Hugo was a creepy puppet toy aimed at boys, produced by the toy makers Kenner in 1975. Huge who looked exactly like Dr. Evil from the Austin Powers movies, was a master of disguise. He came with a variety of interchangeable facial features that you could glue onto his face, such as noses, scars, false chin, a wig, glasses, side-burns (it was the 70s after all) and an eye-patch. The only problem with Hugo was running out of the little tubes of non-toxic glue that came with him, and resorting to whatever glue your dad had lying around his tool shed. Hugo probably wasn't too please however to have his beard ripped off him after it had been glued on with epoxy-resin. 

Whether you could actually change Hugo into a thousand different faces is a bone of contention. I'm sure there is someone out there that has counted. Hugo is now a highly collectable kitsch vintage toy. He had a brief dabble with fame, when he was regularly featured as part of The Pee-Wee Herman Show. For me personally, I was always a Mr. Potato Head kid.

I've had this movie for ages, just hadn't got round to seeing it until a few nights back, to my shame. What an excellent darkly comic piece of Italian zombie horror. Known as Dellamorte Dellamore, in Italy, it's one of best films I've seen Rupert Everett in, as he delivers subtlety sardonic dead-pan line after another. Everett plays Francesco Dellamorte a caretaker of a cemetery in a small Italian town, along with his assistant Gnaghi. Their easy life at the cemetery is thrown into turmoil, as the the dead start to rise up seven days after they have been buried. Dellamorte who loves to read the telephone directory, and cross out the names of the dead does his best to keep a lid on the "returners" wandering around the cemetery at night. Treating the zombies as a minor inconvenience to his generally easy life.

As a "zombie" movie, the zombies are a minor part of Cemetery Man, as the main theme although being one of "resurrection", it's thematically wider than a simple zombie movie. As is explores recurring love, impotency (or lack of), and life and death.

Much has been said about the choice of calling the movie "Cemetery Man", in English, in that it misrepresents the themes of the story that the original Italian title Dellamorte Dellamore play with. Using the antonyms of "death" and "love", that are at the same time one letter away from being homonyms. Thus tying closely together two of major themes of the movie, of love and death. And even with the tag-line "Zombies, Guns And Sex, Oh My!" The English advertising for the movie misrepresents it's true greatness. 

The over-done Scary movies series are well known for directly spoofing and referencing various popular movies of their time. But the idea of spoof horror comedies goes back years. Abbot & Costello made a number of spoof movies, featuring popular movie monsters of the period, with their Abbot & Costello Meets... movies. In the 1980s spoof/parody movies reached a peak with some 50+ appearing over the decade. However back in 1981, one came out that turned out to be, and still is, a confusing hotch-potch horror comedy, Saturday The 14th. 

Firstly with a title like that, you'd assume it was a parody of the popular slasher genre, but you'd be wrong. Unlike Student Bodies (1981) which came out at the same time, which did directly parody the slasher genre, the only connection Saturday The 14th has, is its title. At best it's a take on the "haunted house" genre of movies, like The Amityville Horror (1979), and pre-dates House (1986) as a spoof of the genre. And that's at best! The rest is an old school (Abbot & Costello) meeting of whatever costumes the film-makers could hire from the fancy-dress store.

Obviously a vehicle for Richard Benjamin, who had starred in the commercially successful Love At First Bite in 1979, and his wife Paula Prentiss. So in Saturday The 14th, they also had the eponymous "Dracula" style vampire, and bug-eyed demon, and the Creature from the Black Lagoon. And... Well that's it, apart from the only contemporary reference of having a shark fin pop up in the bath scene, al la Jaws. 

Love me a bit of super-fly blaxploitation, but what the hell were they thinking with Blackenstein? Now Blacula, weird as a cash-in on the old school movie monster as that was, it held its own as a movie. But as I said earlier, the old school movie monsters were on the decline. Maybe a Vietnam vet, turned into a monster by a "white" doctor was a political statement. If so it was lost on me, as Eddie staggers around doing a bad Boris Karloff impression, sporting a squared off afro. Just hysterical!

Animal revenge or "nature retribution" movies became a bit of a trend, and I could have easily gone with the cuddly killer bunnies from Night Of The Lepus (1972). Or I could have gone for the mutant bear monster from the 1979 movie Prophecy. But I chose to go with the mutant killer sheep from the god-awful, Godmonster Of Indian Flats (1973). The lumbering flea-bitten creature, that looks like Joe Camel the morning after the night before, hardly gets any screen time, which is a shame. And despite the movie title, the "monster" element is a sub-plot, to a property deal storyline. But Shaun "the mutant" sheep gets my vote as a so bad its good monster.

When it comes to bizarre choices for a movie monster, a bed isn't the first thing that comes to mind, except in the mind of one-off director George Barry. Death Bed: The Bed That Eats, just has to been seen to be believed. A demoniacally possessed bed that pulls its victims into its huge stomach hidden underneath somewhere, to swim in its gastric juices to be slowly dissolved. I love this movie (read my review of it), the whole thing is just too surreal to not be hysterically funny. And has one of the weirdest movie monsters of all time.

Rosey Grier as a bad-ass death row inmate, and Ray Milland as a rich dying racist, in The Thing With Two Heads (1972). Not exactly a "movie monster" in the killer rampage sense of what it usually expected of a genre movie. But still, a classic monster character of the early 70s exploitation cinema. Just too cool, not to deserve a mention. And the movie has a really kick-ass soundtrack.

I'd totally forgotten about Tripods, and how brilliant it was as a kid. Intelligent sci-fi for kids, and as creepy as hell. I think the fact as a Brit, that it was set in some future that looked very much like a chocolate box version of the English countryside, made it all the more creepy. Those giant tripods striding over thatched cottages, and snatching up village teenagers dressed in tweed jackets, to implant them, so they could be controlled! 

If you haven't seen it, it's like a mix between War Of The Worlds, with a the creepy Englishness of the Wickerman, or a John Wyndam novel like The Midwich Cuckoos (Village Of The Damned) or The Day Of The Triffids. In fact the show did seem to "borrow" from all that I have mentioned above. The aliens were uncannily like the aliens from the original War Of The Worlds movie. All of that brought together made for one hell of a weird and creepy show, that gave me nightmares for weeks.

In space no one can hear you scream at your computer screen at how frustratingly hard Alien the game was for the Commodore 64. Although that said, I did manage to complete it on a number of occasions, but it did take some tense hours of game play, sat in the dark, knowing the sirens could go off at any second and my crew would be attacked by a badly animated 8-bit xenomorph.

Alien the computer game was released as a belated movie tie-in to the 1979 cult sci-fi horror in 1984, by Argus Press Software. It was released on Commodore 64, ZX Spectrum and Amstrad CPC home computer formats. And despite its god-awfully basic graphics, and the aforementioned painfully difficult game play, it was one of the most heart-pounding atmospheric games that ever came out for the early 8-bit home computers.  

The game follows the movie, in that at the beginning of the game a crew member (not always, but often Kane) gives "birth" to the alien. It's then up  to the rest of the crew the player controls to move around the three levels of the Nostromo using the air ducts, attempting to isolate the alien and destroy it. Or blow it out of the airlock of the Nostromo, or as in the movie set the self-destruct on the ship and get away in the escape pod.

As with the movie one your crew is an android (not always, but often Ash). The android will at some point go haywire, and cause your crew additional problems. The rest of the crew will listen to your commands, as long as they are happy, but if they become anxious they will disobey your commands. And your crew will meet the alien and they will die. In fact when anyone first plays the game, it's likely they will all die. Time and time again!

As you move your crew around the Nostromo, via the ducting they will encounter the alien, and very likely not survive it. It's a tense game, with minimal graphics and even more minimal sound. You can hear the constant heart-beat of the crew members you command, the beep of the tracker (that sometimes Jones the cat sets off), and the opening and closing of hatches, and the piecing siren sound when you meet the alien. That makes you jump! 

There was nothing else even close in atmosphere in gaming at the time. I would switch the light off and play it for hours, feeling a palpable tension in the room, as I had crew members search room after room for the alien, only to be caught by it in the ducting. I still recall almost jumping backwards off my chair the first time I saw it. Alien was a true classic of game play out-stripping the need for all singing and dancing graphics. 

Move over Metallica, the heaviest band in the world isn't American, it's not even some German industrial grindcore band or some Scandinavian Death Metal band. It's a band from Thailand, made up of anything up to 14 elephants.  The Thai Elephant Orchestra is a musical ensemble that are based at the Thai Elephant Conservation Center in Lampang in Northern Thailand, established by elephant conservationist Richard Lair of the National Elephant Institute and the American neuroscientist and artist Dave Soldier. The band play on specially built, heavy-duty instruments, mostly traditional Thai style music, lead by their trainers. The band have released three albums since 2002, and have received world-wide recognition. 

The Thai Elephant Orchestra primarily uses the Lanna Thai five-note scale.  Traditional Thai music is a genre familiar to the elephants, so they chose Thai music scales with a few blues notes. The Thai Elephant Orchestra isn't the first ever elephant band in the world, even the famous circus Barnum & Bailey, had an "elephant band". But often such bands played along to backing music from a human band, unlike the Thai elephants that play all their own instruments.

Recent where a text is literally cut up, use the roots of the literary cut-up technique. The Cut-Up Technique is to writing what can be found in text. The basic method is one pioneered by William Burroughs and with scissors and rearranged to create a Brion Gysin, and later of David Dadaist. Chance was operations collage is to visual art, the 1970s. Its a few or of movement, created poems using a single words on each piece. The chance Bowie used new text. Encapsulated in from his initial cut-up experiment, unedited a cut paper, and unchanged cut-ups in which the operation work emerged. In resulting pieces are then rearranged into the 1920s. Tristan Tzara it during a new cut-up, easily execute by and rearrange it could be performed by taking the finished and the founders of the Dada a fully linear text. 

Before synthesisers, horror and sci-fi film-makers had to employ all kinds of weird instruments to achieve those creepy musical scores. One such instrument is the waterphone, an atonal inharmonic percussion instrument consisting of a hollow metal water filled bowl, surrounded by metal rods of differing sizes. The instrument can be hit or bowed, with the movement of the water inside effecting the tone of the sound produced. Giving an over-all ethereal and creepy sound, perfect for horror movie and sci-fi soundtracks. 

The waterphone was invented by A man called Richard Waters in the 1960s, and was influenced by a Tibetan drum he came across, and a nail violin. Aside from its use in movie soundtracks, it has become a popular instrument among artists as diverse as classic music performers, to Aerosmith and Tom Waits.

The waterphone has featured on the soundtrack of a number of well known and successful movies over the years. Movies that have utilised the weird sound of the waterphone are Poltergeist (1982), the original Swedish version of Let The Right One In (2008), Star Trek: The Motion Picture (1979), the remake of Invasion Of The Body Snatchers (1978), The Matrix (1999), Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000), The Matrix (1999), The Spirit (2008), Powder (1995) and Mystery Men (1999).

Up until his death in 2013, Richard Waters was still making, tuning and signing off personally each of his hand-made waterphones. He refined and constantly adjusted his invention over the years. There are a number of imitators making the instrument, but the ultimate prize among collectors and players of the waterphone is one made by the man himself, which now sell for thousands of dollars. 

I love Tor Johnson, and The Beast Of Yucca Flats gave him starring role as the central monster come Russian scientist, rather than as a side-kick monster, or as Lobo!Tor pulls out all the stops and acts for all his two-dimensional worth, as both beast and scientist. All those years of acting school pay off in this one movie. Just for the dying scene alone, as the little rabbit nuzzles the dying Tor, he grabs it "gently" in his huge hand just before drawing his final breath. It's a scene that brings a tear to the eye.

Now a bloke in a wet-suit with "seaweed" hanging off it, and a big inflatable bag on his head?! What's not to like? Apparently the actor playing the giant human jellyfish in Sting Of Death couldn't breath inside the sealed bag they put over his head. Go figure!!! So the staggering around he did wasn't acting, it was due to lack of oxygen. Added to this his army of paint filled freeze bags, floating menacingly on the water, and you have one of the most cut-price and brilliantly ridiculous movie monsters of all time, not just the 1960s.  

No wait! The monster from The Creeping Terror may have the edge of cut-price movie monsters. It's so bad, so impossible to make out and even describe... I chose to show an image of a stockinged pair of legs being eaten by the monster, than the actual monster itself. And that's why the monster from Creeping Terror made the list, not just because it's a walking or shuffling pile of old rags, carpets and vacuum tubing, but because it eats stockinged or bikini clad ladies. This monster has taste, even if it has no personal fashion sense.