Wouldn’t you love to put E.T. in a steel caged match
with Alien? I, for one, would. I have never been one much for the cutesy
aliens. My aliens are rough. They’re deadly and they’re here
to destroy mankind. They are not looking to make friends. They don’t
want to phone home. Nope. They are an opportunity away from wiping us
off the face of the earth and they’ll shove our phones and Speak-n-Spells
up our asses just to show us that they are the dominant species. And I
love them for it.
When it comes to aliens, Hollywood has done themselves proud in bringing
to the big screen some of the most bizarre and deadly extraterrestrials
that puppetry and CGI can create. From Body Snatchers to Klingons to Predators,
these beasts can tear you in two faster than you can say ‘Independence
Day’.
Just who are the baddest of the bad? From the calculating to the just
plain nasty, here are the meanest, toughest, ass-kicking entities from
places beyond our universe.
10. Jabba the Hutt.
Ok. So it’s from a space alien movie that was meant for kids. I
don’t care. This big hunk of alien lard was nasty. And I don’t
just mean his smell. Jabba had a short lifespan in the Star Wars series.
He was mentioned in the fourth film and appears in the last. And when
he does, we witness a crude lump of a creature who has slaves chained
to his throne and watches people die below him in a gladiator type death
cave where the largest monster is the odds on favorite. Jabba makes the
list because cool people like Bobba Fett and Hans Solo fear him. Because
bounty hunters work for him. And because he can promote all this fear
and respect from his fat ass bench.
9. The Blob
Yet another name at the back of the list that will surely provoke chuckles
when discussed. But the Blobs simplistic innocence is also one of the
reasons that it makes the grade. Here’s a little globular bit of
goop that gets larger and larger with each victim it devours. There is
nothing special about The Blob and yet it is incredibly fascinating and
deadly at the same time. Looking like a cross between Louie Anderson and
a Jellyfish, The Blob was originally introduced to theatre audiences in
1958 and updated again in the 1980’s. As the big gelatin blob creeps
and glides its way through the streets devouring at random whatever is
on the faux prix-fixe menu, the Blob’s mass renders our weapons
harmless against it. It’s just a mean, mean eating machine that
when it backs you into a corner, your toast - well, more like jam on toast.
8. Talec
Who, you ask? Bet you it wouldn’t even help if I mentioned that
he was played by Matthias Hues. The year was 1990. The film, I Come In
Peace. A Dolph Lundgren underappreciated sci-fi film, I Come In Peace
gave us Talec, an alien drug dealer that comes to earth to harvest a drug
that is found in human brains. Massive in size and using a weapon that
punctures the skull releasing heroin while extracting its brain juice,
Talec unleashes on the city streets of Houston and cares for nothing more
than the wealth that can be obtained on the alien market. Talec might
be the most unrecognizable name on the list, but he surely gets a nod
for his bad assidness.
7. Space Vampires
Although it might sound like a Universal Studio’s ultimate ride,
the Space Vampires as seen in 1985’s Lifeforce are frightening little
bastards. It all starts when a beautiful alien woman is brought to earth
from an alien craft that was located within the tail of Haley’s
Comet. Naked for most of the film, she might just be the prettiest extraterrestrial
outside of Kim Bassinger in My Stepmother is an Alien. But fashion shows
are not on her itinerary. This space vampire has the ability to suck the
lifeforce (oh, now I get it) out of you and is turning the citizens of
London into stark raving zombies. What gets this space vamp so highly
rated is that she is able to use her looks and body as a lure in having
humans drop their defenses. And underneath that perfect bod is a killer
than is taking souls. Move over Elvira, Space Girl is here!
6. Sil
Released in 1995, Species became a modest hit and spawned many sequels.
In the original, Sil, played by Natasha Henstridge came to earth through
an alien transmission and was harvested by humans. Out of all the creatures
and aliens on our list Sil’s intentions are the most clear and focused.
Sil wants a baby and will kill anyone who would get in her way. There
are worse fates that can befall a man than having sex with Natasha Henstridge,
but when the naked woman on top starts to develop spine spikes, I think
it’s time you complain to the matchmaking web-site that set you
up in the first place. And if you end up being someone who is not a perfect
match, well, you might just end up on the other side of alive. Hell, anyone
that can cut off their own fingers and still be in the mood to mate and
destroy is alright in my books.
5. War of the Worlds
So what that you don’t get to see the aliens until the end. And
so what if all you really do see is just a part of the creature. These
alien destroyers of worlds didn’t need to come out of their space
craft to begin the annihilation of the human race. Whether in the 1955
original or the Spielberg remake, these aliens used their technology kick
our human ass. They did it on mass and they did it by coming down Mainstreet
and blasting us with their ray guns. The fact that you couldn’t
see these creatures in their entirety only leads to the mystique. They
were hell bent on destruction without revealing personality. Sure, these
foreign bastards were done in by the simplest of explanations in the end,
but that didn’t stop them from leveling our cities before they took
their first and final breath.
4. Bugs
If you are scared of tiny little spiders and bugs that hide out in the
corners of your attic, then Starship Troopers might not be the best film
to help you get over your phobia. Paul Veerhoven’s classic was released
in 1997 and had mankind being attacked by alien bugs that swarmed by the
thousands and whose objective was simply to let the bodies hit the floor.
The alien bugs came in different species and sizes and when the scurry
over the mountain tops and rain down on our human defenses, the casualties
are staggering. I have always thought that the best aliens are ones that
don’t talk. The best aliens are the ones that tear us limb by limb.
They leave our carcasses lying where they impaled us. They attack for
the sake of attacking. The bugs in Starship Troopers were non-stop killing
machines. Killed by our bullets (as of 1997, the film had the record for
most bullets ever fired in a single movie), they didn’t care. They
didn’t try and protect the wounded or mourn for the fallen. They
just wanted to kill, kill, kill and their ain’t no amount of Raid
gonna stop ‘em.
3. The Thing From Another World
Let’s forget the original. Sure the 1951 film was a classic, but
when it comes to alien terror, John Carpenter’s The Thing still
ranks as one of the best. It all takes place in an Antarctic base station
where an alien creature is found in the ice and thawed. What started off
as a potential Nobel Prize winning find leads to the horrific deaths of
every character in the film (well, maybe). This alien takes on the form
of the humans to which it encounters. Hell, you could be an alien right
now and I wouldn’t know it until you ate my head. The Thing was
relentless. It morphed and cloned its way through the 12 Americans, a
few Norwegians and even a dog or two in its destructive path. We don’t
know why The Thing is trying to destroy us and that is what makes it so
terrifying. If he is not chomping off the doctors hands he is impacting
us by pitting human against human as paranoia sets in (Are you an alien?
Am I am alien?). Hey, any alien that can infect a body then have the severed
head grow spider-like legs and run across a floor gets a high vote as
being on mean S.O.B.
2. Predator
He comes to earth to hunt. Doesn’t get much simpler than that. Predator
first came to our attention in 1987 when John McTiernan was at the top
of his game. What makes this alien creature rank so high on the list is
it has all the elements of a good villain: It has no emotion. It has cool
weapons all of which rip through flesh like a microwaved knife into a
slab of table butter. And it’s ugly. Damn ugly. Whoppi Goldberg
in the morning ugly. When the Predator lands in Central America, the hunt
is on, and a group of commandoes led by Arnold Schwarzeneger are hardly
a match for its technologically advanced firepower. One by one, the Predator
knocks off the fighting force leaving Jesse Ventura without guts and Carl
Weathers without an arm. To add to his bad-assness, Predator has the ability
to make itself invisible. Predator 2 showed us even more weapons in the
arsenal and by holding its own against countless other Aliens in two AVP’s,
it’s easy to conclude why Predator makes the list.
1. Alien
Alien and Predator could have been 1-2 or 2-1. Even when pitted against
each other in now two films, a clear and decisive victor can be argued.
But Alien is definitely the cream of the crop. Hatched from an egg from
the alien queen, a squid like creature attaches to a human host and lays
an egg into its throat. When the alien is ready to be born, it thrusts
out the chest with the force of a jackhammer and soon grows to incredible
size with the ferocity of a Christian Bale set outburst. With a jaw that
jettisons out to kill its prey with sharp alien fangs, Alien is the benchmark
to which other creatures have been judged since the late 1970’s.
What makes Alien so terrifying is that it doesn’t necessarily want
to kill you. It needs you to breed. So it will take you back to the nest
and impregnate you only to have you live in fear until the creature inside
rips you apart like a shotgun blast through a watermelon. Oh, and think
you shoot or kill Alien? Just remember that it has acid for blood. Take
that E.T.
Other considerations close but not making the list: The aliens in Pitch
Black, Independence Day, Signs, Klingons, Borg and Body Snatchers. |
