Monster Madness: Cloverfield vs. Sandworm – Pyramid Head vs. Mummy

Well, I must voice my disappointment that the Beast of Gévaudan got pummeled by Swamp Thing. That particular monster was one of my favorites, so shame on all of you who voted against him. In this week’s other Monster Madness battle, King Kong simply squashed giant spider Aragog. I think the matches today should be a bit more exciting.

Today, we’re pitting a sandworm from ‘Dune‘ against the city-smashing ‘Cloverfield‘ monster that remained unnamed, and therefore will simply be known as Cloverfield here. The more I look at this contest, the more I feel that these challengers are pretty evenly matched.

Cloverfield – Its angry disposition only fueled its habit for crushing skyscrapers and eating people. To make matters worse, Cloverfield simply towers over other monsters. He’s an enormous… something. Is he an alien? A genetically engineered government experiment gone wrong? Did something that Industrial Light and Magic was tinkering with suddenly spring to life and become nastily sentient? Whatever Cloverfield is doesn’t really matter. His destructive force is only rivaled by my 15-month-old son.

Strengths: He’s huge and menacing. He doesn’t seem all that phased by gunfire or military weapons. He crushes everything in his path. Oh, and I forgot to mention that living on him are killer flesh-eating parasites that hop off to devour other living things.

Weaknesses: I’m not really sure if any weaknesses were specified in the movie (though he never looked too stable, crawling around on such spindly arms). It seems like he could easily be toppled, if another creature was big enough.

Sandworm – Imagine if the Sarlacc from ‘Star Wars’ suddenly stopped being a giant death hole in the middle of the desert, and instead moved around under the sand, hunting for things to eat and terrorize. Now that’s scary, right?

Strengths: Sandworms can quickly burrow underground, popping up to devour anything they want. They can grow incredibly large and are hard to kill, since they’re extremely tough.

Weaknesses: Trusty Wikipedia informs me, and resident ‘Dune’ expert Josh Zyber can hopefully confirm, that Sandworms can be killed by electricity. Water is also poisonous to them. [Ed.: Water and atomic explosives are the most effective weapons to use against Sandworms. Water is in short supply on their homeworld, but obviously more plentiful on Earth. A big question is where this battle will take place. -JZ]

Cloverfield vs. Sandworm

  • Cloverfield (54%, 35 Votes)
  • Sandworm (46%, 30 Votes)

Total Voters: 65

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In today’s other match, we head over to the middleweights. To celebrate the opening of ‘Silent Hill: Revelation’ this weekend, I decided to see if Pyramid Head could pry himself out of the first round. His head is quite large and awkward, so I find it difficult to think that he’d be able to fit through the door to Round 2.

Pyramid Head – I remember playing the original ‘Silent Hill’ on PlayStation. That videogame was the scariest thing I’d ever witnessed. I got so sucked into the game that I thought that stopping would have some kind of real-life consequence. Then I foolishly played ‘Silent Hill 2’ and met up with Pyramid Head. Let’s just say I had to take a week-long break before I could get the courage to go back to playing the game. He’s one of the most insane, scary and devilish monsters that has ever been conceived. Thanks to the ‘Silent Hill‘ movies, we now get to see him on the big screen. Dammit!

Strengths: Besides being the stuff nightmares are made of, Pyramid Head drags around a knife as big as he is, and wields it with devastating accuracy. Plus, he’s most likely a demon from the pit of Hell. How do you kill something like that?

Weaknesses: He’s pretty slow, since he’s always dragging that huge knife around with him. Also, in the videogame, he has a propensity for suicide.

The Mummy – I guess we could’ve held a playoff here to see which mummy would get into the tournament. Boris Karloff’s version is one of the classic movie monsters, but the mummy from the remakes, played by Arnold Vosloo, is pretty badass. I decided to go with Vosloo’s mummy because he has a lot more visible powers and can conjure really cool things. He just seems more equipped to compete in a battle to the death.

Strengths: He can summon awesome CG mummy monsters from the great beyond, and create a wall of water with his face in it. He likes to eat people so that he can regenerate. He also screams a lot.

Weaknesses: Brendan Fraser.

Pyramid Head vs. Mummy

  • Mummy (52%, 33 Votes)
  • Pyramid Head (48%, 31 Votes)

Total Voters: 64

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11 comments

  1. Alex

    Sandworm on pure scope. I can’t think of dimensions exactly, but I get the impression that the Sandworm could swallow Cloverfield whole.

  2. Rcorman

    If the fight between the Sandworm and the Cloverfield monster takes place in Manhattan than the Sandworm is going to have a tough time, being surrounded by water and having bedrock to try to tunnel through. In the desert, Cloverfield doesn’t stand a chance. I give the slight edge to the Sandworm, because even with it’s vulnerabilities it is still larger than the Cloverfield monster.

  3. William Henley

    Agreed with the others on Sandworm. I would go with the Sandworm in most instances, but this is all dependant on where the battle were to take place.

  4. CK

    Sandworm over Cloverfield, for me. The question of where the fight would take place is like questioning where a fight between a human and a shark would take place; on land it wouldn’t be a fight, just a guy standing around a suffocating shark. I see no reason to set the fight between the Sandworm and Cloverfield monster in New York, or Earth, considering the Cloverfield monster was an alien anyway. It makes more sense, to me, to set the fight on the planet from Dune, considering that is the only place the Sandworms from Dune would be found in the first place and didn’t seem to have any way of making it to another planet.

    • William Henley

      You kinda have to figure arena into the equation. I can’t remember past results, but let’s say we had the following situation:

      Sandworm vs Piranah

      Sandworms are native to Dune, and can’t really travel, Piranahs are native to Earth and can’t really travel. Piranahs cannot live on land, Sandworm cannot live in water.

      If you do not set an arena, then you are left to a character’s popularity to win the fight.

      • CK

        I agree the arena is important. I’d say the most obvious place to set a fight would be somewhere that would fit into the context of the characters and would be as ideal as possible for each without creating any unavoidable advantage or disadvantage for either combatant; if possible.

        In this case, I don’t know of any special conditions for the Cloverfield monster, so it operate anywhere, it would seem. The sandworm, on the other hand, seems to have particular environmental requirements to function. Therefore, I would say that the planet from Dune would be the obvious choice.

        As for the Sandworm vs Piranha argument, in a case like that, I’d accept that they would have to be transported to each other by some unspecified means, but if a creature must be in a certain environment, such as under sand, then I’d say the fight would have to be some place with sand. And, the planet from Dune (Darn, I really wish I could remember the name of that friggin’ place) would be ideal for a creature that lives in that special environment.

        This isn’t nearly this important, I know, I just can’t write anything short… Carry on.

          • “The spice exists on only one planet in the entire universe. A desolate, dry planet with vast deserts. Hidden away within the rocks of these deserts are a people known as the Fremen, who have long held a prophecy that a man would come, a messiah, who would lead them to true freedom. The planet is Arrakis, also known as… Dune.”