Attack of the Killer Whatever: Difference between revisions
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{{trope}}
[[File:
{{quote|'''[[Stephen King]]:''' Now for my 307th book, a couple... uh... is attacked... by a giant... uh... (looks at a desk) lamp monster! Oooooooo!
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{{quote|''ALL ANIMALS V. ALL HUMANS. I trust you feel the immediate, primal clutch of this concept on your heart, and I can promise you that the [[Everything's Better with Platypi|duckbilled platypus]] scene alone will be worth the price of admission.''|'''John Hodgman''', ''[[The Areas of My Expertise]]''}}
If you can think of something, there's probably a B-grade horror movie about it trying to kill a bunch of people. You name it. Snowmen, ice cream men, [[Bad Santa|Santa Claus]], [[Depraved Dentist|dentists]], [[Monster Clown|clowns]], [[Creepy Doll|dolls]], trucks, boats, lifts, chairs, [[
At the very least, if there's not a horror movie based around it, there's surely a horror short story or episode of an anthology horror series about it.
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== Comic Books ==
* ''[[Hack Slash]]'': {{spoiler|parasitic twin foetuses}} and cartoon chipmunks bring in some variety from the normal slashers and serial
** There was also the story about the high-tech snowblower that "ate" pets.
== Film ==
* To get it out of the way, let's just say that a lot of these movies are either produced by or eventually air on the [[
* As mentioned in Literature below, ''[[Maximum Overdrive]]''! Practically every mechanical object known to man turns on their creators after earth passes through the tail of a mysterious comet...or was it the flying saucer that the military shot down in the epilogue? Apparently the test screen of a scene of a boy getting ran over by a steamroller actually made [[George Romero]] throw up.
* The ''[[Leprechaun (film)|Leprechaun]]'' horror movie franchise, Lucky Charms commercials [[Gone Horribly Wrong]].
* The infamous ''[[Jack Frost (1997 film)|Jack Frost 1997]]'' movies (not the one with Michael Keaton), about a snowman whose snow is infused with the DNA of a murderer. Includes a scene where the titular snowman {{spoiler|rapes and kills a woman in the shower with his carrot}}.
** That woman? [[Old Shame|Shannon Elizabeth]]. And now you know... the rest of the back-story. Good day!
* ''[[Stay Alive]]'' is just one of many movies about killer videogames. One wonders how such a game gets out of beta testing...
** Strictly speaking, that one didn't {{spoiler|until the very stupid ending anyway.}}
* ''[[Killer Klowns From Outer Space]]''
* In the Japanese [[Mind Screw]] horror movie ''[[Hausu]]'' '''everything''' from ''a piano'' to ''pillows'' to '''a lampshade''', to [[Genius Loci|the titular ''House'',]] all because {{spoiler|the ''Auntie'' eats young female virgins to keep herself young while she waits for her boyfriend to come home from WWII.}} The little problem? {{spoiler|He ''died'' in the war. She received the news but didn't believe it.}} Oh, and she's also {{spoiler|dead}}.
* Probably the quintessential "killer toy" movie is ''[[Child's Play (film)|Childs Play]]'', which earned four sequels.
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* The Burgess Meredith film ''Torture Garden'' featured a sequence about a killer ''piano''.
* The 1977 film ''[[Death Bed: The Bed That Eats]]'' was about... guess what? A killer bed.
** Patton Oswalt has a very profane, very funny routine about this movie in which he threatens to write and produce a movie called ''Rape Stove: The Stove That Rapes People''.
* ''The Killer Shrews''
* 1977 saw ''[[Kingdom of the Spiders]]'', with William Shatner fighting billions of homicidal poisonous but normal-sized tarantulas. Normally, they are [[Giant Spider|giant]] when they do such things.
* Given some of the other examples on this page, the 1978 horror movie spoof ''[[Attack of the Killer Tomatoes]]'' seems almost sensible in comparison.
** [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ebfLWAB8bY4 ATTAAAACK OF THE KILLER TO-MAY-TOES!]
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* ''[[Black Sheep (2006 film)|Black Sheep]]'', a horror movie about killer ... wait for it ... sheep. Though this one is a Horror/Comedy.
* [[Alfred Hitchcock]]'s ''[[The Birds]]'' is an early example.
** ''[[Resident Evil: Extinction|Resident Evil Extinction]]'' has flocks of killer zombie crows! We'd call it a "[[Take That]]" but its more akin to the film ''[[Laserblast]]'' taking it's potshot at ''[[Star Wars]]'': picking on someone WAY out of their weight class.
* ''Lennigen versus the Ants'' is arguably a part of this genre.
* ''Killer Condom'' - And the condoms were designed by [[H. R. Giger]], creator of the ''[[Alien]]''. Confused yet?
* Japanese film ''Battle Heater'' is about the rampage of a small electric space heater.
* ''[[Snakes on a Plane]]'' could arguably follow this trope.
* ''[http://horror-movie-a-day.blogspot.com/2009/03/frogs.html Frogs]'' (kinda stupid since most of the victims meet their demise from animals other than frogs - turtles, lizards, snakes, spiders, alligators, birds, crabs and even butterflies!)
* ''[[Slugs]]''
* ''[[Squirm]]'', with its masses of biting worms.
* ''The Brain''
* ''[[The Ring]]''. Killer videotapes! (Okay, it's a ghost USING a videotape, but...)
** ''[[Videodrome]]'' did it first. [[Snuff Film|Snuff television]] gives you tumours!
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** As does ''[[Creepshow]]'', which did it really well.
* A killer electromagnetic pulse causes appliances in a suburban neighborhood house to go all homicidal in the film called ''Pulse'' (a film from the 80's)
** The creep factor on ''Pulse'' was way up, especially due to the shower scene, because none of the appliances seemed to really be doing anything unexpected. It's actually quite plausible that your sink wouldn't stop running, or your water heater would get broken and the temperature would rise to scalding, or the washing machine/TV could give you a fatal shock.
* ''Attack of the Killer Refrigerator'' and, in a similar vein, a film titled simply ''The Refrigerator''. Its so corny, its [[So Bad It's Good]], its the fridge from hell's logic!
* ''[[The Mangler (novel)|The Mangler]]'' (published in the collection ''[[Night Shift]]''), a killer laundry machine.
* ''[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jon8a3j2elU Monsturd]'', followed by its sequel ''[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PpzDxhNCwQY RetarDEAD]''.
* There is apparently a movie about a book that when anybody read it they vanished into the book and it added a new story or chapter. A title would be nice.
* ''[[Monster House]]''. I mean, [[Exactly What It Says on the Tin|it's right there in the title]].
* The film ''The Lift'' is centered around a killer elevator.
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* ''I Bought A Vampire Motorcycle''. A shape-shifting, murderous motorcycle terrorizes [http://uk.imdb.com/name/nm0607403/ Bob the Builder] in Birmingham in this 1990 [[So Bad It's Good|B-movie]]. Not quite [[Exactly What It Says on the Tin]] in that the titular motorbike is actually a demon-possessed Norton Commando, but still awesome.
** Best line (as they stand round its dead remains) {{spoiler|What sort of bike was it? Norton Commando. Funny they're usually so reliable }}
* ''Lightning Strikes'': The [[
** ...as opposed to the regular, ''non-killing'' type of lightning, I suppose?
*** Other lightning goes up to [[Back to the Future (film)|1.21 jiggerwatts]]. Ours goes up to 1.22. [[Spinal Tap|It's one more]].
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** ''Uninvited'' (1987). It's about a mutant cat that hides inside another cat and it is played by a handpuppet.
** ''The Night of a Thousand Cats'' (1972)
* ''The Red Shoes'' - South Korean horror movie about evil, possessed high heel shoes. [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t5CWrXqVE8c&feature=related See here]. Possibly related to the fairytale of the same name.
* ''The Wig''. When it comes to horror, there really is no limit on what the subject could be.
* ''Hair Extensions''
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* ''[[The Mad]]'': Both Attack of the Killer Beef Patties and [[Zombie Apocalypse|zombies]] (the people who ate said patties when they were made into hamburgers)! It's a horror comedy.
* ''[[Jumanji]]'' was a movie about both a killer boardgame and a killer jungle where everything's trying to kill you.
** ''Jumanji'' got a semi-sequel of its own, ''[[Zathura]]'', which [[Recycled in Space|recycled the killer boardgame theme]] {{
* ''[[The Food of the Gods]]'' and [[Food of the Gods 2|its sequel]]. The first included giant wasps and rats attacking people on an island. The second featured giant rodents as well only they ran wild in a city, attacking everything they could find.
* Quentin Dupieux's ''[[Rubber]]'': A film about an angry car tire (no really) with deadly psychokinetic powers, rolling down the desert exploding the heads of anyone it doesn't like.
* ''Poultrygeist: Night of the Chicken Dead'': Played for all the squick, potty humor, gorn, and black comedy it's worth.
* ''[[Night of the Lepus]]''. It's a movie about GIANT KILLER RABBITS. And they're adorable real bunnies jumping around in little sets, and then closed-up for maximum dramatic effect. You've never witnessed terror until you see a furball gnawing ketchup.
* ''[[Road Train]] (Road Kill outside Australia)'' A movie about a spirit/demon possessed road train roaming the Australian Outback and demanding blood for fuel.
* The Japanese horror film ''Premonition'' (unrelated to the Sandra Bullock-starring psychological drama of the same name) is about a killer ''newspaper''. The newspaper predicts peoples' deaths before they happen by way of the obituary section. The trailer alone was so disturbing that a mother wrote in to a local, uh, newspaper, complaining that the trailer should not have been screened on jumbotrons in the middle of crowded streets. She was probably very right.
* [[Played for Laughs]] in the independent short film ''[http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=ktD27xVIncg Night of the Living Bread]''.
* Topless Robot had a list about ridiculous monsters called "Ten Creatures That Have No Business Starring in Horror Flicks", this included infected fetus cows from 2005's ''Isolation'', the bloodthirsty sheep from the horror comedy ''Black Sheep'', radiated deep sea worms from ''Deep Rising'', goblin sharks from ''Malibu Shark Attack'', giant shrews in 1959's ''The Killer Shrews'', badly CG animated beetles from ''Caved In: Prehistoric Terror'', a giant [[Slurpasaur]] style gila monster from [[Exactly What It Says on the Tin]] ''The Giant Gila Monster'', and humongous grasshoppers from ''The Beginning of The End''.
* ''The Mailman'' ("Pray you're not on his route!")
* The later ''[[The Amityville Horror|Amityville Horror]]'' sequels featured such things as evil lamps, mirrors, and dollhouses.
* ''The Carpenter''.
* The demonic turkey from ''[[
* The 1989 horror-comedy ''Blades'' involves killings at a country club that turn out to be caused by a killer lawnmower.
* ''The Nun''
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** There's a short story in one of the Alfred Hitchcock story collections that uses that plot.
* Terry Pratchett also used a swarm of "killer" rats, with the rat-king in ''The Amazing Maurice and his Educated Rodents''. The titular rodents themselves (as well as Maurice, a talking cat) are all good guys, though.
* ''[[The Day of the Triffids]]''. In the film version, the only thing that gives the ''immobile killer plants'' a fighting chance is the fact that the meteor shower on which they arrive also blinds nearly everyone on Earth. In the original novel, it's a bit more sensical, as they were, when fully-grown, just barely mobile... and the focus wasn't on them, but on the [[
** It isn't the only
* H.P. Lovecraft's ''The Cats of Ulthar'' had a similar premise. Although it was pretty cool.
** And it was part of a [[Karmic Death]], so it was all good.
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** The short story "Trucks" in which evil trucks conquer the earth. Later turned into the film ''Maximum Overdrive''.
** ''[[Christine]]'', the infamous story of a homicidal (and rather possessive) car.
*** And ''[[From a Buick 8]]'', which is about another evil car. Only this one isn't so much possessed as it is... [[Eldritch Abomination|wrong]].
** '' The Mangler'', which was spun off into a trilogy of movie adaptations - that's right, ''three'' movies about a killer laundry press. It's immobile, too, so it comes down to people being stupid enough not to learn to keep from walking up to the damn thing. Although the original short story implies {{spoiler|the thing does become mobile, in a [[Twist Ending]]}}.
** In various [[Stephen King]] short stories, he has had people attacked by novelty chattering teeth, paintings, a toy monkey, evil toads... Basically, if it can be seen as even vaguely creepy by anybody in the Western world, chances are it's killed somebody in a [[Stephen King]] story.
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** And let's not forget the vicious gangs of "Keep Left" signs.
** And then of course there's the killer rabbit from [[The Movie]] (which rips peoples ''necks'' out, causing their heads to simply fall off).
* The ''[[Doctor Who]]'' episode "[[Doctor Who
** And then there are the attack of the killer [[Doctor Who
** Not to mention attack of the [[Doctor Who/Recap/S7
** The 1971 episode "[[Doctor Who/Recap/S8
** Killer plants (''The Seeds of Doom''), seaweed (Fury From the Deep), ventriloquist's dummy (''The Talons of Weng-Chiang''), Egyptian mummies (''Pyramids of Mars'').
* ''Monster Warriors'' had to deal - among other things - with a giant carnivorous butterfly that hypnotised people with its beauty, a living and very hungry blob, living radioactive junk ([[Double Entendre|not that kind]]), giant (again) cockroaches, predatory vines, an army of giant (but of course) frogs... Well, what do you expect from the show with a deranged and [[Brainwashed]] By Aliens ex-B-Movie director as a villain, anyway?
* The spoof horror show ''[[Garth Marenghi's Darkplace]]'' has a telekinetic attack by various implements, including an attack by a whisk. A later episode has an attack by a killer set of bagpipes.
* An episode of the early 90s American horror show called ''Monsters'' had an artist who owned a killer bed that ate his dates when he took them home, until he met a girl who had a killer fridge in her apartment, which then ate him. Played completely straight.
* There's a parody of ''Night of the Living Dead'' with the name "Night of the Living Bread"
* ''[[Power Rangers]]'' has some truly bizarre monsters at times - it comes with having to do a new one every episode over years and years and years. Killer [[Rhino Rampage|rhinos]] and [[Humongous Mecha|robots]]? Standard fare. But go long enough and you get killer spray bottles, killer buses ("Everyone who's ever stuck gum under one of my seats is going to PAY for it now!!") killer lawnmowers, killer radios (several!), killer chickens, killer lanterns, walls, roulette wheels, baseball players, bowlers, fleas, hats, fire trucks, pumpkins (''rapping'' pumpkins!)... there's nothing that ''hasn't'' battled a Megazord in the middle of town yet! With the possible exception of [[Attack of the Killer Tomatoes|tomatoes]].
* [[Buffy the Vampire Slayer]] had a killer puppet {{spoiler|except he was a good guy, a cursed demon hunter}} (''The Puppet Show'') and killer eggs (''Bad Eggs''). The spin-off show ''[[Angel]]'' also had killer puppets (''Smile Time'')
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== [[Newspaper Comics]] ==
* ''[[Calvin and Hobbes]]'':
** Attack of the Deranged Mutant Killer Monster Snow Goons! (see the page pic)
** Calvin's bike is also out to get him.
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== [[Tabletop Games]] ==
* ''[[Dungeons
** There is an adventure that has a "library that turns patrons into books" plot. This plot also shows up in ''[[JAGS Wonderland]].''
** Cats crop up again in 3rd Edition housecats, which can, it has been famously point out, kill 1st level commoners.
** Heck, in D&D, sometimes ''the floor and or ceiling'' wants you dead. Also, living cubes of Jell-O. And [[Everything Trying to Kill You|housecats]].
** Killer rats showed up as a sentient rat hive-mind called the Us.
** One module had you attacked by a Gazebo, obviously from someone fed up of people attacking one without realising what it is.
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* ''[[Overlord]]: Raising Hell'' has Killer Pumpkins.
* The VGA remake of ''[[Quest for Glory II]]'' has the Pizza Elemental as a [[Bonus Boss]], a giant killer pizza.
* A number of enemies in ''[[
** It says something about the game that [[Church of Happyology|Insane Cultists]] are some of the more reasonable enemies therein.
* Additionally, in the game's prequel ''[[MOTHER 1]]'', the first enemy you face is a possessed lamp.
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== Webcomics ==
* The ''[[Sluggy Freelance]]'' horror spoofs "[http://pics.sluggy.com/daily.php?date=000626 KITTEN]" and "[http://pics.sluggy.com/daily.php?date=021021 KITTEN II]" feature the main characters being attack by, you guessed it, kittens. [[Killer Rabbit|Tiny, cute, fuzzy, satanically-spawned kittens who eviscerate people if they don't get their milk]].
* Parodied by a ''[[Full Frontal Nerdity]]'' [https://web.archive.org/web/20081213234404/http://nodwick.humor.gamespy.com/ffn/index.php?date=2007-01-10 storyline featuring a Stephen King RPG]. The monster is ''[[Our Vampires Are Different|an extradimensional radio that kills by drinking blood]]''. {{spoiler|It has to be killed through [[Pay Evil Unto Evil|the use of]] ''[[Pay Evil Unto Evil|Achy Breaky Heart]]''}}.
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* In the ''[[Ace Ventura]]'' animated series, the folks of a small town in the forest are attacked by a were-moose.
* ''[[Jumanji]]'' has the title boardgame and a boardgame inside the boardgame called "Brantford: The Game" (which evokes another trope; Fill-in-the-blanks: The something), so you get a killer board game, a killer jungle, a killer city and a list of killer things in everything is trying to kill you.
* [[Bill Plympton]] did a short called ''Shuteye Hotel'', which was about a {{spoiler|killer pillow that bites off the head of anyone who sleeps on it}}.
* [[Kim Possible]] had an episode with evil snowmen animated by water from a toxic lake.
** Don't forget the monkey ninjas, spliced animals made after a popular brand of mixed animal Cuddle-buddies, and Draken's girlfriend robots.
* ''[[The Simpsons (animation)|The Simpsons]]'' [[Halloween Episode|Treehouse of Horror XI]] had killer dolphins. Lenny was certainly surprised.
{{quote|'''Lenny''': [surrounded by fins] [[Everything's Even Worse with Sharks|Sharks! The assassins of the sea]]! [the dolphins stick their heads out of the water] Oooh. You're not sharks. You're dolphins. The ''clowns'' of the sea. }}
** Not just killer dolphins, in other Halloween Simpsons also had the family dealing with killer cartoon characters (Itchy and Scratchy), a killer Crusty clown doll, a killer "evil" twin, killer giant advertising statues (Lard Lad comes to mind), killer cannibalistic teachers, killer bus gremlins, two killer houses (a supernatural one from I, and a robot house in XII), killer Homer clones, three cases of zombies (killer corpses of long-dead outlaws, zombies summoned by magic, and living humans turning into zombies from tainted hamburgers), killer blob (who happens to be a mutated Homer), killer golem, killer Transformer parodies, killer Pumpkin monsters, killer ghost celebrities, killer Jumanji parody, and a few alien invasions.
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* [[Attack of the Killer Tomatoes|ATTAAAAAAAAAACK OF THE KILLER TOMATOES!!!]] [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=36NgK-vJc1M No, really, they actually did make a cartoon series of it.]
* An episode of ''[[American Dad]]!'' had a homicidial hot tub voiced by Cee Lo Green.
* ''[[Phineas and Ferb]]'' has "Attack of The Fifty Foot Sister", which is really a parody of this trope. They do get attacked by sentient potato-human hybrids in one episode, though.
* ''[[Code Lyoko]]'': since [[Big Bad|XANA]]'s main abilitie rely on taking control of various things on Earth in order to attack the Lyoko-Warriors, it frequently made use of this trope: [[When Trees Attack|killer trees,]] a giant food monster, a giant teddy bear, [[Die Laughing|laughing gas,]] an [[Alien]]-like prop, killer music, gas that [[Hand Wave|petrifies people for some reason,]] a wild boar, electrified black sludge, an airplane (to be fair, the airplane was going to be used as a guided missle), small robot dogs, spheres that look like they came from [[Shout-Out|Phantasm]], a virus that spreads via cellphones...
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