So what makes those characters so Iconic and more, like Pinhead from the Hellraiser films, Pennywise from IT, etc?

I think that the starting spot is the look. Michael Myers has his mask, Voorhees his hockey mask, Freddy Krueger his gloves, and more. Each of these slashers or monsters has their very specific look to them and that’s going to make it stick out in your head more and be more memorable. And while there was something that it stick out in memories, they weren’t extremely over the top in their outfits with the exception of Hellraiser and Pinhead, but even his was more muted in tones. I think something that feels reasonable makes it stand out more with the parts that aren’t reasonable.

I think that a lot of them too hit about the right time for something like that. If you look at the iconic horror movie slashers, Halloween was made in 1978, Friday the 13th was made in 1980, A Nightmare on Elm Street was made in 1984. There was a peak time for these horror films that really made them stick out. Now, what the reason for that is, I’m not sure. But there is something about the 80’s horror icons that really stand out compared to a lot of the newer ones. It’s tough to put your finger on it, but I think the newer ones either go too light, in that they are shooting for a PG/PG-13 rating or delve too much into the R rating. The 80’s horror films definitely have horror, but there is some bit of camp to them.

And I would say that’s another thing, and might be why it works from the 80’s and less so now. But the movies having camp to them just a bit, makes it more iconic as well. It can’t be an intentionally campy movie. If it’s too obvious that the movie is trying to be campy, the slasher might get recognized for a little bit, but generally the movies don’t have as much staying power. None of the big three, or even the earlier Hellraiser films (later ones intentionally campy) are attempting to be campy, there is just something about them that allows them to blend horror and that campiness really well. I think some of it is budget, and I think some of it is technology. No matter how large budget or how much effort they put into making it feel horrific, it was never going to look like real life, so it was always going to be just a little bit off, which oddly enough, I think makes them stand the test of time and be memorable.

I think the final question to ask, and I’m not sure I know the answer to this, would it be possible for there to be a modern iconic slasher. Now, there have been good modern horror slasher films, and a lot of bad ones, and don’t think that in the 80’s there aren’t a lot of bad ones as well, but what would it take and would it be possible, to have a modern horror slasher film spawn a series the way that Friday the 13th, A Nightmare on Elm Street, and Halloween have? And even those iconic ones as remakes really didn’t capture the same feel. The closest that I can see are the Saw films. Though, I’m not sure that I consider Jigsaw to be a slasher, but that started with a kind of absurd premise that took itself seriously, but overall couldn’t be actually taken that seriously. And even with those, I feel like Jigsaw wasn’t the iconic piece to it, like Freddy or Jason on to their franchises, but it was the traps and the puzzle horror.

So, what are your thoughts, what makes in iconic slasher? Is it possible to have an iconic slasher created like we had with Freddy Krueger, Jason Voorhees, and Michael Myers again?

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5 – Crawlers
So this actually is from the movie The Descent. It is a monster that you don’t know much about, but being the movie takes place in a cave and there are plenty of dark corners for the monster to hide in, it works so well. And, then if you watch the non-American ending, you find out even more about the monsters that possibly makes them even more terrifying. Yes, this movie has been out a while, but I don’t want to spoil it for you.

4 – Cloverfield Monster
I don’t know that it really has any name, but it is scary and the fact that it is having smaller monsters fall off of it is just creepy. It really is just a monster that is around to kill, but the fact we don’t know more about it than just that, it works well. There’s something about a large amount of unknown that makes it into a terrifying monster and something that is so hard to kill is also a good monster. And it isn’t like some horror movie villains where you think that you’ve killed them and then they aren’t dead, this monster just doesn’t go down.

3 – Dracula
Hard to go against one of the oldest monsters out there. Dracula is just terrifying because of how he can plan things out. For me, a good monster really is one that isn’t just that mindless killer that is going to chase you down, but can plot and plan and has an idea of how they want to take over. Dracula is very much that type of monster and very hard to kill as well. There have been so many different versions of vampires, but anything with Dracula in it tends to be a little bit more iconic.

2 – Freddy Krueger
Another one of my personal favorites, I really like the concept of Freddy Krueger and how he can get you in your dreams. While some of his movies are cheesy, the concept is very good. There’s just something so iconic about the sweater that Freddy wears and then the razors on his hands. Robert Englund does such as good job as Freddy as well and has consistently through so many movies.

1 – Pennywise
If people didn’t like clowns before, they definitely don’t like them after seeing the horrors of Pennywise the clown. He is the monster from my favorite Stephen King book and he’s shown up in two tellings of the story by Tim Curry and Bill Skarsgard. The Skarsgard version of Pennywise is definitely the creepiest version on a screen. And Pennywise in an inter-dimensional cosmic spider/clown being that knows your darkest fears and how to play upon them.

There are so many more good monsters out there. The Denarians from The Dresden Files are up there or then Michael Myers and Jason Vorhees are both good options as well. I wanted to do some more mindless monsters as well as some crazy out there monsters.

I hope that you’ve enjoyed the little bit of Halloween coverage that I’ve done, I plan on doing more against next year, and I’ll probably continue to talk about more horror things coming up here anyways, as Halloween just makes me want to watch horror films.

So what is your favorite monster that reminds you of Halloween?

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5- Cabin the Woods
This one falls into a lots of the categories. The story is fairly surreal, but works well in my opinion, as you get your standard cast of horror heroes, but the world of horror seems like it’s a little bit different than normal. I think this film really shines if you’re a fan of horror, because the easter eggs that are dropped in this film come on thick and the story pulls in many a trope. This film also does have a fair amount of gore, so that’s one of those things to watch out for if that’s the part of horror films that you might not like.

4- Descent
Another scary movie, this one is definitely a horror film in the truest sense and my second favorite Neil Marshall film. Descent puts you in that claustrophobic mindset and then there are things in the dark that you don’t know what they truly are. There is an American ending, because the other one was deemed too scary or sad or something like that, don’t watch the American ending, there is much more depth in the other one. And it really raises the creepy factor. It’s a movie that I need to watch again as I really remember it fondly.

3- Nightmare on Elm Street
Here’s that campy movie that we were looking for. Though, it’s only campy because of the age of the film. Wes Craven’s horror series, Nightmare on Elm Street stands up pretty well, and it’s very much a classic. Freddy Krueger is a very good villain and the concept of how he can get you works really well. And there are plenty more cheesy sequels to watch to this film, if you want. Another one that I should watch again as it’s been a while, and I have the great looking box set.

2- Tucker & Dale vs Evil
Yes, even more campy movies, this is just a straight up spoof of horror films while keeping in basically every horror trope that you’d expect. It would be easy to say that this is more comedy than it is a scary movie, but it definitely fits into that Halloween vibe as you see tropes get played out repeatedly, just with a slight twist on them. This film is probably the best for the non-horror fans on the list because it leans more into comedy, there is some gore again, but that is done for comedy as well.

1- Dog Soldiers
Neil Marshall is back on the list, and for me, this is his best film. It has a great amount of suspense, you don’t have your incompetent group of teens in this film, but it still feels tense the whole time. Like Descent, this film limits where the characters can go, and that just adds to the tension by a long ways. It’s also a werewolf film, and normally I’ve found those to not be that scary and more in the area of camp, but this movie is scary, and it does it while not having a ton of special effects or big names in it. I’d highly recommend this film as one of the better Halloween scary movies out there.

There are so many more movies I could have put on this list, maybe I’ll do a larger horror movie list at some point in time. I watched the “classic” My Name is Bruce recently, there are movies like Repulsion and The Fearless Vampire Killers that are great. And there are many more that I need to check out as well, such as having the original IT on the self and IT Chapter 1 that I could and should watch this Halloween season.

What are some films that really scream Halloween to you? Do you even like scary movies?

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For a campaign though, I think that you have to find some lower level monster that seems classic campy horror that starts out harrowing the town that the 0 level or maybe level 1 characters are based out of.

Just as an aside, you might be wondering what a 0 level character is. That is basically that you’re just playing a villager, someone who wants to become a wizard might have a cantrip or two, but no first level spells. The characters probably don’t have anything more than a rusty short sword and a little bit of leather armor at best. Basically, you are really leaning into them launching into being heroes.

Anyways, back to what I’m going for. In the world you’re building these monsters should be normal. The players should know that the scary castle a long way up in the mountains that seems to be always casting a shadow over this town as a monster in it. They should know that the woods has werewolves in it. The creature from the Black Lagoon should be a few towns over, and this is a world that has campy and classic monsters around.

Now, something like this could just be the monster of a week, and while that is going to be good for a little while, eventually I think you should start dropping hints of something or someone bigger controlling everything. You don’t need to use Strahd’s stat block for your vampire lord, it can be lesser than that. I think that it would make sense for a Mummy Lord (or maybe a Lich) to be running this group. They are experimenting with other ways to extend life or something like that, or maybe the bodies are going missing and the Mummy Lord is using the monsters to kill off to create an army of the shambling dead.

I’d play around with whomever your BBEG is, give them some sort of curse. And make that a way either for the players to eventually win by solving the riddles and taking care of the mummy’s curse, or the riddles/curse could just reveal a weakness that the players will be able to exploit. The BBEG should also be very into monologues and having that evil genius mindset, though that might make more sense for an evil wizard in a tower or a lich as compared to a mummy lord, so there are different ways that you can lean into campiness and movie monsters.

What would probably take the most time would be finding those classic monsters you want to use. Some of them don’t fully exist in D&D. However, there are going to be things close, and just reskin them so that they look like what you need at the challenge level you need. And if you wanted to you could also pull in horror movie villains like Freddy Krueger or Jason Vorhees for your game to flesh out the cast of characters. Or you could also steal monsters from things like The Dresden Files and Supernatural to get an idea of how to be a bit campy, but also to use a wide variety of monsters instead of just limiting yourself to the classic movie monsters.

I think that something like this could be interesting for a game personally. It would allow you to pull in the players real knowledge of these things while they have to deal with them in the game. And it wouldn’t have to be a super high level campaign at the end, but you’d get a nice building feeling, especially starting at level 0 and going up.

What do you think? Would you want to play in this game? Have you used classic movie and movie monsters in your games?

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