Touch of the Monster

"Surely this is a book about robot tentacles and hot girls and not wimpy alien computers. Surely!"

"AAAAAIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIEEEEEEEEEEEEE!" screamed Constance, as she was swept up in the arms of the murderous monstrosity!
"AAAAAIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIEEEEEEEEEEEEE!" screamed the monster, as its spine cracked under the weight of the struggling blonde.

— Plan 7 of 9 from Outer Space

Back before Video Games and all those newfangled, high budget horror films had completely desensitized viewers and ruined it for everybody! ... (cough) ... horror movies would attract audiences by doing the visual equivalent of foreplay in a Film's Poster, in this case presenting one of the following visual variations on an implied rape scene:

• Rape of the Sabine Women, in which the monster holds an unconscious woman in his arms in a manner evoking the old-fashioned custom of a groom carrying his bride over the threshold of his house — or, more ominously, Cradling Your Kill.
• Supine Struggling, in which a monster crouches over or attempts to pin down a woman lying on her back while she tries to escape.
• Death Ray Vision, involving a woman who screams and/or backs into a corner at the mere sight of the monster glancing at her.
• Playing with Its Food, in which a giant monster either has obvious intent to eat a woman or is clutching her in its fist with the possible implication of anthropophagy.
• Touch of Evil, in which the monster embraces or otherwise touches the woman in a way that would be almost innocuous if she weren't visibly disgusted and/or horrified — though he is just as often touching her in a predatory manner. Another variant of this involves the monster almost touching the woman, to which she cowers expressively.
• From the Pages of Bettie, which makes conspicuous use of Bound and Gagged (e.g., strapped to a Mad Scientist's laboratory table) and may be combined with any of the above styles.
• Calamari Surprise, a variant of the immediately preceding item, but with tentacles as the restraining devices instead of standard bondage equipment.
• Angels' Envy, a less commonly seen type wherein the monster gloats over or cradles a woman's corpse. This variant differs from Rape of the Sabine Women in that this woman is obviously dead. Note that this variant alone displays the aftermath rather than the setup.
• Children in Heat, named for the song by The Misfits, depicts a consensual encounter with a monster. This one is rare because it's much less effective at inciting horror than its sibling subtropes are.

Sometimes the menacing party is a man instead of a monster, which is even more disturbing for making the undertones (or overtones, depending on your viewpoint) more obvious.

A four-way chimaera of I Have You Now, My Pretty, Mars Needs Women, Monster Misogyny, and Damsel in Distress, though it may also engender Squick in those who see it. The trope was by no means limited to movie posters; it started with pulp magazine covers and extended to comic books and video boxes, where it was a leading offense to Media Watchdogs and Moral Guardians. Of course, not all of the criticism was well-founded, since this trope was used even when monster-on-human action was not a plot point.

This has become a Discredited Trope in recent years.

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Examples

Rape of the Sabine Women

Anime & Manga

• This cover of Wolf Guy - Wolfen Crest invokes this trope, but the werewolf is the good guy.

Films — Live-Action

• Tobor the Great◊ goes for this variant, and the tagline assures us that yes, he has "every human emotion," except apparently shame.

• One of the Invaders from Mars, on the film's poster.
• Often seen in Universal Horror films and/or publicity stills.
  • Dracula (1931) has the Count carrying Mina Harker in this manner in the ruined Carfax Abbey.
  • The Mummy Kharis does this in The Mummy's Hand and pretty much every other movie he appears in.
  • Frankenstein's Monster does it toward the end of Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man.
  • The Creature from the Black Lagoon did this, through his intentions were quite honorable; he was the last of his kind and wanted a companion. However, that didn't stop him from being highly territorial and mistrusting humans.
• The Crimson Cult, featured off to the side rather than in the center.
• The poster for Forbidden Planet had Robbie the Robot carrying the female lead, even though Robbie wasn't a villain in this movie, and the only character carried in such a manner was "Doc" Ostrow after he received a fatal injury from an alien gizmo.
• In Candyman, Candyman carries the heroine, Helen, like this. Just to underline the sexual element, this takes place after she has agreed to 'surrender' to him, and before he lies her down on a table/bed, he slides his hook up her skirt... and kisses her.
• Apparently the Fire Maidens of Outer Space weren't alien enough, since the poster shows a grotesque monster and one of the titular maidens in a Sabine Woman-style pose.
• Satan's Satellites: human (or humanoid)-on-human...and Satan is not present in the poster.
• The poster for The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari is a very early, probably Trope Making example of the Sabine Women one, combined with Pietà Plagiarism.

• One of the posters◊ for This Island Earth.
• The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951) climaxes with Helen Benson uttering the words "Klaatu Barada Nikto" to the robot Gort, after which he carries her into the flying saucer. Subverted in that she's only taken there to talk to Klaatu.
• Poster for Tarantula! shows the monster carrying a screaming woman in its mouth.
• On the original poster for Swamp Thing.
• Parodied in Monster in the Closet, when it's the hero that gets carried off in this fashion.
• In The Force Awakens, the masked Kylo Ren freezes the visibly terrified Rey in place, invades her mind, then knocks her unconscious to capture her for further interrogation. He opts to carry her in his arms into his ship while Finn yells her name, unable to prevent the abduction.
• A key scene in the Hammer Horror film The Evil of Frankenstein has the monster carrying a girl this way - though in a twist, it's because she's hurt her leg and he's actually being very helpful.
• Posters for the 1962 Hammer Horror version of The Phantom of the Opera depict the titular Phantom holding the unconscious Christine, but this is something he never does in the actual film. Many of the promotional materials tried to market it as a Beast and Beauty love story, which (ironically given the source material) was not the case. The Phantom does not appear to have any romantic feelings for Christine in this adaptation.
• Halloween (1978) has Laurie's babysitting charge, Tommy Doyle, peering out the window and seeing Michael Myers carrying Annie's lifeless body in this fashion into the Wallace house across the street.
• Slave Girls from Beyond Infinity: The robot who catches Daria on the beach brings her back to Zed's fortress in this fashion.

Literature

• The page image is taken from the cover of a paperback edition of Fred Saberhagen's Specimens.

Live-Action TV

• Spoofed in Red Dwarf. The Captain is watching an old B&W B-movie showing a screaming female explorer being carried in the arms of a swamp creature. When they travel to a Mirror Universe, the movie has the screaming swamp creature being carried off by the female explorer.
• Promotional photos of the Doctor Who serials "The Keys of Marinus" and "The Ark" - "The Keys of Marinus" showed Susan being carried off by the Voord, and "The Ark" showed Dodo carried off by the Monoid. Neither scene happens in story, even slightly.

Pinballs

• The backglass for Zaccaria's Robot shows a gigantic Killer Robot holding an unconscious woman in his right hand.
• Creature from the Black Lagoon shows the Creature carrying an unconscious Kay in his arms.

Tabletop Games

• Inverted in the module Weirder Tales for Tales from the Floating Vagabond, featuring a wholesome Doris Day-esque 50's American housewife carrying away a horrified robot. That's the plot of the module.
• Basic D&D module Castle Caldwell and beyond had a lizardman carrying a woman in that manner.

Video Games

• The cover for Mario & Luigi: Partners in Time show an unconscious Princess Peach being held in the arms of a Shroob.

Real Life

• This◊ World War I propaganda poster depicts Germany as a rampaging killer ape brandishing a club and clutching the living Statue of Liberty in its arms.
• This Vogue cover◊ featuring LeBron James imitates the famous propaganda poster.

Supine Struggling

Films — Live-Action

• The Wasp Woman◊ (Inverted: the monster is female, crouching over a frightened human male. The caption strongly implies that she's going to rape him.)
• The Dunwich Horror's use may make it the most obviously sexualized example of all time. As if that weren't enough, the poster's caption all but states outright that the woman and the monster are having sex.
• The film trailers/posters of the 1932 film version of Murders in the Rue Morgue show part of the scene where Erik crouches over Camille while she is sleeping. The film and trailer only show his shadow, though.

Death Ray Vision

Films — Live-Action

• I Was a Teenage Werewolf◊
• Taste the Blood of Dracula◊ gives Christopher Lee Death Ray Vision, as well as greatly exaggerating his height.
• Frankenstein 1970
• Parodied on the video box for Cheerleader Massacre, where the phallic symbolism in that particular example of Death Ray Vision is so obvious that it's ridiculous.
• It Conquered The World!.
• Standard poster for the Return of the Fly shows a snarling, fanged fly monster closing on a screaming woman.
• I Married a Monster from Outer Space

Web Comics

• In Impure Blood, the Circus Nocturn poster has a blond young woman flinching away from an Ancient, looming over her.

Playing with Its Food

Films — Live-Action

• The Day of the Triffids: probably, given the monster's proportionate size to the woman's.
• Attack of the Crab Monsters. That woman is going to get eaten.

Touch of Evil

Video Games

• The cover for the Codemasters game Bigfoot shows the titular monster (the protagonist!) grabbing a scared blonde girl. This doesn't show up in the game itself, in which the Bigfoot has a girlfriend of his own species.

From the Pages of Bettie

Films — Live-Action

• The Screaming Skull uses this to portray the grim specter of Death haunting a woman.

Print Media

• Weird Tales was and largely still is inordinately fond of all of this page's subtropes.

Calamari Surprise

Films — Live-Action

• Monster from the Ocean Floor

Print Media

• This◊ was the cover of a comparatively recent issue of Weird Tales.

Angels' Envy

• See Cradling Your Kill for examples.

Children in Heat

Films — Live-Action

• The Long Hair of Death◊'s use isn't disturbing in itself, but the subtext makes the woman seem suicidal.
• Most posters and promotional material for The Shape of Water show Elisa and the amphibian man kissing or embracing.
• The poster for The Return of Swamp Thing depicts Abby looking quite happy about being Bridal Carried by Swamp Thing. It's pretty obviously designed to parody more typical uses of "monster carrying girl" imagery.

Western Animation

• In the Steven Universe episode "Maximum Capacity", Steven finds a novel called "Passions of Xanxor" in his dad's storage space. The cover features a gender-flipped take on this, with a Green-Skinned Space Babe cradling a muscular pretty-boy in two of her three arms.

Multiple/Other

Arts

• Erotic-fantasy artist Luis Royo paints lot and lots of these, notably of the "consensual" type...

Card Games

• A couple of cards in the 1962 card series Mars Attacks! use the Touch of Evil version, though one of the unreleased cards has a rather graphic (and very obviously sexualized) depiction of Playing with Its Food/Angels' Envy. Another unreleased card is From the Pages of Bettie-style, but with more gore than obvious bondage, and, again, obviously sexualized.

Print Media

• The now-defunct Weird Tales web site contained depictions of From the Pages of Bettie (including a male example), Death Ray Vision, and a surprising amount of Children in Heat.

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