A Monster Mash-Up Game!

In honor of Halloween and all the delightful monsters that make for great movies, impressive costumes, and memorable moments, I’ve put together a game for you called Monster Mash-Up!

Some of these are film, TV, and video game monsters, some are mythical creatures, some are cryptids. Can you mash up two of these famous monsters by overlapping letters to create a proper monster mash?

Image courtesy of Psychonautica on ArtStation.

For example, what would you call seductive female demons hanging out in the Pacific Northwest?

Hopefully, you’d come up with Succubigfoot! (Don’t worry, they get better from here.)

Without further ado, let’s get to the game!


TWENTY MONSTER MASH-UPS!

  • A Canadian lake haunted by a Japanese kaiju?
  • Twas’ Boo-ty killed the beast?
  • A visit to Jabba’s palace gives you butterflies, sorta?
  • She has snakes up there and dune there?
  • Things get hairy in a flower shop?
  • More necks mean more bites? Or more places to bite?
  • A Mexican wailer looking for fellowship?
  • A blue fuzzy being beholden to the moon?
  • Nothing good happens after midnight, either when fed or lurking in a woman’s dreams?
  • An abominable way for livestock to go?
  • A Spanish devil with an appetite?
  • A serpent king of the smelly Everglades?
  • Straight from hell to an Asian desert with mysterious electrical flashes?
  • A bridge disaster of Biblical proportions?
  • From crimson kids books to Grimm’s fairy tales?
  • A giant giant Native American raptor?
  • A chimera in the Black Lagoon?
  • A First Nation monster, but small, green, and mean?
  • A shell of a way to find monstrous tangled rodents?
  • A horny Legend of Scottish folklore?

How many did you get, fellow monster maniacs? Let us know in the comments section below. We’d love to hear from you!

Overlaps: TV/Book Edition

One of my favorite go-to trivia games is Overlaps. Basically, the answer to the trivia question is a combination of two titles. You can use movies, celebrity names, anything really.

And I thought I’d share one of my Overlaps games with you today, fellow puzzler.

Here’s an example to get you started:

A hardworking midwestern mom is mistaken for an 11 year old orphan girl and goes to Avonlea.

And the answer is: Roseanne of Green Gables

Can you unravel these descriptions that overlap a TV show title and a book title?

Let’s find out!


A look at the day-to-day work lives of Thought Police working for Big Apple Brother.

A love quadrangle and an amateur play performance cross paths with a popular shape-named game show involving getting a partner to say the right word.

A talking horse says one thing and means his mother in this curious tale of trying to avoid fate.

Firemen, police, and EMTs in Los Angeles find themselves in a mental institution under the thumb of a tyrannical nurse.

Time and relative dimensions in space are bent by a curious visitor to a disfunctional middle-aged couple’s home after a university faculty party.

456 players compete for a grand prize as the political climate of Westeros changes forever.

With a sword and chakram in hand, a former marauder shares her story of balancing life in high school and her new royal duties.

Wacky hijinks ensue as a man shares the story of courting a famous author of fairy tales and nursery rhymes.

A high schooler with grand ambitions and a habit of stopping time to talk to the camera endures struggles with mental health after her aspiring post-college writing career fails to materialize.

Piloting giant mechanical battle suits to battle angels, the Pevensie children liberate a magical land from the White Witch.

A programming startup company deals with funding issues and a dependence on drugs to navigate turbulent personal and professional relationships in New York City after World War II.

A video diary to a newborn baby from her older sibling serves as the golden ticket to a peculiar candymaker’s legacy.

The misadventures of a young man and his scuffling siblings in a fictional Midlands town in the 1800s as issues of women’s rights, marriage, and political reform are explored.

Two secret service agents seek dangerous magical artifacts while listening to audio tapes recorded by a young woman who committed suicide.

Travel to a curious locale where dreams can come true, particularly for the one woman who lives there, waiting for her people to return for her.

A sharp-tongued and satirical look at the news is presented by a two-inch boy who looks just like a mouse.


How many did you unravel? Let us know in the comments section below! We’d love to hear from you.

Twin Films Film Festival Test!

Are you familiar with the concept of twin films, fellow puzzlers?

The basic idea involves the commercial release of two films with extremely similar plots or concepts being released in proximity to each other.

For example, if I described a 1998 global disaster film centered around an impending impact event that threatens to end most or all life on Earth, what film would you name?

You could answer Deep Impact or Armageddon and be correct either way. These are quintessential twin films.

Wait, no, not this kind of Twins film…

So if I give you the year of release and a description, can you name the twin films that fit the clue?

Let’s find out, shall we?


Twin Films Film Festival Test!

  1. 1997: disaster films centered around volcanic eruptions
  2. 2012: loose adaptations of the fairy tale Snow White
  3. 2024: fourth installments of action-comedy franchises centered around African-American cops
  4. 2004: romantic comedy films about the rebellious daughter of the President of the United States
  5. 1999: supernatural horror films with a man and his relatives, experiencing a series of frightening visions and having the ability to interact with ghosts.
  6. 2017: films prominently feature the planning of the evacuation of Dunkirk.
  7. 1998: computer-animated films about insects, starring a non-conformist ant who falls in love with an ant princess, leaves the mound, eventually returns, and is hailed as a hero
  8. 2018/2019: computer-animated films about abominable snowmen making first contact with humans, both set in the Himalayas.
  9. 2006: films about 19th-century magicians
  10. 2022/2023: adolescent girls who transform into larger creatures under certain conditions.
  11. 1994/1995: films with drag queens going on a road trip across their country (in one case Australia, in the other, the United States) in a journey of self-discovery. Both have eight-word titles.
  12. 2023: films based on Dracula released by Universal Pictures
  13. 1999: caper films focused on the relationship between an attractive female insurance investigator and a male thief who steals an expensive painting by a famous artist. (Coincidentally, the male lead in both films is also played by an actor who has portrayed James Bond.)
  14. 2010: films featuring a stereotypical villain as the protagonist
  15. 1996: alien invasion films where the earth is rapidly and suddenly overwhelmed, only to be defeated by a ragtag group with borrowed technology
  16. 2005/2006: computer-animated films involving similar animal characters from New York’s Central Park Zoo being introduced to the wild.

How many did you get? Let us know in the comments section below, we’d love to hear from you!

A Double Feature Film Game For You!

double-feature

In today’s blog post, we’ve got a movie title game for you. The challenge is simple: can you name these pairs of movies with titles that are opposites?

We’ll give you the genre for each film, the year each was released, and one star from each film. (Occasionally, we’ll offer a bonus hint as well!)

For example, let’s give you this breakdown:

-Horror, Horror
-2016, 1996
-Kate Siegel, Neve Campbell

Did you come up with Hush and Scream?

We’ve got more fifteen pairings for you to figure out! Let’s go to the movies!


#1
-Comedy, Romcom
-1985, 1995
-Madeline Kahn, Paul Rudd
(Bonus hint: Tim Curry, Alicia Silverstone)

#2
-Action/Crime, Drama/Crime
-1995, 1990
-Will Smith, Robert DeNiro
(Bonus hint: Martin Lawrence, Joe Pesci)

#3
-Holiday/Musical, Horror
-1954, 1974
-Rosemary Clooney, Margot Kidder
(Bonus hint: Bing Crosby, Olivia Hussey)

#4
-Western, Fantasy/Romance
-1952, 2008
-Gary Cooper, Kristen Stewart

#5
-Comedy, Comedy
-1985, 1994
-Val Kilmer, Jim Carrey

#6
-Drama/Musical, Action
-1980, 2021
-Irene Cara, Bob Odenkirk

#7
-Comedy/Drama, Drama
-2006, 1988
-Steve Carell, Tom Cruise
(Bonus hint: Abigail Breslin, Dustin Hoffman)

#8
-Holiday/Comedy, Animation/Adventure
-1990, 2001
-Macauley Culkin, Hayao Miyazaki

#9
-Romcom, Sci-Fi/Action
-1986, 2014
-Rob Lowe, Tom Cruise

#10
-Drama/Biographical, Action
-1993, 1988
-Ethan Hawke, Bruce Willis

#11
-Sci-Fi/Comedy, Comedy(?)
-1997, 2004
-Tommy Lee Jones, Marlon Wayans

#12
-Horror, Romance
-1987, 1995
-Bill Paxton, Ethan Hawke

#13
-Comedy, Horror
-1989, 2018
-John Travolta, Emily Blunt

#14
-Action/Crime, Horror
-1973, 2017
-Bruce Lee, Daniel Kaluuya

#15
-Drama, Sci-Fi/Comedy
-1994, 1993
-Winona Ryder, Daryl Hannah


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