The Science Fiction Horror and Fantasy Film Review
Monster Movies concern creatures that go amok, causing damage and threat to the social order. Monsters can range from vast titans like Godzilla and King Kong, giant robots, aliens and Giant Animals to human-sized monsters such as zombies or Mutations or smaller menaces such as Animals Amok and swarms of regular-sized Bugs. Some common monsters have been spilled over and been given their own pages – see Vampires, Frankenstein Films, Zombies, Werewolves and Mummies.
Monsters can be created by science, be supernatural or mythological in nature, of alien origin, from other dimensions or from beneath the ground or ocean. A monster is usually blind in its rampage, having the intelligence of an animal or some instinctual drive (monsters are rarely capable of speech). Its rampage can be due to hunger and the need for some type of sustenance, to breed, or else it can be hurt or because humanity has awakened it or disturbed its natural territorial domain. It can cause mass devastation or work on a smaller scale (such as hunting people in a contained space).
There have been many other monsters that are not Monster Movies. Not all Giant Animals are monsters, while many films treat monsters sympathetically and are about friendships or misunderstandings. There is another whole field of Children’s Monster Movies.
There is another body of monsters that appear in fantasy such as Dragons or mythological creatures like the Cyclops or giants. These are covered under a separate entry Monstrous Encounters. Here the monsters being encountered do not necessarily threaten the social order (or if they do it is rarely depicted beyond a few villages being attacked), rather they are nemeses that are fought and vanquished by heroes. There is a world of difference between a Godzilla film and its spectacles of mass destruction and the adventures of Sinbad, St George or Siegfried and the dragon.
A subcategory is the Japanese Monster Movie, which does engage in mass destruction spectacles but treats monsters as combatants in gigantic wrestling matches with defined heroes and villains where Godzilla or Gamera is usually portrayed as being the defender of Japan from other monsters.
Sequel to the hit multi-director anthology has a less high-profile line-up of directors, nor hits the astonishingly perverse heights of its predecessor. As always some entries never do much but the film finds its stride in the last few episodes
This offers the novelty of a Bigfoot film by way of Hitchcock’s Rear Window where wheelchair-ridden witnesses Bigfoot preying on a house of girls. This generates a reasonable degree of tension
The first genre film of Mike Flanagan. A fascinating film about creatures that may be abducting people. The film sits on an ambiguous line that leaves much in doubt, while achieving some strikingly subtle, understated directorial effects
A wonderful maybe monster movie. Jeremy Gardner falls to pieces after his girlfriend leaves. At the same time, he is certain a monster is lurking outside while everyone else thinks he is losing it.
Third of the Alien films, a directorial debut for David Fincher. A better film than was perceived at the time, this explores new character depths, while Fincher imprints his own visual style on the film
One of the most influential films on this site, producing a host of sequels and making the careers of all involved. At heart, a simple monster on a spaceship film, it is made into a classic through Ridley Scott’s relentless suspense and H.R. Giger’s design work
The third and least satisfying of the otherwise above average compilation films on the theme of alien invasion from Kevin J. Lindenmuth and other directors
Ridley Scott makes a further Alien prequel that is an improvement on Prometheus. While the first half gives us the stuff of aliens hunting humans, the second less interestingly doglegs off into the story of a mad android
A ridiculous film with Lou Diamond Phillips pursuing aliens aboard a runaway train. Cliches are piled on with absurd effect and the show killed by cheap effects
Film from low-budget director Donald M. Dohler about escaped alien zoo animals amok in rural Maryland. The film has the benefit of some good creature effects
In his second to last film, Italian B-budget director Antonio Margheriti makes a cheap and not very good Alien copy that feels like a throwback to the 1950s monster movie
From prolific producer Scott Jeffrey, best known for Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood and Honey, a low-budget Alien copy, essentially an Alien that takes place in an English country mansion
The fourth of the Alien films. French director Jean-Pierre Jeunet comes on board and delivers a comic-bookish run through of a Joss Whedon script that overspills with too many ideas
Despite a director that has spent a career making bad sequels to other people’s franchises, you have to admit this is an Alien sequel emerges better than you expect it to do
Homage to 1950s SF films, in particular It Came from Outer Space and The Blob, made not as a parody but as an affectionate tribute to the era with everything played seriously
James Cameron’s follow-up to Alien is one of the few sequels that matches its predecessor. Adding a troupe of Marines, Cameron creates a powerhouse of a film that sustains itself with seat-edge tension throughout
This seems amusingly construed as a mash-up between two of James Cameron’s most famous titles … what we get is a painfully cheap film about people being pursued through the woods by an alien creature
Amid the spate of post-Jaws Animals Amok films, this, which comes armed with a John Sayles script and plays on the urban legend of baby alligators flushed into the sewers, was a rather enjoyable effort that plants tongue in cheek
The 1980 Alligator was amusing but this hardly one of the sequels the world was burning to see. An utterly formulaic copy that is killed by impoverished giant alligator effects
Uwe Boll gained a reputation as the world’s worst director on the basis of his videogame adaptations. Prize exhibit was Alone in the Dark, which abandons the game and is a series of action scenes without explanatory rationale
Essentially a feature version of The Twilight Zone‘s classic Nightmare at 20,000 Feet episode, this generates some remarkable tension with a group trapped in mid-air in a small plane before a lame twist ending
A film from genre regular Brian Yuzna that takes place in Indonesia with people at siege on a fishing platform as it comes under attack by a sea monster. One of the films made in the 3D process following the huge success of Avatar
A film crew in the Amazon headed by Jennifer Lopez encounter a giant snake. Mounted as a CGI monster movie in the aftermath of Jurassic Park, this has scripting that frequently descends into the ludicrous
Anaconda was a CGI monster movie that has subsequently gained a bad movie reputation. The idea of a comedy remake about conducting a remake of the film just seems a little too cutely meta
A sequel to the Jennifer Lopez-starring Anaconda that manages to be even more ridiculous and cliche ridden than its predecessor to the point you frequently laugh it off the screen
Film about a group of friends lost in the woods who take refuge in a cabin while being hunted by a creature. This is generic, produces some jumps but is dogged by unconvincing creature effects
A wendigo film, this comes with impressive prospect and backed by no less names than Guillermo Del Toro and David S. Goyer
South Korean-made cheapie intended to ride the coattails of the 1976 remake of King Kong, this must be one of the worst films ever made with some of the most pitiful special effects ever put on film
Giant fire-breathing spiders invade New Orleans. A passably entertaining film of its type made for the Syfy Channel with effects that are above-average and it taking itself seriously
A post-apocalyptic film that seems a conceptual merging of I Am Legend and A Quiet Place where Nicolas Cage and sons are at siege from monsters that surround their farmhouse every night
Not to be confused with the Oren Peli Found Footage film. Sean Connery’s son Jason directs a film where a host of alien nasties imprisoned at Area 51 manage to escape
A forgotten curiosity from the 1980s VHS era where shipwreck survivors wash up on an island where they are attacked by malevolent dolls. A film deservous of a no star rating if there ever was one
One of the essential items in the cult of B-movie director Roger Corman. A cheerfully absurd atomic monster movie that comes with clear corners cut but played by Corman and cast with more seriousness than it deserves
A typical 1950s B monster movie. The first half creates an entertainingly torrid drama in the bayous, although when they eventually turn up the giant leeches never get to do much
There is a certain genus of films based around coming up with deliberately ridiculous titles. The filmmakers sell you instantly on the film from the title alone but have lavished little care or budget on the actual film
One of the original genre parodies, a very silly and amateurish film that also manages to be occasionally quite funny. Three sequels and an animated tv series followed
The fifth of the Gamera films, Japanese monster movies that are made for children. This abandons the relative realism of the earlier films for a colourful silliness with frequently lunatic results
In the same vein as Sharknado, another absurdly entertaining gonzo shark attack film concerning sharks that swim through the snow to attack skiers at a mountainside resort
Japanese film that true to its title offers pits ninja against alien creatures. The film plants tongue considerably in cheek as it offers up a series of wildly fantastique action scenes and creature effects
Beginning as fan mill speculation, 20th Century Fox finally brought their Alien and Predator franchises together on the screen here. The result is an okay effort in the hands of Paul W.S. Anderson, even if it never has the grueling intensity of the early entries in either series
Second of the Alien/Predator crossovers and the absolute nadir of either series. Gone is the suspense of either series’ earlier entries and the creatures are now no more than standard monsters in a teen horror film
A deliberately ridiculous Charles Band production where students throwing their laptops into a lake causes an alligator to float through the air and become giant-sized
The people behind Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood and Honey offer up a savage take on another childhood favourite with a horror version of Bambi where Bambi becomes a mutated deer with a murderous hatred of humans
The directorial debut of Zach Cregger that received great word-of-mouth. A film that shifts points-of-views to tell the story of people discovering a horrible secret in the basement of an AirBNB
Saw series Darren Lynn Bousman downplays sadism in favour of a psychologically ambiguous film about a series of attacks possibly conducted by the Jersey Devil
A classic of the genre for a number of reason – it was the film that kicked off the 1950s fad for atomic monsters, featuring an archetypal story about a dinosaur brought back to life by atomic tests. It also featured among the very first screen credits for both Ray Bradbury and stop-motion animator Ray Harryhausen
Third of the Filipino-shot Blood Island films. This has a slow first half before getting to what we expect of a Filipino monster movie – an overacting mad scientist, a cheesy monster, schlocky gore and gratuitous toplessness
One of the films from the heyday of the Filipino exploitation cinema fad. John Ashley makes a pact with the Devil,up in another man’s body and periodically turns into what is a werewolf in all but name
Modest entry among the early 1980s fad for air bladder transformation effects with Paul Clemens transforming into a cicada creature. Philippe Mora creates some solid directorial set-pieces
Giant grasshoppers invade Chicago – what’s not to like? A sterling example of the 1950s atomically enlarged insect film from Bert I. Gordon who found his calling make cheap giant animals/people films during this era.
A Syfy Channel film that is equal part disaster movie and monster movie. Formulaic but for the outlandishness of its premise – the disaster is caused by a giant mythological monster wrapped around the Earth
The first film from Jackie Kong, who made the hilarious Blood Diner, concerning a cheesily ridiculous atomic mutant monster loose in a small town
Larry Fessenden makes what seems a formula teens in peril film. Once he gets his cast stranded in a sinking boat menaced by a giant fish and debating who to throw overboard, he develops some remarkably brutal tensions
An interesting and worthwhile attempt to retell the epic legend of Beowulf but to give it grounding as an historical work. Filmed in Iceland with an international cast
An adaptation of the classic epic legend Beowulf that bizarrely recasts the story as a Christopher Lambert-starring action movie and sets it in a post-apocalyptic future
After the success of the motion captured animated The Polar Express, Robert Zemeckis turned his attentions to the classic legend. Armed with a Neil Gaiman script and a host of name actors in the mocap suits, the result is a soaring fantasy
A sequel to The Blob, although this plays everything for comedy. The one and only film directed by actor Larry Hagman, no less than J.R. Ewing of Dallas fame
This offers the novelty of a Loch Ness monster film that takes place in Canada! This is otherwise a routine monster of the era made for the Syfy Channel
Giant spider film that seems to be aiming for the same gonzo territory the killer shark film has of recent. Instead we get an average B movie with some good effects and a line of comic banter that falls flat in the delivery
Of all the concepts in physics, the wildest of these is the black hole. It seems highly disappointing that this set out to be a film about a black hole but all we get is a film about an electrical monster amok
This was designed as a copy of the giant ant film Them! substituting scorpions for ants. The plot is average but what stands it out are the excellent stop-motion animated effects from King Kong creator Willis O’Brien
An enthusiastically gore-drenched New Zealand comedy about mutant sheep, this favourably harkens back to the heyday of Peter Jackson’s early splatter films
Blacula was a big Blaxploitation hit and was quickly followed by this Blaxploitation take on the Frankenstein film. While others that followed did great things, this only seems a quickie designed to jump aboard the fad
Okay low-budget effort about creatures that lurk in the dark invading an apartment building. This produces a number of effective jolts, although never does anything to explain its monsters
Rather witty little Troma release about a killer lawnmower hunting people at a golf course that in its last half becomes an hilarious parody of Jaws
Film about a monstrous blob that devours everything in its path. This has become a 1950s B movie classic more through its chessiness value, not to mention theme of teenage rebellion, than necessarily being a great film
The original 1958 The Blob gets a full makeover via some sensational state-of-the-art animatronics and makeup effects with impressive results. A much superior work to the original in all ways
Rather forgettable film about a monster devouring people from beneath the sands of a beach that at least comes with the benefit of a tongue-in-cheek approach and some amusing characterisations
Possibly the most ridiculous film produced during the Anglo-horror cycle in which scientist Robert Flemyng turns daughter Wanda Ventham into a giant vampiric Deathshead moth
Austrian-made film about people being attacked by mutant creatures on a mountainside. This has the cheesily absurd feel of a 1980s B movie and has some fun producing creature effects
From The Asylum, the same company behind Sharknado. The major surprise is that this is a monster movie that doesn’t place tongue-in-cheek and aim as absurdly as possible. Average in all regards
Film from Z-budget director Al Adamson that has been slung together from odds and ends of other unfinished films in a laughable ramshackle structure where what starts as a diamond robbery film turns into mad scientist/monster film
A giant CGI snake film that promptly heads into bad movie stakes through a combination of ridiculous dialogue and absurd posturing of its cast
One of the original troglodyte films about creatures lurking underground that was the template for films like The Descent. Well-made as 1980s horror films go but it takes forever before the main action kicks in
The first of the Blood Island films, a classic of Filipino exploitation cinema. Although not as polished as later efforts, this serves up all the requisite cheesy monsters, mad scientists and gratuitous toplessness you expect
Film that draws on the basics of The Keep and takes place in a haunted bunker in the British-German trenches of the First World War as soldiers face something that preys on their fears
Outrageous Finnish splatter comedy about a giant rampaging bunny creature. A film that in its better moments captures something of the sensibilities of early Peter Jackson films
Joss Whedon scripted work that is less a horror film than a meta-horror film that is constantly deconstructing the genre and subverting its cliches. A rare genre entry less about visceral impact than it has brains to spare
A solid revival of the horror anthology, this tells three stories that all work well. The film also features several before-they-were-known faces
A monster movie that takes place as a documentary crew are trying to study the wildlife displaced by the Australian bushfires
A Roger Corman produced cheapie about genetically engineered dinosaurs that was quickly rushed out to exploit the success of Jurassic Park. Corman went on to make two sequels
Twelfth of the popular British comedy series, here the Carry On team conduct a bawdy farce on the Hammer horror film that was all the in-thing at the time
This big-budget film came out the same year as The Descent and is a very similar work about a cast of name explorers in a vast network of underground caves being hunted by monsters
One of the spate of underground horror films that came out in 2005 including The Descent and The Cave. This is a B-budget wannabe obviously shot in a studio. The addition of giant beetles takes it into the cheesily ridiculous
Cerberus, the three-headed dog that guards the entrance to Hades in Greek myth, is appropriated to become the focus of a standard md-00s CGI monster movie
In the same vein as Grindhouse, four filmmakers have come together to make an anthology of spoof horror films that homage the drive-in tradition. Good taste is left well behind and the results are both outrageous and funny
An incredibly bad monster movie supposedly based around the Latin American urban legend of the Chupacabra. So cheaply made it can’t even afford CGI
A monster movie that is entirely by the book and undistinguished in any way except for its eye-raisingly gimmicky capsule premise ‘Chupacabra Loose on a Cruise Liner’
A quite good monster movie from Singapore about people trapped down the disused brand of an underground railway line where they are hunted by a monster
A J.J. Abrams produced film that was made under an absolute pall of secrecy. Released, it turns out to only be a fairly ordinary monster movie that is shot Found Footage style
Prolific Z-budget director Mark Polonia jumps aboard the bandwagon of Cocaine Bear and offers a film about a shark-human hybrid that is created by experimental cocaine
Nacho Vigalondo film with a head-scratchingly wacky premise – Anne Hathaway finds that a giant monster mimics her movements. Vigalondo plays this surprisingly seriously and spins it through some appealing twists
Despite the disappointment that it is not a Western but set modern-day. This enlivens a formula plot quite well and provides dinosaur effects that range between the surprisingly good and the occasionally ropy
An amusingly tongue-in-cheek horror comedy that is a throwback to the1950s featuring an attack by giant crabs. With some surprisingly good crab effects too.
An attempt to make an American equivalent of a Loch Ness Monster film. This drowns amid a dreary cheapness. The passable stop-motion animation effects have been a frequent source of ridicule
Australian effort that seems to follow the path of Aliens/Resident Evil with soldiers venturing into a laboratory of amok monsters before a Philip K. Dick-ian twist on what we think is happening
An enthusiastic B movie that takes its ridiculous premise of a group of friends encountering an alligator man lurking in the backwoods Louisiana swamps far too seriously for its own good
A 1970s Bigfoot/Sasquatch film made for drive-in audiences about students searching for the creature in rural backwater Louisiana
A classic 1950s monster movie where an expedition up the Amazon discovers a Gill Man. Here an average story is propelled into the memorable by Jack Arnold’s moody direction. Two sequels followed.
Roger Corman makes a film about sea monsters and mobsters. Things get very silly but not as funny as when he tried the took the same wacky approach in his cult classic The Little Shop of Horrors