Design A Universal Monster Thread: Voting Thread v2.0

Let's try this again. This thread is for voting only. Voting is open to everyone. Any comments or discussions about the entries can be had in this thread. ETA: Eh, nevermind. Might as well discuss em here, I guess.

This was a conceptual design contest, so when voting for an entry please consider the importance of the character design over artistic talent.

Thanks. And thanks to everyone who participated.

I'm sleepy. Leave me alone. And quit discussin' in the non discussin' thread.

Richard Dickson presents:

THE HEADSMAN



The Headsman films, although released to little fanfare at the time, are among the most sought-after lost horror films of the 1940s. Remembered for their atmospheric cinematography and the silent, brooding presence of the title character, the films achieved modest popularity before fading into cinema history. It is believed the last known copies were destroyed in the same fire that claimed the last copy of Lon Chaney's London After Midnight. To this day, only small clips remain to preserve the legacy of this forgotten movie monster.

In the first film, The Headsman (1942), we see the story Harold, an executioner in the England of King Henry VIII. Unknowingly executing an innocent man, he is cursed by his victim to be denied the peace of death.

Later, Harold is killed by the enraged brothers of the man he wrongly executed. But over the next few days, all the brothers are found beheaded in their beds, and Harold's grave is found empty. The Headsman is born!

Centuries later, Roger Hedley, a descendant of that victim, learns he has inherited an English estate. Local legend has it the area is haunted by an ax-bearing spirit in a black mask. He scoffs at such superstition, but soon members of his traveling party meet gruesome ends thanks to the Headsman.

Roger discovers the story of his ancestor's curse, realizing it is his own family that has been responsible for the deaths the Headsman has caused. In a final confrontation, Roger forgives the Headsman, breaking the curse and allowing Harold's spirit to rest. He vanishes, his empty hood and axe falling to the floor. Roger decides to burn the house to the ground to cleanse it of the memory of the Headsman, and the final shot is the hood and axe surrounded by flames.

The Headsman proved popular enough for two sequels, Hood of the Headsman (1943) and Axe of the Headsman (1945). In these films, it is revealed that Harold's hood and axe were cursed long before he received them, a spell cast by a witch to cause their bearer to revel in bloodshed. Thus, both survive the fire at the end of the first film, and each causes the unsuspecting victim who takes possession of them to become the Headsman themselves. In Hood, the crown of King Henry VIII proves strong enough to banish the Headsman, while in Axe, breaking the shaft of the axe sends him back to his eternal rest.

A final Headsman film, Curse of the Headsman (1947), was considered a disappointment, as it focused on the witch who cursed his belongings, with the Headsman only making a brief appearance in a flashback at the beginning of the film. The witch is thwarted in an attempt to curse a new hood and axe by a descendant of the English Witch-Finder General Matthew Hopkins. The film was a box office failure, ending the Headsman series of films on a down note. Still, the first three films are remembered fondly by horror fans, and the search goes on for copies of these lost films.

Zweit gives us:

The Ghoul - I'm not really a writer so I guess your imagination will have to fill in the backstory.

Phil and mcnooj collaborated on The Spook:

Actor Lincoln Theodore Monroe Andrew Perry was widely known (and in later years, criticized) for his comedic film persona Stepin Fetchit, a walking stereotype of the lazy, shiftless, "colored" servant which appeared in dozens of films. But hidden in Perry’s closet is a skeleton of which most historians remain unaware to this day: in a critically lambasted attempt at creating the only African-American Universal Monster, Perry headlined a film so racist and hateful that it was quickly pulled from release, and all prints were ordered destroyed by Universal chief Carl Laemmle Jr.

The film was The Spook (released in some markets as Zombie Slave), directed by Paul Leni (this is in question; Leni’s name appears on the one-sheet, but documents at Universal list Rowland V Lee as the director of record. It is likely that whoever did pull directing duties did not want their name on the film). Its absurd plot was more or less a lift from the Jewish Golem legend, transplanted to a tobacco plantation in Virginia. David Manners, Universal's affable go-to leading man, played a Civil War veteran who returns home to find his tobacco tycoon father (Lionel Barrymore) engaging in trysts with his unpaid black female servants ("He paid them in passion!" screamed the film's publicity materials). When a comely field worker spurns his advances, the plantation owner burns down the servants' quarters, killing scores of adults and children. (Of the five people living who've claimed to see the film, two swear up and down that the film featured shots of burning black babies being thrown into a creek by their panicked mothers.)

Revenge descends on the plantation in the form of the titular Zombie Slave, conjured up by a survivor of the fire. In the films' remaining 25 minutes, no racist stereotype is left unexploited - spears are chucked, chitlins are eaten, and the film ends with an uncomfortably "triumphant" lynching. In fact, by all accounts the film seemed to suggest not an Old Testament, morally just tale of revenge, but an unapologetically pious cautionary tale of a society being punished for tampering with nature by "taking the savage untameable Negro out of its native surroundings." The film’s nakedly anti-minority tone apparently set it apart from the milder racism of films such as White Zombie and King Kong, and the public’s reaction was hostile and immediate.

Though officially denied, it's believed that this film was the catalyst behind Laemmle Jr's 1936 ousting from the studio. Perry quickly distanced himself from the film and returned to the relatively innocuous Stepin Fetchit role, which he continued to play for some 40 years. Today, all that survives are Jack Pierce's incredibly offensive character sketches of Lincoln Perry's character makeup...

nekkerbee designed another Ghoul



My contribution is similar to Zweit's: The Ghoul. Wrapped in his tattered burial shroud, the Ghoul feeds upon corpses old and new. Its dead eyes have long stopped seeing so the Ghoul sniffs out its meal, burrowing into graves to plunder the remains and crunching bones with its massive jaws.

My (and in desperate need of an editor) entry...


The Devil of River Burn

The following are excerpts and photos from the book The Vault of Forgotten Frights: Raiding Hollywood's Lost Horror History by Thomas G. Aylesworth.


On Tod Browning's abandoned film The Devil of River Burn:

And BrundleFlyboy gives us his design for Spring-Heeled Jack:

I looked into English folklore and cryptids and went with one that was spotted at one point in my area (The East End of London) in the 19th Century.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spring_Heeled_Jack

There is a classic description but as the various sightings and imagery fluctuate quite a lot I think there is plenty of room to play about with this guy too; he's even gone from villainous to vigilante at various points but I am sticking with the more threatening and demonic aspect.

Spook also got my vote. I mentioned in the other thread doing an Aurora model box art version of him. Will see what I can come up with.

Heh, sorry about that. I was pretty tired when I put this together this morning. It's a wonder it is even written in recognizable english and not: Jahs46hwgdyuwbvvbx d,agwd deduihd monsters jkbnhduiw ehfbc....