform to the accepted category. Zombies are mostly the same way. that's all I could think of before the overweight cashier put all of our stuff in the reusable bags and told us to have a nice day, even though it was Seven o clock at night.

What other monsters do we have that are classified as uh, monsters... and I don't mean pedophiles and serial killers.

I'm thinking along the classic Universal Pictures monsters.

Frankenstein? Not really. he's just a misunderstood recycled man. Frankenstein can behave any way it wants.

Wolfman? maybe. If they had a werewolf portrayed as Howie Mandel getting hit with a rolled up newspaper because he wet the carpet I would complain though. There can be all sorts of werewolves. Like that movie with Jack Nicholson a while back. Can't remember the name right now and too sleepy to Google it. Or the one with that wheelchair kid and the big bottle rocket.

Ghost? Nope. From that Demi Moore flick to Paranormal Activity it's obvious that ghosts can act any way they want to and be accepted.

Sea monster? Creature from the African-American Lagoon all teh way to....(fuck, but I'm drawing a blank here. Chesterfield? CLOVERFIELD! That's it! See, there are no normal sea monster traits. They can be as wild and wacky as they want to be.

Any more I forgot about?



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AARDVARK