Blogorium "Classic": Mmm, Delicious Thursdays -er, Fridays...

Sorry, gang, but the Cap'n was hit with some sudden extra school related work. Back tomorrow, if you're lucky. In the meantime, here's one from the vaults that ended up being a longer paper I may share some time.

Thursdays Fridays are for eating Hu-mans. It is also a time to celebrate films where monsters are created through a basic misunderstanding of radiation.

If we are to believe Hollywood (and why shouldn't we?), any time an atomic bomb is tested, the resulting irradiated area will be teeming with Giant Monsters that were once harmless insects, animals, even hu-mans. Look no further than movies like Them! (giant ants), Tarantula (tarantula), Attack of the 50 ft Woman (woman), and The Amazing Colossal Man (Glenn Lagan). Radiation can be blamed for elephantitis of the everything. It also makes people, ants, and tarantulas suddenly very interested in killing and wreaking havoc for no apparent reason. Then again, if you had been turned into a giant whatever-it-is-you-are, maybe you too would grow angry and destroy Las Vegas.

When it isn't creating Giant Monsters, radiation can also turn you into a race of super-powered mutants, like in Alexander Aja's remake of The Hills Have Eyes. Instead of being semi-retarded inbred mutants like in Wes Craven's version, Aja makes the "family" descendants of semi-retarded miners who decided not to leave "the hills" during A-bomb testing. While some of them show no mutation whatsoever and at least one of them turns into a big headed, wheelchair bound superfreak, the rest of the mutants gain Super-Hu-man Strength and stealth. They then use these radioactive super powers to capture and eat people. Even the dude with the permanently broken neck is pretty diesel. The kid in the wheelchair kind of makes sense, but radiation only turns you into a super hero if you're some nerdy teenager.

Also, we all know that radiation wakes up Godzilla. Godzilla is allergic to radiation, so every time you drop a bomb in the ocean of near Monster Island, it's like blowing a big kitten and ragweed dust bunny in the face of all Monsters. Can you blame them for destroying your stupid city, Tokyo?

Finally, we have radiation to blame for Gort. Gort would not be menacing the Earth's peoples but for our desire for Mutually Assured Destruction. Well, and the fact that we shot Klaatu. That was a dick move. I think Gort helped create Skynet while Klaatu was cavorting around with little Billy and the Professor. In a stroke of ironic irony, the Terminator (Arnold Class) is given an H-Bomb Fuel Cell, and Skynet uses all of our Nuclear Weaponry against us. Very clever, Gort. And we thought all you had was super strength and a laser eye.

As you can see, radiation is rarely used to vaporize millions of people instantly or power England, and it is only occasionally used to rebuild a Silicon-Based Alien Overlord from 150 Million Years Ago (see: Doctor Who: The Hand of Fear). Radiation is instead given ridiculous properties which have no doubt spurred many copycat deaths from irradiated spider-bites, Gamma Ray overexposure, and Giant Ant Attacks. When will Hollywood learn that in order to truly cripple the nuclear energy industry, all they have to do is make movies like The China Syndrome and release them right before a power plant goes critical?

I mean, seriously.

We now return to the previously scheduled Hu-man eating, already in progress.