Comments on: My Favorite Monsters: the Thing Without a Name

By: ian

ian — Sat, 22 Mar 2008 00:24:55 +0000

i find the TWaN incredibly fascinating, and at the same time incredibly scary. of course, the reason for that is because we fear what we don’t understand, but at the same time our curiosity drives us to WANT to know what the thing is.

By: Iris

Iris — Thu, 20 Mar 2008 18:05:46 +0000

Okay, I’m gonna be That Girl and bring up Buffy. But here is a textbook case. The villain in the final season is called The First- the first evil, which existed before existence and can never be destroyed. It has no form, and cannot physically interact with the world. But it can take the shape of anyone who has died, and use that appearance to manipulate people. This is a different kind of Thing Without a Name, a thing with the name and the face of someone you knew while alive, or someone you don’t even know is dead. Spooky.

By: Rappsui

Rappsui — Thu, 20 Mar 2008 17:44:46 +0000

How can you say Michael Myers and Jason are Zombies? There’s no comparison man. Zombies are society gone bad – that’s the metaphor, that’s the whole point of zombies – that they could be your friends and neighbors gone loco. Jason and MMyers are the “lone wacko” metaphor. VERY different.

By: Meg

Meg — Thu, 20 Mar 2008 11:54:58 +0000

In Greek myth, Zeus offers one of his lady friends (Semele, mother of Dionysis if I remember properly) any favor in the world, and she insists on seeing him in God form. He tries to talk her out of it, but finally takes off his mortal disguise, and she burns to a cinder.

Probably one reason Zeus needed so many girlfriends.

By: donner

donner — Thu, 20 Mar 2008 03:08:27 +0000

Of course a TWaN is the ‘most’ scary – because we are always more afraid of something we can’t see, but only imagine…our imaginations are always gonna be more powerful than watching a dude in a monster suit, even if Rick Baker did do the makeup…the worst kinds of monster w/ no faces are the ones we imagine we hear in our houses, late at night, after all the lights are out, we’ve just watched a scary movie and have to find our way from the living room to the bedroom by ourselves…that’s when i like to turn on EVERY light between here and there…

By: Mudi-B

Mudi-B — Thu, 20 Mar 2008 00:02:08 +0000

As much as I hate to read him now, I loved the desriptions of TWaNs Clive Barker wrote. Also, China Mieville has had some luck describing the undescribable — his incomprehensible Weavers, for example.

By: Philip Eisner

Philip Eisner — Wed, 19 Mar 2008 21:59:53 +0000

EVENT HORIZON was indeed written to be a TWaN story. In fact, in the original script, the ship did not go to “hell;” the very act of warping spacetime destroyed the sanity of the original human crew and infected the ship. The studio felt that was too intellectual, hence, it became, “hell ship,” broadcasting warnings in Latin on all frequencies.

I love the idea that God is a TWaN; or, if you are an atheist, that God is NOT a TWaN.

By: Florida

Florida — Wed, 19 Mar 2008 21:01:59 +0000

In the terms of a horror movie, the TWaN is used to scare or frighten us.

Curiously, in the terms of religion the TWaN is used in the same way.

By: Dash

Dash — Wed, 19 Mar 2008 20:30:34 +0000

Don’t forget the Pandora’s Box story.

The first woman in Greek mythology, she opened up a jar that released all the evils of mankind upon the world. While the jar/box wasn’t a monster exactly, it still represented a great evil that was better left alone and without the meddling of a curious mortal. ;)

By: Nat X

Nat X — Wed, 19 Mar 2008 20:25:33 +0000

That is why God appeared to John Denver in the form of George Burns in the “Oh God!” movies. He said his true form would BLOW YOUR MIND. When I was a kid, that concept totally made me go, “Woah.”