Lesson 2

[Joyce Davidson]

<div>Crafting the Monster</div>

WIL: The monster has to be multi-faceted and yet is restricted..

Their Terror: destroy anybody who did not help the son or those who ridiculed him.

Their Mystery: The monster uses a daughter to assist in avenging her brother’s death.

Their Fear Provoking Appearance: Deranged, ruthless, and abnormally strong

Their Rules:only aim at guilty ones who deserve to die.

Their Mythology:Mental illness

• This reply was modified 1 year, 11 months ago by  Joyce Davidson.

[Huey Williams]

Lesson 2 Crafting Your Monster

Subject Line (Huey J. Williams) Terrifying Monster

What I Learned:

How to create scary Monsters.

FIVE PARTS OF THE MONSTER

1.Terror

How does the Monster Terrorize? –

He looks hideous, with grave cloths, jumps out HISSING, EXPANDING HIS HEAD AND EYES,

LONG DIRTY FINGERNAILS, DIRTY HANDS, SPITS A BLACK SUBSTANCE that if you step in

it holds you where you stand, it GROWLS LIKE A WOLF, he landed on earth from

another planet, he eats poeple and any other animal it captures.

How does the Monster Pursue? –

On land at night, unseen, without warning, it hops very fast after you til it traps you

or spits the sticky substance on you, HISSING and GROWLING as it chases you.

How does the Monster Isolate? –

He carts you off to his lair, or he eats you on the spot he captures you, it depends on

hungry he is.

What is the terrible thing they do? –

He eats people and animals, and he’s a predator.

How does the Monster cause death? –

He eats his victums.

What makes this Inescapable? –

The sticky substance he spits is from another world, it welds you to the ground until

he grabs you, there is no escape.

What is the most mysterious thing about this Monster? –

The Monster is from another Planet, it fears starvation, it’s very tactical, as if military

trained, it must be trapped, captured, many attempts are made to kill Monster but they fail

and he escapes.

Mythology:

The Monster is from a dying over populated planet, low on food supply, forced to search

the Galaxy for a food source, he probaly won’t be the last.

[Tony Scott]

Tony J’s

Terrifying monster:

What I learned: My monster can be handsome and that can double as a mask. The monster can be hidden in plain sight if given the right circumstance. The monster follows rules in the killing or terrifying. The monster may or may not have a reason for the actions. Jaws, hungry shark, Saw: teaching a lesson, It Follows: virus trying to stay alive. The Thing: Alien trying to survive. Can’t be easily killed and usually gives the impression that it survives.

TERROR:

My monster is tall dark and handsome in one scene but is actually a vicious ancient vampire able to change his appearance when necessary. He is actually two people. He poses as the welcoming undertaker, funeral director and the vicious vampire that no one ever sees behind the curtain and is the monster who captured the victims and responsible for draining each person’s blood until they eventually die.

MYSTERY:

Group is trying to figure out where they are, how they got there, why they are there, how or if they can get free. What is the big time clock for, who else is in the dimly lit room with them? After awhile they begin noticing that one victim is missing by the sight of an empty chair. Later each time they return from the wake ceremony there is another newer victim.

FEAR PROVOKING APPEARANCE:

Think Tony Todd from the DESTINATION film series or The Tall Man from the FANTASM film series. My monsters true image is that of an ancient Vampire like in Bram Stoker’s Dracula Gary Oldman.

RULES:

Due to the monster’s motives there is no buying off or negotiating with it. The fact that the group can’t ever see the monster there can be no negotiations on their part. When the group is attending the wake ceremony they believe they are greeted by the Funeral Director, walking to their pew, after filing past the closed casket, when actually they are all still strapped to their chairs in the monster’s basement rendering them unable to move from their pew during the service. Only the person speaking is able to then stand up, go to the front of the room for a eulogy type speech. The speaker then walks down the aisle past the funeral attendant/monster, out the door, never to be seen again. The monster is calm during this whole ceremony as if standing guard by the door as a greeter. When the group awakens in the monster’s basement the person who was speaking is gone and or replaced with a new victim.

MYTHOLOGY: The reason the monster is draining the blood from the group is because the monster’s brother also a vampire, who hated being a vampire decided to commit suicide. The monster gathered up his undead brother’s remains and is trying to bring him back whole.

[Frank MacCrory]

Frank’s Terrifying Monster

What I learned doing this assignment is that the monster isn’t a standard character, and that there are conventions to follow in its creation and revelation. They don’t all need to be stoic like Michael Meyers or Jason Voorhees (some like Freddy Krueger enjoy their work), but they are implacably fixed on their course of action and need to start out mysterious.

1. The monster is a disgraced former candidate for sheriff in a remote mountain area.

2.
Their Terror:
From the victims’ perspective, someone simply disappears then later the body will be displayed somewhere they are likely to find it. One early victim doesn’t reappear at all, the audience knows the monster is keeping that one alive but not why beyond a curt “I have no quarrel with you.” That unfortunate soul gets to witness most of the killings. When a victim disappears at night, the monster hits the lookout with a tranq gun, removes the selected victim, and the rest wake up in the morning to find someone missing. [Edit: having them try to sleep seems to violate the High Tension requirement. There can still be two people together for some reason; one gets tranq’ed and the other vanished.]

Their Mystery:
The monster is human, but generally the audience is only going to see gloved hands or booted feet, with gradually more revealed through the film. The monster taunts the remaining victims through messages and/or how bodies are displayed, but only speaks to someone who is already snatched and alone.

Their Fear Provoking Appearance:
Logically, the monster should be wearing hunter’s snow/alpine gear without the high-visibility vest. Some scarring from the first, pre-film victim — the monster’s spouse — who fought back (monster thinks the spouse was insufficiently supportive during the disgrace).

Their Rules:
The selected victim needs to be taken silently, which places constraints on when and where an attack can take place. It’s not a compulsion, simply a conscious decision to heighten the terror among the remaining victims. Since the monster is human, the traps and confrontations need to be feasible.

Their Mythology:
The events at the snowed-in ski resort are an elaborate revenge plot against the local reporter who ruined the monster’s life with an out-of-proportion expose. This person was running for sheriff, not Mother Superior! In any sequels, the monster would target someone who (in the monster’s eyes) performed a similar unfair abuse of power.
Note that there’s no particular reason for the monster to be male or female. Female might be more unique, but it’d require a bit more effort to play with the audience’s expectations that the killer is probably male.

• This reply was modified 1 year, 11 months ago by  Frank MacCrory.

[Deborah Stenard]

DEB STENARD’S TERRIFYING MONSTER-

What I learned doing this assignment is:

It’s kinda fun to create something totally unlikeable and horrifying. Go bog or go home!

My monster is a drug-addled Afghanistan War Deserter who thinks he is the reincarnation of Staff Sergeant Joe Ronnie Hooper, the greatest soldier in the Viet Nam War.

He lives in a shack in the mountains, a survivalist and Doomsday Prepper. The Unabomber is a personal hero. Refuses to take any drugs, vaccines, or pills, because they can track you that way.

His shack is unfortunately right in the middle of a large track of land that a billionaire has bought for his newest luxury development project. He ain’t gonna let no one no how throw him off his land.

THEIR TERROR: While hunting for food in the woods, he is attacked by a rabid wolf. And he gets rabies.

THEIR MYSTERY: This guy is a survivalist, and a Doomsday Prepper. The Unabomber is a personal hero. He knows every inch of his mountain and everywhere to hide. Arnold in THE PREDATOR got nothing on him.

THEIR APPEARANCE: He survives the wolf attack on his head, but doesn’t seek help for his condition and develops full-blown rabies. Open, pus spewing wounds on his head, face and neck. Twitching, rolling eyes, foaming at the mouth and total understanding of how he will eventually die.

THEIR RULES:

For year he has avoided the people on the mountain. Rangers, cops, trail hikers, mountain bikers: they all have heard about some crazy guy who lives in the hallows and eats raw meat. People have found remains of his traps and his kills. But no one has seen him. They make up stories but the stories don’t do him justice. He isn’t afraid of anything. He is an unassailable killing machine. And he wants a mate.

THEIR MYTHOLOGY:

The middle-aged woman housekeeper for the billionaire is his mother. She took the job of looking after the billionaire’s mountain home when her son got out of Walter Reed Hospital. They wanted to put him in an institution, but she helped him escape, but vowed to keep him away from people, so he could never hurt anyone. Will she die for him? Or does she love him enough to kill him to keep him out of jail.

[Sunil Pappu]

Sunil Pappu’s Terrifying Monster

“What I learned doing this assignment is…that the mythology is only important for the sequel but by knowing the backstory, I was able to tweak my terror and appearance of my monster”.

Monster/Villain: A creature that has photophobia feeds on light sources especially blue LED lights and human eyes that don’t filter it. It’s deaf to all audible sound frequencies and it’s called “the detectors” or “the watchers”.

• Their Terror: They terrorize by feeding on any blue light source especially blue light that passes through the human eyes; they pursue on land, unseen, fast and without warning, they isolate by forcing survivors to be blindfolded to remain undetected and by taking over the town; they cause death by first scanning our eyes to access our memories and then gouging them out to rip us to shreds! What makes them inescapable is that you’re handicapped when blindfolded and cannot see without light while they can travel faster and undetected.

• Their Mystery: What is the weakness of this light-sensitive monster? How many are there?

• Their Fear-Provoking Appearance: Grotesque and disturbing: Evolved from tech-obsessed human and DNA variants induced and fast-tracked by AI they look nothing like humans. The Watchers have enormous eyes with multiple eyelids, no ears, a small brain and thick skulls to protect against radiation, sharp teeth and webbed feet with retractable blade-like claw hands large thumb, long fingers, 90-degree elbow and a hunched back with no neck and no body hair.

• Their Rules: If there is light, especially blue light the watcher will appear; if it can see your eyes, it will scan them and gouge them out and rip you with its blade-like claws, it cannot be killed by ordinary bullets or explosives and is lightning fast in its movements. They can gather others through the AI network at a moment’s notice.

• Their Mythology: “The Detectors” or “The Watchers” are creatures that have evolved from humans who due to overexposure of the human brain to screens and digital technology were infected in a lab with a man-made virus during the 5G era causing a global pandemic. The watchers grew by feeding on mobile signals, blue light emissions, and constant screentime across various parts of the world. With increased screen use by subsequent generations, it evolved as a separate species with digitally encoded DNA variants that AI fast-tracked. The watchers became highly intelligent and started devouring the entire recorded digital memories of the collective human race available on the internet and cloud servers and exhausted them. Now they need memories that are stored within the brains of the human species to survive. Its only weakness is infrared light which can destroy its memories and blow up its brain!

[Michelle]

Michelle’s Terrifying Monster

I learned to incorporate critical elements when creating monsters.

My monster: Friend Three

· Their Terror: Ritualistically dismembers and removes victims’ internal organs, skinning faces while still alive. Nightly attacks target ill-natured island arrivals whose only way off is a once weekly dinghy.

· Their Mystery: How does it select victims?

· Their Fear-provoking Appearance: Masks, conceal a burn scarred disfigured face. Masks are the faces of victims. Weapons of choice are hands and a scalpel.

· Their Rules: It knows your ill-natured crimes. It can’t be killed. It can influence others to follow. It can’t be reasoned with. It doesn’t forgive or forget. It’s vengeful. It will kill you.

· Their Mythology: It witnessed a heinous crime and blames itself for not preventing deaths nor resulting trauma affecting its’ young adult friend group.

[Brian King]

Brian King’s Terrifying Monster

What I learned doing this assignment is…?”

What an incredible exercise it proved to be. It compelled me to keep my options open while simultaneously making my choices specific. Who is my Monster? What are his desires? How will he attain them? This assignment revealed two surprising yet inevitable endings for the story/script, even offering a potential sequel.

1. Tell us what or who your monster is.

My monster’s resume included mortician, scientist, and coder. His psychological evaluation uncovers a charismatic nature, manipulative tendencies, and a lack of empathy (what used to be called a “psychopath”), and he possesses, “congenital analgesia”, (incapable of experiencing physical pain).

Terror: He cunningly convinces his own daughter that she suffers from agoraphobia, intending to drive her to the point of suicide.

Mystery: Utilizing freshly deceased bodies to conduct reanimation experiments, manipulates his assistant into engaging in grave robbery, drove his wife, the mother of his daughter, to suicide, and plans the same for his daughter.

Fear-Provoking Appearance: He wears a mask of empathy, and “plays the role” of a loving and concerned father to his daughter. He weaponizes empathy to manipulate the bereaved.

Rules: His hollow moral compass revolves around the notion that the end justifies the means. He believes he’s a god, and ruthlessly pursues his goal of reanimating the dead. In the small town where this takes place, the loved ones of the deceased have witnessed their departed ones wandering the city streets zombie-like, including sightings near the mortuary. Once engaged for his services, the mortician/monster fully controls the deceased. The dead won’t tell.

Mythology: The monster’s backstory is littered with personal failures. He has an insatiable desire to achieve reanimation, believing that it will transcend his perpetual sense of inadequacy. He wants to live forever, as a zombie, a digital avatar, or a reanimated corpse. He believes that humans can attain immortality and relentlessly pursues that ambition.

• This reply was modified 1 year, 11 months ago by  Brian King.

[darryl brant]

What I learned doing this assignment is a monster does not have to be a monstrous, grotesque entity. It can be someone we think we know very well whose very presence creates fear in us.

CREATING THE MONSTER

Their Terror: The doppelganger terrorizes by not letting Petra forget about her past when she was viciously abused as a little girl. What makes it inescapable is that Petra moved to the other side of the world to get away from the past of her terrible father only to find his doppelganger. The monster ‘pursues’ by never letting her forget.

Their Mystery: Petra has a fear what will never go away like many protagonists in Japanese horror films who live in constant fear from a ghost or vengeful spirit. But I want the supernatural so the fear to be real. This part is tricky because we need to understand Petra’s fear. Is it rational?

Their Fear Provoking Appearance: The sight of her father paralyses Petra in fear because he is the very person she moved abroad to get away from. For the viewer, perhaps the horrendous actions of Petra’s father would provoke fear.

Their Rules: Haven’t figured out the rules yet but I realize they are important at least to establish a weakness.

Their Mythology: Petra comes from a broken, abusive family which is a common element of Japanese horror films. So perhaps that violent streak is inherited.

[Frances Williams]

Frances Williams Terrifying Monster

What I Learned doing this Assignment is How to flesh out your Money/Villain

Their Terror – They terrorize High School kids.

Their Mystery The Killer is one of them.

Their Fear/Provoking Appearance

They appear to be normal.

Their Mythology – Their killing gives them a thrill.

[Earl Mcintyre]

Crafting the monster

Subject line: The Cobbgoblin

Their Terror A Cornfield in a farming community

Their Mystery: A vengeance demon that terrorizes a small community

Their Fear-Provoking Appearance: Demonic appearance

Their Rules: Can only be stopped by trapping them

Their Mythology: Once summoned will not stop until they fulfill their duty

[John Budinscak]

Budinscak Terrifying Monster

Horror Crafting Your Monster

Day 2

What I learned doing this assignment is…

o What makes a great monster – unique, unknown & terrifying.

o Answering the questions helped develop my monster.

o Doing this assignment also helped refine my story.

o

Tell us what or who your monster is: My monster is an alien, not from earth. It’s able to assume different forms – human or animal –infiltrating its host’s body by becoming a mist. The host then appears to be a 110% copy of itself.

Monster:

ITS TERROR: It is a silent hunter, its victims are alone, separated from others before being slaughtered. The killings appear to be random. Victims rarely know they’re prey. When a victim feels the monster’s presence, it’s too late.

ITS MYSTERY: All the attacks occur when a person has been isolated. The assaults come from the dark, the shadows; they’re unseen, unprovoked. They’re surprise attacks.

ITS FEAR PROVOKING APPEARANCE: They assume the bodies of both human and animal hosts, except when the monster’s inside – the host’s body appears to be on steroids. The host is a 110% copy of itself with claws, fangs and green slivers for eyes – like a cat’s eyes in sunlight. The actual monster resembles a huge tiger that’s super strong and fast.

ITS RULES: What appears to be random slayings by the monster/unknown killer, are a systematic elimination of alternatives

ITS MYTHOLOGY: N F I

[Cary Patrick]

Cary’s Terrifying Monster

What I learned doing this assignment is how frightening an image regularly associated with compassion and help can be when turned on its head in a different context.

1. The Doctor

2. Give us a few sentences for each of the following for your monster:

Their Terror:
He operates and experiments on victims changed into hospital gowns and locked inside kennel cages prior being strapped down to strapped down to the operating table. He slowly does a routine examination on them before inflicting pain.

Their Mystery:
He remains silent with no explanation of what he’s doing. The rest of the medical staff follow his orders with very little talk, becoming more rigid when he’s in the room.

Their Fear Provoking Appearance:
He’s dressed in a long lab coat, over a shirt and tie. Wears a stethoscope and N95 surgical mask. He also wears a head mirror that reflects the light which obscures his face from the victims.

Their Rules:
Hitchhikers are picked up on an isolated road(s.) People who are going somewhere and won’t be missed immediately. The amount of pain blockers they receive is entirely dependent on their behavior once captive.

Their Mythology:
They believe that their research is for the greater good, though they are not approved for human studies. Thus, they must experiment on humans without consent. Perhaps to the benefit of their own family members.

[Robert Lee]

Jackson’s Terrifying Monster (Draft 1)

My monster is a Humanoid that can take others forms through feeding on a human’s natural electrical currents.

They terrorize by impersonating others to feed on the electrical current they generate.

They Pursue by manipulating and tricking others, causing them to believe that the monster is an ally until they strike.

They isolate by causing people to be terrified to the point of trusting no one, and when they venture out alone, they strike

What is the most terrible thing they do

Impersonate someone, but leave them semi-conscious and have them watch the villain lead their allies to their doom.

How do they cause death,

They drain the electricity from their victims, and disrupt the current inside them.

What makes this inescapable

They can disguise themselves as anyone; you do not know whom to trust.

Mystery: Who is this monster, and how do we recognize it.

Weapons:A fencing foil made entirely out of silver.

Rules: Siphons electricity from victims to feed on, which depending on the amount, cause them to be stunned, unconscious or killed. They cannot siphon through insulators of electricity, but can through conductors, such as steel, silver, or gold. Also, through this siphon, they can steal one’s form.

Mythology:

After they crashed, they have been honing their skills for around the last five hundred years, acting as several serial killers, or hiding in the shadows to feed on humans.

• This reply was modified 1 year, 11 months ago by  Robert Lee.
• This reply was modified 1 year, 11 months ago by  Robert Lee.

[Robert Lee]

What I learned.

There is a lot that goes into it, and it is kind of exciting.

[Karen Christine Angermayer]

Horror: Lesson 2

Karen Christine´s Terrifying Monster

What I learned doing this assignment is how important it is to know your monster well to create great moments of horror.

My monster is a person with a split personality. One personality runs the resort in the woods, with a handful of beautifully crafted and decorated cabins. The other personality is a psychopath who misunderstood the principle of honoring nature, and saving our environment.

He (monster) believes he has to punish people that don´t appreciate our environment, especially trees and how they provide us with lifesaving oxygen – by turning them into trees he wants to “give back”, not seeing that he cannot support something living by sacrificing dead people.

Terror: The Tree-Man has already killed several guests by:

Locking them in the cabins, windows and doors closed, not leaving them out

Injecting something he calls the “tree-gen”, trying to transform people into trees

Selling his own nightmare to them that in the near future all trees evaporate only carbon dioxide and no oxygen any more, because we exploited and tortured nature. Nature will strike back now!

Mystery: The most mysterious thing is that this monster is hidden in a person that can be very friendly, charming and hospitable – and he can change within seconds to that totally different person who hates other people. So the main mystery will be a) how to find a moment to catch the good person, before he can transmute and become dangerous again, and b) how to convince the good person that inside he carries a bad version of himself and a monster who has already killed innocent guests.

Fear Provoking Appearance: When he is the monster, he is wearing green and brown clothes, because he identifies himself with a tree. Brown trousers, green shirt. He then reminds us of a forest ranger, while in his other identity he wears blue jeans and a white shirt. In his house there are 2 sleeping rooms. He talks of the other person as his “brother”. Not knowing that his brother is he himself.

Rules: He kills anybody who leaves trash in the forest.

He kills adults, because they don´t care enough about the future.

He kills kids and teenagers, because they do not have a future – in this polluted environment.

He hates his “brother”, because he lets other people into the forest.

His vision is a world where every human being has turned into a tree, so that Earth will have enough oxygen again, not taken away by stupid and thoughtless humans!

Mythology: His DID has its root back in his childhood. He saw his mother being raped by neighbor who worked in a lumbermill nearby. As a child he could not stand the view on the “naked” trees as he called the trees that had no bark anymore and were loaded on trucks to be sold and processed.

[Marissa Lichwick]

Create an early version of your monster.

1. Tell us what or who your monster is.

My monster is a lingering female demon that never shows her face. She derives from a biblical story. She appears as mysterious light but then burns the skin off her victim and leavs only bones for the surviors. She arrives at and only when small idols called Teraphim, appear.

2. Give us a few sentences for each of the following for your monster:

Their Terror: When small idols called teraphims appear. The demon appears. <div>

Their Mystery: She doesn’t have a body, face, or form. Just light, then violent flesh burning.

<div>

Their Fear Provoking Appearance: Light, but the touch, playing, holding, any interaction of the teraphim dolls.

Their Rules: bringing out the dolls will call her out as she is attempting to retrieve them.

Their Mythology: Leah is the daughter of Laban. This is a story in the old testament. Essentially she could bear children and her youngest sister Rachel could not. When Jacob came through town he fell in love with Rachel and as Jacob to work his land if he could marry Rachel. Laban agreed but Rachel couldn’t bear children and Laban realized Leah could. So, Jacob had to marry Leah and birth children with her even though he love Rachel.

I am going to run with this biblical tale. In one version of the story, Rachel steals Laban’s idols, the teraphims, and runs off with Jacob. So, in my film, Leah is back to kill the reincarnated Rachel and her family to get the dolls back because the dolls were what she worshiped to bear so many children for Jacob who she loved. Sorry, that sounds really complex. But, this is the mythology and the derivation of the ghost/demon. And, her objective.

</div></div>

[William Curley]

Bill Curley Terrifing Monster Lesson 2 My monster is the horrifying representation of ancient Native American angst, the sucking Wendigo. Terror: The Wendigo appears in several forms, all grotesque, sly, vengeful and very intelligent. Mystery: The wrath of Native American lore, the Wendigo, will not manifest itself unless summoned by Native American spirits. Should it suddenly appear prepare for a living hell. Appearence: The Wendigo has variations in stature, appearance and intent. All posess deadly spikes, maiming claws and a beyond repulsive look. Imagine a buck, human and crab in one Visage. Rules: The Wendigo has no rules. Stealth, cunning, purpose and domination are but a few characteristics. The ancient forests of sacred Indian burial grounds represent thier unchallenged domain. Mythology: Called upon only when wronged, the Wendigo is borne in legend and secrecy. It is a direct function of Native American spirits when those same spirits are violated. Learned: The mere notion of a monster or even several of them denotes sophisticated in a given film not realized by a viewer. With the usage of this lesson I can now construct a viable monster, one guaranteed to terrorize all.

[Chuck Czech]

Chuck Czech’s Terrifying Monster

From this assignment I learned that the monster is the driving force behind the story, and the more specific you can make its character and motivations the tighter the story.

Who is my monster? Like Pazuzu from The Exorcist, the monster from my story emanates from the Christian cosmology of demons — immaterial, able to possess and dominate human beings, intent on harming the innocent. But this one is territorial, somewhat like demons described in the Old Testament (e.g. the Prince of Persia); it has dominion over a particular region and exercises a generations-long pattern of evil acts.

Terror: My monster terrorizes a region of rural Minnesota and kills three people every thirty years, which cultivates a spirit of hopelessness and sorrow among the populace. To the locals, it’s a grim inevitability, a curse. The demon pursues its prey in the “World Between”, a mystical layer of existence between our reality and the underworld of demons. Here, demons are able to identify hosts for possession and observe and select prey. Their spiritual activities result in real-world murders and mayhem, which to us look like senseless crimes. We can stop a possessed killer, but we can’t stop the demon’s continued influence from the spirit world.

Mystery: How can the demon be detected and stopped before it commits its tally of three murders? What is it doing with its scores of victims from generations past?

Fear Provoking Appearance: Our main character, a kind of spiritual medium, has the ability to visit the World Between and observe demons in the act of possessing hosts and killing victims — so she sees the monster face to face in all its demonic glory. Also, when pursued, victims see horrific visions of the stalking demon as the barrier between our reality and the underworld of demons is bridged.

Rules: Demons cannot materially appear in our world, so they conduct their “dirty work” in the World Between. Our main character is the only person who can confront the demon while she visits the World Between — so she could conceivably thwart the demon’s work. However, the demon can murder her in the real world through a possessed killer, and if she’s captured in the World Between, she could be trapped there forever.

Mythology: As mentioned above, the demon commands an evil authority over a specific geographic region and wants to enthrall the residents in a culture of misery and dysfunction. As a fallen race of spiritual beings, demons are contemptuous towards humanity, who still hold a favorable place in Creation. Jealous, they aim to destroy, degrade and humiliate humanity.

[Wade Jehowski]

Subject Line:

Wade Jehowski’s Terrifying Monster-Samuel

What I learned doing this assignment is that I want my “Monster” to be somewhat sympathetic to the audience and I want them to fully understand how he became this way.

Their Terror:

How does the monster terrorize?

It seems the “monster” picks random victims to the camp attendees.

How does the “monster” pursue?

He normally approaches quickly and suffocates the victim. He is not into disfiguring the body.

How does the monster isolate?

You are in his world. He knows the schematics of the camp.

What is the terrible thing they do?

He suffocates his victims with a plastic bag. It’s a slow death. He never leaves a body to be found.

How does the monster cause death?

He suffocates his victims with a plastic bag.

What makes this inescapable?

There are two authority figures investigating the mass disappearances and no one is allowed to leave until all questions are answered.

Their Mystery:

To avoid death, the victim has to resort to small child. This seems to subdue the monster”. It bings him back to a traumatic past experience.

Fear Provoking Appearance:

Samuel is a normal looking high schooler who is an Eagle Scout. He is very well liked by everyone. He is quiet but kind. I’m thinking an Adam Driver type. He doesn’t wear a mask. He wants his victims to trust him. He often uses a gallon sized ziploc bag to suffocate his victims. He always collects his victims’ merit badges.

Their Rules:

Samuel went through an extremely traumatic experience as a child and he is looking for certain victims that fit his ultimate experience to remedy his trauma.

Mythology:

Final scene: Samuel is serving food to the next year’s summer camp scouts.

[Brian Walsh]

Brian G. Walsh’s Terrifying Monster

What I learned doing this assignment is the more details you fill in about your monster, the more it begins to take on shape and the more scene ideas begin to accumulate.

My monster is a long-dead exorcist priest with a horde of demons trapped inside his corpse who are struggling to escape into the world again.

A few sentences for each of the following for your monster:

Their Terror:

How does the monster terrorize?

It speaks in a silky collection of soft voices blended together. These are the leaders of a horde of demons (fallen angels) trapped inside the corpse of the exorcist priest.

How does the monster pursue?

Having centuries of experience possessing humans, they can sense people’s fears, vices, vulnerabilities and guilt over past sins. The more intense the feeling about these weaknesses, the stronger the “scent” for them to follow. Pride is the most tantalizing of all because not only was it Lucifer’s sin that resulted in his fall, but it was the priest’s sin, too.

How does the monster isolate?

The demons use their ability to identify a person’s vulnerability. They can call out from inside the corpse in many different voices, the voices of those they have possessed over the centuries, from the voice of a small child, to a forceful young man, a harmless old man or to that of a seductive woman.

What is the terrible thing they do?

The demons use the dead exorcist priest to swallow the souls of their victims. When it eyes its victim, it inhales the vulnerabilities and other information and calls out their names to them, preying on anything they feel guilty for, telling them it is time for them to be judged.

How does the monster cause death?

The priest’s hands scorch them with the mark of “the Fallen” and burn their souls right out of them, leaving empty eye sockets and black-filled ears, mouth and nostrils from which the souls were clawed out of them.

What makes this inescapable?

The victims are trapped inside the mine.

Their Mystery:

What is the most mysterious thing about this monster? Right now, you are looking for the main mystery of your monster.

How the demons were kept dormant, how they were able to ambulate the dead priest and how they can be put into slumber again.

How do we stop the demons from escaping their human prison? How can we capture the corpse and seal it inside some place where it can never be found again?

Their Fear Provoking Appearance:

A dead priest who walks slowly due to the spiritual weight of all the demon spirits encased inside him. As he walks he quotes the Bible but his voice is a collection of silky voices comprised of the many demons inside him.

[Debbera Hayward]

Assignment Two: Debbera’s Terrifying Monster

What I learned from doing this assignment is developing a good monster is challenging.

1.Tell us what or who your monster is. The Green Man

2. Give us a few sentences for each of the following for your monster:

Their Terror: Produces low roaring wind with sound of eaves rustling
before it attacks. Moves across the ground in a gliding manner and uses
vines and twigs to capture its victims. Vines wrap up victims so they can’t
escape. It kills its victims by shooting them with twig arrows and
absorbing them.
Their Mystery: Can become invisible by blending in with the forest,
plant life and foliage. Can
materialize anywhere there is plant life. Victims are not safe if they are
in close proximity to trees or plant life.

Their Fear-Provoking Appearance: Green tree like figure. Large
mouth with sharp wood teeth. Body covered with leaves and twigs. Face resembles
the bark of a tree. Spews leaves from its mouth. Shoots sharp twig arrows at
victims.
Their Rules: Pursues anyone that does not respect the forest or
plant life.
Their Mythology: TBD

[Peter Symons]

Pete’s Terrifying Monster

1. Tell us what or who your monster is.

My monster is portrayed as the Virgin Mary by a convent of charasmatic nuns who are a witches coven. The Holy Mother is an ancient demon in deguise; Lilith, the mythic first wife of Adam.

2. Give us a few sentences for each of the following for your monster:

Their Terror:<div>

An isolated convent in the Irish countryside where the Sisters of the First Miracle run a parental bereavement group for women who have lost their children. The women are unaware of the Sisters’ true purpose.

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Their Mystery:

The Sisters are a cloistered convent operating outside of the auspices of the Catholic church who celebrate the gifts of the Holy Spirit and the performance of modern day miracles. In reality, their miracles are the result of dark witchcraft.

Their Fear Provoking Appearance: While appearing as normal nuns on the outside, they are a vicious coven of witches who sacrifice children to an ancient deity trying to make it’s way back to our plane of existence.

Their Rules: the women who are selected by Sister Celeste to attend grief therapy have had their babies harvested by Lilith unbeknownst to them. Each one taken in vitro as a sacrifice to her. Once the mothers are indoctinated by the sisters, they return back to their normal lives as silent adherents to Lilith. Women who are not open to the witchcraft, disappear.

Their Mythology: The Sisters of the First Miracle are a coven of witches hiding in plain sight within the Catholic Church. Escaping the witch trials that swept through Europe and America, the coven worships Adam’s first wife, Lilith, who they believe will return one day in human form and bring about fall of the Holy Roman Empire.

</div></div>

[Shannon Amborn]

Shannon’s MONSTER in PRESERVED

I learned to layer in so much more nuance than I would have without this class and these prompts!

FEAR-PROVOKING APPEARANCE

Victoria’s (7-year-old child, homage to Victor Frankenstein) frozen decapitated head goes through the careful reanimation process, and then is attached to a recent 10-year-old client’s body by the team of cryogenics doctors and scientists. Will she emerge alive? Will she be the Victoria her mother remembers?

She springs to life with supernatural strength and heightened senses, but no vision – her eyes are black pits. She is blind and a confused child, lashing out with double-jointed contorted limbs, scratching at the voids where her eyes should be, and wreaking havoc in the OR before her mother sings her favorite lullaby and soothes her. She speaks for the first time, “Mama, I can’t see you.”

But she can feel her mother’s fear and repulsion…

MYSTERY

Because we see her reanimated, we’ll see her initially before she disappears into the lab and starts terrorizing the cryonics team.

TERROR

She remembers with detail in flashes of flashbacks the process in which she was frozen and preserved. She preys upon the cryonics team, killing them one by one using the cryonics lab tools that were used on her:

· she gouges eyes in her first fit of rage

· drains blood and replaces with cryoprotectant solution on live victim

· decapitates a live victim for neuro storage (head) in the cephalopod

· she freezes a live victim with liquid nitrogen

· more ?

The team is trapped in the cryogenics lab (CONTAINED) when it goes into lockdown.

Later, final survivor/s are trapped in the storage room where the 200 “patients” are stored in “Bigfoot” dewars.

Maybe she forces an eye transplant done by a staff member on fear of death?

Maybe she reanimates other “patients?”

Maybe she reanimates a new “mother” after killing her biological mother in a fit of rage?

RULES

Victoria died as a child, so never had fully developed frontal lobe development. As love is withdrawn and replaced with repulsion and fear, she experiences at first extreme sadness which evolves into rage, like a child throwing a tantrum. She is irrational and operates with supernatural strength and senses on a purely emotional basis.

MYTHOLOGY

She escapes the cryogenics compound after trying to “save” the other stored bodies (possibly reanimating more than one ?) and letting them loose into the world…

[Barbara Fix]

What I learned is to craft your monster whether it is obvious or not obvious.

TERROR: The monsters are non-identical twins. One is declared dead so does the killing with sneak attacks while the other one creates misdirection. No one can figure out what is going on.

Mystery: The murders happen when people are alone or in twos and the attacks are sudden. The monster has the advantage knowing the building well. The building is large so it takes awhile before people even understand that their friends are being murdered…. they just think they are looking at the museum displays.

APPEARANCE: the murdering twin appears in a black robe with hood and face covered by black mask. Th other twin is dressed like a nerd and acts like it.

<font face=”inherit”>RULE: Kill everyone to terrorize the person they are really after….Taylor. </font>They<font face=”inherit”> know eventually he will figure it out and be tortured by the knowledge and then they plan to fry his brain in revenge.</font>

<font face=”inherit”>MYTHOLOGY: The twins’ grandfather was in an </font>asylum for criminals. He was erroneously accused of murdered the entire staff causing misfortune to their entire family on the outside. They seek revenge against the family of the doctor who fried their grandfather’s mind and accused him.

[Debbera Hayward]

1. Assignment Three: Debbera’s Characters for Horror

What I learned from this lesson is that having the different identity types helps add depth and breadth to your story.

1. Concept and Group: The Group is a Social Group. A family of nieces and nephews have been invited to visit their uncle at his cabin.

2. Dying Pattern: The Uncle and the girlfriend of one of the cousins (Hazel) die but the rest of the group are all brought to the brink of death, and some remain emotionally shaken after they encounter with the monster.

3. Identity for each character:

§ The carrier and red herring. The Uncle initially told his nieces and nephews about the monster when they were kids. He used tales of the monster as a way to get them to behave. As young adults, they reminisce about the “good ole days” recalling how frightened of the monster they were as children. While they were frightened as children, as young adults they assumed that the monster they thought they heard was really the Uncle just trying to scare them. They did not believe a real monster existed.

§ The moral one is Junior. He’s the oldest male in the group. He’s willing to be the bait and sacrifice himself to save the others.

§ The complainer is Elouise. She finds fault with every plan someone comes up with but never offers a plan of her own. She gives up easily when faced with a bad situation. Deep within, she is likely more courageous than she knows.

The rebel rule breaker is Belinda. She appears to go along with the plan but is the first to do the opposite when given the chance.

§ Delores is out of control. She does not care who she offends. She shares her opinion at all costs. She is difficult to convince and work with.

§ Baron is the leader. He figures out how to defeat the monster. He is the cousin to the group of brothers and sisters. His mother is the younger sister to his cousin’s Mother.

§ Bryant is the rescuer who at first seems to be a introvert/loner. He rises to the occasion when he is thrust into the spot light.

§ Hazel is the monster bait and love interest. She is Junior’s girlfriend. She’s an innocent. She cries easily and acts helpless.

§ Junior, Elouise, Belinda, Bryant and Baron are sisters and brothers. Baron is their first cousin.

[Susan Silver]

Susan’s Terrifying Monster

What I learned doing this assignment is that monsters have rules–what? I had never considered that before, but it makes perfect sense now.

1. I have several monsters who work together to experiment on their victims in a laboratory.

2. Their Terror: The monsters terrorize by experimenting on the prisoners, which they had kidnapped. They isolate the victims in separate jail cells while amputating limbs and force feeding them. They die when the monsters take the experiments too far. The victims can’t escape because they are jailed and drugged.

Their Mystery: The monsters speak among themselves in a language and pitch that is foreign to the prisoners. The prisoners must decode their language to figure out how to get out.

Their Fear Provoking Appearance: The monsters are gloved and masked so their real appearance is unknown to the victims.

Their Rules: The monsters replace one another with regularity, so it is unclear how many there are. They never look or acknowledge the victims, even when they are touching them with their experiments.

Their Mythology: They insist among each other that
they are good and are doing good.

[Peter Symons]

Pete’s Characters for Horror

DYING PATTERN: A. Put 6 to 8 characters together and kill them off one by one.

CHARACTERS:

LEADER: MOTHER SUPERIOR CELESTE (60s) – The abbess of the Sisters of the First Miracle, a cloistered convent who practice a form of charismatic Catholicism and believe in the gifts of the Holy Spirit and the power of miracles.

INNOCENT/SACRIFICIAL: RACHEL (20s) a young woman with a traumatic past who has overcome her darkness by embracing faith. She’s also in an abusive relationship that’s slowly killing her.

OUT OF CONTROL: CIAN (30) – Rachel’s husband: a controlling, abusive man who drinks excessively and beats his wife so all of their babies are all stillborn.

RESCUER/MORAL ONE: FATHER FLYNN (50s) – Rachel’s parish priest and the closest thing she has to a real father figure. He thinks the Sisters are the best thing for her. He’s an unorthodox man of faith who will do anything to protect Rachel.

RED HERRING: SISTER MAIREAD (20s)–While in disguise as a pregnant woman attacks Rachel and cuts the unborn fetus from her womb. We find out later that she was acting on orders of the Coven. She’s Rachel’s fake friend at the convent.

THE CARRIER: A proxy for the Virgin Mary, THE HOLY MOTHER (LILITH) is the entity worshipped by the nuns. She is the source of Rachel’s visions and eventually drags the whole coven into a spell that they cannot control which eventually consumes them all.

[Avi K]

LESSON 2: CRAFTING YOUR MONSTER

What I learned doing this assignment is: Figuring out my character mythology was necessary for me to create the rules. So it could be essential at times rather than unimportant.

<b style=”font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit;”>ASSIGNMENT

Create an early version of your monster.

1. Tell us what or who your monster is: a serial killer who is now intent on murdering his ex-wife.

2. Give us a few sentences for each of the following for your monster:

• Their Terror:

How does the monster terrorize? The
killer won’t stop until his ex-wife and her friends are driven mad and
die.
How does the monster pursue? He uses
video camera and hidden passages to watch, sneak up and attack.
How does the monster isolate? By trapping
them in their own rooms (using electronic controls he’s installed to lock
doors), thus splitting up the group; by pitting them against each other
for survival; by
What is the terrible thing they do? Leave
sinister notes, play sinister videos, force people to inflict self-harm,
harm upon each other, nominate others to die, then finally killing
everyone.
How does the monster cause death?
Saw-toothed doors, axe, arrows, bear traps, animal snares, forcing people
to hang themselves? (provide a chair and a knife to cut the rope before
they choke?), fire?
What makes this inescapable? The home is
locked down by the killer and when he lets people run out, the estate is
ringed with electric fences, he’s installed electric collars on the
victims, there are bear traps and animal snares around the grounds,
there’s no one else around for miles.

• Their Mystery: How can the victims escape a killer who controls every portion of the estate they’re trapped on?

• Their Fear Provoking Appearance: The killers wears a luminous, punk cosplay helmet/mask and carries a crossbow.

• Their Rules: The killer cannot be seen unless he lets himself be seen. He targets men and women who cheat on their partners and ruin their lives (He runs an ad every few months in cheap newspapers for ‘cheater stories’?).

• Their Mythology: his father killed his mother when she fought with him to not cheat? or killed herself when his father cheated? Or, his mother left his father for cheating and then gave him up for adoption and killed herself when she couldn’t provide for him?

[D. Renee]

Dianna’s Terrifying Monster

I learned that crafting my monster can lead to fleshing out part of my story and helps get over some blocks I might have had.

Their Terror: Demon collecting souls by terrorizing and killing it’s victims, mesmerizes them with Christmas joy before attacking and to keep you trapped in the house, kills you with Christmas items inside the house, drinks your blood and rips out your soul, takes full control of the environment – you’re in it’s domain once in the house.

Their Mystery: How do we satisfy the demon’s blood lust?

Their Fear Provoking Appearance: Appears as they did on the Christmas they committed the massacre and sacrificed themself, flashes of the demon come through as it kills. It is a specter of black smoke with claws and fangs.

Their Rules: Traps people in the house, uses Christmas icons to cover the danger you are in while it drains your blood or murders you with the icons, tests your purity by asking what you wanted for Christmas as a child.

Their Mythology: Demon does not know it is set to collect souls for eternity, thinks the blood of humans will restore it to human form so it can escape the house – every deal with the devil is not what it seems…

[Patrick Casey]

Patrick’s terrifying monster

What I learned is, that I don’t have to give to much background story because that will come later. If I give to much background info it ruins surprises.

1. Tell us what or who your monster is. Miss Mapletree, and her Satan,

2. Give us a few sentences for each of the following for your monster:

Their Terror: She controls the local one room school house. She’s protected by the prominent men of the community.

Their Mystery: Why doesn’t she grow old? Who’s the dark figure that seems to live with her?

Their Fear Provoking Appearance: She wears a long black dress. She is skilled at scolding people. She goes into hypnotic trances.

Their Rules: She was blackmailed into harvesting souls for Satan. If she doesn’t provide Souls, straight to hell she will go.

Their Mythology: She’s been around for a long time. She’s been gathering souls for Satan, so she can avoid burning in hell. She claims that her family was killed. She claims she begged for revenge, and revenge she got, with a gift in the black arts.

[Diana Acosta]

Subject line: Diana’s Terrifying Monster

Doing this work I learned that my monster is not actually the character I thought it was. I thought the mastermind that was training kids to become super killers was the monster but in reality the super killer kid is the monster.

1. Tell us what or who your monster is: a manipulated child trained to be a sniper on “main street”

Their Terror: unseen, unheard, practically invisible and never expected but he is ruthless in his killings leaving no one alive. <div>

<div><div>

Their Mystery: no one knows who it is because it seems as if killings have no source but also no survivers to tell on them.

Their Fear Provoking Appearance: innocent looking child but ruthless killer

Their Rules: lightening quick, unexpected, always hidden, always goes undetected, always turns a routine chore into a war zone, always randomly chosen so seems like no actual target. Uses bullets that cause the worst looking crime scene on purpose; to further terrorize.

Their Mythology: his mom was dating this man who became a father figure to him. The man taught him hate and how to kill and how to hunt people and even why. The man kills his mom in front of him, leaving the child an orphan. The orphan then learns to kill from this pseudo father who teaches the hunt but won’t pull the trigger himself. He raises the child to believe they are waging a war for good.

</div></div></div>

[Serita Stevens]

Group targeted are domestic violence abusers

They die by strangulation or drowning as Stan tried to do to Fran

She is wanting revenge from Stan.

Weapon of choice is what Stan did to her.

She appears at odd places doing things. Maybe Becky, Stan’s wife dies instead of him, when Stan should have.

[Peter Symons]

Create an early version of your monster.

1. Tell us what or who your monster is.

My monster is an old hearse – but not just any hearse – this one has transported the darkest souls to Hell. We don’t know if it’s possessed or if it serves the devil.

2. Give us a few sentences for each of the following for your monster:

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