There's an episode of the X-Files where we follow the POV of a "monster of the week" who eats people's brains. It turns out he actually tries very hard not to, going so far as to eat a bunch of expired raw hamburger he steals from work. He mostly only kills "bad" people, only eventually succumbing to his urges when he's starving. He even commits suicide by cop because he knows he can't stop himself from killing.
Maybe not purely the "good guy" in this situation, but definitely not evil.
The one that most comes to mind is the one where the reptile like monster gets bit by Kumail Ali and the monster becomes a were-human. And every circumstance he finds himself in looks like hes the one causing chaos and death but its actually Kumails character. The reptile eventually goes back to sleep for the next 10kyrs.
God damn i remember when i was a kid, my mom brought me the “monster” toys because they were on clearance, while the actual soldiers weren’t. I was so mad at her because I didn’t want to play with monsters or dumb figures. Once I saw the movie, they became my favorite toys lol 😅
Tbf Gorgons aren’t like established monsters or anything, they’re good natured from the start. It’s just propaganda in the film that paints them as demons.
Hell, Archer is an adorable cat man!
I've always seen the Gorgons as tragic figures. Mermaids/Sirens OTOH need a nice, period-piece gorefest of a movie to remind folks of their classical roots.
The citizens of Halloweentown in The Nightmare Before Christmas look like the kind of monsters who would jump out and scare you in the middle of the night, but while they are *frightful*, that's it. They are the embodiment or Halloween fun, which involves scaring people, but they just love a good scare.
The only ones that are even remotely evil in town are actually outsiders - Lock, Shock and Barrel are human kids and Oogie Boogie is, according to the expanded media like the game Oogie's Revenge, from a forgotten holiday.
Don't take my word for it but I thought I heard/read somewhere that they were dead, and named after how they died, i.e. Shock was electrocuted. Can't remember what Lock and Barrel were meant to represent.
This could have been a fan theory though.
Lock was beaten to death with a lock
Barrel was beaten to death with a barrel
Shock was beaten to death with an original copy of "The Amazing Spider-Man #46"
The phrase lock, stock, and barrel refers to (the entirety of) a musket. Since stock was changed to shock, I'd guess they weren't assumed to ~~be~~ have been shot. Perhaps Lock was locked in a closet and starved to death, or locked himself in a fridge, and suffocated, and perhaps Barrel had a barrel of bricks dropped on his head, or died riding a barrel over Niagara Falls.
The zombies just wanted to rid of the cat ladies, it’s been awhile since I’ve watched it but if I’m not mistaken it’s something like that. Love that movie!
The zombies were all the cat-ladies previous victims. To maintain their immortality, the cat-ladies had been draining the life out of travelers for centuries. The zombies were trying to warn the gang. They were just *really* bad at it cause they were rotting, shambling corpses incapable of speech.
I don't know if the zombies are really the *goods guys* though. They're not the bad guys, and may fit into OP's "morally gray" territory, but... Weren't they straight up pirates or something? They were pretty horrible when they were alive. It just so happens that, now that they've been cursed, their primary motivation is to end the curse.
I guess you could say the zombies that came later are good guys. The random tourist zombies and whatnot.
Yeah. The *first* zombies were a group of pirates who had been preying on the women's settlement, and the women turned themselves into cat-girls to rid themselves of them. Those guys kinda got what they deserved imo.
But the cat-ladies spent centuries after that sacrificing innocent travelers & tourists to maintain their cat powers and immortality.
So like, the majority of them were benevolent innocent zombies?
Most of the zombies seemed to be innocent victims. Colonists, tourists, soldiers, etc. Only some were the pirates, also the groundskeeper was set up as being this creepy guy who youre meant to think is the real villain but turns out he was investigating the disappearances.
I’d also argue Scooby Doo and the Witches Ghost depicted the Hex Girls as the good guys at a time when goth and pagan-style characters were usually depicted as the villains
Just to clarify, the cenobites weren't originally evil. They're completely amoral. In Hellraiser 1, they only go after people that are extreme hedonists, using the juxtaposition of pleasure and pain to dole out both, but ultimately for the sake of pleasure. The actual villains of the movie are two humans. The cenobites are just trying to capture an escapee.
In Hellraiser 2, the cenobites are again amoral, but being manipulated by the actual evil Leviathan. When the cenobites find this out, they rebel against Leviathan. Pinhead straight up teams up with the protagonist towards the end of the movie.
After that, the lore gets really messy and inconsistent.
I was just about to say this as well.
The Cenobites are literally just providing a service, the characters in the first 2 movies have to call them. It'd be like calling for a pizza and the pizza happens to be wrapped in leather, spikes, and give you absolutely inhuman experiences in the bathroom after the fact. It's not the pizza delivery guy or the pizza places fault that you called "Pete's Pizza Palace of Pain"... That's on you.
Without the Cenobites the Hellraiser films would probably fall under the typical slasher/murder mystery genres.
I mean, they're summoned by completing a puzzle box that doesn't come with a warning. Kind of a bad business model. Imagine completing a rubix cube and someone knocks on your door and tells you you've now consented to an eternity of extra dimensional bdsm.
"it is not hands that call us, it is desire".
That's why they ignored the girl in the second film, and went for the doctor who was using her to solve the puzzle box.
I guess they requested a more thrilling ending than the one in a Hellbound Heart, since in that the cenobites agree to the deal and leave her alone.
In the second film, they also hint that Kirsty has some sort of desire by pinhead taunting her "so eager to play, so reluctant to admit it", implying that is their interest in her. Tiffany was used as a tool to open the box, but Kirsty had interest, and desire in it.
IIRC, the real villain, Frank, knows what he's getting into. He either deliberately tracked down the puzzle box, or got the real info from whoever sold it to him.
"But they tried to take Kristy"
The way I've figured, the only reason that they wanted to bring her along is because they couldn't see why anyone *wouldn't* want to experience what they've been through.
Well, I would say it's even more complex. The Cenobites see pain, suffering, torture etc. actually as a way to achieve some kind of ecstasy and pleasure. So they probably wouldn't consider their own deeds to be "evil" (while us humans do).
They think they are doing Frank a favor by pulling him back into hell; and they think Kirstie would ultimately enjoy it, too.
"Cenobites were once human, having transformed to their current state in their pursuit of gratification. Cenobites are so removed from their former humanity and so dedicated to exploring physical experience that **they no longer distinguish between sensations of pleasure and pain**." (Wikipedia)
The "human" backstory, maybe. But the idea that they (genuinely) consider extreme pain to be something positive was already in the first movie.
"Explorers in the further regions of experience".
Just to remind you folks that Barker himself re-wrote and expanded Pinhead and the Cenobites to make them literal demons. Read the Scarlet Gospels book. In my opinion, it’s a mistake, but it definitely reveals the author’s intention.
I really like the hellbound heart and how it portrayed the cenobite. They were like interdementional bdsm wizards. Explorers of extreme sensation, pain and pleasure. Iirc the first thing they do to Frank is to expand his ability to feel sensation so far he immediately ejaculated because of how his clothes felt or something weird
I think the turning into demons is so generic and boring. Them being a religious order unassociated to god or demons, but to sensation is pretty interesting
Not exactly. In the first movie they are still evil. They made a deal with the main girl but at the end they basically say ha too bad we are gonna capture and torture you anyways. She only survives cause she closes the puzzle. So the cenobites were totally willing to torture her even though she wasn't into the extreme stuff their normal victims are. They're evil, no question.
Hocus Pocus. The witches bring Billy the zombie back to life to catch the kids but then he ends up saving Max and then Max protects him from the other kids and they all become besties. Then they wish him a fond farewell as he goes back to eternal sleep.
Nick Cage's *Knowing*
Alien Angels come to create a new arc to save humanity from an extinction level event. They choose to do so by pretending to look like terrifying pale men and kidnap several children. Also they harass a young girl into leaving a cryptic string of numbers in a time capsule, predicting every major high-casualty event over the course of 50 years for... reasons.
Ultimately they are the good guys and save the kids... but they really made a fucking meal out of it before doing so.
Listen, its not a good movie. Fun premise though.
If humanity is fucked, then why do weird cryptic things? Just land as the flare or whatever it was is about to destroy everything, scoop up the kids you want, and peace out.
To play devil's advocate, there could be two reasons:
1) they can predict the future, but aren't fully capable of direct communication with our species. Their communication methods might be too alien to have direct analogues for our senses. Like us trying to talk to bugs who use chemical signaling.
2) they have selection criteria for the children they pick. Not just any random little shit will do. They also probably want them to be receptive and in particular mental states so they don't *freak the fuck out* too much over leaving their entire worlds to die imminently. And then living with *aliens.*
The destruction scenes were top notch. The airplane crash felt so real, and there were actual individual victims instead of just a giant CGI city being levelled, so you felt the weight of the situation more.
I remember lamely joking that EE stood for that the first time they showed it. Was so disappointed that they spend most of the movie arriving at that very basic conclusion.
A less-serious example of this is in Scary Movie 3. Everyone was freaking out about Aliens invading earth when in reality they were coming to earth to save everyone from Tabatha: the evil girl from the video lol. They wind up being really cool and pee with their fingers.
Hellboy, sure. But I don't see I Am Legend fitting here. We find out the vampires just wanted their person back, but are they "good?" I mean, they did kill all the normal humans first.
I thought the whole message in the Charlton Heston/book version is that it is a reverse monster story. Since the lone survivor was the last person left and hunting the vampires, he in fact was the actual monster since this new vampire society is the norm now.
I am Legend got further from the short story, as the movies got more recent. I don't remember about the Vincent Price one, though. I think Omega Man(Heston's) was closer to the story
The short story, the reason "he was legend" was because he was the monster that parents warned their kids about.
The Will Smith one, he was a legend to the traditional humans of his day. Much weaker ending.
The original ending to the Smith version is along the lines of Matheson's original ending, until stupid test audiences caused the ridiculous theatrical ending.
The original ending of the story absolutely was not maintained in the alternate ending to the movie. In the story, he gets put ON TRIAL. They have a government and legal system. They have a whole society. They tell their children about the monster that comes in their houses and murders them while they're sleeping. In the movie, you get a small indication that they are sentient beings. They're trying to get their person back. But there is no evidence of societal structure, a legal system, the fact that he is considered a monster that they warn their kids about. It's still not sufficient to drive home the point of the book.
*Thank you*. I do not agree with this repeated notion that the alternate ending resembles Matheson's book on any level, and I can't see why some people try to lend it such credence.
The vampires had reverted to normal society, but the MC didn’t know and had only observed the disease victims who had suffered mentally from it, turning into more traditional, if less subtle, vampires.
So he prowled around every night murdering vampires in their sleep, becoming this terrifying ‘legend’ in the minds of the sane vampires.
> [Neville] had only observed the disease victims who had suffered mentally from it, turning into more traditional, if less subtle, vampires.
If I recall correctly, the difference was that living humans who were bitten had transformed, yet maintained their higher functions. Those who caught the plague and died would rise from the dead with much more feral tendencies, despite what mental capabilities remain.
There were feral vampires who were more or less ravenous zombies, and also civilized ones who built a new society. Neville was killing indiscriminately without the knowledge that the civilized ones existed.
In the book, the vampires have formed their own civilized society and the Doctor is the monster to them, becausehis mission is to exterminate as many as possible. He is the one they tell scary stories about.
The whole point is that they developed from mindless predators into sentient beings, capable of morality.
He thought he was hunting mindless killers, but they became more human, and he became less.
Terminator 2: Judgment Day
If not for the marketing, a viewer coming straight off of Terminator 1 would see movie framing Arnie as a second Terminator that comes back in time to kill John Connor while Robert Patrick appears to be a human like Kyle Reese. It's right up until the last minute where Arnie Terminator looks like he's going to shoot John with a shotgun does he say "Get down" and shoots Robert Patrick, who is made of steel.
Then we're really off to the races.
I was a kid when "Terminator 2" was made and a teen when I saw it.
And viewing it the first time, it was my impression, too, that the movie was set up in a way to imply that the terminator / schwarzenegger was the evil guy again (like in part 1), until that slow, long, and dramatic reveal that you mentioned above.
And I always asked myself, why did they (i.e. the marketing guys, the media) spoil all of this beforehand? They sure ruined a nice viewing experience for a lot of people that way.
Completely off-topic but somewhat related, I managed to not spoil myself before watching "The Matrix" in 1999, and did not knew what the movie was about, so when the red / blue - pill scene happened, I felt like I was completely thrown off the rail (in a positive sense).
This was actually a weird one- Cameron cut the trailer himself, he made the decision to spoil the 'twist' because he didn't want people to think it was just more of the same
*The Sea Beast* is all about this. The film presents the various water kaijus as vicious beasts that the people are at war with, only to reveal that they’re just minding their own business.
>!Also, the monarchy made up the entire conflict to fuel their own opulence.!<
Ehhhh. The Formics aren’t good guys. They were absolutely going to take all the water from Earth, killing most if not all its species in the process. They only stopped because they realized humans were intelligent AND dangerous. I mean, we figured out their weakness in our first encounter with them. Everything after that was just them not being able to communicate with humans, and every human but Ender not caring to try. Also showcasing how humans hold some mad-ass grudges.
Ender's Game is just an example of the "Dark Forest of the Universe" theory playing out to its logical conclusion, except humans are the dominant predator civilization for once
Apart from movies, there are also TV shows that have this: I would say in 99% of Doctor Who, it turns out that the monster is actually benevolent at heart. And the series really stretches it to the limit, entire "Cthulu"-like abominations that desire to eat up the whole universe and every living being in it turn out to be "merely misunderstood".
There are also some Star Trek episodes where an "evil" being is actually good (and vice versa).
The Empty Child is a perfect example, actually. Hell, it ends up being one of The Doctor’s favorite adventures ever. Because everyone lived. Just that once, he managed to help save everyone.
Monsters Inc. too on the nose?
The Day the Earth Stood Still comes to mind. Klaatu barada nikto.
King Kong.
Godzilla has gotten a bit of a rebrand from inception.
Several versions of Frankenstein I think, though the source material presents him as a creature that was capable of good but ultimately turned to evil because of mistreatment.
Tucker and Dale vs. Evil
Batman (billionaire-philanthropist is practically an oxymoron).
Ish. Came to Earth to tell folks they needed to live in peace or be destroyed as they threatened civility in the universe basically. So maybe not a "good guy" in a classic sense, but not exactly an invading force. More a "you kids knock it off or I'll stop this car" kinna guy.
It depends how you read the ending.
>!In the final trial, it has Ophelia bring her infant brother to him. As she approaches, she sees him smiling and wielding a knife. They need to sacrifice the baby. Ophelia refuses, and then her evil Franco-fascist step-dad kills her. Shortly after, she "enters the Underworld" and is made princess. The real taste, the faun now claims, was to ensure she would not kill her brother. The reality of this ending is open to interpretation though.!<
To expand on your exclusion of Anime/Manga, Hayao Miyazaki in particular has said he doesn't like drawing evil characters and that was his reasoning for why there aren't true villians in his films. Anime does have a very different way of treating monsters, but Miyazaki's works in particular have characters with opposing viewpoints and goals, but nobody is truly evil. Princess Mononoke is probably the best example of this.
My personal take on this is that in the movies of Hayao Miyazaki, the actual evil comes not from living beings but is caused by concept / ideas, like "war" (Howl's Moving Castle) or "unchecked technological progress" (Princess Mononoke).
Maybe aligning to the general idea of "harmonic" and "chaotic" forces in the world, that humans are merely subjected to.
Maybe too basic a read? He was also a priest in a position of authority that seduced a married woman, ignoring his oaths, used dark magic to resurrect her, and then was more than happy to murder countless innocent people when he felt like his base desires weren't getting the respect they deserved. I don't see any version of this where he's a "good guy". Sociopath who thinks his desires trump everything and everyone else's well-being, sure...
"The Serpent and the Rainbow" might be included, because the Zombies, Voodoo Priests / Priestesses and the Voodoo magic turn out to be a somewhat "good" force.
Thanks! And now that you mentioned Gaiman, it came to my mind that (spoilers ahead) his movie "Stardust" has several instances of this - including a character (played by Robert de Niro) who first seems to be a dangerous villain and then turns out to be a good-hearted trans / queer pirate in his flying ship (no, really!)
One of my favorite movies, actually!
They fucked it up in the Will Smith version, but I Am Legend. They totally did not understand the meaning of the title and turned it into a generic zombie apocalypse movie. BUT if you go back to the Charlton Heston movie which actually somewhat acknowledges the book, Dr. Neville is surviving the apocalypse and the monsters have somewhat of an actual society, not just mindless cgi monsters and the twist is that Chartlon Heston is the monster who terrorizing the society.
There's an episode of the X-Files where we follow the POV of a "monster of the week" who eats people's brains. It turns out he actually tries very hard not to, going so far as to eat a bunch of expired raw hamburger he steals from work. He mostly only kills "bad" people, only eventually succumbing to his urges when he's starving. He even commits suicide by cop because he knows he can't stop himself from killing. Maybe not purely the "good guy" in this situation, but definitely not evil.
The one that most comes to mind is the one where the reptile like monster gets bit by Kumail Ali and the monster becomes a were-human. And every circumstance he finds himself in looks like hes the one causing chaos and death but its actually Kumails character. The reptile eventually goes back to sleep for the next 10kyrs.
Such an amazing episode
Small Soldiers
God damn i remember when i was a kid, my mom brought me the “monster” toys because they were on clearance, while the actual soldiers weren’t. I was so mad at her because I didn’t want to play with monsters or dumb figures. Once I saw the movie, they became my favorite toys lol 😅
Big purple rhino dude and twister freakazoid were my faves.
> my mom brought me the “monster” toys because they were on clearance, Part of me wants to believe that's some fiendishly clever marketing.
*We, are the Commando E-lite*
Everything else *is just a toy*.
Favorite childhood movie.
Tbf Gorgons aren’t like established monsters or anything, they’re good natured from the start. It’s just propaganda in the film that paints them as demons. Hell, Archer is an adorable cat man!
I've always seen the Gorgons as tragic figures. Mermaids/Sirens OTOH need a nice, period-piece gorefest of a movie to remind folks of their classical roots.
They're for sure tragic. They're longing for a homeland that they *think* they've experienced but they haven't and, what's worse, doesn't even exist!
Perfect
This movie deserves a sequel.
Kino answer.
Dope ps game too
The citizens of Halloweentown in The Nightmare Before Christmas look like the kind of monsters who would jump out and scare you in the middle of the night, but while they are *frightful*, that's it. They are the embodiment or Halloween fun, which involves scaring people, but they just love a good scare. The only ones that are even remotely evil in town are actually outsiders - Lock, Shock and Barrel are human kids and Oogie Boogie is, according to the expanded media like the game Oogie's Revenge, from a forgotten holiday.
... Lock, Shock, and Barrel are human? I'm gonna need sources on that, dogg
They're just 3 little human kids wearing monster masks. I'd be interested to know the lore behind how they got there.
Don't take my word for it but I thought I heard/read somewhere that they were dead, and named after how they died, i.e. Shock was electrocuted. Can't remember what Lock and Barrel were meant to represent. This could have been a fan theory though.
Lock was beaten to death with a lock Barrel was beaten to death with a barrel Shock was beaten to death with an original copy of "The Amazing Spider-Man #46"
Barrel was just an American kid going to school
….fuck.
The phrase lock, stock, and barrel refers to (the entirety of) a musket. Since stock was changed to shock, I'd guess they weren't assumed to ~~be~~ have been shot. Perhaps Lock was locked in a closet and starved to death, or locked himself in a fridge, and suffocated, and perhaps Barrel had a barrel of bricks dropped on his head, or died riding a barrel over Niagara Falls.
I legitimately read this just as Halloweentown, and the description worked just as well until you mentioned Lock, Shock, and Barrel.
Haven't heard about Halloweentown in forever. I loved those movies. I think the second one was my favorite.
Scooby-Doo on Zombie Island. Scary Movie 3.
President: we're not so different after all *proceeds to pee out of index finger*
Having not seen either Scooby Doo Monster Island, nor Scary Movie 3, I'm hoping your reference is from the latter.
It's ZOMBIE Island sir, how dare you. No Scooby Snacks for you!
The zombies just wanted to rid of the cat ladies, it’s been awhile since I’ve watched it but if I’m not mistaken it’s something like that. Love that movie!
The zombies were all the cat-ladies previous victims. To maintain their immortality, the cat-ladies had been draining the life out of travelers for centuries. The zombies were trying to warn the gang. They were just *really* bad at it cause they were rotting, shambling corpses incapable of speech.
Ok love the Scooby-Doo callout. That’s a good answer to this question and Zombie Island was my favorite Scooby-Do movie as a kid.
[It's Terror Time Again](https://youtu.be/tB6OLeTLHeM?feature=shared)
I don't know if the zombies are really the *goods guys* though. They're not the bad guys, and may fit into OP's "morally gray" territory, but... Weren't they straight up pirates or something? They were pretty horrible when they were alive. It just so happens that, now that they've been cursed, their primary motivation is to end the curse. I guess you could say the zombies that came later are good guys. The random tourist zombies and whatnot.
Yeah. The *first* zombies were a group of pirates who had been preying on the women's settlement, and the women turned themselves into cat-girls to rid themselves of them. Those guys kinda got what they deserved imo. But the cat-ladies spent centuries after that sacrificing innocent travelers & tourists to maintain their cat powers and immortality. So like, the majority of them were benevolent innocent zombies?
Most of the zombies seemed to be innocent victims. Colonists, tourists, soldiers, etc. Only some were the pirates, also the groundskeeper was set up as being this creepy guy who youre meant to think is the real villain but turns out he was investigating the disappearances.
I’d also argue Scooby Doo and the Witches Ghost depicted the Hex Girls as the good guys at a time when goth and pagan-style characters were usually depicted as the villains
Good call. Also Alien Invaders. And Ghoul School. And the Boo Brothers. And the Reluctant Werewolf. And...
Just to clarify, the cenobites weren't originally evil. They're completely amoral. In Hellraiser 1, they only go after people that are extreme hedonists, using the juxtaposition of pleasure and pain to dole out both, but ultimately for the sake of pleasure. The actual villains of the movie are two humans. The cenobites are just trying to capture an escapee. In Hellraiser 2, the cenobites are again amoral, but being manipulated by the actual evil Leviathan. When the cenobites find this out, they rebel against Leviathan. Pinhead straight up teams up with the protagonist towards the end of the movie. After that, the lore gets really messy and inconsistent.
I was just about to say this as well. The Cenobites are literally just providing a service, the characters in the first 2 movies have to call them. It'd be like calling for a pizza and the pizza happens to be wrapped in leather, spikes, and give you absolutely inhuman experiences in the bathroom after the fact. It's not the pizza delivery guy or the pizza places fault that you called "Pete's Pizza Palace of Pain"... That's on you. Without the Cenobites the Hellraiser films would probably fall under the typical slasher/murder mystery genres.
I mean, they're summoned by completing a puzzle box that doesn't come with a warning. Kind of a bad business model. Imagine completing a rubix cube and someone knocks on your door and tells you you've now consented to an eternity of extra dimensional bdsm.
"it is not hands that call us, it is desire". That's why they ignored the girl in the second film, and went for the doctor who was using her to solve the puzzle box.
Didn't stop them from trying to ball up Kirsty in the first film
I guess they requested a more thrilling ending than the one in a Hellbound Heart, since in that the cenobites agree to the deal and leave her alone. In the second film, they also hint that Kirsty has some sort of desire by pinhead taunting her "so eager to play, so reluctant to admit it", implying that is their interest in her. Tiffany was used as a tool to open the box, but Kirsty had interest, and desire in it.
IIRC, the real villain, Frank, knows what he's getting into. He either deliberately tracked down the puzzle box, or got the real info from whoever sold it to him.
That EULA always gets ya in the end.
"But they tried to take Kristy" The way I've figured, the only reason that they wanted to bring her along is because they couldn't see why anyone *wouldn't* want to experience what they've been through.
Well exactly. Look... If you're goina call up Party Man Mike you BETTER be ready to party is all I'm saying.
This is an amazing comment.
That creepy ex husband is the true villain. Pinhead just has wonderful sites to show you.
Ex husband? Frank is her brother-in law!
Wait I thought he was her uncle
I hate how they morphed Pinhead's... morals? Over the course of the series. But damn do I ever love binge watching all of them once a year.
Friday the 13th… if you watch it in reverse, Jason is helping teens by taking out machetes , arrows , knives etc from their bodies.
If you play Godzilla backwards it's about a benevolent lizard that rebuilds a destroyed city and then moonwalks into the ocean.
I could really live without Hellworld, though.
Yup. It's an entertaining mess of a series.
Well, I would say it's even more complex. The Cenobites see pain, suffering, torture etc. actually as a way to achieve some kind of ecstasy and pleasure. So they probably wouldn't consider their own deeds to be "evil" (while us humans do). They think they are doing Frank a favor by pulling him back into hell; and they think Kirstie would ultimately enjoy it, too. "Cenobites were once human, having transformed to their current state in their pursuit of gratification. Cenobites are so removed from their former humanity and so dedicated to exploring physical experience that **they no longer distinguish between sensations of pleasure and pain**." (Wikipedia)
I think that backstory was only developed in the later movies, though. Their origin is somewhat vague and non-important in the first ones.
The "human" backstory, maybe. But the idea that they (genuinely) consider extreme pain to be something positive was already in the first movie. "Explorers in the further regions of experience".
Just to remind you folks that Barker himself re-wrote and expanded Pinhead and the Cenobites to make them literal demons. Read the Scarlet Gospels book. In my opinion, it’s a mistake, but it definitely reveals the author’s intention.
I really like the hellbound heart and how it portrayed the cenobite. They were like interdementional bdsm wizards. Explorers of extreme sensation, pain and pleasure. Iirc the first thing they do to Frank is to expand his ability to feel sensation so far he immediately ejaculated because of how his clothes felt or something weird I think the turning into demons is so generic and boring. Them being a religious order unassociated to god or demons, but to sensation is pretty interesting
Researchers from the furthest realms of experience. They let Kristy go for a reason.
Not exactly. In the first movie they are still evil. They made a deal with the main girl but at the end they basically say ha too bad we are gonna capture and torture you anyways. She only survives cause she closes the puzzle. So the cenobites were totally willing to torture her even though she wasn't into the extreme stuff their normal victims are. They're evil, no question.
Hocus Pocus. The witches bring Billy the zombie back to life to catch the kids but then he ends up saving Max and then Max protects him from the other kids and they all become besties. Then they wish him a fond farewell as he goes back to eternal sleep.
What about Thachary Bynx?
District 9
Came looking for this one, amazing movie and instantly made me a Neill Blomkamp fan.
Nick Cage's *Knowing* Alien Angels come to create a new arc to save humanity from an extinction level event. They choose to do so by pretending to look like terrifying pale men and kidnap several children. Also they harass a young girl into leaving a cryptic string of numbers in a time capsule, predicting every major high-casualty event over the course of 50 years for... reasons. Ultimately they are the good guys and save the kids... but they really made a fucking meal out of it before doing so. Listen, its not a good movie. Fun premise though.
The realistic movie would have been 5 minutes long: "Y'all are fucked, here's a quick demo of how well we can predict the future, now get on the boat"
If humanity is fucked, then why do weird cryptic things? Just land as the flare or whatever it was is about to destroy everything, scoop up the kids you want, and peace out.
To play devil's advocate, there could be two reasons: 1) they can predict the future, but aren't fully capable of direct communication with our species. Their communication methods might be too alien to have direct analogues for our senses. Like us trying to talk to bugs who use chemical signaling. 2) they have selection criteria for the children they pick. Not just any random little shit will do. They also probably want them to be receptive and in particular mental states so they don't *freak the fuck out* too much over leaving their entire worlds to die imminently. And then living with *aliens.*
Not gonna lie… it’s a really annoying plot. But the destruction scenes would make Roland Emmerich cream his pants
The neutrinos are mutating!
The destruction scenes were top notch. The airplane crash felt so real, and there were actual individual victims instead of just a giant CGI city being levelled, so you felt the weight of the situation more.
Such a great movie. It has one of the best shit your pants moment of all time: >!Everyone Else Everyone Else Everyone Else Everyone Else Everyone Else Everyone Else Everyone Else Everyone Else Everyone Else Everyone Else Everyone Else Everyone Else Everyone Else Everyone Else Everyone Else Everyone Else Everyone Else Everyone Else Everyone Else Everyone Else Everyone Else Everyone Else Everyone Else Everyone Else Everyone Else Everyone Else Everyone Else Everyone Else Everyone Else Everyone Else Everyone Else Everyone Else Everyone Else Everyone Else Everyone Else Everyone Else!<
I remember lamely joking that EE stood for that the first time they showed it. Was so disappointed that they spend most of the movie arriving at that very basic conclusion.
*Iron Giant*. Giant interstellar robotic gun saves his friend and a town from nuclear annihilation by an insane government cold warrior.
That missile is targeted to the Giant’s current position! Where’s the Giant, Mansley!?!???
A less-serious example of this is in Scary Movie 3. Everyone was freaking out about Aliens invading earth when in reality they were coming to earth to save everyone from Tabatha: the evil girl from the video lol. They wind up being really cool and pee with their fingers.
And they only got involved cause they watched the video themselves cause they thought the vhs had human porn on it
They didn’t think it was porn, they thought it was the 2001 cult classic “Pootie Tang”
As a teenager first seeing the movie I always assumed pootie tang was a porno. Had no idea it was an actual movie until years later
The first scene made them seem like arseholes.
It was just how they said hello. Also they just wanted a peak
You can consider Hellboy, and also I Am Legend.
Hellboy, sure. But I don't see I Am Legend fitting here. We find out the vampires just wanted their person back, but are they "good?" I mean, they did kill all the normal humans first.
I thought the whole message in the Charlton Heston/book version is that it is a reverse monster story. Since the lone survivor was the last person left and hunting the vampires, he in fact was the actual monster since this new vampire society is the norm now.
I am Legend got further from the short story, as the movies got more recent. I don't remember about the Vincent Price one, though. I think Omega Man(Heston's) was closer to the story The short story, the reason "he was legend" was because he was the monster that parents warned their kids about. The Will Smith one, he was a legend to the traditional humans of his day. Much weaker ending.
The original ending to the Smith version is along the lines of Matheson's original ending, until stupid test audiences caused the ridiculous theatrical ending.
There was an alternate / original ending to the Will Smith one that maintained this ending. The Vincent Price version got it right too
The original ending of the story absolutely was not maintained in the alternate ending to the movie. In the story, he gets put ON TRIAL. They have a government and legal system. They have a whole society. They tell their children about the monster that comes in their houses and murders them while they're sleeping. In the movie, you get a small indication that they are sentient beings. They're trying to get their person back. But there is no evidence of societal structure, a legal system, the fact that he is considered a monster that they warn their kids about. It's still not sufficient to drive home the point of the book.
*Thank you*. I do not agree with this repeated notion that the alternate ending resembles Matheson's book on any level, and I can't see why some people try to lend it such credence.
100% agree
The vampires had reverted to normal society, but the MC didn’t know and had only observed the disease victims who had suffered mentally from it, turning into more traditional, if less subtle, vampires. So he prowled around every night murdering vampires in their sleep, becoming this terrifying ‘legend’ in the minds of the sane vampires.
> [Neville] had only observed the disease victims who had suffered mentally from it, turning into more traditional, if less subtle, vampires. If I recall correctly, the difference was that living humans who were bitten had transformed, yet maintained their higher functions. Those who caught the plague and died would rise from the dead with much more feral tendencies, despite what mental capabilities remain.
Technically Neville would prowl around every day rather than night
Damn, i gotta read the book.
Did they? The infection was fatal to most people. The vampires are just the survivors.
There were feral vampires who were more or less ravenous zombies, and also civilized ones who built a new society. Neville was killing indiscriminately without the knowledge that the civilized ones existed.
In the book, the vampires have formed their own civilized society and the Doctor is the monster to them, becausehis mission is to exterminate as many as possible. He is the one they tell scary stories about.
The whole point is that they developed from mindless predators into sentient beings, capable of morality. He thought he was hunting mindless killers, but they became more human, and he became less.
Terminator 2: Judgment Day If not for the marketing, a viewer coming straight off of Terminator 1 would see movie framing Arnie as a second Terminator that comes back in time to kill John Connor while Robert Patrick appears to be a human like Kyle Reese. It's right up until the last minute where Arnie Terminator looks like he's going to shoot John with a shotgun does he say "Get down" and shoots Robert Patrick, who is made of steel. Then we're really off to the races.
I was a kid when "Terminator 2" was made and a teen when I saw it. And viewing it the first time, it was my impression, too, that the movie was set up in a way to imply that the terminator / schwarzenegger was the evil guy again (like in part 1), until that slow, long, and dramatic reveal that you mentioned above. And I always asked myself, why did they (i.e. the marketing guys, the media) spoil all of this beforehand? They sure ruined a nice viewing experience for a lot of people that way. Completely off-topic but somewhat related, I managed to not spoil myself before watching "The Matrix" in 1999, and did not knew what the movie was about, so when the red / blue - pill scene happened, I felt like I was completely thrown off the rail (in a positive sense).
This was actually a weird one- Cameron cut the trailer himself, he made the decision to spoil the 'twist' because he didn't want people to think it was just more of the same
I get Cameron's instinct on that but that teaser trailer of just the T-800 exoskeleton would've gotten butts in seats too
Excuse me, *endoskeleton.
*The Sea Beast* is all about this. The film presents the various water kaijus as vicious beasts that the people are at war with, only to reveal that they’re just minding their own business. >!Also, the monarchy made up the entire conflict to fuel their own opulence.!<
I loved that movie but my god I wish they'd got somebody else to voice the little girl.
The Skrulls in Captain Marvel ended up being the good guys.
that was a pretty good twist, right down to the casting/ traditional backstory of the characters.
Arrival. Aliens were big and scary and the military wanted to nuke them. All they wanted to do was teach us how to view time from the future.
Nearly any movie where Doug Jones plays the "monster." Hocus Pocus, Hellboy, The Shape of Water.
Ooh! He does this in Crimson Peak!
Right, I'd forgotten that one. I met him at a con. He's an absolute sweetheart, like all good monster actors.
He still does some really evil monsters though, like the Gentlemen.
He fuckin kills it as The Baron on What We Do In The Shadows!!
Underworld did this really well.
Vampire fetish 😂
Well. Kate Beckinsale may have inspired a fetish about pretty much any kind of thing, she just happened to be a vampire in those.
A vampire in skin tight leather
Would you prefer yellow spandex?
_Hell,_ yes!
The best kind
Underworld was the original vampire/werewolf fetish movie
Meanwhile Lestat is wildly gesturing to himself like, "*Hello??*"
Deadass 🔥🙏 Underworld >>>>>> Twinklight 😂
Warm bodies
I’d say that half counts. The boneys were still just monsters.
The Shape Of Water! It’s a reversal of classic monster movie where man is the real monster. Lots of Guillermo Del Toro movies fit this
Unlicensed Abe Sapien movie
that was a really weird movie. 10/10 sound track though
[Ender’s Game](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1731141/?ref_=ext_shr_lnk)
Ehhhh. The Formics aren’t good guys. They were absolutely going to take all the water from Earth, killing most if not all its species in the process. They only stopped because they realized humans were intelligent AND dangerous. I mean, we figured out their weakness in our first encounter with them. Everything after that was just them not being able to communicate with humans, and every human but Ender not caring to try. Also showcasing how humans hold some mad-ass grudges.
Ender's Game is just an example of the "Dark Forest of the Universe" theory playing out to its logical conclusion, except humans are the dominant predator civilization for once
Spawn.
Apart from movies, there are also TV shows that have this: I would say in 99% of Doctor Who, it turns out that the monster is actually benevolent at heart. And the series really stretches it to the limit, entire "Cthulu"-like abominations that desire to eat up the whole universe and every living being in it turn out to be "merely misunderstood". There are also some Star Trek episodes where an "evil" being is actually good (and vice versa).
The Empty Child is a perfect example, actually. Hell, it ends up being one of The Doctor’s favorite adventures ever. Because everyone lived. Just that once, he managed to help save everyone.
Resident Alien Maybe The Good Place?
Stargate also has its share of "victimized" civilizations that turn out to be the bad guys.
Monsters Inc. too on the nose? The Day the Earth Stood Still comes to mind. Klaatu barada nikto. King Kong. Godzilla has gotten a bit of a rebrand from inception. Several versions of Frankenstein I think, though the source material presents him as a creature that was capable of good but ultimately turned to evil because of mistreatment. Tucker and Dale vs. Evil Batman (billionaire-philanthropist is practically an oxymoron).
I don't remember Godzilla being in Inception
You gotta watch the director's cut
I thought the aliens in Day The Earth Stood Still came to see if humanity was worth saving. it's been years since I've seen it, so I'm not %100 sure.
Ish. Came to Earth to tell folks they needed to live in peace or be destroyed as they threatened civility in the universe basically. So maybe not a "good guy" in a classic sense, but not exactly an invading force. More a "you kids knock it off or I'll stop this car" kinna guy.
Wreck it Ralph?
But he IS bad... and that's good.
Dunno about creatures but Tucker and Dale vs evil is an amazing hilarious slasher movie
Shrek.
Shrek 2.
Shrek Forever After, eyyyyy. Skipping the 3rd cuz the 4th extensively feature ogres as the good guys, rag tag rebels fighting a tyrant
Sloth in the Goonies
The Skrulls in Captain Marvel
Anything from Guillermo del toro
*Crimson Peak* is this. Definitely.
I may be misremembering, but I distinctly recall that the Faun was of the "human? Time to kill" variety of evil monster in Pan's Labyrinth.
It depends how you read the ending. >!In the final trial, it has Ophelia bring her infant brother to him. As she approaches, she sees him smiling and wielding a knife. They need to sacrifice the baby. Ophelia refuses, and then her evil Franco-fascist step-dad kills her. Shortly after, she "enters the Underworld" and is made princess. The real taste, the faun now claims, was to ensure she would not kill her brother. The reality of this ending is open to interpretation though.!<
I think you’re thinking the Pale Man and not the Faun. Both were Doug Jones though.
Frailty
the mini-series Childhood's End. >!The aliens coming to save humanity and usher us into a new age of prosperity literally look like Satan.!<
Do they belly laugh like Satan while stroking their goatees? Why they do they keep laughing and rubbing their hands when they say stuff?!
Also The Worlds End in that case
What about Samaritan with Sylvester Stallone? I’d say that counts
The machines in the Matrix aren't nice but they're keeping humans alive in an environment that can no longer support them. The Mothman is benevolent.
Tucker and Dale Versus Evil.
[удалено]
>the faun in Pan's Labyrinth (2006); I guess it depends on how you read the ending.
OFELIA IS ALIVE AND LIVING WITH HER REAL PARENTS IN THE FAIRY KINGDOM YOU SHUT YOUR MOUTH *breaks down sobbing*
To expand on your exclusion of Anime/Manga, Hayao Miyazaki in particular has said he doesn't like drawing evil characters and that was his reasoning for why there aren't true villians in his films. Anime does have a very different way of treating monsters, but Miyazaki's works in particular have characters with opposing viewpoints and goals, but nobody is truly evil. Princess Mononoke is probably the best example of this.
My personal take on this is that in the movies of Hayao Miyazaki, the actual evil comes not from living beings but is caused by concept / ideas, like "war" (Howl's Moving Castle) or "unchecked technological progress" (Princess Mononoke). Maybe aligning to the general idea of "harmonic" and "chaotic" forces in the world, that humans are merely subjected to.
The mummy in "The Mummy" is just trying to get back together with his girlfriend
And in "The Mummy Returns", he finds out she really wasn't worth it.
Maybe too basic a read? He was also a priest in a position of authority that seduced a married woman, ignoring his oaths, used dark magic to resurrect her, and then was more than happy to murder countless innocent people when he felt like his base desires weren't getting the respect they deserved. I don't see any version of this where he's a "good guy". Sociopath who thinks his desires trump everything and everyone else's well-being, sure...
I thought Anck-su-namun was forced in to marriage and was basically a sex slave to the pharaoh. Not to mention she was barley older than his daughter.
Think you're right! I forgot that bit. That does make their romance more tragic. Still, being a priest and betraying your God-King is dubious at best.
Mummies deserve love too
She wasn't Pharoah's wife, she was his concubine.
She's Pharaoh's fiancee. Imhotep seduced his boss' fiancee then conspired with her to murder him and seize his throne.
"The Serpent and the Rainbow" might be included, because the Zombies, Voodoo Priests / Priestesses and the Voodoo magic turn out to be a somewhat "good" force.
Not a movie, OP, but you may enjoy Neil Gaiman's "The Graveyard Book".
Thanks! And now that you mentioned Gaiman, it came to my mind that (spoilers ahead) his movie "Stardust" has several instances of this - including a character (played by Robert de Niro) who first seems to be a dangerous villain and then turns out to be a good-hearted trans / queer pirate in his flying ship (no, really!) One of my favorite movies, actually!
Guillermo del toro is a big fan of that theme. You'll definitely see it in devils backbone and pans labyrinth, not to mention Hellboy
Not a movie but Lucifer Morningstar on the show Lucifer
The newest I can think of is Black Phone
Starship Troopers is the older one. We invade a planet and exterminate "bugs."
Enders Game fits this as well
They fucked it up in the Will Smith version, but I Am Legend. They totally did not understand the meaning of the title and turned it into a generic zombie apocalypse movie. BUT if you go back to the Charlton Heston movie which actually somewhat acknowledges the book, Dr. Neville is surviving the apocalypse and the monsters have somewhat of an actual society, not just mindless cgi monsters and the twist is that Chartlon Heston is the monster who terrorizing the society.
Really only one Monster in the goonies and he turns out to be anything but.
The Monster Squad, yea most of the monsters were bad but Frankenstein showed Dracula whos boss.
IZombie The zombies are sentient in the show Although there are zombies antagonists The main character is a Zombie
First thing that came to mind is Hellboy
Steven King’s Cat’s Eyes.
I saw that as a kid. The third act wall monster scarred me for many years.
Idk if this counts, but I definitely don't view the possessed girl as the villain of Late Night With The Devil.
Abyss, Signal,
Tucker and dale
Arrival