Jean Marie Bauhaus

I’m combining the introduction of a new regular feature with the advent of Halloween and the upcoming Blog Hop I’ll be joining in next week.  Introducing my Friday Five — which I know is not a new concept, but instead of five random things from the week, I’ll be posting my top (or, occasionally, bottom) five list for a given category.

This week’s category? In the spirit of Halloween, I give you my Top Five Scariest Film* Monsters:

*I’m using the term “film” loosely to include both movies and television, and even YouTube. Why? Because Marble Hornets.

Five: The Gentlemen (Buffy the Vampire Slayer episode “Hush”) – They have faces like grinning skulls, they float along with their creepy, straight-jacketed henchmen who look like something out of Silent Hill, they steal everyone’s voices, and oh, did I mention that they come into your room and hold you down and cut out your heart and you can’t scream because of the whole stolen voices thing? Easily the scariest demons from all seven seasons of Buffy.

Four: The Cave CHUDS (The Descent) – I don’t think “Cave CHUDS” is their official name, but I kind of think it should be. Whatever those creepy, pale, underground-dwelling people-eaters are, they’ve pretty much ensured that I will never, ever go spelunking, ever.

Three: Michael Myers (Halloween and its many inferior sequels, but mainly the first one) – There was once a time when this guy would have been number one on my list. This was the first horror movie that I have vivid memories of watching, and even more vivid is the memory of lying in my bed, wrapped up in my blankets so tight that I could barely move or breathe, doing my best not to move a muscle so that Michael Myers wouldn’t find me and get me. The fact that I’ve seen this movie (and the sequels) probably about a hundred and fifty times since then has deflated the fear factor quite a bit, but still, whenever I have to walk somewhere outside at night, that white Shatner mask is usually what I’m watching for when I look over my shoulder and start picking up my pace.

Two: Samara (The Ring) – The creepiest of all the creepy child monsters, as far as I’m concerned. The night I saw this movie, I came home and put my bedroom TV out in the hall (with the screen against the wall to trap her inside, donchaknow), and I still take a wide berth around the living room TV when I turn off the lights at night. I also still have recurring nightmares about her and her well.

One: Slender Man/The Operator (Marble Hornets) – It makes no difference that he’s the product of a phony Photoshopped paranormal photo challenge on the Something Awful forums – Slender Man is terrifying, and the most terrifying version of all is the one from the YouTube series/alternate reality game Marble Hornets. I’ve been watching a lot of horror movies in the lead up to Halloween, and really, not much scares me these days. But MH still has the power to make me cower deep in the sofa cushions and hide my face in my pillow whenever the Operator makes an appearance. He’s reminiscent of the Gentlemen, but somehow worse for his lack of facial features or any clue as to what the heck it is that he wants, something straight out of the most terrifying, un-Disney-fied Grimm fairytales with an unhealthy touch of Lovecraftian nightmare fodder. There’s something downright primal about Slender Man and the fear that he inspires.

Do you have a top five scary monsters list? Tell us about it in the comments, OR share with us your favorite scary book or movie!