The 10 Best Alien, Beastly, and Supernatural Captors in Film

You can’t have a great escape without a great captor, now can you? You need a really good reason to jump off that too-high cliff or claw your way out of a subterranean cave.

As much as we may loathe them, we at Krakit have got to give big screen terrorizers props for creating the escape situations that thrill and inspire us. First, we start with the 10 best beastly and supernatural captors, and next post we’ll look at those captors who are, despairingly, all too human.

10. Cooper from Super 8

He’s gigantic, he’s got a weird-looking nose, and he cocoons people like a massive spider. But ultimately he’s just trying to get home, so he’s at the bottom of our list.

9. Jabba the Hutt from Return of the Jedi                          

No one can argue that Jabba is a captor without style. He chooses fashionable items for his captives, though his love of chains gets a little out of hand.

8. The virus from [REC]

While man plays a part in the terror of the unfortunate souls held captive in a Barcelona apartment building in REC, ultimate responsibility lies with the ruthless virus that lands them in quarantine in the first place.

7. The Beast from Beauty and the Beast

You probably didn’t expect to see a Disney film on this list, but here we have a captor who manages to induce Stockholm Syndrome through song and dance. It’s inspired.

6. The Female from Under the Skin

An alien lifeform that’s come to earth both to study mankind and to gorge herself on manflesh, The Female (Scarlett Johansson) has the most impressive captivity chamber of them all: a pool of immobilizing, flesh-liquefying goo.

5. The demon from The Exorcist

Forget trapping people in a building: the demon in The Exorcist jumps right into poor Regan’s body and takes up residence there. So much for feeling at home in your own skin.

4. H.A.L. from 2001: A Space Odyssey

What do you do when the super smart computer that runs your spaceship turns your tin-can home into a series of traps? Hope you’re really good at holding your breath, mostly.

 

3. The creature from The Host

Unlike Cooper from Super 8, the creature in The Host uses its den like a tank at a seafood market, with its unlucky human snacks stuck in a deep sewer with very smooth walls (terrible for climbing, you see).

2. It from It Follows

Why terrorize people by trapping them in, say, a haunted house, when you can instead turn the entire world into a nightmare that requires constant escape? The presence from It Follows can’t think of a better alternative.

1. Freddy Kreuger from A Nightmare on Elm Street

Combining the tactics of the demon from The Exorcist and the presence from It Follows, Freddy knows the best way to keep someone under lock and key is to turn their very mind into a terrifying holding cell they can’t escape. Well done, Freddy. Well done. 

The Ten Greatest Berlin Wall Escapes

On November 9th, 1989 the famous wall that divided East and West Berlin was finally removed, reuniting families, friends and countrymen that had been apart for 28 years. The wall had gone up almost overnight, isolating a small part of West Germany inside the Soviet run East Germany. The wall was a 155 km in length and included segments of concrete dividers, wire mesh fencing, anti-vehicle trenches, 20 bunkers and 302 watchtowers.

For 28 years, defectors of East Germany sought to escape to West Berlin by making their way over, under and even through the blockade. Once they arrived in West Berlin, they were able to fly to other democratic states in Europe, effectively escaping the Sovietization of East Germany. The daring few that made it across were seen as escape heroes, with many having their stories immortalized on film.

This week Krakit, Vancouver's Escape Game, would like to highlight ten, incredibly brave, successful escape attempts made by East Germans defecting to West Berlin:

10. End of the Line

On December 5th, 1961, Harry Deterling drove a passenger train across an unused portion of track into West Berlin. His immediate family and a few friends accompanied Harry. The railway line was blocked the following day.

9. Water Bed

Ingo Bethke used an air mattress to make his watery escape across the River Elbe. To get to the river, Bethke and a friend had to navigate a minefield, a metal fence and a trip wire installation. Sounds like the mattress rafting was the least dangerous element to their escape.

8. Love in a Convertible

Heinz Meixner, an Austrian working in East Berlin, came up with a plan to get his girlfriend out of the country. He rented a small convertible and removed the front windshield. He then lowered the air on all the tires. With his German sweetie beside him, Heinz drove to the Checkpoint Charlie border. At the inspection point, Heinz was briefly detained before he stepped on the gas, sliding easily underneath the lowered gate crossing and into West Berlin. Part of the deal to get his girlfriend out was that her mother accompanies them. His future mother-in-law was smuggled across in the trunk of the car. 

7.  Guard Duty

1,300 guards skipped over the border in the first two years of the wall's existence. One of most famous guards to do so was Conrad Schumann. He jumped the wall on its third day of construction, when the wall was just a line of razor wire. Peter Leibing immortalized Schumann’s jump. The iconic photograph is now a part of the UNESCO Memory of the World program. Sadly, Schumann, suffering from depression, took his own life nine years after the fall of the wall.

6. Tank You

Wolfgang Engels used a tank as a battering ram to facilitate his escape to West Berlin. Unfortunately, the wall was too much for the tank. But Engels wouldn't be stopped. Using the tank as a stepladder, he scaled the wall, only to get stuck on the barbed wire crown. After being shot twice, Engels passed out. After being helped by passer-bys on the Western side, Engels woke up in a bar and immediately noticed the Western liquor bottles on the shelves; He had made it!

5. Zippy

Holger Bethke followed in his brother's footsteps (see #9), when he escaped in 1983. But instead of a watery getaway, Holger took to the skies. Using a zip line, he descended from one of East Berlin's taller buildings to the ground in West Berlin.

4. Retirement Tunnel

In 1962, a dozen senior citizens escaped through a tunnel that they had dug themselves. The group was lead by an 81-year-old gentleman. The group had spent 16 days digging the tunnel that covered a distance of 160 feet. One of the impressive features of the escape route was that the entire tunnel had a height of six feet. When asked about the height, one of the escapees quipped: "(we wanted) to walk to freedom with our wives, comfortably and unbowed."

3. Playboy

Hugh Hefner was responsible for the freedom of more than a handful of East Germans. Apparently the Munich's Playboy Club issued membership cards that were incredibly similar to the passports used in West Germany. A quick flash of the Playboy membership often fooled border guards.

2. Balancing Act

One of most death-defying escapes was made by Horst Klein in 1963. Klein was an East German circus performer who used a high-tension cable to cross the expanse. Horst dangled 60 feet above the ground and moved hand over hand until he was over the wall. Unfortunately Horst had nowhere to properly dismount. He was forced to drop to his freedom.

1. Balloon Ride

Hans Strelczyk and Gunter Wetzel built a hot air balloon to carry their two families over the wall in 1979. The balloon portion was made of canvas scraps and bed sheets and the engine portion of old propane canisters. The balloon reached a height of 8,000 feet before sailing over the border. The flight lasted thirty minutes and was immortalized in the Disney film, Night Crossing.