Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of
Speaker 1: My Heart Radio. Hi, my name is Robert Lamb and
Speaker 1: this is the Monster Fact, a short form series from
Speaker 1: Stuff to Blow Your Mind, focusing in on mythical creatures,
Speaker 1: ideas and monsters in time. In this episode, I want
Speaker 1: to discuss a creature from Guillermo Del Toro's Cabinet of
Speaker 1: Curiosities of Fabulous Tales from the crypt Asque Horror anthology series.
Speaker 1: In particular, I'll be discussing a creature from the viewing.
Speaker 1: The episode directed by Panos Cosmatos, so fair warning spoilers follow.
Speaker 1: In three two one. In the Viewing, an eccentric and
Speaker 1: wealthy recluse played terrifically by veteran actor Peter Weller, invites
Speaker 1: four strangers, each a stand out in their own field,
Speaker 1: to his secluded home for a special viewing. As with
Speaker 1: such Cosmatos films as Beyond the Black Rainbow and Mandy,
Speaker 1: what follows is a beautifully rendered atmospheric slow burn, a
Speaker 1: journey into the psychatronic. In short order, all of the
Speaker 1: characters converge in a luxuriously trippy nine seventies din Weller's
Speaker 1: Lionel Lasseter urges his guests to indulge in various brain
Speaker 1: altering substances in order to prepare them for the viewing.
Speaker 1: When the time finally arrives, Lasseter leads them into a
Speaker 1: special chamber containing an alien monolith. In due course, the
Speaker 1: monolith essentially hatches and an orange ooze emerges. It forms
Speaker 1: a pair of feelers or antennae, which reached skyward. It
Speaker 1: unleashes a terrifying psychic attack on those around it, and
Speaker 1: then becomes fluid again, engulfing one of its victims and
Speaker 1: rising back up as a lomeration of ooze covered humanoid
Speaker 1: and twin tentacled slime creature. This monster then ventures out
Speaker 1: into the world to better understand it, destroy it, or both.
Speaker 1: Its motivations are suitably unknowable. Now, these are just the
Speaker 1: major details regarding the episode. I can do nothing to
Speaker 1: capture the visual and sonic weirdness of the piece. You're
Speaker 1: gonna have to watch it for yourself. But of course,
Speaker 1: the strange entity in this episode led me to wonder
Speaker 1: how we might interpret it via natural world biology. Of course,
Speaker 1: the fictitious creature in question is so utterly alien, so
Speaker 1: amazingly fantastic, that we can't expect to find anything too
Speaker 1: much like it, but at least a couple of ideas
Speaker 1: emerge for starters. In terms of amorphous creatures developing feelers
Speaker 1: or limbs when needed, we can look to the single
Speaker 1: celled organisms make Leria glueberry. It makes its home and
Speaker 1: wet soil and lives as slow moving life as an
Speaker 1: amorphous amba, but when stressed, it grows a pair of flagella,
Speaker 1: hair like arms or appendages that allow the creature to
Speaker 1: swim around at greater speeds in something akin to a breaststroke.
Speaker 1: According to biologist Lillian fritz Leyland, quoted in a two
Speaker 1: thousand ten MPR article on the organism naturally in vague terms,
Speaker 1: this reminds me of the environment induced changes in the
Speaker 1: viewing slime creature, as well as the two feelers it manifests. Additionally,
Speaker 1: the creatures change from hardened shell to liquid ooze to
Speaker 1: shambling creature also reminds me of the amazing transformations that
Speaker 1: occur inside it. Butterflies chrysalis, where the caterpillar essentially digests
Speaker 1: itself with enzymes, where least digests everything except for the
Speaker 1: imaginal discs dormant tissues essentially earmarked to develop into corresponding
Speaker 1: parts of the adult organism, the imaginal disc or essentially
Speaker 1: fed by the dissolved goop around them in the crystalis.
Speaker 1: But most of the questions raised by the viewing have
Speaker 1: nothing to do with real world biology. Instead, we're left
Speaker 1: wondering why Lasseter insisted on augmented brain states and his
Speaker 1: guests before viewing the monolith. Is this simply how he
Speaker 1: entertains all his house guests, or did he have a
Speaker 1: specific intention in mind here, something about presenting a psychic
Speaker 1: alien entity with mental states that have been subjected to
Speaker 1: the same specific changes. There's a lot to think about here.
Speaker 1: We don't know for sure. The piece leaves us to
Speaker 1: wonder and dream, which is one of the episodes. Many
Speaker 1: rewards might of course be interested to hear your take
Speaker 1: on the matter. Tune in for additional episodes of The
Speaker 1: Monster Fact or The Artifact each week. As always, you
Speaker 1: can email us at contact at stuff to Blow your
Speaker 1: Mind dot com. Stuff to Blow Your Mind is a
Speaker 1: production of iHeart Radio. For more podcasts from my Heart Radio,
Speaker 1: visit the I heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever
Speaker 1: you listen to your favorite shows.