Novelist Scott Sigler's horror column appears every Thursday.

Guillermo del Toro has a couple of things going for him. First, the name. If you're at a party, and you see a beautiful woman, and you walk up and say, "Hi, my name is Guillermo del Toro, can I buy you a drink?" well, that just rolls off the tongue. You'll get a lot more play with that name than with, say, Bubba Lipshitz. And when Guillermo and Benicio use their "We're twins!" pick-up line at the bar, forget it -- action central.

Second, the man is a contender for the heavyweight championship of monster makers. Pan's Labyrinth, Blade II, Hellboy, Mimic, the guy has a Stan Winston-esque rep brewing here. And Friday, July 11, marks the release of Hellboy II, del Toro's uppercut knockout punch to take that title. Hellboy II will not be about little old ladies. It will not be about a sewing circle where women "find themselves" amidst 90 minutes of witty banter. It's a del Toro film. That means it's about monsters.

I've been waiting for Hellboy II, right there on the edge of my seat. In that waiting, I've been looking at the production stills and the trailers, and I saw an interesting thing ... moonlighting monsters. Now when you're a monster, particularly a franchise character, you're not supposed to tomcat around in other movies. There's a code of ethics, or something. Sure, these ethics don't include any bans on killing, summoning demons or eating the eyes of your enemies, but still, a code of conduct is a code of conduct.

So who are the culprits?

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