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Monsters TV Series By Kraven The She-Wolf On October 1 1988, a new first run syndicated show hit the airways and although this little thirty minute anthology series didn't change the world, like say The Twilight Zone or Tales From The Crypt, it still left its mark on the horror landscape just the same..... well at least for this horror fan! The show was simply called Monsters and it was just that, unlike other half hour horror based series at the time like Tales From The Dark Side and others.... Monsters had one advantage over the others.....it al- ways had a monster featured in each episode. With a run of 72 episodes from 1988 until 1991 and 3 seasons, the show mixed a lot of dark comedy with full out horror drama each week. Although some episodes were lighthearted and funny, most delivered out right terror but done with a more dramatic tone than just going for blood and gore. In fact, the very best episodes were those that had their week’s monster in a very grown up dramatic situation such as the episodes Reaper, Sleeping Dragon, Far Below and Outpost. These were also my favorite episodes for they were great on not only their monsters but the drama that these shows displayed. Like many shows of its kind, Monsters was a very low budget series but it never really seemed that way. Although most episodes took place in only one or two locations keeping the cost down, the series made the most out of these locations with lots of tone and just good old storytelling. The episode Far Below mainly took place in an office location within the New York City subway system where a man is sent in to see why the workers in the tunnels are paid so high. Their boss tries to explain that the tunnels are over run with hairy monsters and that the extra money the city pays them goes to keeping the creature population down so that the trains can run through the tunnels without anyone being attacked by the creatures. Outpost was brilliantly shot in only one location where a woman is sent in to inspect a lone member of a mining outpost on an alien planet. They talk through a glass wall where Sebastian the worker must stay due to his illness that has deformed him after working on the planet. The use of just one location worked so well as the two talk and she learns that this poor soul on the other side of the glass is in fact her long lost husband. Not so much scary is this episode but amazingly written and so well shot that it’s one of the best the series ever produced. Another great episode was Reaper where a man living in a nursing home is being hunted by none other than The Grim Reaper. He comes to the aging man as a tall well-dressed gentleman and soft spoken. He tries to tell him that his time has come and that he is there for him. When it is not believed to be the angel of death, the man revels his true self as the black cloaked scythe wielding Reaper in all his glory. Okay as a fan of The Grim Reaper, I loved this one and is among my most loved shows. Sleeping Dragon told of a man sized dinosaur being awakened before attacking three people in one location setting. The action is fast and the creature for a low budget TV series of the 80’s looks pretty damn good making this a must see episode. Another good one is called The Hole in which three soldiers during the Vietnam War are ordered to check out an old bunker underground where they encounter zombies in the long dark tunnels. Although the show was produced on a shoestring budget, it always had great writing and even better make-up special effects. The shows make-up consultant was none other than Dick Smith who was the man who turned a little 12 year old girl into the demon creature in the 1973 horror masterpiece The Exorcist. A fair number of top horror writers also worked on the show and many of the stories were original and or taken from short stories by writers of the genre. Three of the episodes alone were based on Psycho author Robert Bloch who's story Reaper was shown in season 2. Like the Twilight Zone, many of the endings of some episodes had a twisted ending while other did not. Some episodes played for giggles and others were just straight up horror shows. Still no matter what, the series always had some form of creature in the show. Be it a vampire, demon or alien creature, Monsters always delivered the goods when it came to having monsters. In February 2014, the series was released on DVD and the series can also be seen on You Tube with some episodes that were shown on the Chiller Channel network. I had to slip off to watch a few episodes myself when writing this article. If you have never seen this little horror gem than you have to check it out on You Tube or find it on DVD, trust me you will enjoy this series. |