Please! Wait, am friend! Please! 3/26

Here’s one of my all time favorite monsters, the Skeksis. If you never saw Jim Henson’s Dark Crystal, you owe it to yourself to go rent it. In an age of CGI and digital replacement, the puppetry and huge, detailed sets just might blow you away.

One half of a being that was split in two when the Crystal cracked, the Skeksis rule the planet Thra from the Crystal Castle. Comprised of equal parts hate and greed, these creatures resembled buzzards in a way that made my young spine shiver.

There were 10 or so at the start of the film, each one named after his/her/its job in the castle. Although they DID have true names they were never uttered in the film, so I’ll let you read the Wiki article if you want to know more.

The General was the leader of the Garthim, a giant beetle/tank creature that made me check my closet at night for months for infestations of the black insectoid devils. Others included The Gourmand, The Ritual Master, The Scientist, The Slave Master, and my favorite, The Chamberlain. There were more, but you have things to do, so I’ll move on.

These things gave me bad dreams for weeks. From Chamberlain’s whimper (you have to hear it) to the General summoning his soldiers.

“When awakened, they produce a loud clicking sound….Being more like machines than animals, they mercilessly attack whomever they seek, claws snapping as they close on their prey.”

Man alive that’s good and creepy.

(Look at that set! Who makes movies like this these days?)

The Skeksis were impressed only with power and chose their leader accordingly. It also didn’t hurt to keep the flow of Pod-People open so that the Scientist can “juice” them for their essence. Their essence, you see, keeps the Skeksis from dying.

While most people think of Fozzy Bear when they hear Jim Henson, I must say that he had a flair for the evil stuff too. The Scientist (sometimes called The Doctor) is probably the first muppet ever to have Body Dysmorphic Disorder. Part machine and part buzzard, he will make your skin crawl.

The Skeksis sneered, drooled, growled, laughed, and all the while you forget that there is a man under the costume. Their clothes were opulent yet decayed, their castle covered in a millennium of dirt and grime, their slaves were brainwashed and essence drained creatures. The viewer is treated to a nice, long sequence of the monsters eating a meal with all the sinew cracks, lip smacks, and burps you could ever want. They constantly plot, scheme, double cross. They will eat babies, I’m sure of it.

(An Arrakoa from World of Warcraft. Looks an awful lot like a Skeksis to me. They live in a place called "Skettis.")

These things will make you uncomfortable.

Special effects may have come a long way since the early 80s, but nothing has yet to come close in my estimation to what they accomplished in The Dark Crystal.