History Main / MonsterShapedMountain

* The mountain actually ''is'' [[ThatsNoMoon a tremendous creature]], one that was either [[RockMonster made of stone]] to begin with or TakenForGranite. If it's dead or merely inert, it may be overgrown with vegetation; if it is dead, maybe the inhabitants are living in a skeletal structure, or even the [[BewareTheSkullBase skull of this creature]]; even if alive, locals might even have built homes on its surface, making the possibility that it might wake up and start moving a serious concern. In cases when the creature is openly known to be alive, it will often fulfill some benign protective role for nearby inhabitants. If the Mountain is intelligent as well as living, it's a type of GeniusLoci.

* The mountain actually ''is'' [[ThatsNoMoon a tremendous creature]], one that was either [[RockMonster made of stone]] to begin with or TakenForGranite. If it's dead or merely inert, it may be overgrown with vegetation; locals might even have built homes on its surface, making the possibility that it might wake up and start moving a serious concern. In cases when the creature is openly known to be alive, it will often fulfill some benign protective role for nearby inhabitants. If the Mountain is intelligent as well as living, it's a type of GeniusLoci.

* ''WesternAnimation/{{Birdman}}'' episode "Wings of FEAR''. FEAR's secret base is inside a mountain called Death's Head Peak which has a giant skull at the apex.

* A mountain shaped like a bear's head and a boulder shaped like a nose are used by WesternAnimation/MollyOfDenali as guiding landmarks on a canoe journey.
* A snake-like offshore rock formation contains one of the keys to a lost treasure which Hiccup pursues in ''WesternAnimation/DragonsRidersOfBerk''.

** Tunnel Mountain, in the heart of the town of Banff, resembles a sleeping bull ''Bison bison''. There's general agreement that the mountain (which, due to an adjustment in early railway routes, [[NonIndicativeName contains no tunnel]]) ought to be renamed; the main hold-up on declaring such a change is that there's no consensus as to whether "Sleeping Buffalo" or "Sleeping Bison" is the better name.

* Naka Cave in Thailand is named for a legendary serpent-creature because of a protruding boulder that resembles a snake's head, as well as a winding stretch of passage where cracks in the walls make it look like a scaled, half-coiled serpent's flank.

* Many huge stone faces border the rim of Gargantua in ''Film/JackTheGiantSlayer''. A fight scene between Elmont and Roderick takes place in a water-filled tunnel that leads to the mouth of one such face, with the former actually clinging to a platter-sized tooth.

** ''Disney/SaludosAmigos'': In the Pedro segment, Mt. Aconcagua is portrayed as a scary, human-faced monster.
** In ''Disney/{{Moana}}'', once Te Fiti's heart is restored to her, the goddess lies down on the seabed and becomes indistinguishable from an island.

* Music/ModestMussorgsky: ''Music/NightOnBaldMountain'' has Bald Mountain, where Satan lives. In ''Disney/{{Fantasia}}'' it's implied that the top of it is actually him hiding behind his wings.

** ''Discworld/TheColourOfMagic'': One of the worlds that the sea troll observed while drifting through space was actually a continent-sized sleeping dragon, its mountain-sized spinal ridges capped with snow.
** In ''Discworld/TheLightFantastic'', Rincewind and the group who've captured him find themselves in a troll-shaped mountain. Then they light a fire in a convenient cave and find out it's actually a mountain-sized troll.
** In ''Discworld/EqualRites'', the Paps of Scilla, a mountain on the caravan-route from Zemphis to Ankh-Morpork, has stirred a lot of speculation about the lady in question, because it has [[{{Multiboobage}} eight peaks]].
** In ''Discworld/SmallGods'', Om directs Brutha to head towards a tall, erosion-shaped rock that looks... very unexpected, really. Apparently the wind god has a rather crude sense of humor.
** ''Discworld/LordsAndLadies'': The burial mound of the King of the Elves looks like a person -- at least, a specific ''part'' of a person -- and leaves [[DirtyOldWoman Nanny Ogg]] curious to see if it's to scale.
** ''Discworld/CarpeJugulum'': In a small-scale example, a limestone formation in the shape of a witch sits near the entrance to a cave beyond the gnarly ground.
** In ''Discworld/{{Wintersmith}}'', the titular elemental creates icebergs that look like Tiffany Aching. Previously, in ''Discworld/AHatFullOfSky'', the Chalk itself takes on Tiffany's form within her MentalWorld.

* ''TabletopGame/DiscworldRoleplayingGame'': The ''Literature/{{Discworld}}'' bit about mountainous trolls is referenced in a vignette, in which a clacks operator delivers the message "[[Discworld/{{Thud}} Mr Shine, him diamond]]" to a cave near the top of a rocky hill, and then the entire hill starts to move.

* ''VideoGame/TotalWarWarhammer'': Mountains shaped like giant skulls are scattered throughout all mountain ranges in the campaign map, especially in Norsca and the World's Edge Mountains. Several battle maps also feature large rock formations shaped like draconic cranium in their backgrounds.

* In ''ComicBook/TheIncredibleHulk'' #261 Hulk battles the Absorbing Man on EasterIsland. The Absorbing Man absorbs the Earth itself, but then Hulk bashes him into the sea, where he becomes a small, man-shaped island.
* In some Marvel stories featuring The Mole and Monster Island, the mountain that leads to his underground lair resembles a monstrous face (complete with CaveMouth).
* In the later series of ''ComicBook/ElfQuest'', Ember's tribe settles at Howling Rock, which is shaped like a baying wolf's head.
* One of the more bizarre sequences in ''{{Superman}}:'' ''For Tomorrow'' involves Superman fighting Mount Rushmore. Not ''on''it, but the actual mountain given a body with the presidents' four heads.
* In the ''ComicBook/{{Superlopez}}'' story ''All Against One, One Against All'', the BigBad's secret lair is revealed to be a skull-shaped island. Complete with CaveMouth. [[HiddenInPlainSight Right off the shore of a local beach]]. So of course the Supergroup fail to get the clue and waste their time horsing around on the beach while the Big Bad prepares to engage them.
* The 2018 Avengers title starts off with an arc where the corpse of a Celestial is discovered in the Arctic. After resolving the crisis involving a cabal of Celestials corrupted by the same force that killed the first one, the other celestials honor their victory by raising the body up from the ocean floor and the Avengers move into it as their new headquarters, Avengers Mountain. It's posed holding a staff with an outstretched hand and partially frozen over. Features include a spinal column elevator, a cerebral cortex database, a world teleporter, intestines for a brig and it's fingers are hangars.
* There was a silver age Legion of Super-Heroes story that revealed that the origin of their headquarters, which looked like an upside down rocket perfectly planted into the ground, was actually the body of a Legion reject named Fortress Lad. Defending the Legion from another, disgruntled reject with [[LaserGuidedAmnesia memory erasing powers]], he completely forgot everything of his identity with only the thought to [[{{Determinator}} never give up]] left. The rest of the Legion forget where a sorely needed headquarters came from, though they do feel some familiarity to it.

* The Cave of Souls from ''WesternAnimation/TheBookOfLife'', which is not so much just a mountain. [[spoiler:Its shaped like the Coatlicue stone idol, Precolumbian goddess of life and dead]]. When approached, it comes to life as a Judgement entity.

* In the Pedro segment of ''Disney/SaludosAmigos'', Mt. Aconcagua is portrayed as a scary, human-faced monster.
* In the ''WesternAnimation/{{Cars}}'' films, a number of mountains and rock formations resemble automobiles or parts of them. This counts as this trope, as all self-propelled vehicles in this Verse are living creatures.

* More of a CompanionCube than a creature, but the island of Skrattlantis from ''WesternAnimation/IceAge4ContinentalDrift'' looks like a giant acorn when seen from the right angle.
* In ''Disney/{{Moana}}'', once Te Fiti's heart is restored to her, the goddess lies down on the seabed and becomes indistinguishable from an island.

* Gargantuan carvings of kings, both human and dwarf, appear in other Creator/PeterJackson [=LotR=] films.

* The rock ledge outside the Elder Vampire's cave in ''Film/DraculaUntold'' looks like a mandible, complete with teeth along its edge.

** One of the worlds that the sea troll from ''Discworld/TheColourOfMagic'' observed while drifting through space was actually a continent-sized sleeping dragon, its mountain-sized spinal ridges capped with snow.

** On a similar note, in ''Discworld/SmallGods'', Om directs Brutha to head towards a tall, erosion-shaped rock that looks... very unexpected, really. Apparently the wind god has a rather crude sense of humor.
*** Likewise, the burial mound of the King of the Elves in ''Discworld/LordsAndLadies'' also looks like a person -- at least, a specific ''part'' of a person -- and leaves [[DirtyOldWoman Nanny Ogg]] curious to see if it is to scale.
** In a small-scale example from ''Discworld/CarpeJugulum'', a limestone formation in the shape of a witch sits near the entrance to a cave beyond the gnarly ground.

* Skull Rock in the various versions of ''Literature/PeterPan'', where Captain Hook takes the kidnapped Princess Tiger Lily.

* In Creator/HPLovecraft's ''Literature/TheDreamQuestOfUnknownKadath'', Carter learns what the gods look like by viewing a gigantic face carved into the side of the mountain Ngranek.
* ''Literature/TheChroniclesOfPrydain'' novel ''The High King''. Mount Dragon was so named because its peak was in the rough shape of a monstrous, crested dragon's head with gaping jaws, and on either side the lower slopes spread like outflung wings.
* In Creator/AndreNorton's ''Literature/StormOverWarlock'', Shann Lantee first dreams of, and then sees, a mountain like an enormous skull. Winged creatures fly into and out of its eyeholes.

* In Michael Reaves' ''The Shattered World'', one of the FloatingContinent fragments is carved into the shape of a robed wizard. In the sequel, ''The Burning Realm'', a mountain on Tamboriyan resembles a regal woman on a throne, although it's unclear if it was carved that way or if it's natural.

* In Creator/DanielPinkwater's ''The Worms of Kukumlima'', the adventurers are given cryptic instructions to "look for the Elephant Gate". They eventually find it in the form of a rock arch shaped like a giant elephant, which is the only entrance into the LostWorld of Kukumlima crater.

* When ''Series/SesameStreet'' visited Hawaii, Big Bird spent a lot of time looking for Mount Snuffleupagus; a mountain shaped like, well, a Snuffleupagus.
* In the 1998 miniseries ''Series/{{Merlin|1998}}'', the Rock of Ages is a sentient mountain resembling a man lying half-buried in the ground. Merlin asks it to hold Excalibur [[ExcaliburInTheStone until a worthy wielder appears]].
* ''Series/DoctorWho'': In the Fourth Doctor episode "The Face of Evil", a gigantic carving of the Evil One's head is what taught the Sevateem what this terrifying villain looks like. Too bad for the Doctor that it had the face of Tom Baker...

* ''Music/NightOnBaldMountain'' by Music/ModestMussorgsky. The Bald Mountain, where Satan houses. In ''Disney/{{Fantasia}}'' it is implied that the top of it is actually him hiding behind his wings.
* "Fire Coming Out Of The Monkey's Head" by Music/{{Gorillaz}} from the album ''Music/DemonDays'' (2004) about a demonic mountain killing off everything and everybody.
* "Billy The Mountain", a monstrous mountain from Music/FrankZappa's "Billy The Mountain" from ''Music/JustAnotherBandFromLA'' (1973) and "The Adventures Of Greggery Peccary" from ''Music/StudioTan'' (1978) and ''Music/{{Lather}}'' (1993).

[[folder:Myths & Religion]]
* There's a traditional belief among the people of Timor that their home island is actually a giant stone crocodile, its back protruding from the water.
[[/folder]]

* The backglass for ''Pinball/{{Seawitch}}'' depicts a skull-shaped mountain in the background.

* In the JungleOpera story ''Radio/MoonOverAfrica'', the adventurers encounter a giant rock shaped like a rhino's head, which their magical talking head guide indicates is worth exploring for its mysteries and possible connection to Atlantis. The party approaches it, but see signs indicating that the rock is a sacred, mystical site for a CannibalTribe, who capture them before they can properly explore the rock.

* The card [[http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=279708 Hamletback Goliath]] from ''TabletopGame/MagicTheGathering'' is given to be this. The card art depicts a couple of goblins living on the Goliath's back, and plant growth that makes it look like a mountain.
* In the ''TabletopGame/{{Champions}}'' scenario ''[[http://www.blackwyrm.com/catalog/product_info.php?cPath=25&products_id=151 The Sands of Time]]'', the [=PCs=] are dropped in an extradimensional realm with nonhuman inhabitants — and yet there’s a mountain carved into the shape of a human face. Subsequently, they encounter a person with that face; [[spoiler:the arch-villain who is responsible for the whole plot]].

** The entrance to the infamous ''TabletopGame/TombOfHorrors'' adventure is through one of the openings in a skull-shaped cliff.

** A short adventure from ''Magazine/{{Dungeon}}'' magazine was located at the site where a huge dragon and the flying ship it'd attacked had crashed into a pool of lava. Several of the caverns in the resulting dungeon were shaped like dragon-parts, as the lava had congealed around its skull, limbs, ribcage and tail.
** The ''Draconomicon'' supplement reveals that this is how a dragon can die - rather than suddenly succumbing to the centuries, a dragon can choose to consume its [[DragonHoard hoard]] and undertake a ritual that allows it to merge with the landscape. The resulting hills or lakes are typically shaped like a dragon head or footprint, and are ideal nesting sites for future generations, as eggs laid there are magically hidden from danger, while wyrmlings can commune with the departed dragon's spirit for guidance.

** Old-time solo adventure module "[=UK5=]: Eye of the Serpent" gets its title from this trope: from the top of the mountain where the adventure begins, a river that runs down to a small lake with a single island looks like a snake. There's also a cave in the adventure in which dripping mineral deposits have encased a long-ago hunter's dead body, creating a humanoid-shaped limestone formation.
** Third-party planar adventure sourcebook ''Beyond Countless Doorways'' includes the realm of Palpatur, a former GeniusLoci world that was traumatized when warring demons and devils turned it into a battlefield, devastating the landscape. The sentient world's resultant anguish caused gargantuan, pain-wracked faces to erupt from the ground, and these mountain-sized faces still remain there, even after Palpatur sank into a coma.
* In Glorantha, the primary setting of ''TabletopGame/RuneQuest'', True Dragons are a part of the landscape of the world, forming several major mountain ranges. Even the smallest known True Dragon is dozens of miles long. Most of them are asleep, while their spirits wander in other planes, but one in the vicinity of Kralorela acts as a guardian deity of sorts for the nation, occasionally communicating with their Emperor, who is a human with a dragon's soul.
* The Literature/{{Discworld}} bit about mountainous trolls is also referenced in a vignette in the ''TabletopGame/DiscworldRoleplayingGame'', in which a clacks operator delivers the message "[[Discworld/{{Thud}} Mr Shine, him diamond]]" to a cave near the top of a rocky hill, and then the entire hill starts to move.

* The entrance to ''Ride/SkullIslandReignOfKong'' at [[Ride/UniversalStudios Universal's Islands of Adventure]] is themed as a giant rock formation that closely resembles King Kong.
* [[Ride/DisneyThemeParks Disney's California Adventure]] theme park has Grizzly Peak, shaped like a bear's head. It was originally the park's signature landmark, though that honor has since gone to the Carthay Circle Theatre.

* In the casual game ''VideoGame/{{Drawn}}: Trail of Shadows'', one of the painted worlds is home to a mountain-sized stone giant with huts built on its shoulders. Events in-game have saddened it, so a slender waterfall of tears streams from its gargantuan eye.

* In the fourth ''VideoGame/{{Azada}}'' casual game, a path leads up a hill shaped like a giant canine.

* Parodied in ''VideoGame/TheCurseOfMonkeyIsland'', where "Skull Island" turns out to have a prominent mountain that's clearly in the shape of a ''duck.'' When the ferryman claims it looks like a skull if you squint at it and tilt your head sideways, Guybrush points out that just makes it look like a bunny instead.
* One of the zones in the ''City of Villains'' expansion to the defunct MMORPG ''VideoGame/CityOfHeroes'', is named Cap au Diable (literally, "the devil's headland"). It's overlooked by two curved mountains that resemble a devil's horns.
* Chicken Ridge from ''[[VideoGame/NancyDrew The White Wolf of Icicle Creek]]'' looks just like you'd expect from the name, at least when it's covered in snow. In ''The Creature of Kapu Cave'', 3 Finger Rock actually does look like a trio of human digits ... although such stubby ones, they might better have called it 3 ''Toe'' Rock.
* During your second incursion into Hell in ''VideoGame/Doom2016'', the player encounters a massive series of bones, gore and decay that are the remains of a Titan, one of the greatest warriors of the realm that [[PlayerCharacter the Doom Slayer]] [[OffScreenMomentOfAwesome killed in single combat before the game began.]] The rest of the level then takes place inside temples made within its remains.
* In ''VideoGame/PokemonMysteryDungeonExplorers'', you and your partner often stay on Sharpedo Bluff, which is a cliff hanging over the ocean that resembles a Sharpedo.

* ''VideoGame/TotalWarWarhammer'': Mountains shaped like giant skulls are scattered throughout all mountain ranges in the campaign map, especially in Norsca and the World's Edge Mountains.
* There are a number of skeletons in Borderlands2 for the DLC "Sir Hammerlock's Big Game Hunt" that tower way above the player character and sit on various mountain surfaces.

* ''WebAnimation/MyLittlePonyEquestriaGirlsDigitalSeries'': At large from the beach where most of season 2's {{Beach Episode}}s happen, we can see a rocky islet shaped like a horse head.

* In an episode of ''WesternAnimation/TheMagicSchoolBus'' about erosion, the class's trip along a mountainside triggered a series of rockfalls and stream-diversions that re-shaped the terrain to resemble a human figure.

* Snake Mountain in the ''He-Man'' franchise; in [[WesternAnimation/HeManAndTheMastersOfTheUniverse2002 the 2002 series]], it was eventually revealed to actually ''be'' a giant snake frozen in place when King Hiss and the Snake Men take over.

* In the Pixar Short ''[[WesternAnimation/PixarShorts Lava]]'', an old volcanic island and the new island that's about to emerge from the depths both have human-like faces, and sing to one another.
* The ''Franchise/ScoobyDoo'' gang has solved mysteries in places like Skull Island (named for a cranium-shaped rock on which an abandoned prison was built) or Vulture's Claw (a peninsula shaped like a bird's foot).

* The Literature/{{Discworld}} bit about mountainous trolls is also referenced in a vignette in ''TabletopGame/TheDiscworldRoleplayingGame'', in which a clacks operator delivers the message "[[Discworld/{{Thud}} Mr Shine, him diamond]]" to a cave near the top of a hill, and then the entire hill starts to move.

** Tunnel Mountain, in the heart of the town of Banff, resembles a sleeping bull ''Bison bison''. There's general agreement that the mountain (which, due to an adjustment in early railway routes, [[NonIndicativeName contains no tunnel) ought to be renamed; the main hold-up on declaring such a change is that there's no consensus as to whether "Sleeping Buffalo" or "Sleeping Bison" is the better name.

** Tunnel Mountain, in the heart of the town of Banff, resembles a sleeping bull ''Bison bison''. There's general agreement that the mountain (which, due to an adjustment in early railway routes, [[NonIndicativeName contains no tunnel) ought to be renamed; the main hold-up on declaring such a change is that there's no consensus as to whether "Old Buffalo" or "Old Bison" is the better name.