Subpages cleanup: Complete Monster

Yea on Tatsuzou.

edited 20th Sep '17 8:38:31 PM by Scraggle

Interested in checking Persona 2? I think it's my favorite actually behind maybe Persona 5. And note this is a guy who played Persona 3 and 4.

I don't think you needed to mention Kamoshida, though. Of all the characters on the page he's the only villain to be completely ignorant of the supernatural goings-on, which is the absolute lowest possible tier in the Megaten 'verse.

Tatsuzou And Payne

Never played any of the Persona games. Might start with this one if I get the chance (SMT, from what I've played of it, was certainly a unique experience).

Anyways, next candidate...

What's the setting?

The Sinister Mr. Corpse is another horror-comedy from Jeff Strand. Stanley Dabernath is an ordinary producer who ends up in a freak accident one day when his car is totaled, his foot is crushed under a truck, and that truck ends up spilling its load onto Stanley — milk, enough to drown him. When Stanley wakes up, though? He's a hundred feet underground, he's in the hands of a man named Richard Brant, he has a personal assistant named Veronica, he's a celebrity adored by millions, and the best part?

He's a corpse.

Project Second Chance has brought Stanley back for another shot. Of course, though? Brant has a few secrets of his own that factor into Stanley's resurrection...

Who is Richard Brant? What has he done?

So, for the first while? Brant just sort of seems like a run-of-the-mill jackass agent; a man who resurrected Stanley from his freakish death as part of Project Second Chance and arranges to make Stanley a celebrity — less a freak of nature and more a scientific marvel. The science itself is confidential, even from Stanley... all Stanley knows is that he gets an injection of blood twenty-four hours to keep him from collapsing on himself. Where this blood comes from I'll get to soon, but we get an early peek of Brant's nature a bit into the book when Stanley starts to be a complete ingrate about the fact Brant's resurrected him. Brant coldly informs him that he can kill Stanley any time he wants, and injects Stanley with a chemical that allows him to envision what it was actually like for him while he was dead... that is, a hellish vision of him being eaten alive and torn apart by a vicious monstrosity. Brant happily informs that, unless he wants to experience an eternity of this torture in death, he'll remain compliant with the operation. Intimidated, Stanley and Brant seem to finally hit a sweet spot, and for a while, Brant simply remains there in the background as Stanley goes on his misadventures. Then Stanley starts to get increasingly curious as to where his injections come from, and Brant reveals the science keeping him alive? Isn't science. It's witchcraft — the blood injected into him? Is virgin blood, used to ritualistically keep him alive. Brant calms down a worried Stanley by revealing the donations are entirely willing.

Spoiler alert. They're not. The dark secret is eventually revealed... once Stanley and his best friend Martin confront Brant and try to break into his lab to see the specific details, Brant attempts to flat-out murder Martin by injecting him with a dart that would liquefy his insides. Stanley takes the dart and Brant injects him with an antidote to save his (un)life... bad idea, as Stanley smacks Brant unconscious and weasels him into revealing his lab. Now, as for where Brant has been procuring his virgin blood? It turns out Brant's been systematically murdering entire families through his personal hitman, Henry... each month, Brant kidnaps a virgin and has their entire family butchered before them before bringing them to his lab, flaying them, and then tortuously bleeding them out over a period of three days before they finally die. Oh, and many of them? Didn't even take, which means many of the families and young women slaughtered by Brant are complete wastes — much to his complete apathy. Brant sneers that the only reason he's even kept Stanley alive for this long is simple; money, and with that, leaves Henry to cut Stanley apart as he makes a break for it.

When Stanley catches up to Brant, Brant turns the tides back in his favor by convincing a cult formed in Stanley's name (long story) to eat Stanley alive to gain eternal life. Pushing Stanley to the ravenous crowd and watching them tear into Stanley with a giant smile on his face, Stanley finally gets the upper hand by sticking Brant's face into a gaping wound in his stomach and smothering him with his own flesh and telling the crowd that the chemicals transfer... and the crowd proceeds to converge on a horrified Brant, tearing him apart.

Any mitigating factors?

Nope. This leans a little more to comedy than Strand's other books, but once Brant's MO is revealed in the last part of the book? The book polevaults into straight horror territory. Brant has no redeeming qualities himself, keeping Stanley alive only for monetary gain and drawing no hesitation on torturing him or murdering his friends to keep him complacent, and trying to have him eaten alive once it's clear he can no longer control him. As for heinousness, Brant's not as bad as Ivan or Pestilence, but slowly bleeding out young girls and slaughtering their families dozens of times over easily puts him over the baseline, I think.

Conclusion?

Another Strand keeper, I'd say.

Thoughts?

edited 20th Sep '17 9:14:47 PM by Scraggle

Brant.

Richard Brant (whom, not having read this, I keep picturing as Richard E. Grant )

Yes to both...Scraggle is absolutely right. I have three Ronald Kelly keepers upcoming. This is a bit of a weird case of a possible keeper being posthumously upgraded to a surefire one in a sequel novella.

What's the Work?

Hindsight is one of Kelly's earliest novels, and not so much a horror one at all. In Rural Tennessee before the Great Depression,...Clayburn "Clay" Biggs is a tobacco farmer with two children when the series begins, his beloved eldest son Johnny and little Cynthia "Cindy" Ann...Cindy? Isn't like other kids. When she's near someone, she can 'see' things...details about them, visions of what's to come. At first, her parents don't know what to make of it, but soon come to accept and treasure it.

Now, Johnny heads out with some friends on some good fun, trying to buy beer when underage. They run into a pair of fellows named Claude Darnell and Bully Hanson...and things go bad. REAL bad.

Who is Bully Hanson and What's He Done?

Let's stick to what he does in Hindsight...Bully is the brains of the operation, Claude Darnell being a useless little weasel of a man. Bully says he'll help the trio of boys buy beer...Johnny has a bad feeling, but his friends head off...and Bully promptly kills one with a shotgun blast, having Claude bury a hatchet in the other's head. Johnny sees and Bully wings him with a shotgun. Johnny escapes, but is tracked, cornered and executed by Bully. On a trip to the store, Cindy sees Bully and Claude and realizes they're the killers. Bully warns her if she says anything, she's dead. She tells her dad and Clay, despite promising otherwise, rushes to confront Bully who mocks him about his dead son during the fight. The sheriff, however, hearing Bully's confession (having tagged along secretly) arrests Bully and Claude.

a trial ensues. Bully has one of his allies intimidate one of the star witnesses, an old man who was nearby, and then so terrifies the man in court on the stand he has a fatal heart attack. Nevertheless, the jury finds in favor of the State and Bully and Claude are sentenced to death. Bully blames Cindy and vows he'll be back to settle the score. Years pass and the Great Depression hits, hitting the Biggs family hard, now that they have more kids. However...thanks to overcrowding, Bully and Claude are sent to another prison...but before their execution, during a transfer to the main penitentiary, Bully gets the better of the state troopers and murders them, stealing the uniforms with Claude and fleeing. Claude wants to just escape but Bully decides he's not done with the Biggs family, and REALLY wants his revenge on Cindy Ann. He threatens to kill Claude should he wimp out.

When Clay is away, Bully and Claude attack the house. C Indy, having realized what'll happen, has her family flee through the woods as Bully stalks them after murdering the family hound. Cindy focuses her powers, though, onto Claude, making him literally see a ghost and panic, swinging his hatchet into Bully, eviscerating him and then smashing his skull in, Bully reflexively firing his shotgun to kill Claude as his body dies.

The epilogue, set in the 1950s, reveals Cindy gets married, has a happy family, and going to visit her father who's dying, the two reaffirming their bond and love for one another, with the other Biggs children all turning out okay...

Okay, I know...three deaths, shared responsibility...trying to kill a family with two kids is bad, but...Kelly went back and wrote a sequel novella included in the Kindle edition. A teenaged Cindy is approached by the FBI who heard of what happened with Bully...who's been suspected in a few missing persons cases. Cindy agrees to help using her gift and...we see their deaths through her eyes in flashbacks. Bully? The motherfucker is one of the most prolific serial killers in freaking history. They have twelve disappearances in the area of teenagers...Cindy informs them that's not even close to the number Bully has killed. His body count is in the dozens, maybe even the high dozens before he even met Claude Darnell. Through her flashbacks we see he regularly drugged, abducted, raped and tortured them before burying them alive. The first flashback has the 15 year old girl begging for her mother as Bully mocks her about her mother being ashamed to look at" such a whore after Bully'd raped her and taken his carpentry tools to her before he murdered her and dumped her body Cindy is forced to relive multiple instances. The youngest is twelve The last one? Turned out Bully got a young man named Tommy to help him with some of the murders...only to have Tommy dig a deep grave, shove the still living girl in and then betray and murder Tommy before burying his body with the living girls.

Cindy finishes by helping the spirits of the victims find peace and their families find closure.

Heinous Standard?

What's there I can say here? We had an arguable case in the first with a few murders and attempted child murder, but because of the end? He's serial rapist, torturer and murderer of dozens and we see a lot of it through the eyes of the victims. Nobody else comes close and he obliterated the baseline.

Mitigating Qualities?

No, nothing. Bully cares nothing for anyone, or his partners. He intimidates and threatens to murder them (and DOES murder them when they've run out of usefulness)...he's just a sadistic monster with no good qualities to him whatsoever.

Conclusion?

Bit of an unorthodox case (not the last we'll see from Kelly), but Bully Hanson is as clear a keeper as I've ever seen.

Bully, Tatzsuo, Brant and Payne

Can the votes for Payne, guys... I've done a reevaluation and unfortunately, there's something I missed. The short story collection he appears in is that of a shared universe, and I unfortunately don't think he meets the standard of it upon a second glance.

Until then, definite yes to Bully. I might have another Kelly candidate up myself from the same collection... just need to evaluate whether or not he's worth posting or not. The story is dark.

edited 20th Sep '17 9:36:35 PM by Scraggle

Bully for you

Anymore votes for Tatsuzuo?

What's that heinous standard like, Scraggle?

Brant.

write ups for Logan and Kaden:

• Arena:
  • Logan is the host of the Deathgames, a web show where people fight to the death. He has his henchmen kidnap people around the world to force them to fight for his show. Before the victims are made to fight, Logan has them tortured and broken by Kaden so they will not resist. When David Lord is captured for the Deathgames, Logan brings up the fact that Lord's pregnant wife recently died in a car crash just to upset him. Logan forces another fighter named Taiga to fight by holding his wife hostage, and eventually has her killed. Logan offers to let Lord go free if he wins 10 fights and kills all of the fighters, but he later tries to inject Lord with a serum that will weaken him during his final fight, ensuring his death. When the FBI arrive, Lord sends his men to try and kill them while he escapes, leaving them all to be captured or killed.

  • Kaden is the one in charge of breaking the kidnapped contestants and killing surviving losers after a fight if the audience demands their death and the winner refuses to finish them off. He has the contestants tortured through means including waterboarding, and has them beaten for not answering with their new monikers instead of their real names. Kaden also has his men tazer the winners who refuse to kill the losers despite the audiences demands. When David Lord attacks Kaden, Kaden tries to go against Logan's orders and have Lord killed on the spot. Kaden later tricks Taiga and Lord into fighting each other by hiding Taiga's face and telling them each that Taiga's wife will be killed unless they kill their opponent within the time limit, with Lord not knowing it's Taiga and the wife being killed anyway. Kaden later has a prison transport crew slaughtered and kidnaps spree killer Brutus Jackson to make him Lord's next opponent. Kaden even nearly strangles his own boss to death when Logan mocks him.

Alright, after talking with Lighty, I've got a Ronald Kelly candidate of my own. This guy's... a doozy, to put it mildly, and the main reason why I recalled Payne.

What's the setting?

Alright, first, that short story collection? After the Burn is a series of short stories by Ronald Kelly about a post-apocalyptic Earth that suffers a catastrophic event known as the Burn, decimating society and allowing the worst of humanity to run around free. Now, of course, tons of everyday heroes and odd vigilantes rise up to fight these suckers and this is what encompasses a lot of the conflicts in these stories... in the story I'd posted before I learned the collection was a shared universe? A doctor known as the "Flesh Welder" fights off a murder-happy general named Jeremiah Payne who dismembers children and murders at his own fancy. After reading this story? I instantaneously decided he wasn't heinous enough, and, in retrospect, no other villain meets the standard except the guy I'm about to post.

Now, the story itself? The first of the collection, A Shiny Can of Whup-Ass, tells the story of an elderly shopkeeper who owns a "Fix-It" shop in the Alabama town of Watkins Glen. An eighty-four ex-soldier who's taken to living in his old shop nowadays, on midnight immediately following the fourth of July, the Burn happens and Watkins Glen is caught in the middle. Surviving the initial blast alongside most of the town, Sam observes panic sow among the townsfolk and everyone slowly turns to savagery. Just when it seems things can't get any worse, a gruesome presence suddenly descends upon the town, a face enough to make the worst excesses of humanity seem like child's play.

Meet Rott.

Who is Rott? What has he done?

Rott — the "New Satan" — is a towering brute of a man with the picture of a Rottweiler tattooed on his chest. In his youth — told through Sam's dreams of a boy that's revealed to be Rott (and Sam's own son, at that) at the end of the story — Rott, born with a freakish seven-fingered hand, turned his back on God and abandoned Sam to clear his own way in life... sodomizing a girl with his deformed hand at the tender age of sixteen. In the present day? Rott has one main claim to fame; he's the most prolific serial killer in American history. Rott has over four-hundred-and-fifty confirmed victims and perhaps another one-hundred-and-forty that weren't completely confirmed. Rott's spree went on for twelve years until he was finally caught, during which Rott sated his sadistic urges through wanton murder, rape, and cannibalism... specializing in slowly bleeding out his victims while eating, raping, and dismembering them while they were still alive.

This is where he starts — after the Burn, Rott breaks out from death row and drives into Watkins Glen in his trip down north in a car still painted with its owner's remains, with a gang of murderous thugs at his disposal seeking to carve a spree of murder throughout the country for giggles. Rott introduces his idea of a feast to his hungry companions — a pet shop owned by Sam's friend down the street. Once one of the thugs speaks up in disgust and disbelief, Rott coolly cuts his throat and breaks into the pet shop, murdering the good-hearted owner before having every pet in the store — from the kittens to the goddamned goldfish — gutted, cooked, and eaten. Sam confronts Rott in anger and Rott casually laughs off his attempts to stop him... telling him to stay put and he'll "feed him a hamster or something."

A day passes. Rott and his goons rob the arms store and go around town toting guns and indiscriminately murdering and cannibalizing everyone in their way. One of his Rott's other goons laughs at a bad joke Rott makes (in reference to painting the town "black" instead of "red" as a reference to High Plains Drifter) and Rott's response is to... um, hack the guy apart with a cleaver and announce "There will be no laughing without my permission. No eating, sleeping, no taking a shit without my seal of approval." Shortly after, to sate some of their growing urges, Rott steals a young girl sneaking around the town in desperate urge for something to eat and decides she's a good target... hacking off her hands before proceeding to have his goons gang-rape and torture the poor girl to death (and offering to let his dogs join in too if she lasts that long). Thankfully, Sam puts the girl out of her misery before Rott's even done violating her and firmly orders him and his gang to piss off. Unintimidated but stopping regardless, Rott backs off for the time being... with the promise of "entertaining" the old man later.

The next day, Sam oversees Rott's men literally painting the town black (go ahead and make your Rolling Stones jokes) and Sam oversees Rott talking with another minion of his, the old conman "Pickpocket." His intention after he eats supper (which, of course, is another unfortunate victim of his)? Go from door to door through the entire town and gruesomely butcher everyone... except the children. Rott intends to round up all of the town's children with heavily implied intention of raping and torturing the lot of them all for sick giggles. This finally motivates Sam to take out a gun, ambush Rott and his gang as they gather, and then start shooting down Rott's men and dogs one by one. Rott remains calm the entire time and simply orders one of his men to paralyze Sam and leave him to slowly die. Sam fights off and kills the man and Rott sneers that he'll simply burn down the town, gather up all of the town's women, reduce them to sex slaves for him and his gang, and turn the church into a whorehouse for them all, and taunts Sam that he'll have more fun with the children than anyone else. Sam and Rott, after this, finally recognize each other as father and son and Sam is brought to scavenge a literal nuke to stop Rott. Dying of radiation poisoning afterwards, Rott mocks Sam to his very last breath before Sam presses the button, blowing Watkins Glen sky-high — but, at the same time, ending Rott's reign of terror for good.

Any mitigating factors?

Redeeming factors? Zilch. Rott cares not an inch for his men, his dogs, his own father, nobody — he's loyal to pain and death alone.

His excuse? Rott was born with a seven-fingered hand and was bullied for it. So, as a logical course of action, he became the most prolific and brutal serial killer in human history. Blow me.

Heinousness? The world of After the Burn is full of nasty, nasty customers, rapists, serial killers, and psychopaths of every flavor roaming free. Many would likely count on their own (as Payne can attest to) but... Rott blows all of them out of the water, especially given his fairly limited amount of resources. Every single one of them. No villain has the brutality, the scale, and the body count of him. As for the general heinous standard? If you've read this far, you probably know the answer.

The only concerning thing to talk about is whether or not this story is too dark. Like, I genuinely considered that for a while after talking with Lighty... it's a very grim, miserable story with Rott's gory deeds framing the main conflict of the story, and with an ending that just avoids being a complete downer. The thing is, though... the world of After the Burn, as a whole, is nowhere near as dark as this story makes it out to be. Yes, there are psychos around every corner. Yes, acts of brutality are commonplace. But Ronald Kelly's stories usually had a pervading sense of optimism throughout and this is the same case with many of the stories in After the Burn; villains get their just dessert. Innocent lives are saved just as often as they're snuffed out. And heroes, what few there are, are rewarded — hell, a few of the stories have happy endings, with no ifs or buts about that. A Shiny Can of Whup-Ass is by far the darkest and most lurid of the After the Burn stories, but even then, Sam is a sympathetic protagonist and Rott does meet a karmic end. This isn't shlock shock — that was a question I debated for a while — because Kelly's writing is a lot more intelligent than that. It's a brutal story, but it's not a pointlessly brutal one, so I think we can safely list Rott.

Conclusion?

Easily one of the most depraved characters I'll ever put up and probably the most vile Kelly's ever written. I'd say keep him.

Thoughts?

edited 21st Sep '17 6:58:49 AM by Scraggle

Easy yes to Rott.

Rott, though I must say it's a little annoying that he picked the Rottweiler, my favourite dog breed, for his Animal Motifs.

Kelly

Also need more commentary on Bully.

Rott and Bully

to Kelly

Curious here, but does Jadis the White Witch count as a Complete Monster?

Cause let's face it, she wiped out an entire world rather than lose the throne, a fact she was proud of, and often turned innocent creatures and those who opposed her into stone.

We just said no on this a few pages ago.

One thing about Renyolds. He DOES keep his word and tell poe where his love interest is....could it be that he didn't expect Poe to actually doe anything with poison rushing through his veins?

edited 21st Sep '17 1:14:15 AM by LordYAM

Well I wouldn't really consider it telling Poe where Elizabeth is all Reynolds says to Poe is "The Tell-Tale Heart" he never expected Poe to Solve the riddle or survive the poison long enough to save her.

edited 21st Sep '17 1:22:59 AM by G-Editor

Here're the previous Twin Peaks candidates I brought up.Doppleganger, Richard Horne, and Judy. Now for BOB. Like with the last example, spoilers.

• Complete Monster: Killer BOB (Beware of BOB) of the Black Lodge was once a vicious Serial Killer who liked to rape and murder young women. Since his death, BOB became something more. An inhabitant of the Black Lodge, BOB accesses the material plane by possessing hapless humans and forcing them to commit murder, rape and general horror in order to delight and nourish himself. Responsible for the murder of Laura Palmer that drives the series, BOB committed the deed by possessing Laura's father Leland when Leland was a child, resurfacing to have Leland molest his own daughter through her youth before using him to finally rape and murder Laura. When cornered, BOB forces Leland to kill himself. Ending the series by possessing the hero Agent Cooper and laughing maniacally after appreciating his healthy, handsome young body, BOB remains one of the most twisted products of even David Lynch's mind.

Ok so, when BOB comes back for the return, he really doesn't do a whole lot more. Again, his actor passed so he's just represented by Stock Footage.

So a few things we got to do with this example

Inaccuracies

BOB was never a human. While this was a plausible theory, the show never really explicitly said BOB Was Once a Man. The Return confirms BOB to be entirely supernatural, birthed during the Trinity Nuclear tests by Judy a monster from another world.

BOB also never possessed Cooper. Cooper's Doppleganger was the one who got out, and BOB lived inside of him rather than possessing him. Maybe this was planned, maybe this was altered to make use of Kyle MacLachlan as the antagonist. Whatever the reason, the show does point to the fact that it is the Doppleganger committing crimes of his own free will rather than BOB doing it. Though what constitutes as Dopple's free will is subject of the last debate.

New Crimes

The only missing crime is when BOB kills Windom Earle, tearing out his soul when Earle confronts Cooper in the Black Lodge. Since that was a pretty clear cut Kick The Son Of A Bitch I can see it not being necessary.

As for the reboot, BOB is a Generic Doomsday Villain. He has no real character other than snarling and evil. OG series had him with the personality, and I'm not saying his portrayal here negates his character in the old series (as a whole BOB is not a GDV), but I am say that he really does nothing that new in this series.

He get's into a fight with a British dude with a glove that gives him super strength. He tries to kill that dude and he get's killed instead. Kind of, BOB turned into a giant Black Orb (which may be his true form) and got shattered, the pieces disappearing. I'm pretty sure that was supposed to mean he died.

Mitigating Factors

Ok, because we see BOB's origin in this series I feel it put's a bit of doubt on his morality.

BOB was explicitly born of Judy, the being of extreme evil that is the Greater-Scope Villain. Like I said in Judy's post, she doesn't have all that much character, very clear cut Generic Doomsday Villain unless you interpret her in a certain way. She vomits up a stream of strange substances, including eggs that birth strange horrors, and a pure black orb, which has BOB's face on it. BOB seems to just be this essence of evil created by this evil being and I don't know if that gives him moral judgement. The scene seems to make him out to be something Made of Evil, especially with his last appearance reducing him down to that screaming ball of black energy. BOB's actions are all to sustain itself and arguably to sustain Judy as well, because the suffering he inflicts are what beings like him live on.