Were you a monster lover before Monster High?

[TwilightElphaba]

Sure was.
In fact, I got into these girls because they reminded of Scooby Doo and the Ghoul School. Howleen even LOOKS like Winnie!
My favorite monster was probably ghosts. Or witches.

[Icecrystalline]

Simple answer: Nope. I'm very girly, like all pretty things. But I'm not one of those girls who are obsessed with pink. I like it, but won't go out of my way to insure my car has a fluffy pink steering wheel cover and pink accents!

[Keelee_von_Cupcake]

Another who was born spooky, here! For as long as I can remember I've felt more akin to The Addams Family than my real one and devoured all the horror fiction I could find (be it movies, books, shows, what have you). I'm serious coffin bait, I've been obsessed with vampires at least since I was in elementary skool, drooling over Alucard of Castlevania: Symphony of the night in the 4th grade. (I still tell people he's my soul mate. ) And things only escalated from there!

Naturally, as a wide-ranging horror aficionado, I love the classic monsters, and I've seen every major Universal release starring them. Monster High combines so many of my loves! And the fact that the original set was based on them is a big one. I fall especially hard for Dracula and The Bride - I have lots of toys and figures of them both, outside of MH.

I've seen The Gates, Tuney, I really liked it! Too bad it was cancelled, it ends on a weird, sort of unsatisfying note. But I'll check out any kind of supernatural TV or horror movie - Teen Wolf is high on my to-watch list.

Ooh, I'll post my favorite monster movies by type too:

Vampire: Bram Stoker's Dracula, dir. Francis Ford Coppola (Closely followed by Dracula with Bela Lugosi and F. W. Murnau's Nosferatu. One hundred years of vampire movies and the BEST ones are STILL all Dracula adaptations!)

Werewolf: Ginger Snaps, the whole trilogy.

Mummy : The Mummy, reboot with Brendan Fraser.

Frankenstein's Monster: Bride of Frankenstein, dir. James Whale, the original and still the best.

- The Creature from the Black Lagoon would be the fifth here, of course, but he really only has his series. Still love him though!

A few non-Universal categories:

Demon : The Hellraiser series, particularly Hellbound (2) and Bloodline (4). Pinhead just makes my heart go pit-pat.

Ghost: The Orphanage, dir. J. A. Bayona, or The Haunting, dir. Robert Wise.

Zombie: Dance of the Dead, dir. Tobe Hooper (a Masters of Horror episode/movie).

[HollowZero]

I have a memory of when I was very little, not sure of what age. My dad was putting up Halloween decorations, and there was a squeaking black tarantula. He tried to scare me with it, but I adored it, and it became a playtoy (along with my ponies and Barbies)

Ever since, I've loved the creepy, the weird, the strange. Spiders, snakes, bats..things that are supposed to scare, I find a delight. My favorite holiday (and time of year) is Halloween. I would have LOVED these dolls as a kid.

[LuvlyMelody]

I remember as a little kid, our dad put in a tape with the Thriller Music Video and when it got the the part where Michael Jackson started transforming where his eyes got all yellow and stuff, that scared the living daylights out of me. Was scared of the TV Ever since then.

[karrie91]

Not really.. unless you count a Lochness Monster and Big Foot obsession? lol Oh and and an unhealthy obsession with witches..

Frankie and Lagoona got me into MH. I absolutely adore both. Monster High also made me like vampires. I really really really strongly dislike the whole vampire/twilight/diaries stuff.. yet Draculaura made me like the idea of Vampires because she's like an old fashioned one. Not those creepy ones that teenage girls fall in love with and sparkle in the sun.. So that's huge to me. If all vampires had pink skin and were vegetarians.. the world would be a better place

[Salli]

I've always been fascinated by spooky things. I'm in the Scooby-Doo/Adams Family/Dark Shadows group here The funny thing is that I like spooky, but not things that are so scary. I also like really BAD, old, scary movies. (The Haunting is the BEST EVER.) I like things that are spooky but don't traumatize me. I don't like horror with children involved in it. That bothers me, like that new movie "Sinister" looks like it has a lot of kids in it. Not going to watch it.

Vincent Price and Alfred Hitchcock are my heroes

[SweetScoops]

Yes, I was. And that is an understatement I'va always been crazy about monsters, horror and frights! I love everything Neil Gaiman, Tim burton, Steven king and you name it ^__^ I started collecting Monster high because they were monsters, I started out with Lagoona and then...yeah..you know the rest

[tuneful87]

I like things that are spooky but don't traumatize me.

Same here! Oh, and Hitchcock! Yes yes! Did he ever make any actual monster movies though?

[angelfish]

I love monsters and mythology.  The werewolf is my fav movie/mythological monster like a few others here but the vampire, if done right is a close second.  I always loved that the original Bram Stoker Dracula was a vampire who could also turn into a wolf.

Fav horror movie of all time is "An American Werewolf in London".  Other favs are "Brotherhood of the Wolf", "The Howling", "Fright Night" (both versions) and the first and third "Underworld" movies.  Mostly because there's more of Victor and Lucian.

Wanted to love the new version of "The Wolfman" as I thought Benicio Del Toro was a great pick for the role but didn't love it.

For books I think someone wanted some good werewolf literature.  Guy Endore's "The Werewolf of Paris" is a must read, a classic that deserves to sit on the shelf with "Dracula", "The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde" and "Frankenstein".   For newer stuff Glen Duncan's "The Last Werewolf" is amazing as well as Toby Barlow's "Sharp Teeth".

[tuneful87]

angelfish: Thanks for the recommendations. I just finished reading Dark Cry of the Moon. It's more of a historical type werewolf book, and I liked it a lot. I did see 'The Last Werewolf' on a booklist as well.

[MercuryStar]

Yep, always been monster crazy. 

[nessa16]

OMG yes!  My whole family thought I was a little, well...different I guess.  My birthday is in October so of course Halloween is my favorite holiday.  I can remember reading R. L. Stein's Goosebumps in elementary school.  Then his Fear Street, and Christopher Pike as I got older.  I have always been fascinated with vampires and witches from a young age.  Vampires are still some of my favorite monsters (truly thought Draculaura would be my favorite MH ghoul because of this).  I used to watch Dark Shadows reruns with my mom when I was really little.  I think that started it all.  I absolutely love the original series, the 90s remake and to a lesser extent Johnny Depp and Tim Burton's new movie.  Mainly just love Johnny Depp, than its likeness to the original storyline (a little too different from it in my opinion).  It's great that others here also like Dark Shadows.  No one in my group knows a thing about it unless they are over the age of 40 it seems.

I love Anne Rice's Vampire Chronicles and Mayfair Witches.  Those are good options for reading.  Another good vampire writer, especially if you also like romance is Amanda Ashley.  She writes steamy vampire romance, not the Twilight tween kind.  If you are interested in werewolves, I highly suggest the Riley Jensen series by Keri Arthur.  It is also kind of romance-y but the main character is half werewolf and half vampire and works for a government agency in Australia that governs supernatural beings to protect humans.  It is really, really good.  There is also a spinoff series by her called the Dark Angels series.

As far as movies go, I love the Underworld series, The Mummy series, the Bud Abbott and Lou Costello movies that involve the traditional Universal monsters like Bud Abbott and Lou Costello meet Frankenstein that has the original Dracula, Frankenstein and Werewolf in it.  There is also Bud Abbott and Lou Costello Meet the Invisible Man.  Hold that Ghost, Meet the Mummy and a few others.  Traditionally, I watch horror/monster movies all October in honor of Halloween.  A few of my favorites include Amityville Horror, Rosemary's Baby, Children of the Corn, Poltergeist, Hannibal Lector series, AVP series and Carrie.  Even Disney Halloween stuff like Halloweentown, Hocus Pocus and Happy Haunts are favorites.  Oh, oh and The Munsters (the newer version from the 90s) and the Addams Family. 

So yeah, if Monster High would've been out while I was a kid, I would've been all over it; much better than Barbie! I noticed them because of the beauty of Nefera, but fell in love with them because of the Ghouls Rule line because they are a tribute to their parents and traditional Halloween monsters.

Does anyone remember a cartoon from the 90s that features teen monsters or something?  I used to watch such a cartoon and all I can remember is them going to the beach and being driven there in a bus that looked like a hearse.

[tuneful87]

Wow nessa, you're hardcore!

Hmm...monster cartoon. Hopefully someone will have a clue!

[steampunk]

Yep. I'm into monsters, ghost stories, etc. I would have loved them as a kid!