History Main / MuckMonster

[[quoteright:350:[[TabletopGame/{{Pokemon}} https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/mucky.png]]]]

[[quoteright:350:[[Film/GodzillaVsHedorah https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/hedorah2.jpg]]]]
[[caption-width-right:350:And remember, this thing is [[GreenAesop your fault]].]]

-->-- ''WesternAnimation/FernGullyTheLastRainforest'', "[[VillainSong Toxic Love]]"

Compare BlobMonster, which is more transparent and tends to keep itself in one defined and consistent mass rather than constantly oozing and leaving parts of itself in its wake (and is generally less smelly), and TalkingPoo.

** ''VideoGame/PokemonRedAndBlue'' has two Muck Monsters in Grimer and its evolved form, Muk. In the ''Anime/{{Pokemon}}'' anime, Ash's Muk was (initially) so smelly that it stank even after it had been captured in a Poké Ball. When he teleported it to Professor Oak's, it proceeded to engulf half the lab and reduced Professor Oak to ranting. Of course, said Muk really [[GentleGiant just wants a hug]].

* ''Film/Creepshow2'' has a large, flat, monster which inhabits a lake, resembles an oil slick, and dissolves any flesh it touches.

* ''Film/Creepshow2'' has a large, flat monster inhabiting a lake resembling an oil slick that dissolves any flesh it touches.

Compare BlobMonster, which is more transparent and tends to keep itself in one defined and consistent mass rather than constantly oozing and leaving parts of itself in its wake (and is generally less smelly), and TalkingPoo. See also ToxicWasteCanDoAnything, where the toxin creates a monster without being sentient itself.

A variant of the trope overlaps with SwampMonster, creating a creature of living vegetation and/or mud (usually emphasizing the vegetation); this variant is often ''called'' a muck monster, but lacks the typical association with pollution and toxicity. They instead tend to have physical powers based on their inhuman bodily composition, such as SuperStrength, SuperToughness, and a HealingFactor, [[GreenThumb elemental plant-manipulating powers]], or both.

* ''Anime/PantyAndStockingWithGarterbelt'': The very first [[MonsterOfTheWeek ghost]] fought by the eponymous angels was the Big Brown. It was the ghost of a plumber killed by the stench of a clogged joint that became a gargantuan shit beast bent on drowning everybody in crap.
* ''Anime/SpiritedAway'' has the Stink God, who is literally just a moving pile of sludge with eyes. His smell is so bad that it makes everyone's eyes water and makes all of the food around him rot. [[spoiler:He turns out to actually be a River Spirit, and his filthy state was due to pollution in the river he inhabits.]]

* Franchise/{{Batman}}'s enemy Clayface [[LegacyCharacter (all eight of them)]] fit the Trope in some way, although some are more humanoid than others. The worst part is, all of them [[WasOnceAMan were once human]], except for the fifth one, who is a child of Clayface III and Clayface IV born AFTER they each gained their powers.

* ComicBook/TheHeap is formed from the decaying vegetation of the swamp, wrapped around Baron Eric Von Emmelman's skeleton, and motivated by his indomitable will to live. Being made of animate vegetation makes the Heap extremely strong and resistant to physical damage. It also feeds by siphoning blood from living creatures and can drain it with its touch.
* ''ComicBook/ManThing'' is very similar to the original depiction of ComicBook/SwampThing; a scientist working on a SuperSerum injects his prototype formula into himself whilst trying to escape from some thugs, only to be shot and crash into a swamp. The formula, combined with mystic energies bound up in the swamp itself, transformed the scientist into a nonsapient mass of plant matter and mud. One aspect of Man-Thing's that is closer to the conventional Muck Monster is that it has the ability to secrete a highly corrosive, possibly incendiary acid as a weapon in combat.
* ''ComicBook/SwampThing'' is a SpiritualSuccessor to ComicBook/TheHeap, being a human scientist transformed into a sapient mass of moss, algae, roots, and mud after an explosion in his lab soaked him in burning chemicals before he plunged into a nearby swamp in an attempt to extinguish the flames. This triggered a reaction that transformed him into a creature made of the slimy substance of the swamp. This was until the 80s, when Creator/AlanMoore instead retconned the Swamp Thing into purely a PlantPerson, and the ElementalEmbodiment of the plant kingdom at that; Swamp Thing had merely absorbed the memories of the human scientist who died, which was part of a ritual needed to spawn such an elemental as himself.
* Sludge from ComicBook/TheUltraverse. Frank Hoag was a DirtyCop who was killed and covered in chemicals by an explosion before his body was dumped in a sewer. The chemicals had regenerative properties and tried to heal Hoag, but combined the sewer substances with his body, transforming him into a huge mass of living slime.

* ''Film/Creepshow2'' had a large, flat monster resembling an oil slick, that dissolved any flesh it touched, inhabiting a lake.
* ''Film/{{Dogma}}'' had a demon, the Golgothum, constructed from crap - specifically, the crap of all the prisoners crucified at Golgotha ([[UsefulNotes/{{Jesus}} yes, including Him]]). He's defeated by deodorant (which "knocks out strong odors").
* ''[[Film/GodzillaVsHedorah Godzilla vs. The Smog Monster]]'', villain Hedorah has to be the most famous example of this trope, and it shows why one must never let alien organisms from a nebula where chemicals that are pollutants on Earth are its food arrive on Earth, lest it [[MetamorphosisMonster grow]] into a giant tadpole sludge demon that can drop lethal acid as it flies. Hedorah comes with a MeaningfulName with a dash of ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin as the name is derived from ''hedoro'' which is Japanese for "Sludge". In all of its forms, Hedorah is comprised primarily of the mineral substance Hedrium, which is also the source of its incredible strength, amorphous body and nigh-unstoppable abilities, including his Hedrium Ray, capable of burning Godzilla's flesh, and his ability to generate vast quantities of chemical ooze without it visibly affecting his size, even using it in an attempt to drown Godzilla at one point in the final battle. It took a combination of the [=JSDF=] using gigantic electrodes and Godzilla powering them with his Atomic Breath to finally bring Hedorah down for good.
* ''Film/MonSturd''. It's like ''Film/JackFrost1997'', except the SerialKiller was genetically fused with shit instead of snow.
* ''[[Film/TheHMan The H-Man]]'' is an earlier iteration of this, but explicitly radioactive (hence the name). It {{was once a man}}, and now must eat other humans in order to retain its shape.
* Armageddon from ''Animation/TheReturnOfHanuman'' is a monster formed from a volcano, mostly because of the many inorganic trash contained inside and [[spoiler:activated when Rahu and Ketu's staff went inside of the volcano]].
* The low-budget 1986 horror film ''Film/{{Spookies}}'' had Muck Men, who made [[{{Fartillery}} explosive flatulence sounds]] when they came to get you (which presumably caused a bit of confusion among viewers as to whether they were muck monsters or poo monsters).

* The deities [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clark_Ashton_Smith_deities#Abhoth Abhoth]] and [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clark_Ashton_Smith_deities#Ubbo-Sathla Ubbo-Sathla]] in Creator/ClarkAshtonSmith's Franchise/CthulhuMythos stories.
* The 1940 short story "It!" by Creator/TheodoreSturgeon is about a plant monster that is ultimately revealed to have formed around a human skeleton in a swamp. The story is generally regarded as having been the inspiration for ComicBook/TheHeap, ComicBook/ManThing, and ComicBook/SwampThing.
* During the lifeforce crisis in ''Literature/ReaperMan'', one of the [[WizardingSchool Unseen University's]] ''compost heaps'' comes to life. It attacks the gardener and dissolves its way through the main door before the wizards [[StuffBlowingUp blew it up]] with a bottle of [[BlazingInfernoHellfireSauce Wow-Wow sauce]].
* In ''The Royal Book of Oz'', the first [[Literature/LandOfOz Oz]] story by Ruth Plumly Thompson, the Scarecrow briefly encounters Middlings, man-like creatures made of mud.
* The title creature in ''Literature/{{Slime|1988}}'' by William Essex: a living lake of toxic waste that eats people and animals.

* ''Series/DoctorWho'': In [[Recap/DoctorWhoS29E3Gridlock "Gridlock"]], the Macra live at the bottom of the Motorway and feed on the gas fumes created by the huge numbers of {{Flying Car}}s stuck in the universe's worst traffic jam.
* ''Series/MonsterWarriors'': In "Revenge Of The Mud Maniac", a giant mud monster is on the attack in Capital City.

* ''TabletopGame/CallOfCthulhu'' had a version of Creator/ClarkAshtonSmith's Abhoth (see above).

** ''TabletopGame/{{Ravenloft}}'': The Darklord Malus Scleris rules a domain that is the horror of unlimited pollution made real, and it is filled with these kind of monsters. Scleris is a pre-industrial version of a CorruptCorporateExecutive; his FreudianExcuse is that his father, a druid, only cared about his work, not about his son, so in return, he hates Nature for taking his father away from him. His MO is control of horrible and disgusting diseases.
* ''TabletopGame/{{Pathfinder}}'' has the {{Kaiju}} Vorgozen, a huge acidic sludge monster created by magical experimentation GoneHorriblyWrong (or possibly GoneHorriblyRight-- the aftermath of Vorgozen's creation left few clues as to the original intent of the wizards responsible). She warps magic in a wide area around her, and can "infuse" herself into the terrain to travel quickly or escape in the unlikely event she finds herself threatened.

* ''VideoGame/CityOfVillains'': The Slag Golems enemy group are terrifying monstrosities of living cast-off metal, shambling figures composed of crudely sentient dross and detritus, eager to pound anyone who crosses them into compost for the island.

* ''VideoGame/DemonsCrest'' on the SNES has the boss "Crawler," a huge mass of melted-looking flesh that takes on a semi-humanoid form after it swallows some bones. It can spawn zombie-like creatures from its body.
* ''Franchise/{{Digimon}}'' has Raremon, a crawling, blubbery pile of rotten flesh entangled with random cybernetics. It smells like dead fish and vomits as an attack. Raremon is one of several "garbage" type Digimon, monster who basically failed their evolution. Others include Sukamon, a living pile of feces, the slug-like Numemon, and Garbagemon, which even lives in a trash can.

* ''VideoGame/LordOfGun'' have mudmen enemies (replacing the game's usual human mooks) in the swamps area, where they rise out of the marsh to attack. Shooting them enough turns them back into muck.
* ''VideoGame/{{EarthBound|1994}}'': Master Belch (later upgraded as Master Barf) is a giant, sentient pile of vomit. There are also the smaller monsters like "Pile of Puke" and "Stink Spirit".

* The Amoeboids in the ''VideoGame/RatchetAndClank'' series are a kind of slime monster that walks in circles and says "Nein!". When hit, they split into two, half as small slime monsters (except for [[GoddamnedBats the smallest sort]], which just disappears). The biggest ones will split five times, meaning that you have to kill sixty-three slimes in total.

%%* ''VideoGame/WarcraftIII'' has some sludge-type creeps.
* ''VideoGame/WildArms2'' had the boss [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7gapGzA_fjw "Drawdo,"]] which resembled several dead fish melded together and attacked with every status effect in the game.

[[folder:Web Comics]]
* In ''Webcomic/TheNonAdventuresOfWonderella'' [[http://nonadventures.com/2008/08/09/the-bitter-end/ Dana tries to brew her own beer and creates one of these.]]

[[folder:Web Original]]

* ''WesternAnimation/AladdinTheSeries'': In several episodes, the heroes ran afoul of the Al-Muddies, [[ElementalPowers elemental spirits]] which are made of living mud, live underground, and are carnivores known to prey on humans. Normal ones are feral, dimwitted, and brutish creatures who tend to attack in mobs; their Sultan, however, stands out because of his titanic size and his incredible cunning and intelligence (not to mention being able to talk), and a fondness for cooking victims. (Even going so far as to call himself "a gourmet".)

* ''WesternAnimation/CaptainPlanet'' has an episode with one of these. In this case, it's an artificial organism that was supposed to eat garbage, but of course when Sly Sludge used it, it [[GoneHorriblyWrong went horribly wrong]] and turned into a GreyGoo that threatened to turn the entire planet into one big pile of living garbage.

* ''WesternAnimation/TeenageMutantNinjaTurtles1987'': On several occasions, the [[AppliedPhlebotinum mutagen]] spawns these creatures; they have names like "mud monsters" and "Mutagen Man". Basically, the theory is that this is what happens when the mutagen produces something that doesn't have the dignity of resembling a particular animal like a turtle. (And of course, the accidental workings of a mutaagen in RealLife are much more likely to produce a monstrosity like this than an anthropomorphic turtle....)

* ''Anime/PantyAndStockingWithGartelbelt'': The very first [[MonsterOfTheWeek ghost]] fought by the eponymous angels was the Big Brown. It was the ghost of a plumber killed by the stench of a clogged joint that became a gargantuan shit beast bent on drowning everybody in crap.

* One of the bosses from ''VideoGame/ConkersBadFurDay'' was the Great Mighty Poo.

[[folder:Webcomics]]

-> ''Filthy brown acid rain\\

For other living piles of AnimateInanimateMatter, see LivingLava, RockMonster and SentientSands.

A variant of the trope overlaps with SwampMonster, creating a creature of living vegetation and/or mud (usually emphasizing the vegetation); this variant is often ''called'' a muck monster, but lacks the typical association with pollution and toxicity. They instead tend to have physical powers based on their inhuman bodily composition, such as SuperStrength, SuperToughness and a HealingFactor, [[GreenThumb elemental plant-manipulating powers]], or both.

* ComicBook/TheHeap is formed from the decaying vegetation of the swamp, wrapped around Baron Eric Von Emmelman's skeleton, and motivated by his indomitable will to live. Being made of animate vegetation makes the Heap extremely strong and resistant to physical damage. It also feeds by siphoning blood from living creatures, and can drain it with its touch.
* ''ComicBook/ManThing'' is very similar to the original depiction of ComicBook/SwampThing; a scientist working on a SuperSerum injects his prototype formula into himself whilst trying to escape from some thugs, only to be shot and crash into a swamp. The formula, combined with mystic energies bound up in the swamp itself, transformed the scientist into a nonsapient mass of plant-matter and mud. One aspect of Man-Thing's that is closer to the conventional Muck Monster is that it has the ability to secrete a highly corrosive, possibly incendiary acid as a weapon in combat.
* ''ComicBook/SwampThing'' is a SpiritualSuccessor to ComicBook/TheHeap, being a human scientist transformed into a sapient mass of moss, algae, roots and mud after an explosion in his lab soaked him in burning chemicals before he plunged into a nearby swamp in an attempt to extinguish the flames. This triggered a reaction that transformed him into a creature made of the slimy substance of the swamp. This was until the 80s, when Creator/AlanMoore instead retconned the Swamp Thing into purely a PlantPerson, and the ElementalEmbodiment of the plant kingdom at that; Swamp Thing had merely absorbed the memories of the human scientist who died, which was part of a ritual needed to spawn such an elemental as himself.

* ''ComicBook/WeirdWorlds'': Garbage Man was originally an attorney named Richard Morse. Noticing something wrong with the Titan Pharmaceuticals account, he started investigating, but was betrayed by his BadBoss to Titan. Morse was captured, drugged and experimented on by MadScientist Dr. Clive. Deciding the experiment was failure, Clive blew up the lab with all personnel still inside to destroy the evidence and silence any potential witnesses. However, Morse did not die. A chemical reaction from the drugs Clive had injected him with and the chemicals in the swamp around him transformed him into an inhuman pile of mobile garbage.

* The 1940 short story "It!" by Creator/TheodoreSturgeon is about a plant monster that is ultimately revealed to have formed around a human skeleton in a swamp. The story is generally regarded as having been the inspiration for ComicBook/TheHeap, ComicBook/ManThing and ComicBook/SwampThing.

** ''TabletopGame/{{Ravenloft}}'': The Darklord Malus Scleris rules a domain that is the horror of unlimited pollution made real, and it is filled with these kind of monsters. Scleris is a pre-industrial version of a CorruptCorporateExecutive; his FreudianExcuse is that his father, a druid, only cared about his work, not about his son, so in return he hates Nature for taking his father away from him. His MO is control of horrible and disgusting diseases.

* ''VideoGame/TheBindingOfIsaac'' has a lot of poo-themed enemies, including Dips, Squirts and Dingas (each progressively larger and which split into their smaller kin when killed), and bosses Dingle, Dangle, the Turdlings and Brownie.

* ''WesternAnimation/CaptainPlanet'' has an episode with one of these. In this case it's an artificial organism that was supposed to eat garbage, but of course when Sly Sludge used it, it [[GoneHorriblyWrong went horribly wrong]] and turned into a GreyGoo that threatened to turn the entire planet into one big pile of living garbage.

* ''WesternAnimation/TeenageMutantNinjaTurtles1987'': On several occasions the [[AppliedPhlebotinum mutagen]] spawns these creatures; they have names like "mud monsters" and "Mutagen Man". Basically, the theory is that this is what happens when the mutagen produces something that doesn't have the dignity of resembling a particular animal like a turtle. (And of course, the accidental workings of a mutaagen in RealLife are much more likely to produce a monstrosity like this than an anthropomorphic turtle....)
* ''WesternAnimation/ThunderCats1985'': In "[[Recap/Thundercats1985S01E10MandoraTheEvilChaser Mandora: The Evil Chaser]]", one of villains is a Muck Monster known as The Living Ooze. Defeated with a powerful weapon of the ancients -- [[spoiler:soap]].

** The Filth is a slimy sewer-dwelling creatures with, erm, tapered heads.
** A variation with a snot-based clone of the Tick himself created by the being from the alternate dimension down the hall. Not exactly a blob of muck, but it was made of snot/mucus and, while shaped like the tick, could squish itself into other shapes and use it's semi-gelatinous consistency to seep through cracks and around attacks and such.

* In ''ComicBook/{{Femforce}}'', Fungi was an {{Expy}} of ComicBook/TheHeap who worked for thoseWackyNazis.

The Muck Monster is a living embodiment of filth and slop, and the GreenAesop tends to be his stomping grounds. Nothing tends to hammer an anti-pollution message home like an colossal, animate pile of (sometimes [[TalkingPoo literal]]) crap. Plants die from this beastie's approach; sometimes animals and even people bite the dust from [[WalkingWasteland being in mere proximity to this abomination]].

Compare BlobMonster, which is more transparent and tends to keep itself in one defined and consistent mass rather than constantly oozing and leaving parts of itself in its wake, (and is generally less smelly), and TalkingPoo. See also ToxicWasteCanDoAnything, where the toxin creates a monster without being sentient itself.

* ''VideoGame/EarthBound'': Master Belch and his upgraded form, Master Barf. There are also the smaller monsters like "Pile of Puke" and "Stink Spirit".

* ''ComicBook/SwampThing'' is a SpiritualSuccessor to ComicBook/TheHeap, being a human scientist transformed into a sapient mass of moss, algae, roots and mud after an explosion in his lab soaked him in burning chemicals before he plunged into a nearby swamp in an attempt to extinguish the flames. This triggered a reaction that transformed him into a creature made of the slimy substance of the swamp. This was until the 80s, when Creator/AlanMoore instead retconned the Swamp Thing into purely a PlantPerson, and the ElementalEmbodiment of the plant kingdom at that; Swamp Thing had merely absorbed the memories of the human scientist who died, which was part of a ritual needed to spawn such an elemental as himself.
* ''ComicBook/ManThing'' is very similar to the original depiction of ComicBook/SwampThing; a scientist working on a SuperSerum injects his prototype formula into himself whilst trying to escape from some thugs, only to be shot and crash into a swamp. The formula, combined with mystic energies bound up in the swamp itself, transformed the scientist into a nonsapient mass of plant-matter and mud. One aspect of Man-Thing's that is closer to the conventional Muck Monster is that it has the ability to secrete a highly corrosive, possibly incendiary acid as a weapon in combat.

%%* ''VideoGame/WarcraftIII'' has some sludge-type creeps.

For other living piles of normally inanimate matter, see LivingLava, RockMonster and SentientSands.

* ''VideoGame/Pikmin1'': The Smoky Progg is a horrifying crawling cloud of pollution that instantly kills any Pikmin it touches. Not even unpicked ones are safe from its wrath.

* ''WesternAnimation/TheNewAdventuresOfWinnieThePooh'': In "[[Recap/TheNewAdventuresOfWinnieThePoohS1E6CleanlinessIsNextToImpossible Cleanliness Is Next to Impossible]]", Crud is a creature made from the filth under Christopher Robin's bed. He's defeated with a bar of soap.

* ''WesternAnimation/GoofTroop'': One episode features a CorruptCorporateExecutive who had become a MuckMonster due to overexposure to all the pollution created by his factory. Goofy returns him back to normal with a jar full of fresh air.

* ComicBook/TheHeap is formed from the decaying vegetation of the swamp, wrapped around Baron Eric Von Emmelman's skeleton, and motivated by his indomitable will to live.

* ''WesternAnimation/FernGullyTheLastRainforest'': Hexxus, the Creator/TimCurry-voiced pollution-demon villain, although he was the [[DestroyerDeity primordial spirit of destruction]] before he latched on to human inventions. His forms varied from a sludge-based blob monster to an exhaust fume-based ghost to a ''giant burning skeleton made of tar''.

* The Tarr in ''VideoGame/SlimeRancher'' are this, being ravenous blob monsters born from when a largo slime eats a plort that it normally doesn't make. They probably have some kind of oil in them to make that rainbow sheen on their surface.