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Day 2 Assignments
Reply to post your assignment.
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14 Replies
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Cameron Martin’s Terrifying Monster(s)
What I learned doing this assignment is…to come up with something as unique as possible, and brainstorm like hell. I knew coming into this that I preferred creature features (that’s what I grew up with) over slasher movies. Still haven’t seen SCREAM, SAW, TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE, and you’d have to drag me unconscious to see a movie like OMEN or THE CONJURING. I’ll try to keep watching more of these horror movies (nothing involving demons. Nope. No way. Sorry. My religious background kinda makes it a little too real for me), so that I can start developing a better vocabulary for these monsters.
(Note: I tried to come up with several just for practice with brainstorming.)
The Monster: Dinosaur clones
Their Terror: The eat indiscriminately and want their prey alive and screaming when they eat them.
Their Mystery: Where did they come from, and how do you kill them?
Their Fear Provoking Appearance: Unlike the more realistic dinosaurs in JURASSIC PARK, these are genuine hybrids engineered with genocide in mind (taking the indominus rex and indoraptor up a couple notches)
Their Rules: They do not kill quickly, they do not pick sides, they cling to the shadows and wait to eat their prey alive, they do not attack arians?
Their Mythology: They’re one of many experiments developed by Nazi scientists hellbent on establishing a new world order.
The Monster: Humanoid Cicadas
Their Terror: They crawl out of the ground and slaughter their prey. They adapt to what they eat.
Their Mystery: How did they get in the ground and how long have they been there? Can they be stopped?
Their Fear Provoking Appearance: What starts out as a giant insect becomes more humanoid and strange as it eats more people and other animals, as well as plants.
Their Rules: They eat once a day, evolving overnight, and needing to eat the next day to become something worse.
Their Mythology: Every million years, the cicadas come out of dormancy and cause another mass extinction in their wake.
The Monster: A wannabe superhero with hunger pains
Their Terror: Doesn’t just stop bad guys, but eats them.
Their Mystery: What is the extant of his powers, or what other traits did he take from the radioactive caterpillar
Their Fear Provoking Appearance: A typical superhero, mask and all, who is a vicious cannibal, growing larger and larger with each victim
Their Rules: Possesses superhuman strength, agility, and a relentless need to eat, until he metamorphosizes into his final form.
Their Mythology: Teenager who was stung by a radioactive caterpillar becomes a superhero, but can’t control the dark side of his powers that compel him to eat until he becomes a human butterfly
The Monster: Humans becoming monsters via radiation from a kaiju
Their Terror: Spread the kaiju’s radiation, thus turning others into monsters as well, eat and tear each other, whether human or monster, to shreds.
Their Mystery: Is there any way to prevent the spread of their radiation
Their Fear Provoking Appearance: twisted spires and spines growing from people’s bodies, people growing to twice their size
Their Rules: As the radiation contorts their bodies, the victims lose their mind and expel radiation through their breath and spines, spreading it to others.
Their Mythology: After a Godzilla-like creature has rampaged through a city, the real terror begins when the radiation left behind transforms the survivors into the same monster that destroyed their home.
The Monster: Parasitic Alien Worms
Their Terror: They infect you, either with you being a brood mother for more worms, or a single worm uses your body as a shell and hunts with it.
Their Mystery: How did the population get out of hand, and is there anyway to stop the infestation?
Their Fear Provoking Appearance: They’re worms with teeth on their arrowhead faces. When they infect someone/something, the mouth of their host is detached from the rest of the cranium.
Their Rules: Jude – “You know how they work, don’t you? Their eggs grow like a fungus from back on Earth. At the end of her cycle, the queen burrows deep and her eggs grow out of her in any confined space, whether it be a cave, a tree hollow…or a space colony. Then, the fungal eggs are carried on the wind, or ventilation system, and breathed deep by a new host, where they’ll grow in less than an hour, so that GOD knows how many worms hatch from inside you, and take over your body like it’s their shell to go hunting with.” Yeah, when the eggs use up all the moisture in your lungs, that’s when they hatch and exit out of the mouth (first one to reach it gets to take the host’s body).
Their Mythology: The population used to be under control by a natural predator, but due to terraforming practices wiping out the keystone species, the worms can spread with reckless abandon.
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I am a bit behind in the assignments, mostly because I am technology illiterate. I did not post my first assignment because I clicked the wrong button. So, here goes…
Because I’m not a blood and gore type of horror fan, I watched (for the 3rd time) MIDNIGHT MASS on Netflix. My kind of horror is subtle and not in one’s face. My kind of monster is the human being.
Assignment 1
Concept: MIDNIGHT MASS
Terrorize: Some “thing” is on Crockett Island
Isolation: Crockett Island-the only way out is by ferry.
Death: first come the death of the cats, then minor characters, then major characters; in fact everyone on the island except two young people. It’s a blood bath.
Monster: Winged Angel (bad angel)
High Tension: Miracles are happening to the characters which causes them to believe in the angel. The climax is when everyone becomes “vampire-like” creatures.
Departure for Reality: Vampires
Moral Statement: Religious overtones.
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I have written chapters for my story titled OFFERING. If it doesn’t become a screenplay, it will definitely become a novel for that’s what I write. I have not fleshed out most of the parts because I’m a “pantser”. So, here goes:
Concept: OFFERING
Terrorize: Dark Arts/Cult/Human sacrifice
Isolation: Small beach town called Cape Creed
Death: ??
Monster/Villain: Most of the people in Cape Creed
High Tension: Protagonist’s young daughter will be impregnated by cult leader. Baby will be sacrificed
Departure from reality: Devil Worship
Moral statement: ??
Assignment 2
The Monster.
What I learned: The words that describe the “monster” or “villain” are close to what I am writing. The human factor is important to me. No one suspects the evil to come from regular people–except me, of course. So, unique, unknown, and terrifying are words I can deal with.
Terror of monster: There will be a leader of this cult, but I’m not sure who that will be. I have two handsome gentlemen that will be in competition to woo the protagonist. I’m not sure yet who to make the “good guy”.
Mystery: The villain will be in plain sight. To me, that’s what makes this scary. No one knows who to trust.
Appearance: What is more fearful than a nice-looking human being with really bad intentions?
Rules: Group is cursed to do horrible things or they will no longer exist. Must find a descendant of the Wilkes clan.
Mythology: Cult dates back to colonial times when a curse was put upon the land on which they lived. Human sacrifice made the land tenable.
I realize this is a much different plot than most of the writers here; however, this is the subtle horror I enjoy.
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Eric Humble’s Terrifying Monster
What I learned doing this assignment is: how to better craft a monster. This is something I’ve struggled with for the three horror scripts I’ve written. I tend to write the villain as a thriller villain who has rational motivation, gets rattled, and isn’t cruel enough or terrifying enough in appearance. Oddly enough, the “rules” that are common to all monsters was a huge breakthrough to me, even though looking at it now seems obvious. I was more easily able to brainstorm specific rules for my monster after thinking through how these more general rules would govern the monster’s actions. I also really enjoyed brainstorming the various elements of the monster’s terror – it has given me a much sharper focus on the monster. I’ve never liked horror movies much simply because they scare me to my core – but I’m really starting to enjoy crafting one of my own and I’m excited for each of the next steps in developing the outline!
1. Tell us what or who your monster is.
The Wino – a ragged, emaciated wino wearing a canvas mask with a hand-drawn “cheerful drunk” face – two X’s for eyes, a silly grin with a tongue sticking out.
2. Give us a few sentences for each of the following for your monster:
Their Terror:
Terrorizes: The Wino is invisible to people who are sober. Accosts sober people and squeezes the life out of them while invisible. They never know if he’s following them, or if he’s right in front of them – unless they alter their states with alcohol or drugs.
Pursues: Follows/stalks while invisible, teasing/tormenting/hurting them to spur them on.
Isolates: Waits until they’re alone after the party to first appear. Follows them out the empty building and down the freight elevator, then down the empty street, and finally into the empty subway platform and tunnel.
Terrible Thing He Does: Crushes them with brute force, slashes them with a broken bottle he keeps inside a ratty paper bag, and, when he’s forced them to get drunk or high, puts them in situations where they need to be sober to survive
How Does It Cause Death: Lures them into traps/situations where being drunk or high will get them killed; crushes and slashes them while he’s invisible
Their Mystery:
How can we survive without getting drunk or high?
Their Fear Provoking Appearance:
A ragged, emaciated wino wearing a canvas mask with a hand-drawn “cheerful drunk” face – two X’s for eyes, a silly grin with a tongue sticking out.
Their Rules:
Doesn’t make a sound
Wants you to “drink up” – and will kill you unless you “party with it,” at which point it will ensure you kill yourself by placing you in a situation where you can’t survive in the state you’re in
Their Mythology:
Was once a young party animal – centuries ago – who at a debauched party summoned a demon, which he held in captivity and ordered to let him always stay young and always have young people to party with. He wanted a party that would never end. In exchange, he’d release the demon. The demon granted his wish – turning him into the wasted physical form of a chronic drunk with a compulsion to make young people party with him by forcing them to drink or get wasted on drugs… then turn that against them so they’d die.
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Hi Eric,
I love your concept! I think I’ll hesitate on my glass of red wine tonight 😱
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Wow! What an impressive and original concept!
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Marc KOENIG’s monster – Title: ELEMENT 119 – An unknown crystal released from an archeological artifact comes to life, and colonizes organic hosts, turning them into savage killers.
What I learned doing assignment#2 is that brainstorming about the monster’s “specifications” gives clues to creating new horrifying situations, which themselves lead to finding more deadly skills for the monster. A kind of “terrifying virtuous circle” of imagination.
1. TERROR:
- Terrorize: The living crystal is in an unstoppable growing process.
- Pursue: It is shape-shifting, uses mimetic skills, unseen and fast.
- Isolate: It is inside your body
- Terrible things: Gets inside the body by ingestion, inhalation, or perforation. It cuts, stabs, hits and poisons. It turns its host totally insane, and aggressive.
- Death: It destroys its host by cutting its body inside.
- Inescapable: It can hide everywhere and break into every place
2. MYSTERY:
- How can the living mineral be destroyed?
- How to stop it from growing?
- How to remove it from the host? Or from your own body?
3. FEAR PROVOKING APPEARANCE:
- It is shape-shifting
- It can grow spikes and blades
- It has a crystal appearance with metallic sheen
- It emits metallic screechy sounds
- It can blow itself up to turn into a cloud of microscopic spores
4. RULES:
- Once released, the crystal randomly looks for hosts.
- It is attracted by heat and vibrations.
- Once inside your body, it turns you into a psychopath looking for any mineral source, with a special taste for the iron contained in human blood.
- As it ends up poisoning and slaughtering inside its own host in a short period of time, it never stops looking for more hosts, preferably bigger ones.
- Its only goal is to feed to get bigger and bigger.
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This reply was modified 3 years ago by Marc KOENIG.
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T.J’s Terrifying Monster
What I learned: More specificity begets more specificity. The environment can also be a weapon for the killer.
1. Tell us what or who your monster is: The Iron Mask killer
2. Give us a few sentences for each of the following for your monster:
Their Terror: The Iron Mask killer hunts his prey using manner and means of summer camp. The camp in in the middle of nowhere with no cell reception.
Their Mystery: Are the people who are “disappearing” in on the summer slasher experience, or are they actually being hunted.
Their Fear Provoking Appearance: An iron mask. He uses weapons that you might find around a camp: bow and arrow, pitchfork, machete, baseball bat. Traps designed around an empty pool, zipline, high ropes course.
Their Rules: The Iron Mask killer targets people who love summer camp slashers in order to become famous and possibly win the girl of his dreams
Their Mythology: Inspired by a ghost story that was made up for this camp
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Alfred’s Terrifying Monster
What I learned – to stream line my creature and not focus much on its back story.
1) My monster is a creature that appears to be Christianity’s image of Jesus.
2) Their Terror – a creature made a deal with the privileged to feed on minority children.
Their Mystery – How do we stop this thing from feeding on more children?
Their Fear – Provoking appearance is an ironic visual. Image of what people consider their savior used by a blood thirsty creature.
Their Rules – creature is summoned by singing the song “Jesus Loves Me”. It then stalks and feeds on its prey. It can also influence adults to do its bidding.
Their Mythology – Everything you were taught about the Bible and Jesus was a lie. It was a cover up to conceal the a bargain made between the creature and the wealthy. The creature caused the annihilation of the Roanoke Colony. The creature has been in the US ever since making the country and rich people prosperous in exchange for hunting minority children.
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Lance’s Malevolent spirit – Marshall
What I learned doing this assignment is I’ve always had trouble with the rules of the monster and I’ve love to read other resources of the rules and mythologies of different monsters.
Tell us what or who your monster is.
Marshall was a retiree who lived in the building for most of his adult life. He was malicious in life. It was some time after he died before his body was found. His spirit has lingered in the apartment since his death.
2. Give us a few sentences for each of the following for your monster:
Their Terror:
Marshall is able to inhabit Nathan’s body and control him. While he does so, he abuses and terrifies Nathan’s wife Hailey. At first she doesn’t know what is going on, it’s only later that she realizes her husband has been possessed. At the same time, Nathan’s body gets sick and his body starts to deteriorate.
Their Mystery:
Hailey must find a way to free Nathan from Marshall’s possession or they could both die.
Their Fear Provoking Appearance:
Marshall’s body began to decompose before he was finally found. The decayed vision of his face appears to those who are psychically sensitive.
When Marshall takes control of Nathan’s body, it creates the fear of someone who used to be known. Hailey loves Nathan and to see him act the way he does and do the things he starts to do is horrifying.
Their Rules:
Marshall wants to live again. He loves living again even though he didn’t appreciate his life at the end.
Marshall’s possession is slowly killing Nathan. He denies it at first, but ultimately wants to find a way to stay in control of the body without dying.
Hailey recognizes that Nathan is sick and she wants to find a way to free her husband from the malevolent spirit.
Their Mythology:
Marshall died with deep and powerful rage. His spirit unsettled, he is not ready to leave the world. He wants to have fun and that leads to the death and destruction of others around him.
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Lesson 2:Crafting Your Monster
What I learned doing this assignment: I learned that crafting a monster can have numerous layers…that can be peeled away in Acts 2 and 3.
1. Scott Kaplan’s Terrifying Monster(s) are a Cult of Harbor Rats (initial anatgonists).
1a. Sprirts are summoned to carry out the evil deeds of the cult. They are an extension of the aforementioned Harbor Rats… a gateway.
2. Their Terror: Harbor Rats create FEAR in a small community. Fear of the UNKNOWN.
Their Mystery: The residents don’t understand or know who or what is causing the disappearance of friends/ family members.
Their Fear Provoking Appearance: When they eventually appear (Act 2), the Spirits are rotting and decayed. They have sharp claws and gigantic teeth, rising up after 100 years to avenge their deaths.
Their Rules: Harbor Rats feel “entitled” because they grew up on Seminole Street since birth–seemingly unbreakable bond. In Act 1, only they know how to summon the ghastly spirits…but the rules can evolve and change in Acts 2 and 3.
Their Mythology: Origins of their culture…Native Americans slain for the purpose of builders taking over land to make money (Flashback Scene).
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Brandon’s Terrifying Monster
What I learned: The sequel often explores the origin of the monster.
1. Tell us what or who your monster is.
The Headless Horsemen, the ghost of a Hessian Trooper
2. Give us a few sentences for each of the following for your monster:
• Their Terror: The Headless Horseman collects the heads of every living soul he can find.
• Their Mystery: How do we stop this monster without losing our own heads?
• Their Fear Provoking Appearance: Carries a satchel of heads. Dusty black coat; black riding boots. Terrifying 19th century axe; sometimes dons an actual rotting pumpkin for a head.
• Their Rules: Characters can only stop the monster by finding and destroying his original head which is kept in formaldehyde by a rich eccentric. Specifics: The monster rides a demonic horse that he parks at the local cemetery. He uses one or two of his collected heads as a mace. As a last resort, when all else fails, he uses his pumpkin head for a weapon – hurling it at you in an unrelenting fiery blue flame.
• Their Mythology: In his former incarnation he was a Hessian trooper fighting for the British in the Revolutionary war when a cannon blew his head clean off.
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ATAUR’S TERRIFYING MONSTER
What I learned: Segmentation of Response into 5 helps against block.
WHO MONSTER IS
The monster is a force coming in from Nature/Cosmos. Mostly we see its relentless, brutal side and its grotesque appearance. But there is a faint trace of, if not kindness, a seeking of some kind of harmony.
THE TERROR
For Victims: The monster seduces before it terrorises by both brutality and appearance.
For The Town Struggling to Cope with Horrible Murders: The corpses show signs of a tenderness after the brutality.
THE MYSTERY
Are there two very different perpetrators at every crime scene?
THE FEAR-PRODUCING APPEARANCE
Actually, a spectrum from comely youth, all the way over to something crocodilian.
RULES
MO: Seduces, Changes from Seductive to Horrific, Isolates, then goes full speed to the horrible murder, and finally a calm.
MYTHOLOGY
A monster with a 90-10 personality split.
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Mark Veau
What I learned doing this assignment is… there are more facets to pay attention to when creating a great monster – Analyzing the Mystery and Mythology more in depth I thought were especially helpful.
Tell us what or who your monster is:
A circa 1948 “state of the art” Refrigerator – Built to last!
Their Terror:
Hell bent on terrorizing its victims before the killing and maiming, the Refrigerator’s unpredictable behavior is backed up by its bloodied shark-like teeth and seemingly endless arsenal of deadly, food-related ammo and weapons. This maniacal metal appliance will not stop its deadly wrath until all of its victims are dead and he possesses all of their young souls.
Their Mystery:
Can we kill the Refrigerator by killing the electrical supply coming into the house before more victims are taken?
Their Fear-Provoking Appearance:
The Killer Refrigerator is essentially made from two perspectives: Ironic Visual to start… a Refrigerator that has sprouted menacing, blood-soaked, razor-sharp, shark-like teeth. Later combined with Grotesque & Disturbing… when the Refrigerator grows the head of its last male victim. Now the appliance can talk, upping the terror. His words uttered through a head made from spoiled cold cuts, rotten leftovers and oozing wounds.
Their Rules:
It’s a machine. Its only motivation is to kill and destroy. It is unstoppable. When it grows its head, the Refrigerator’s rules are motivated by its “romantic” pursuit of Samantha, the most popular girl in school.
Their Mythology:
The blurred lines of machine and man are crossed…
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This reply was modified 3 years ago by Mark Veau.
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This reply was modified 3 years ago by
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Tina’s Terrifying Monster
It’s great to see it shift and squirm then how the pieces fall into place. It continues to evolve…
1. Tell us what or who your monster is.
A featureless demon sucking out the energy of witches and using their eyes as his own.
2. Give us a few sentences for each of the following for your monster:
Their Terror:
He sucks out the witches’ powers, it’s his life source. He gauges their eyes out to use as his own and sews their mouth shut to keep them quiet, then replaces their face witch a mask. He keeps them as his livestock, making his rounds to feed on them.
He leaves his victims powerless/submissive and exhausted, sometimes for a lifetime.
When he sucks out too much of their power they wither away and die faster.Their Mystery:
How can we fight something if we forget that something happened once it’s over?
What do we fight against when we can’t see our wounds? (we just feel their impact, suffer underneath the mask)Their Fear Provoking Appearance:
The monster: A faceless figure with dozens of eyes of his victims inserted into his blank face.
The victims: The mask of a normal face, with the eyes gouged out and the mouth sewn shut underneath.Their Rules:
– When he appears everyone behaves like he’s part of daily life. But when he’s gone you can’t remember he ever existed.
– He must feed on the power of witches or he dies.
– When he has no eyes of his victims he is blind.
– No one can see behind the masks of his victims, until…Their Mythology:
In 1625 the ‘witches’ of the village were tortured and burned. The hatred of the villagers spawned a demon that fed on the blood and ashes of the witches. It continued to evolve. In 1920 he opened a beauty farm on the execution spot, where he finds new victims to ‘feed’ on.
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