In The Arms Of The Beast: 7 Films About Human-Monster Romances
Mary Beth McAndrews
|
Sure, love with a human is cool, but what does a relationship with a literal monster. I’m not talking an abusive partner. I’m talking a vampire, werewolf, and any type of beastie. Known affectionately as monster fuckers, there are people out there with a thing for monstrous love. Take Dread XP’s new game Sucker for Love: First Date for instance. In the visual novel, you can woo an eldritch god such as Cthulu to give you some of those A+ monster kisses. It’s the perfect game for those of us looking for something a little different in our romantic fantasies.
In honor of the game’s release, we’re looking at a few horror movies where humans and monsters come together in an unholy yet strangely erotic union. We may just awaken something in you.
The Shape of Water
Thank you to Guillermo Del Toro for bringing us a mainstream, Oscar-nominated film about a woman falling in love with a fish-man. It’s a tender love story about finding acceptance and love when society treats you like an outcast. Sally Hawkins plays a mute woman who cleans a government facility. While there, she discovers they’ve captured some form of aquatic creature (possibly a god). They form a relationship based solely on facial expressions and eggs. It’s incredibly heartwarming and yes, they do have sex. It’s not shown on screen but Hawkins does mention the monster’s penis size. A+ content all around.
The Fly
David Cronenberg’s The Fly is one of horror’s most beautiful and tragic love stories. Jeff Goldblum’s Seth Brundle is a scientist trying to perfect teleportation. But in the act of testing it out on himself, he accidentally splices his DNA with a fly and begins to transform into a giant human-fly monster. While he undergoes this transformation, he and Veronica (Geena Davis) fall in love. While Seth doesn’t start out as a monster, he slowly becomes one who breaks Veronica’s heart. Can she love him as he changes? Watching their relationship devolve into piles of fly saliva and flesh is so more heartbreaking than you’d think.
Spring
Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead are kings of making horror films that are both harrowing and full of love. Whether it’s romance or friendships, they’re able to strike a delicate balance between scary and tender. A shining example of just that is their 2014 film Spring. Evan (Lou Taylor Pucci) is a melancholy dude who travels to Italy to clear his head after a tragic loss. There he meets Louise (Nadia Hilker) and they instantly fall in love. But what he doesn’t know is that Lousie is an eldritch monster who could bring about the destruction of the entire world. But Evan doesn’t run from it. He loves her no matter what she is and not much is more beautiful than that.
“Lover’s Vow” from Tales from the Darkside: The Movie
In the final short of the Tales from the Darkside anthology film, James Remar plays an artist who after an encounter with a gargoyle-like monster is given success and love. The only catch is that he can’t ever tell anyone about what he saw. He then finds money, respect, and, most of all, love. But when he finally reveals his secret to his wife, he discovers that his wife is actually that very monster he met all those years ago. His successful adult life has been centered on his love for a secret monster who brought him so much joy. But, when he breaks his vow, that world comes crumbling down.
Tammy and the T-Rex
There’s nothing more iconic than Denise Richards having sex with a T. Rex that has the consciousness of her dead boyfriend inside of it. Yup, you read that right. After Michael (the late Paul Walker) is rendered comatose by the titular Tammy’s (Richards) ex-boyfriend, a mad scientist steals his lifeless body for an experiment. He wants to transfer Michael’s brain into an animatronic dinosaur. And lo and behold, it works. But this T-Rex has free will and goes on a rampage to find Tammy and enact his revenge. It’s one weird love story but it knows that. I mean the film ends with Tammy doing a striptease for the T-Rex. Love truly knows no bounds.
Possession
Is this the ultimate monster fucker movie? I’d like to think so. Andrzej Żuławski’s 1983 film is a horrific mediation on divorce, emotional turmoil and cosmic horror. Anna (Isabelle Adjani) and Mark (Sam Neill) are separated. Anna has been acting strange lately and Mark senses an affair. But as he pries deeper into Anna’s private life, he discovers that her relationship is with something inhuman, a tentacled beast that brings her ultimate pleasure. It’s such a bizarre film but it’s incredible.
The Untamed
If you love Possession for all of its strange psychosexual goodness, then The Untamed is right up your alley. This 2016 film by Mexican director Amat Escalante centers on a disgruntled wife Alejandra (Ruth Ramos) whose husband Ángel (Jesús Meza) is having an affair with her brother Fabian (Eden Villavicencio). On top of this tumultuous love triangle, Fabian discovers a tentacled monster that crashed to Earth on a meteor. An older couple keeps the creature locked in a barn, and it’s visited by a young woman named Verónica (Simone Bucio) for sexual pleasure. As Fabian is thrown into this cosmic mix, so is Alejandra. The monster opens up their minds to what sex can be.
Sucker for Love: First Date is now available on Steam.
Categorized:Editorials News
