Okay, so with the new schedule, I'm ushering in a new series, called 'Quailzilla' which will examine random things and ask (and perhaps answer as well) why there hasn't been a horror film/monster story about them.
And to start us off, the armadillo.
Sure, it's name means 'little armored one' in spanish, it's pretty much an insectivore, and it's usually very small, but other than that, why hasn't there been a "Night of the Mutant Armadillos"?
First let's discuss the Non-horrific aspects.
1: Small. Armadillos are usually very small. Thus they aren't really very scary in a physical way.
2: Shy. If the Frankenstein Monster were shy, he wouldn't be a great monster, would he?
3: Insectivorous. No one's going to be afraid of a little animal that eats bugs, are they?
Now we'll look at the horrific aspects.
1: Not always small. Notice how I said usually up there? Yeah. The
Giant Armadillo can grow to five feet long; if we're talking mutant here, this could be fifty feet high, with muscles like steel beams and a shell thicker'n the Maginot Line.
2: Sharp claws. 'Nuff said.
3: Excellent diggers. A mutant could tunnel under a city and emerge right in the middle, ready to terrorize.
4. Able to roll into a ball. Well, some species, anyway.
5. Can cross rivers. The Nine-banded Armadillo can inflate its intestines and float across a river, or sink to the bottom and run across the river-bottom.
The Verdict:
While an Armadillo monster might not be the scariest of them all, it would definitely make a good monster. So who knows why Alfred Hitchcock never made The Armadillos?
