The Top Ten Animal Hybrids in Pop Culture!

The topic this week is animal hybrids. Popular culture is full of half-animal beings, going as far back as ancient myth. old takes are rife with stories of Minotaurs, werewolves, mermaids and other half-animal people. These are beings that seem to live in the uncomfortable between-world, separating the small fearful pocket of vulnerable humanity, and the vast, darkened world of chaos that is the Natural Realm. However modern our thinking has become, we still fear the power God and nature have over us, and humans continue to create stories about animal people, however trite they may be (I’m not sure if I see much of Nature’s Chaos in the eyes of Team Jacob).

Modern science-fiction has, thanks to some wonderfully well thought-out scientific McGuffins, continued the storytelling legacy of the animal/human hybrid by bringing up the relatively new idea of genetic engineering. Just splice some genes together, add radiation or hubris, and you have a legitimate abomination, ready to cuddle or kill, depending on their disposition.

I’ve thought up ten fictional animal hybrids from the vast depths of my pop-culture-addled brain, and listed them below. There is, however (at least in my mind) a distinct difference between a sci-fi-based animal hybrid, and a mere magical creature that can turn into a person and back. So, to clarify, I’ve come up with the following rules. Rule 1: The creature has to be created using some sort of pseudo-science. Magical amulets, pacts with Satan, and other mystical origins are not allowed. Rule 2: The creature has to essentially be in a permanent state. If they can change back and forth between two species, it doesn’t count. Rule 3: The creature in question has to be a blend of already-known Earth species. Alien creatures are right out. The creatures need not be part human. They can be, for the purposes of this list, be a blend of two or more animals.

Now that we’re all on the same page, let’s take a look at some delightfully scary crimes against nature. Here are ten notable animal hybrid monsters.

Dren

From “Splice” (2009)

They are hotshot genetic engineers in their early ‘30s. They have no kids, are not married, and live in a blissful rock ‘n’ roll lifestyle, making huge amounts of money creating weird living blobs of mixed DNA for various mega-corporations. Clive and Elsa (Adrien Brody and Sarah Polley) are the mad scientists we all hope we’ll become someday. Not only do they have the knowhow to tinker with the fabric of life, but they look good doing it. They know, thanks to their tools and their smarts, have the capacity to make a human hybrid of some kind, but they have been banned by recent human-tinkering laws, and feel generally put off by certain taboos about, well, playing God.

Nothing doing. Elsa and Clive decide to make their own human/animal hybrid, mixing human DNA with the DNA of a whole roulette of animals. The result is Dren, a female beast that starts life as a fleshy white squirrel creature, and eventually matures into a pubescent, very human-looking thing. She has no hair, and her eyeballs are disconcertingly wide-spaced on her face, but she’s clearly part human, despite her tail, her stinger, and her fleshy wing flaps. Vincenzo Natali’s “Splice” is a surprisingly thoughtful film about the actual science of blending humans with animals, as well as the ethical questions that should or should not arise when conducting such experiments. Then there’s the wonderfully weird-ass sexual angle. This is a really good movie, and has a really cool human beast.

The Kothoga

From: “The Relic” (1997)

“The Relic” is one of the more fun monster films of recent memory. It’s rare anymore that we just have a clever creature storming about an enclosed space ripping people apart anymore (the films of the Sci-Fi Channel are all so arch these days), so it was nice to see one of them as late as the mid-1990s. The enclosed space in Peter Hyams’ film was a natural history museum. The creature was nicknamed the Kothoga, thought to be the living relative of an ancient South American myth.

The Kothoga was, as we learn during the course of the film, actually a human anthropologist named John Whitney who accidentally drank some tea made with an ultra-rare form of fungus, rife with a mixture of animal hormones. The hormones mixed with Whitney’s human DNA, and made his body mutate into a large, lion-sized monster with radial claws, sharp teeth, and a long whipping tail. It also had a pair of stag beetle tusks on its face which allowed it to rip off human heads with surprising efficiency. It turns out that The Kothoga was hungry for a certain chemical, which was, conveniently, only produced in human brains. Giant multi-animal creature ripping out human brains to survive. This is why we go to the movies.

Max

From: “Man’s Best Friend” (1993)

Certain large dogs kind of frighten me, mostly because of movies like this, which posits that any stray or pound-rescue dog can potentially be a genetically altered killing machine. In this little-seen 1993 horror flick, a Tibetan Mastiff is rescued from a genetics lab, where it had indeed been blended with the DNA of many exotic animals, like large cats and the like. I think if I were a mad geneticist with the abilities to blend species, I’d start with a light mixture; I wouldn’t go straight for the multi-animal mash-up. Maybe give a monkey 10% wasp DNA to start, and go from there. But that’s just me. What do I know about being a mad geneticist?

Anyway, Max eventually lands in a typical suburban home, where it acts mostly like a dog, but begins to demonstrate some uncannily aggressive instincts. In one scene, it chases a cat up a tree, and proceeds to grow cat claws and climb after it. Max then swallows the cat whole. It also manages to – in one rather hilarious scene – using its multi-animal prowess, seduce a neighbor dog. This is a silly and predictable low-budget monster flick, but Max is, for anyone who has ever loved a large dog, kind of a badass. The video cover shows Lance Henricksen holding a gun, and a giant robot dog behind him. Don’t be fooled. There are no robot dogs in the film.

The Jackalope

From actual folklore

Who knows how the jackalope came to be? Is it magical? An experiment gone wrong? A new species of creature only photographed on rare occasions, and featured on postcards for generations? I know they’re real, because I’ve seen their mounted heads at truck stops and tourist traps. They are said to possess magical powers, and can perhaps heal the sick. Some say that they are an unnatural cross-breed between pygmy deer and a now-extinct breed of killer rabbit. They are exclusive to America, having been spotted in Wyoming, Arizona, and other western wooded areas. Some say they can imitate other animals, including humans.

I intend to do an extensive research paper on the jackalope someday. It will give up its secrets to me, and not just break my heart, like that course deadbeat Bigfoot. That guy claimed to me all magical and mythological, and even implied that he was created by alien scientists, but he was just a jerk who refused to get a job, rarely paid his share of the rent, and who wrecked my car when he got drunk that one time. Stay the hell away from Bigfoot. He’ll only disappoint you. And he’ll eat all your Bugles.

The Futar

From: Chapterhouse: Dune (1985)

Of the Dune books, I have only read the first. I have heard that the Dune sequels are like a dangerous narcotic. You need to up the doses to get the same level of high, and once you start, it’s very hard to stop. You find yourself trapped in an increasingly complex mythology, spanning ever-increasing millennia, wondering how 340,000-year-old orders of witches have anything to do with Paul Atreides or The Spice or anything else you learned in the first book. Thanks to some well-read friends, however, I have been filled in on certain details of the original five sequels.

One of the details I have retained was the tale of the Futar, a semi-intelligent species of half-cat-half-human hybrids who have been cultivated to be loyal pets, and also to destroy the Honored Matres, enemies of the Bene Gesserit. They are like ape-shaped kitties with enough smarts to act as servants, but not enough will to think for themselves. They also tend to imprint on their Handlers, making them the best possible pets. Of all the plot-intense rigmarole to have popped up in the various Dune books, I’m not sure why this one stands out so well in my mind. Maybe it’s because, if given the chance, I would love to own a smart cat man as a pet.

The Children

From: The Island of Dr. Moreau (1896)

What is the law? No spill blood! What happens when we break the law? We go to the House of Pain. Are we not men?

Probably one of the scariest stories ever written, H.G. Wells’ The Island of Dr. Moreau shows what happens when a mad scientist, left to his own devices, and somehow able to vivisect people and animals together, is left to form his own society of half-animal mutants. Dr. Moreau, as viewed by Prendick, the novel’s narrator, is clearly a madman, given into hurtful hubris and his own capacity for biological depravity. Moreau gets a kick out of making animal men, and gets a God-like thrill from poking around inside his fleshy, furry creations. The children, meanwhile, are very simple-minded beasts, who have to constantly remind themselves to behave like men. Walk on two legs, not on four. It’s terrifying to think of the borderline intelligence and madness the animal men must inhabit. Constantly thinking to do simple animal things like spill blood, but having to constantly remind themselves not to.

Wells called his book “and exercise in youthful blasphemy.” He essentially tried to think of the most horrible monsters possible, and proceeded to write one of the best sci-fi books ever written. There have been several film versions of The Island of Dr. Moreau, the best of which is easily the 1932 “Island of Lost Souls,” which has the same scary gut-churning qualities of the book.

Andre Delambre

From: “The Fly” (1958)

Dr. Andre Delambre (David Hedison) was a blissful family man who was attempting to revolutionize all of civilization by inventing a teleporting machine. He was successful, but the teleporter had an unexpected side effect: an ordinary housefly accidentally slipped into the teleporter with him, and the machine, sensing two living beings in the tube, sort of spliced them together. Andre eventually grew the head and arm of a fly, and the fly has the head and arm of Andre. The result is a terrifying monster to haunt little kids’ nightmares for years. Thanks a lot 1958 classic.

And, not to be outdone, in 1986, David Cronenberg remade “The Fly,” this time with a new metaphor (many people see the bodily mutation as a metaphor for AIDS), and an increased gross-out factor of 12. I saw the remake of “The Fly” on TV, and they weren’t shy about excluding all the gooey bits. Watching great strips of fetid skin dropping off of Jeff Goldblum’s body is not something that you can ever unsee. Nor is the scene where he barfs acid on that guy’s hand.

The Fly, despite being made well after the main monster cycles had ended, and despite being made by 20th Century Fox, perhaps deserves a secondary spot n the Universal monster canon.

Michelangelo, Raphael, Leonardo, and Donatello

From: “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles”

They started out as turtles, and were exposed to radioactive goop. They had recently been in contact with human DNA, so they became part human. That counts them as hybrids, right? I think it counts. Well, depending on which original story you go with. In the comic and the TV series, they were turtles who were exposed to traces of human DNA, and Splinter was a human exposed to rat DNA. In the feature film, the radioactive glop merely mutated them into part humans. For the sake of this list, I’ll have to go with the cartoon story. Otherwise they are not hybrids, but mere anthropomorphic animals.

Gotta love radiation. There was a time when it was responsible for every last superpower, mutant, and monster. Giant mantis? Radiation. Spider powers? Radiation. These days the scientific bugaboo is genetic engineering. Y’know what? You can use whatever scientific buzzword you like. Just give me my magical monsters, and all will be well.

The Lizard

From various “Spider-Man” comics, first appearing in 1963

I was reading over The Lizard’s history, and the soap opera mechanics used to keep him alive and vital are pretty hilarious. I mean, we all know the origin story of Curt Connors’ alter-ego: Having lost an arm in the war, he, being a brilliant chemist, concocts a syringe full of lizard juice, hoping that lizard’s talent for growing back their tails would work on his arm. It did grown back his arm, but also grew him a tail and scales all over his body. It also did a number on his brain, making his savage and animal, and imbued him with a hatred of all things human. Depending on what mythology you’re going with, Dr. Connors can transform back into a human by will, or he needs a special injection. I like to think that, were it not for the injection, he would remain a giant lizard man indefinitely.

As the years passed, The Lizard was given more and more protracted reasons for existing. Since Dr. Connors was a friend of Spider-Man, the hero was always coming to him for specialty chemicals to defeat bad guys. The chemicals would help Spider-Man, but usually unleash his lizard form. At one point, Spider-Man was cured of his spidery radiation, only to have his DNA fight back, and give him extra arms or even mutate him even more into a hairy spider beast. What fun! The Lizard is making all kinds of hybrids. He also occasionally declares a need to turn the world lizardy. Dream big, Dr. Connors. Dream big.

Marvin Mange

From: “The Animal” (2001)

Um… maybe the less said about this, the better.

Witney Seibold is a housecat who is currently living in human form in Los Angeles. As a kitten, he saw many movies, and when a genetic accident left him in human form, he started to write about movies as a hobby. You can read hundreds of his review on his ‘blog Three Cheers for Darkened Years! He also writes for CraveOnline, where he heads up The Series Project. He cracks wise at movie trailers as part of The Trailer Hitch. He is also the talking co-host of The B-Movies Podcast. That cat’s everywhere.