CNAMB Presents: Monster of the Week!

I haven’t done a Monster of the Week in some time - I’ve just been so busy watching Steven Seagal, his Martial Art prowess, his peach colored sunglasses, and his special “Seagal Sense” on Lawman to spend as much time as I should be spending here…with you. Ma bad. So for this week's Monster, I am going with a little something special, a creature that almost harkened back to the creature features of the old days, but did so with a sly sense of humor and a double dash of fun and set in a modern age.

This week’s Monster of the Week goes to…

The Graboid(s)!

These subterranean invertebrate first appeared in the 1990 giant monster movie classic, Tremors and the Graboids were created by that films director Ron Underwood and the writing team of Brent Maddock and S.S. Wilson. Graboids are based off the Mongolian Death Worm and they are incredibly large creatures that are attracted by noise, or better yet, vibrations. They can grow up to about 30 feet at full adult state and have an almost beck like mouth that contains three smaller mouths that extend beyond the Graboids bite and even seem to have a mind of their own. Only weakness that a Graboid has is it cannot pass through solid rock or concrete as it is an underground creature. However, these Graboids are monsters that have brains to go along with their beauty and are able to come up with creative and destructive ways of drawing their pray out for a little snack.

There were a few different versions of these creatures as the series went along, but I only need to focus on the O.G. Graboid as that is where it all started. So sorry, no ass-blasters! The Graboid appeared in four Tremors films altogether and also in a very shirt lived Tremors television series that kinda got the shaft in how it was all handled. Tremors is a fantastic little horror/comedy that mixed in classic B-Movie sensibilities, with a fistful of black comedy, an original creature, and it worked to…Perfection.

Giant Monster Mystery

I really loved Cloverfield, but what I liked even more than the film itself, was the brilliant viral marketing that went into the film before its release. Something about the mystery of it all just captivates me, brings out an almost - youthful sense of interest driven by imagination as to what the deal was with the movie. The Blair Witch Project had a very similar effect, but the difference with Cloverfield had the ability to cover more than just a section of woods and really cover an event that would impact the entire planet. That impact lead to some cool viral videos - like the Chaui Station meltdown in Japan, all of the news footage and home video stuff from subways and vacation videos, and even the foreign DVD release with the shot from the inside of and apartment with a cat hanging around when all of the sudden there are tons of explosions and then the apartment itself blows-up!

It's been a little over a year and a half since Cloverfield made its theatrical debut, and there seems to be some related viral rumblings in the past couple of weeks. There is this poster I have here in the "poster" spot, that is said to be fake, and it probably is, but if so, then it is still pretty rad. Then, what seems to be the first viral video came a few weeks back, but I am not sure if I buy into this one as being a "real" viral video or not. It looks convincing until the end when you see this weird shot of the monster, that just looks like a superimposed image from the end of the first film, and there is also a street sign that says Cloverfield on it too. I don't know...the videos from the first film had cheap CGI FX too, so I guess there is a possibility that this is a genuine viral video, and not a fan made one. Check it for yourself!


A little suspect? Maybe, but maybe those almost in your face signs are a way to get the marketing started and the Internet nerds like myself into a frenzy over any little thing that comes out afterwards. Just within the last day or so, this new video was released on You Tube, and while there is no real indication that it has anything to do with Cloverfield, that would lead me to believe that it totally has something to do with Cloverfield. As I said, the first video clearly is Cloverfield related, and if not a fan video, would make videos like this new one stand out as possible viral marketing...


The girl in the video is pretty, the kind of pretty to where I would think she is an actress of some sort, with some decent chops to boot. That may not be a grounds for believing this is real for some, but it works for me. Either way, I am very intrigued after seeing this second video, and now my radar is set to full geek in a hardcore way!

There hasn't been any "official" news of a sequel, but why would there be when all the fun is in the mystery? IMDB has absolutely nothing for Cloverfied 2, which is strange because they will usually have a listing for anything someone is tapped to do at some point under the "in development" section. I know Matt Reeves is doing Let Me In, but that is still in pre-production, so what has he been up to since then? You don't take a year plus off after a big hit like Cloverfield when you're new to the major motion picture game.

What does everyone else think about these videos? Real, fake, lame? Whatever the case may be, I would love to hear others thoughts on them and I wouldn't mind hearing thoughts on a sequel to Cloverfield in general while we're at it!