110 Fun Facts About Monster

Who wrote the 1818 novel that introduced Frankenstein's monster?

Mary Shelley began the story at 18, after Lord Byron challenged his guests, kept indoors near Geneva by the wet summer of 1816, to each write a ghost story.

In the 1818 novel Frankenstein, what does the creature demand that its maker build for it?

A female companion: Victor starts making her on a remote Orkney island, then tears her to pieces in horror, and the creature answers by killing his bride on their wedding night.

Which actor's 1931 portrayal fixed the flat-headed, bolt-necked image of Frankenstein's monster?

Boris Karloff wore Jack Pierce's makeup for the role; the famous neck 'bolts' were meant as electrodes, the terminals for the electricity that shocks the stitched-up body to life.

Who wrote the 1897 novel Dracula?

Bram Stoker first called his villain 'Count Wampyr', then came across the name Dracula in a history of Wallachia and took it, believing it meant 'devil'.

Which real 15th-century ruler, notorious for his cruelty, gave Count Dracula his name?

Vlad the Impaler, prince of Wallachia, was known as Dracula, 'son of Dracul', because his father had joined a knightly order called the Order of the Dragon.

How does Dracula turn other people into vampires?

By biting them: in the 1897 novel Lucy Westenra wastes away after his night-time bites to her throat, dies, and rises from her tomb to prey on children.

A lycanthrope is a person who transforms into which animal?

A wolf: the word joins Greek lykos (wolf) and anthropos (man), and in Ovid's telling Zeus turned King Lycaon into one for serving him human flesh.

In modern films, a werewolf's transformation is usually triggered by what?

A full moon is missing from the famous rhyme in The Wolf Man (1941), which says only that 'the autumn moon is bright'; in Universal's 1943 sequel its cursed hero changes when the full moon rises.

Modern fiction makes werewolves, otherwise resistant to injury, especially vulnerable to weapons made of which metal?

Silver: in Universal's The Wolf Man (1941), Larry Talbot buys a silver-headed cane, and his own father later clubs the werewolf dead with it, not knowing the beast is his son.

A vampire is a creature that survives by feeding on what?

Blood: in European folklore vampires are undead humans who leave the grave at night to drink the blood of the living.

Which plant is a classic folk protection against vampires?

Garlic: in the 1897 novel Dracula, Van Helsing fills Lucy's room with garlic flowers, but her mother, finding the smell stifling, clears them away and opens the window.

What was driven through suspected vampire Arnold Paole's exhumed corpse in 1720s Serbia?

A stake: the Austrian army surgeons' report says the body groaned and bled when pierced and was then burned, and their account carried the vampire scare to western Europe.

The zombie comes from the folklore of which country?

Haiti: in its folklore a sorcerer called a bokor raises a corpse to serve him as a slave with no will of its own, an idea thought to go back to the island's sugar plantations.

The Loch Ness Monster is said to live in a lake in which country?

Scotland: Loch Ness lies in the Scottish Highlands, and the modern legend took off in 1933, after a new road along the shore gave passing drivers a clear view of the water.

Bigfoot is said to roam the forests of which US region in particular?

The Pacific Northwest: the name Bigfoot dates from 1958 reports of giant footprints at a logging site, which logger Ray Wallace's family said in 2002 he had faked with carved wooden feet.

In the 1967 Patterson–Gimlin film's best-known frame, what is Bigfoot doing?

Looking back: as the figure strides away along Bluff Creek, California, it glances toward the camera; skeptics see a man in an ape costume, and the argument has run for more than half a century.

Which legendary creature has been nicknamed the Abominable Snowman since a 1921 Everest expedition?

The Yeti got the nickname from journalist Henry Newman, who heard of footprints found by the expedition and mistranslated the local name for their maker as 'abominable snowman'.

What does the cryptid name 'chupacabra' literally mean in Spanish?

Goat-sucker: chupar means 'to suck' and cabra 'goat', a name earned by reports of livestock found drained of blood.

The first widely publicised Chupacabra sightings came in 1995 from which island?

Puerto Rico: investigator Benjamin Radford traced the creature's look to its first eyewitness, whose 1995 description closely matched the alien in the film Species, which she had just seen.

Mothman was reportedly seen in 1966-67 around which town?

Point Pleasant, West Virginia: sightings began in November 1966, and John Keel's 1975 book The Mothman Prophecies linked them to the collapse of the town's Ohio River bridge in December 1967.

The Jersey Devil is said to haunt which region of New Jersey?

The Pine Barrens: in one week of January 1909, newspapers printed hundreds of claimed sightings across South Jersey, and the alarm was such that some schools closed and workers stayed home.

The kraken is a giant sea monster from the folklore of which country?

Norway: Bergen's bishop Erik Pontoppidan wrote down the fishermen's tales in the 1750s: a beast that rose like an island, drew shoals of fish, and could drag down the largest ship.

The kraken's legend is thought to have originated from sightings of what real animal?

The giant squid was long known only from carcasses washed ashore or found in the stomachs of sperm whales; the first images of a live one in its habitat were taken in 2004.

In Greek myth, Medusa had what in place of her hair?

Snakes: in Ovid's telling Athena turned Medusa's hair into living serpents, and a single look at her turned onlookers to stone.

Which Greek hero cut off Medusa's head?

Perseus beheaded Medusa while watching her reflection in a polished shield, and in the usual telling gave the head to Athena, who fixed it to the centre of her own shield.

The Minotaur had the body of a man and the head of what?

A bull: the Minotaur was born to Queen Pasiphaë of Crete and a bull, and was kept at the centre of Daedalus's Labyrinth.

Which hero killed the Minotaur, guided by Ariadne's thread?

Theseus sailed home but forgot to swap his black sail for the white one that meant success; his father Aegeus saw it, believed him killed and took his own life.

In Greek myth, who forged the thunderbolts that Zeus used in his war against the Titans?

The Cyclopes had been locked away in Tartarus; Zeus set them free, and in thanks they armed him with thunder and lightning and his brother Poseidon with a trident.

Which Cyclops did Odysseus blind in the Odyssey?

Polyphemus was told by Odysseus that his name was 'Nobody', then put to sleep with strong wine and blinded; the giant had promised, as a favour, to eat Nobody last.

What did Heracles and Iolaus apply to the Hydra's severed necks to stop new heads growing?

Fire: in the usual telling, as Heracles cut, Iolaus seared each stump with a burning brand so nothing could sprout, and the one immortal head was buried under a huge rock.

After killing the Hydra, what did Heracles dip in its venom?

His arrows: the venom made their wounds incurable, and in the end it killed Heracles too, through a robe smeared with the blood of a centaur he had shot with one.

Cerberus, the multi-headed dog, guards the gates of where?

Hades: Cerberus guards the entrance to the underworld of Hades, letting the dead in but never out; capturing him was Heracles's twelfth labour.

The Sphinx of Greek myth killed travellers who could not solve what?

A riddle: she asked what has one voice yet goes on four feet, then two, then three, and devoured everyone who could not say.

Which hero outwitted the Sphinx in Greek drama?

Oedipus beat the Sphinx, who is said to have thrown herself from the heights, and grateful Thebes made him king and gave him the widowed queen, his own mother, as wife.

Grendel is the monster who terrorises a king's mead-hall in which medieval poem?

Beowulf: the Old English epic has Grendel raid King Hrothgar's hall Heorot for twelve years until the Geatish hero Beowulf tears off his arm.

Godzilla first appeared in a film from which country, in 1954?

Japan: Toho's 1954 film put stuntman Haruo Nakajima in a heavy monster suit to trample a miniature Tokyo, and he went on to play Godzilla in twelve films in a row.

In the 1954 film Godzilla, what awakens and empowers the monster?

Nuclear radiation: the idea came from the news, because months before filming, fallout from a US hydrogen-bomb test at Bikini Atoll had rained on the crew of a tuna boat, the Lucky Dragon No. 5.

King Kong is famously depicted as a giant version of which animal?

A gorilla: King Kong, a giant ape from Skull Island, first appeared in RKO's 1933 film, animated by Willis O'Brien's stop motion.

Which filmmaker directed the 2005 remake of King Kong?

Peter Jackson has called the 1933 King Kong his favourite film, and as a boy he tried to remake it himself with a Super 8 camera and home-made stop-motion models.

What is the name of the revived mummy in both the 1932 and 1999 films called The Mummy?

Imhotep borrows the name of a real Egyptian, the architect of King Djoser's Step Pyramid, who was later worshipped as a god of wisdom and medicine.

Cthulhu, a giant cosmic monster sleeping beneath the Pacific, was created by which author?

H. P. Lovecraft introduced Cthulhu in a 1928 story for the pulp magazine Weird Tales, yet he could never live on his writing and was almost unknown when he died in 1937.

Cthulhu is usually depicted with a head resembling which animal?

An octopus: the 1928 story gives its idol an octopus-like head with a face of feelers, and when a sailor rams the risen creature with a steam yacht, it bursts and simply re-forms.

The Bogeyman is a monster traditionally used to do what?

Frighten children into behaving: parents invoke the Bogeyman as a shapeless lurker who takes misbehaving children, a threat found across many cultures.

Which blue Sesame Street monster is known for the eating noise 'Om nom nom nom'?

Cookie Monster grew out of the hungry monster puppets Jim Henson built for 1960s snack commercials, including ads for Frito-Lay's Munchos, before he joined Sesame Street in 1969.

The famous 1934 'Surgeon's Photograph' of the Loch Ness Monster was later exposed as a model head fixed to what?

A toy submarine carried the model head; big-game hunter Marmaduke Wetherell staged the picture after being humiliated over 'monster footprints' that had been made with a hippo-foot umbrella stand.

Medusa was the only mortal among the three sisters known collectively as what?

The Gorgons Stheno and Euryale were immortal, so when their sister was beheaded they flew after her killer, who escaped only because a borrowed cap made him invisible.

Cerberus was the offspring of Echidna and which monstrous storm-giant who challenged Zeus?

Typhon fathered Cerberus and the Hydra in Hesiod's account; Zeus struck him down, and later poets put him under Mount Etna, blaming its eruptions on him.

The Sphinx of Greek tradition had a woman's head and a bird's wings on the body of which animal?

A lion: in one telling the goddess Hera sent this winged hybrid to punish Thebes, where she sat on a mountain outside the city and seized passers-by.

Godzilla has been given which royal nickname?

King of the Monsters: the title was coined for the 1956 American re-edit Godzilla, King of the Monsters!, which added scenes with Raymond Burr.

The Jersey Devil is traditionally said to be the child of a woman known as what?

Mother Leeds, the story goes, cursed her unwanted thirteenth child, crying 'Let it be the devil!'; the newborn sprouted wings and flew off into the night.

Grendel is described in his Old English poem as a descendant of which biblical figure?

Cain: the poem says Grendel sprang from the kin of Cain, whom the Creator banished for killing Abel; monsters and giants descend from him.

The Chimera had a lion's front, a serpent's tail and which animal's head on its back?

A goat: the monster's Greek name, khimaira, means 'she-goat', and a creature so impossible gave English the word 'chimera' for any wild fancy that could never be real.

Which hero rode Pegasus to kill the Chimera on the orders of the king of Lycia?

Bellerophon reached Lycia carrying a sealed message that asked King Iobates to have him killed, so the king sent his guest against the Chimera, expecting the beast to do it.

In Irish folklore, what does the wailing banshee foretell?

A death in the family is what her keening heralds; her name is Irish for 'woman of the fairy mound', and tradition gave a banshee only to certain old Irish families, as a mark of ancient descent.

The wendigo, a cannibal spirit, comes from the folklore of which group of peoples?

Algonquian peoples such as the Cree and Ojibwe told wendigo tales as warnings against selfishness: a person corrupted by greed, or broken by hunger and cold, was said to turn into one.

The most famous golem legend has Rabbi Judah Loew ben Bezalel shaping a clay figure in which city?

Prague: in the legend Rabbi Loew shaped the golem to protect the city's Jews from persecution, but it grew violent and he had to put it out of action again.

Erasing one letter from the Hebrew word for 'truth' on a golem's forehead leaves which word?

Death: removing the aleph turns emet ('truth') into met ('dead'), so the golem returns to lifeless clay.

In medieval bestiaries, the cry of which bird was said to be able to kill the basilisk?

Rooster: bestiaries said a cock's crow sent the basilisk into convulsions that could kill it, while the one animal able to fight it head-on was the weasel.

Which whirlpool monster lives across the narrow strait from the six-headed Scylla?

Charybdis: warned that the whirlpool could swallow his whole ship, Odysseus steered close to Scylla and lost six men instead, the choice behind 'between Scylla and Charybdis'.

Which monster guards the Cedar Forest until Gilgamesh and Enkidu kill it?

Humbaba, set by the god Enlil to guard the Cedar Forest, begs for his life once beaten, and Gilgamesh wavers until Enkidu urges him to finish the monster off.

Which Minecraft monster, born from a coding error in a pig model, sneaks up on players and explodes?

The Creeper was born when Markus Persson swapped the length and height of his pig model, then kept the creepy result as a new enemy.

In Greek myth, what happened to anyone who looked directly at the face of the monster Medusa?

Anyone who met her gaze was turned to stone, and the power outlived her: her severed head still worked as a weapon and ended up on Athena's shield.

The towering Stay Puft mascot that stomps through New York in 1984's Ghostbusters is made of what?

Marshmallow came to Ray's mind when the team was told to think of nothing: he pictured a beloved mascot from his childhood, and the god Gozer took its shape.

Which New York skyscraper does Kong climb, clutching Ann Darrow, at the climax of 1933's King Kong?

The Empire State Building was then the tallest building in the world, and Kong reaches its summit before four biplanes shoot him down.

In the 1984 film Gremlins, a mogwai such as Gizmo must never be fed after what time?

Midnight is the cut-off in the most important of three rules. The others: keep a mogwai away from bright light and never let it touch water.

Which dragon guards a stolen hoard of dwarf treasure under the Lonely Mountain in The Hobbit?

Smaug knew his stolen hoard down to the last ounce, so on waking he at once missed the single golden cup that Bilbo had crept in and taken.

Count Dracula's castle stands in the Carpathian Mountains in which region of present-day Romania?

Transylvania was a place the novel's Irish author never saw: he never visited Eastern Europe and pieced the setting together from books in English libraries.

Which creatures' song did Odysseus hear while lashed to a mast, as wax plugged every other sailor's ears?

The Sirens drew sailors to shipwreck with their singing, so Odysseus took Circe's advice: beeswax for the crew's ears and ropes for himself.

Which Bobby Pickett novelty song topped the US chart in 1962 but was banned by the BBC as 'too morbid'?

Monster Mash began as Pickett's stage impression of a horror-film star and peaked just before Halloween. In 2021 it re-entered the Hot 100 at number 37.

Which 1979 film has a newborn monster burst from a crew member's chest aboard the space tug Nostromo?

Alien's cast knew a puppet would burst out but had not been warned about the gore that sprayed with it, so the shock on their faces is real.

Which round, green monster with a single eye is Sulley's best friend and assistant in Pixar's Monsters, Inc.?

Mike Wazowski is voiced by Billy Crystal, who had passed on Buzz Lightyear in Toy Story and regretted it once that series took off.

Which red Sesame Street monster became the must-have toy of Christmas 1996 as a giggling 'Tickle Me' doll?

Elmo dolls that retailed for about $29 were being resold for up to $1,500 by the end of 1996, and shoppers came to blows over the last ones on the shelves.

Shrek, the green swamp-dweller created by cartoonist William Steig, is what kind of fairy-tale monster?

An ogre first voiced by Chris Farley, who recorded nearly all of the part before he died in 1997. His replacement insisted on starting again with a new script.

Which respectable London doctor drinks a serum that turns him into Mr Hyde in Robert Louis Stevenson's novella?

Dr Jekyll came to Stevenson in a nightmare. Woken by his wife, the author complained: 'I was dreaming a fine bogey tale.'

Which shape-shifting monster, usually a dancing clown, preys on the children of Derry in Stephen King's It?

Pennywise wakes to feed roughly every 27 years. Tim Curry played the part in the 1990 television version and Bill Skarsgård took over from 2017.

Which monster, named by the kids after a Dungeons & Dragons demon prince, abducts Will Byers in Stranger Things?

The Demogorgon, with a head that opens like a flower, was played by an animatronic and a performer in a suit because the show's makers wanted practical effects.

Which enormous three-headed dog guards a trapdoor at Hogwarts in the first Harry Potter novel?

Fluffy has a single weakness, which Hagrid lets slip: play him music. Harry, Ron and Hermione send him to sleep with a flute that Hagrid carved.

Which saint, in a tale that the medieval Golden Legend set in Libya, slays a dragon to rescue a princess?

Saint George gained his dragon late: the tale first appears in sources of the 11th and 12th centuries, set in Cappadocia. He became England's patron saint in the 14th.

Which Maurice Sendak picture book sends Max to an island of monsters who make him their ruler?

Where the Wild Things Are filled its island with caricatures of Sendak's own aunts and uncles, whose chaotic weekly visits he had dreaded as a boy.

Which name for Bigfoot did teacher J. W. Burns coin in the 1920s from a Halkomelem word?

Sasquatch is believed to anglicise sasq'ets, roughly 'hairy man'. Burns gathered local stories of 'hairy giants' for Maclean's magazine.

What name is given to the hunt for unproven animals such as Bigfoot, pioneered by Bernard Heuvelmans?

Cryptozoology is classed by mainstream science as a pseudoscience. Its followers call their quarry 'cryptids', a word the subculture coined for itself.

Which 1968 horror film calls its flesh-eaters 'ghouls' yet shaped the modern screen zombie?

Night of the Living Dead was released without a copyright notice by mistake, so it entered the public domain at once and anyone could copy or remake it.

Which Hungarian-born actor, later buried in the costume's cape, played Count Dracula in Universal's 1931 film?

Bela Lugosi was so bound to the part that his fame as the Count and his thick accent cost him other roles, and he fought typecasting for years without success.

Which 1922 German silent film, an unauthorised take on Dracula, renamed the vampire Count Orlok?

Nosferatu was nearly lost for good: the novelist's widow sued over the copyright, and a court ordered every copy of the film destroyed.

Which horned companion of Saint Nicholas punishes naughty children with birch rods in Alpine folklore?

Krampus makes his rounds on the evening of 5 December, known as Krampusnacht, while the saint hands small gifts to the children who behaved.

Which figure of Slavic folklore flies in a mortar and lives in a forest hut that stands on chicken legs?

Baba Yaga wields a pestle as she rides and sweeps away her tracks with a broom. In many tales her hut can turn around on its legs.

Which creatures of Greek myth, among them the wise healer Chiron, had a human torso on a horse's body?

Centaurs were mostly known as rowdy, hard-drinking brawlers. Chiron was the exception, a teacher schooled by Apollo in medicine, music and archery.

Which craftsman made the Labyrinth on Crete for King Minos to imprison the Minotaur?

Daedalus later fled Crete on wings of his own making, a flight his son did not survive: the boy flew too near the Sun and the wax in his wings melted.

Which Connecticut schoolteacher is chased by the Headless Horseman in a Washington Irving tale?

Ichabod Crane vanishes after the chase, leaving only his hat and a smashed pumpkin, a clue that his love rival may have staged the whole haunting.

Which Norse god has a long feud with the Midgard Serpent that ends with both of them dying at Ragnarök?

Thor had hooked the serpent before, on a fishing trip with the head of an ox as bait. His companion Hymir went pale with fear.

Godzilla's original name, Gojira, is said to blend the words for a great ape and which sea animal?

Whale is 'kujira' and gorilla is 'gorira'. In one much-told studio story, the blend was first the nickname of a burly Toho employee who loved whale meat.

Which Toho monster, first seen on screen in 1961, is spoken for by a pair of miniature twin fairies?

Mothra began on the page: Toho commissioned three novelists to write 'The Luminous Fairies and Mothra', serialised in January 1961, as the outline of the film.

Which 2008 found-footage film shows a monster attack on Manhattan through a partygoer's camcorder?

Cloverfield announces its monster when the severed head of the Statue of Liberty is hurled into the street outside a farewell party.

Which actor plays handyman Val McKee, battling the underground Graboids, in the 1990 film Tremors?

Kevin Bacon's worm hunt in the desert town of Perfection, Nevada, grew popular enough to spawn a run of direct-to-video sequels and a television series.

Which 1958 film gave Steve McQueen his first lead, fighting an alien that lands in a meteorite?

The Blob cannot be killed, only frozen, so the film ends with it being flown to the Arctic, to stay harmless 'as long as the Arctic stays cold'.

Which 1954 Universal monster film, shot in 3D, stars the Gill-man of the Amazon?

Creature from the Black Lagoon needed a pair of Gill-men: Ben Chapman wore the suit on land and Ricou Browning did the swimming.

Which desert planet in Frank Herbert's Dune is home to the colossal sandworms that yield the spice?

Arrakis has a native people, the Fremen, who revere the worms as Shai-Hulud, agents of God, while spice harvesters risk an attack every time they work the sand.

In The Lord of the Rings, which fiery demon known as Durin's Bane confronts Gandalf in the Mines of Moria?

A Balrog is a spirit of the same order as Gandalf himself, which is why the wizard warns his companions: 'This is a foe beyond any of you.'

Which Everest climber led a 1960 expedition to the Himalayas to collect physical evidence of the Yeti?

Edmund Hillary had reported large footprints himself while climbing Everest in 1953, yet he came to dismiss Yeti reports as unreliable.

Which monster 'with eyes of flame' is slain with a vorpal sword in a nonsense poem by Lewis Carroll?

The Jabberwock first reaches Alice in mirror writing, so she has to hold the page up to a looking-glass before she can read about the beast.

Which river-dwelling yōkai keeps water in a dish-like hollow on its head and is said to love cucumbers?

A kappa is obsessed with politeness, so the trick is to bow deeply: it bows back, spills the water from its head and is left helpless.

Which philosopher named his 1651 treatise on government after Leviathan, the Book of Job's sea monster?

Thomas Hobbes used the beast to stand for an all-powerful state: the book's frontispiece shows a crowned figure whose body is made up of over three hundred people.

Which beast of Chinese legend, said to fear loud noise and the colour red, is tied to Lunar New Year customs?

Nian shares its name with the Chinese word for 'year', and its fears are given as the reason for red clothing, drums and fireworks at the festival.

Which Egyptian 'Devourer of the Dead', part crocodile and part hippopotamus, ate the hearts of the unworthy?

Ammit combined the three largest man-eating animals the Egyptians knew, and funerary scenes show her waiting to learn whether she may consume a heart.

Which hundred-eyed watchman did Hera set to guard Io after the priestess was changed into a heifer?

Argus was killed by Hermes on Zeus's orders, and in Ovid's telling Hera honoured her watchman by setting his eyes in the tail of the peacock.

Which actress played the title role in 1935's Bride of Frankenstein, modelling her hiss on swans?

Elsa Lanchester went unnamed as the Bride: the credits listed the part only as '?', and billed her instead for another role as the novel's author.

Which Shakespeare play features Caliban, the 'savage' island-dwelling son of the witch Sycorax?

The Tempest has Caliban born on the island and forced into slavery by the exiled magician Prospero, who lands there with his daughter.

Which strawberry-flavoured 'monster cereal' was launched by General Mills in 1971 alongside Count Chocula?

Franken Berry caused a brief scare in 1972, when a pigment the body could not digest left some children's stools pink. The recipe was changed.

What nickname did the crew of Jaws give its unreliable mechanical sharks, after Steven Spielberg's lawyer?

Bruce broke down so often that Spielberg chose mostly to suggest the shark, letting John Williams's ominous theme signal that it was near.

The bunyip, a monster said to lurk in swamps, creeks and waterholes, comes from the folklore of which country?

Australia has at least nine regional versions of the bunyip, and the word itself has been traced to an Aboriginal language of Victoria.