6 Badass Monsters That Are Much Worse Than You Were Led to Believe

When it comes to monsters, most of us only know the (numerous) movie versions we’ve been shown – and, at least some of the time, those depictions try to capture at least some of the original monster. But, sometimes, to really understand just how badass that scary-as-hell monster really is, you’ve got to go back to its roots. Here are:

6 Badass Monsters That Are Much Worse Than You Were Led to Believe

1. The Jabberwock, Through The Looking Glass (Lewis Carroll)

If you’ve seen just about any Alice in Wonderland movie ever – such as Tim Burton’s more recent adaptation – You’ll be familiar with the Jabberwock. It’s usually depicted as an almost dragon-like lizard creature with sharp claws, wings and a really bad attitude. This has, for most people, become the accepted and expected portrayal of Carroll’s nightmarish beast. Here’s the thing: Carroll never described the Jabberwock in detail.

Yup, the description of the Jabberwock is exactly three lines long; it has eyes of flame, whiffles, and burbles when it moves. Doesn’t sound very scary, does it? But, if you read the whole poem and combine it with a little bit of imagination, what you can come up with can be terrifying. Knowing Carroll, it’s probably a safe bet to imagine it looking like a bad trip hallucination. Demonic insectoid clown, anyone?

2. Cthulhu and the Great Old Ones, The Call of Cthulhu (H.P. Lovecraft)

Cthulhu and his buddies have appeared in many films and games, usually looking like an alien impregnated herself with spliced genes from Davy Jones and a Chibi Dragon. While the depiction might be relatively accurate for Cthulhu, no image can quite conjure up the scaly, rubbery hideousness of a giant squid-faced creature who could drive anyone looking at him insane.

Here’s the interesting thing: more often than not, Cthulhu and the other Great Old Ones are shown as looking the same in popular media. If only. To name a few, there’s Gol-Goroth, the scaly, tentacle-covered giant toad and Quachil Uttaus who looks like a shrivelled mummified aborted child that can turn you to dust with a touch. Not to mention Nyogtha, who is little more than an inky shadow, and Bugg-Shash, a giant jelly filled with humanoid eyes and mouths. Once he’s drowned you in slime, he’ll control you like a puppet for the rest of eternity.

How’s that for an afterlife?

3. Dracula, Dracula (Bram Stoker)

Everyone knows the tragic story of Count Dracula the vampire, right? Lost his wife, renounced god, got cursed, and then he spends the remained of the movie and/or series trying to win back his beloved reincarnated Mina while avoiding the assholes – Jonathan, van Helsing, etc. – and sunlight. Right? Wrong.

The Dracula that so many of us have come to love is nothing like the original. First and foremost, he was no delicious Jonathan Rhys Meyers. He’s actually so hideous that he completely freaks poor Harker the hell out. He also didn’t have any ‘brides’, but instead they were called ‘the sisters’ – and they looked rather similar to Drac himself. In fact, the novel character had absolutely no redeeming qualities at all. He was, to put it bluntly, a predator, rapist and baby killer. Oh, and sunlight? He didn’t have that problem either.

4. Frankenstein’s Monster, The Modern Prometheus (Mary Shelley)

Ask most people and they will tell you Frankenstein’s monster is a giant, zombie like creature with a flat head, lots of scars, a few (loose) screws, and that he speaks mainly in grunts or like he’s missing half his brain - not counting a certain recent adaptation that turned him into a relatively hot demon slaying badass. More often than not, Frankenstein is a semi-sympathized lumbering zombie-creature that kills for little or no reason – something easily, and incorrectly – blamed on his borrowed criminal brain.

In the novel, the nameless monster is quite different. Even though still described as hideously ugly (translation, very scarred) with grace and long flowing hair, the creature is empathic, sensitive, emotional, and smart – he’s described as eloquent and philosophical, even. Although he’s still a killer, every kill is a move of calculated revenge against his creator, whom the creature blames for leaving him lost and alone in a cruel world. In the end, when even his creator is dead, the grief stricken creature decides to kill himself.

Let’s face it – smart monster beats brainless monster any day of the week.

5. The Nothing, The Neverending Story (Michael Ende)

To children who watched The Neverending Story, the destructive storm probably seemed like a horrible thing – especially since it was destroying Fantasia. The scared faces of the characters as they tried to run from the Nothing’s wind trying to pull them in probably left quite a few scarred memories and nightmares in their wake. Unfortunately – or, perhaps, fortunately – film can never quite capture the true horror that was the novel version of The Nothing.

The Nothing is a force of absolute oblivion that erased anything and everything from existence, described as a formless, featureless negation of existence. That was bad enough. But it didn’t suck things in, as the movie shows – Fantasians were actually compelled to jump into the Nothing and destroy themselves. Even worse, once it erased something in Fantasia, the Nothing would turn it into lies in the normal world. Yup, it wasn’t satisfied with destroying human imagination – it was set on destroying the rest of our world, too.

6. The Balrog Durin’s Bane, The Lord of the Rings (J.R.R. Tolkien)

Aside from the running, screaming and Gandalf’s apparent death, the actual fight with the powerful Balrog lasted a fantastic minute. If you can call it a fight. And another minute and a half if you count Gandalf’s flashback. Not all that much, in the grand scheme of things. Still, the giant flaming beastie did make quite an impression. Sadly, the full power of the Balrog (and Gandalf, for that matter) is never really seen.

The Balrog, Durin’s Bane, was actually not that much taller than a man, although he could ignite his body in flames (or turn into a ‘thing of slime, stronger than a strangling snake’ when in the water) and did indeed wield a flaming sword and whip. On the surface, the movie adaptation was true enough to how things went down in the book. Here’s the catch: both Gandalf and Durin’s Bane are Maiar – powerful primordial spirits that helped shape the world.

Here’s the kicker – although his physical body is slain, as a Maiar, the Balrog’s spirit still lives.

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