JOHN CARPENTER
MONSTER HUNTER writer-director Paul W.S. Anderson gives us a hunter’s guide to the beasts that populate his latest sci-fi spectacular
The Horror Master is back with John Carpenter’s New Album (sadly, not its actual title).
When Paul W.S. Anderson first played the fantastical Capcom video game Monster Hunter, 11 years ago, he instantly saw that it could make for a great cinematic experience. The likes of which, the filmmaker behind Resident Evil and Alien Vs. Predator promises, we’ve never really seen before. “This was an opportunity to make a kind of Godzilla or King Kong-style movie,” he says. “But everyone knows what Godzilla looks like. Here we have amazing creatures that are just as magnificently designed, but no-one’s seen before on the big screen.” But what creatures? With dozens created for the games by multiple designers, Anderson was spoilt for choice. Ultimately, he plumped for his favourites. Here, he introduces them to Empire.
Some of the game’s colossal creatures weren’t quite big enough for Anderson’s cinematic ambitions — such as flagship beastie, the Rathalos. “The creators of the video game said, ‘This is larger than our Rathalos, so we’ll call it a Greater Rathalos.’” Reptilian, winged and flame-belching, it’s basically an outsized dragon. Though Anderson sees it differently. “A lot of people said, ‘Oh, it’s like Drogon from Game Of Thrones,’ but the Rathalos was wreaking havoc in the Monster Hunter games well before Drogon was wreaking havoc on HBO. It definitely draws on some aspects of a dragon, but it’s its own particular creation.”
GORE MAGALA
Only glimpsed briefly in the trailer, this is one of the most powerful and deadly monsters from the video-game series — a proper planet-leveller. “It’s very mysterious and quite mythic,” Anderson tells us. “It’s got six limbs and has a very different design to any of the other creatures. But we just hint at it at the end of the movie; it’s kind of a special Easter egg for real fans of the game.”
NERSCYLLA
“This is one of the legendary creatures from the earlier games,” explains Anderson. “Everyone who played the games will know exactly how unpleasant it is.” Captain Natalie Artemis (Milla Jovovich) and the indigenous Hunter (Tony Jaa) must cooperate to kill just one of these “very, very scary” things, he reveals, before dozens more descend on them in overwhelming
numbers. “It’s kind of like a giant spider crossed with an Alien,” he grins. “Black and slimy and truly terrifying.”
APCEROS
Not every creature in this alternate reality is out to get us. The Apceros, Anderson explains, are placid herbivores. Well, unless they’re startled. “Then you have a stampede, which happens in the movie. They have these club tails which are the size of SUVS, but with big spikes. They can be pretty lethal if provoked.” Which they certainly are by the fire-breathing Rathalos, which Anderson sets on them. “So they’re not only coming at you at 70 miles per hour, they’re burning at the same time!”
BLACK DIABLOS
With a face that is mostly horns and tusks, the immense, burrowing Diablos is not a species to be messed with on the best of days. Artemis’ (Milla Jovovich) wayward US military team encounter this one on pretty much the worst of days. “She’s in heat and she’s pissed,” says Anderson of the beast. “There’s the regular Diablos and there’s the Black Diablos, which is a female whose scales change colour when she’s in heat. They’re very territorial — and our hunters in the movie make the mistake of crossing into her territory.”
MONSTER HUNTER IS IN CINEMAS FROM 30 DECEMBER