Ravenlofty critter on the big screen (spoiler)

[Rotipher of the FoS]

Just got back from seeing Cloverfield, and guess what? There are carrion stalkers in it.

Granted, Ravenloft's carrion stalkers don't live as parasites on the back of a 300' monster, and Arthaus's versions seem to have lost their bite attack in the transition to 3E. Still, that's essentially what the creepy-crawlies in the tunnel were.

[Georg Kristianokov]

I heard Cloverfield is the American version of Godzilla, only Godzilla is Cthulhu. Is this correct at all?

[Rotipher of the FoS]

No, there's nothing Cthulhu-inspired about it. Sorry if you'd had your hopes up ... although given the rotten track-record of past Lovecraft film adaptations, seeing fewer of them is probably a good thing.

The concept was evidently inspired by the producer having seen a Godzilla flick or something while visiting Japan, but the monster's not Big G, either. Apart from the fact that it's humungous and is trashing a city, that is.

[Rock of the Fraternity]

They should just call Gojira in to stomp on this critter. The few images I've seen of it remind me of a big bug, mostly.

[yalenusveler]

But is it a Megalon bug, a Legion (Gamera) bug, or a Meganurius bug?

[JinnTolser]

I saw this movie, thought it was very well done, and I see your point about the carrion stalkers as well.




***POSSIBLE SPOILER***




However, I am not going to watch this movie again. I hated the camera work. Cinematically it was a good choice to tell the entire movie through somebody capturing things with a camcorder, but it brougth back my childhood motion sickness that I thought I'd gotten over. I had such a nasty headache by the time this film ended.

[cure]

No, there's nothing Cthulhu-inspired about it. Sorry if you'd had your hopes up ... although given the rotten track-record of past Lovecraft film adaptations, seeing fewer of them is probably a good thing.

Riddle me this: why can't anyone make a good Lovecraft film? There is some gripping material there. The scene in the dark from The Case of Charlie Dexter Ward is terrifying not in its gore but its mere pregnant possibility. We need a good director. More a minimalist than a maximalist, who understands that the most terrifying things provoke the imagination without exhausting it.

[Rotipher of the FoS]

Sorry to hear it gave you a headache, JT: you're right that it might be a good film for motion-sensitive people to take a Dramamine before watching. Maybe you'll get to enjoy it properly on a TV screen, once it comes out on DVD?

[JinnTolser]

Maybe so. On normal TV screen it probably isn't so bad. Besides, if worse comes to worse I could always pause for a few minutes if it came to that.

But yeah... anybody who plans on seeing this movie who gets motion sickness ought to take something for that before seeing it. I wish I'd been forewarned.

[Rock of the Fraternity]

I heard a bit of rumour about the big monster's 'flees'.












SPOILER. You have been warned.











Apparently they inject something into people with their bite, which makes them explode into a spray of gore some little time later. Hardly effective as a hunting tool, but a very efficient killing instrument. One wonders why an animal would have a tool that makes the prey inedible -- unless they have great tongues and don't mind waiting for prey to rot a little before they try to eat it.

[Rotipher of the FoS]

*spoiler again*


















As they didn't really explain where the big monster came from, discussing the ecological role of it or its 'fleas' is probably a moot point. But if it crawled or was dredged up out of the ocean, as the viral websites seem to hint at, the venom of the fleas/carrion stalkers might cause a wounded fish to release lots of blood into the water, so the 'stalker can sniff out where its body wound up. Kind of like how Komodo dragons IRL locate dying goats they've injured, by tracking the stench of gangrene from their filthy bite-wounds.

[JinnTolser]

*SPOILER AGAIN*




My best guess as to what purpose this would serve, is that maybe the bite injects an egg or something into the victim, who then serves as an incubator in which another of those carrion stalker-like creatures grows. The explosion, in that case, would be the creature emerging.
I have nothing to prove or disprove this theory, though when my friends and I discussed it after the movie, one of them said he thought he remembered soldiers rushing into the quarantine area with automatic rifles. It would also explain why it was so important for Marlena to be quarantined as soon as they discovered her bite wound.

[Rotipher of the FoS]

(I think we can give the 'spoiler' notes a rest, as there's a warning in the thread-title already. )













Very true. It'd also explain why the dead soldier with the blown-out chest (the one that was wheeled past in the field-hospital) looked hollowed out inside, and why the notion of someone having been bitten freaked the medical staff out so intensely. Again, carrion stalkers!

[Georg Kristianokov]

But is it a Megalon bug, a Legion (Gamera) bug, or a Meganurius bug?

Cool...


We watch way to much television.

At least it's Good TV!

[Band2]

I saw the movie this weekend too. But judging by the title of this thread I thought you were talking about a movie trailer I saw before the movie.

Did anyone else see a trailer for Hell Boy II before Cloverfield?

There were many creatures in there that screamed "shadow fey" to me.