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.
This is a copy of Alien with a monster hunting people through darkened corridors and is generic in all regards, although you have to admit that Stan Winston creates an original monster and the film generates reasonable suspense
Incredibly shabbily made Danish copy of The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms about a dinosaur revived in Copenhagen
The first of the sequels to the original The Fly where the scientist’s son begins his own experiments
The first of the sequels to Attack of the Killer Tomatoes. Featuring the first screen appearance of George Clooney.
The first sequel to The Creature from the Black Lagoon where The Creature is brought back to civilisation. Director Jack Arnold again creates sympathy and pathos for the monster
A cheap submarine adventure/underwater monster encounter from Spanish director Juan Pique Simon that was intended as a copy of James Cameron’s The Abyss
Low-budget British film about environmental protestors pursued by a genetically engineered giant ape
A Syfy Channel monster movie that seems made with a smidgen more care than their usual B movie output
The best killer car tire film ever – a monster movie spoof wound in so many layers of meta-fiction that it is positively side-splitting. The smartest and funniest monster movie in ages
One film that defies the dictum that there has yet to be a decent killer plant film, this does a reasonable job of developing out tension in its story of teens encountering malevolent flora at a South American pyramid
Monster movie where a runestone uncovered in the present day unleashes the Norse god Fenrir
Solid little effort about a group of teens who wake up on a beach to find that the sand is trying to devour them and the only shelter they have is picnic tables and the lifeguard station. This delivers a tight, contained survival story that generates some excellent tension
In something like his 30th film and amid the tatty production values of a Edward D. Wood Jr film, El Santo fight mobsters who have employed alien monsters that look like giant ambulatory bean bags
The directorial debut of William Malone later to make House on Haunted HillAlien (one of the first of many such), albeit brought down to Earth. As a novice director, Malone is relatively crude and far removed from the masterful style of Ridley Scott
The very first film from John Landis, a rather amusing spoof of revived caveman films, As with many of Landis’s films, has a substantial level of playful in-joking and genre in-referencing. Mostly, it plays out with an appealingly nonsensical absurdity
An utterly formulaic Syfy Channel filler monster movie about the resurrection of a banshee. A film that is only based around the provision of effects-driven dispatches every few minutes
The title suggests more a sea adventure but this is a surprisingly good monster movie about the crew of a fishing vessel attacked by a sea creature and infected by parasites.
South Korean monster movie set that only rehashes the cliches set down by Alien/Aliens. On the plus side, the CGI monster looks great and there are some particularly imaginative set-pieces with it but the film is at best only a rehash of Deepstar Six on an oil rig
Chloe Grace Moretz stars in a quite reasonable WWII-set story about gremlins amok aboard a plane
Guillermo Del Toro makes monster movies with sympathy for the monster. This is his take onThe Creature from the Black Lagoon where the romance between creature and heroine is brought out to centre stage
Killer shark from the 1990s heyday. This works passably as the B movie it is intended as, while the last third turns into the schlockily absurd with the insertion of two different corrupt conspiracy elements and action movie chases
Another entrant in the fad for gonzo killer shark film. This gets some award for combining the killer shark film, the women’s prison film and the cabin in the woods horror standard
Amid the fad for deliberately absurd killer shark films viz Sharknado, this surely takes the prize for ridiculousness of conception and delivery – a hybrid creature with the head of a shark and the tentacles of an octopus. I defy you not to burst into laughter at some of the scenes (*)
Entry in the gonzo killer shark film (viz Sharknado et al), sequel to the earlier Sharktopus Though produced by veteran B movie producer Roger Corman, these Sharktopus films are some of the shittiest in the gonzo killer shark fad, featuring way below sub par effects and missing the sense of humour
Third of the Sharktopus films from Roger Corman, an entry in the series that is making no longer making any effort to take itself seriously
A strange mix of 1950s hypnotic regression fad and AIP B monster movie elements that has undeniable mood and verve
Taking only the name of the 1950s B movie, this is otherwise a horror film about an imprisoned mermaid creature that wields a sinister threat. This works with a modest effectiveness
The 29th of the Japanese Godzilla films. Coming after the longest gap in the series to date, this functions as a complete reboot of the original. Godzilla is reconceived as a fearsome creation amid epic mass destruction and what are hands down the best effects of any film in the series
This was dismissed as a copy of a A Quiet Place and had an almost identical plot about survivors sheltering from creatures that attack the smallest sound. In actuality, this was based on a book that predates A Quiet Place
Four guys on a stag night encounter a mysterious nightclub that features a woman with a mesmerising and unearthly song. The feature length expansion of the V/H/S segment Amateur Night, this is a film that is rather pleasingly driven by a series of wild and outlandish images
Simon Pegg produces/stars in a comedy spoofing the British boarding school tradition – but with the addition of monsters running around
A horror film about a pair of possessed jeans!
Killer slug movie from hack Spanish director Juan Piquer Simon where the sole notable aspect amid the cheapness of the production is some very gory deaths
Mini-series that was a popular hit in its day, which largely steals its premise of a human and alien cop hunting a body-hopping alien from The Hidden. What makes the show work past its rather ordinary story, is the two leads and their wittily sparring Lethal Weapon-type relationship
The eighth Godzilla film featuring the introduction of his son Minya in a shameless pitch for juvenile audiences. The series is no longer taking itself seriously, although ends up more likeable than some of the other entries of this period
The 1933 King Kong is a landmark classic Yhis sequel was quickly produced soon after its success,. While the original created a monster movie fairytale, this plays everything for maximum cuteness – it is essentially King Kong mounted as a children’s film
There have been great films about unseen threats before (Cat People, The Haunting) but in this case the idea of an invisible monster is just the excuse for a cheap film to avoid any special effects. It has been a long time since I have seen a film so mind-numbingly boring and dull
Independently made 1970s monster movie. The film came along about ten months too early to be be part of the great spate of B movies that copied Alien and so draws on the earlier model of The Creature from the Black Lagoon. Nothing exceptional
Sequel to Species that this time offers up the male of the species. The film feels put together as an exercise in makeup effects but their physiological absurdity causes the film to topple into silliness
Slick and rather silly copy of Alien that conceptually cross-hatches it to emerge as essentially Basic Instinct with tentacles
The third of the Species films, which follows Sil’s daughter. Some okay makeup effects but the plotting gets fairly silly
Fourth entry in the Species series where at least the series seems to have gravitated to the arena of the trashily absurd B movie it belongs
When you approach this in terms of exactly what it promises to be – a revival of the good old B movie standard of the giant spider film – this proves absurdly entertaining and with some surprisingly good CGI spider effects
A genetically engineered creature film from Vincenzo Natali, this ventures into some fascinating places but ultimately returns to Frankenstein science territory
A surprisingly good film that generates a great deal of tension in the story of a group of people trapped inside a gas station by a deadly plant infection that takes over bodies
A mishmash of Alien copy and supernatural serial killer film set in a drowned future London with a script that makes no real sense. The film’s buddy cop relationship starring Rutger Hauer does have its amusements.
Strong intelligent SF film where a cosmonaut returns from a space mission with an alien parasite attached. On one level, not too different to a host of Alien copies but the difference is all in the approach
British effort that proves to be no more than another copy of Alien – set in a warehouse of storage lockers. The film never consists of anything beyond a crashingly ordinary regurgitation of the moves used by an endless number of Alien copies
One of the first women-directed horror films. Also one of the first on the subject of people venturing underground and encountering cave monsters
Likeable variant on the giant bug film – concerning giant mutated wasps, no less. This is largely predicated around some accomplished creature effects and having something gooey happening every few minutes
J.J. Abrams makes a homages to 8mm filmmaking and the films of his youth – you could easily imagine this as a Steven Spielberg-produced film of the era. On the other hand, after the obsessive secrecy in pre-release, the results emerge as underwhelming
Modestly effective film about people being hunted by a shapechanging killer car
Standout Russian SF/horror that undeniably captures something of The Thing with scientists encountering a monster in the depths of a deep drilling project
South African-shot film that pretends to be set in The Philippines. Utterly generic on every level, the film seems to be about Filipino vampire monsters but everything is vaguely sketched
Blumhouse production from J.D. Dillard who made a modest splash with the street magician film Sleight, this features Kiersey Clemons as a survivor stranded on a desert island facing a monster that comes out at night
A completely ridiculous film about mutant scorpions on a plane – after something this laughable, it’s hard to see why Snakes on a Plane needed to plant tongue in cheek
A New Zealand-made monster movie where a venture down into an old water tank succeeds in disturbing an amphibian creature
Them! had created the 1950s fad for giant atomically enlarged insects. Here Jack Arnold, one of the most celebrated genre directors of the 1950s, makes a giant spider film and much better than most of the era’s other giant bug films
An outrageous premise – a girl has a vagina with teeth – that is played with far more good taste that one expects
One of the more absurd of the Animals Attack films that sought to cash in on the success of Jaws concerning a giant octopus on the attack
Possibly the dreariest alien invader film ever made. A US film shot in Sweden about an expedition to find a crashed meteorite. An alien monster that looks like a giant shaggy Yeti turns up in the last few minutes.
The fifteenth Godzilla film, the last of the classic series, featuring a return of Mechagodzilla from the previous film. Original director Ishiro Honda returns to the series and reclaims it from the juvenile focus it had taken over the last few films to make the best entry of the 1970s
Roger Corman produces a blatant copy of Alien with a group of people being pursued around a desert laboratory by a rubbery mutant creature
One of the films from Charles Band’s Empire productions about a family facing an alien manifested out of their tv set
Them! and The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms created the 1950s atomic monster movie. Them’s particular spin was to create the giant bug film. Unlike the B movies that followed, it is played with realism and sober conviction
A routine horror about teens that live in fear of creatures that lurk in the dark. Presented by Wes Craven.
John Carpenter at the peak of his career, remaking The Thing from Another World as a wild and phantasmagoric film steeped in paranoia that proved to be the absolute epitome of the era’s fad for air-bladder transformation effects
Though pitched as a prequel, this is essentially a remake of John Carpenter’s classic. Alas, this only finds the same phantasmagoric outlandishness as Carpenter did in a couple of scenes that may be moderately impressive for those who have never seen the original
The very first alien invader film of the 1950s. Maybe or maybe not directed by Howard Hawks, this has a dramatic urgency and tight tension that makes it stand head and shoulders above most of the films that came after
With the Mega Shark and especially the Sharknado films, The Asylum played the killer shark film as ridiculously as possible with delirious results. In this sequel to 2-Headed Shark Attack, they get the blend of the tongue-in-cheek absurdity to a point of near-perfection
Routine variant on the 1970s killer bug film, although the bugs here are gooey and cartoonish not meant to be taken seriously
Cheap and unmemorable film that is essentially a werewolf film with an SF rationale in which an archaeologist transforms into a lizard creature under the moonlight after touching a moon rock. The most incredible thing is that this has a screenplay by Bill Finger, the unacknowledged co-creator of Batman
The first of several sequels to the modest hit of Tremors with Fred Ward and Michael Gross repeating their roles, hunting Graboids in Mexico this time. As with the first film, this ably balances suspense, creature effects and a considerable sense of humour
Third of the films in the Tremors series, which have held up surprisingly well in their balance of creature effects and a considerable sense of humour. This adds a series of twists to the premise that are positively hilarious
The fourth of the Tremors films.; It is a surprise that the series has managed to remain consistently enjoyable despite a limited premise. The main spin here is an origin story that takes the series back to the West
It is a surprise that the Tremors series has managed to get so much out of a slim premise and to remain consistently enjoyable. Coming a decade after the last entry, this still remains enjoyable with the benefit of CGI outfitted Graboids and Michael Gross back in fine form
For an original that was only a modest box-office hit, it is surprising how long the Tremors series has kept going – five sequels, plus a tv series. This is the sixth film in the series and despite a limited and repetitive premise, characters running about hunting underground-burrowing monsters, it pulls off another enjoyable entry and fails to set a foot wrong
After thirty years, the Tremors series has held up in terms of quality much better than most other monster series. This is the seventh and what would appear to be the last of the films
Film from The Asylum about dinosaurs hunting mercenaries. Essentially Jurassic Park that takes place in a warehouse
Not the notorious bad movie but a sequel to Troll, the Norwegian-made effects spectacular about the revival of a giant troll. This is more of the same but with the effects pushed to a more spectacular level
Norway attempts to compete with the Godzilla films in the story of a giant troll amok and pull off a work that does the whole mass destruction spectacular well and with some top notch effects
One of the film from legendary stop-motion animator Ray Harryhausen, featuring one of his finest creations The Ymir, an alien monster from Venus that rampages throughout Rome
A crossover between all the menaces in The Asylum’s films, which are brought to life as part of an alien invasion plan
Steven Spielberg, Joe Dante, John Landis and George Miller came together to make this homage to tv’s The Twilight Zone. The episodes are variable but the standout is Miller’s Nightmare at 20,000 Feet
This is a killer shark film that is not taking itself too seriously. In their pursuit for the most absurd monster movie title, The Asylum have managed to get the balance of cheap effects and tongue-in-cheek treatment down near perfectly. The first in a series from The Asylum where each sequel added more heads.
Lavalantula with Steve Guttenberg facing giant fire-breathing spiders was a modestly enjoyable creature feature. This sequel feels like a Sharknado wannabe with shittier effects and an unfunny sense of humour
A film about children and monsters under the bed. You expect this to be a kid’s film but the surprise is that it is played adult the whole way with undeniably effective results
Throwback to late 80s/early 90s films like The Abyss and Sphere with the crew of a sub-oceanic station fighting off a monster. Generic in plot terms bit directorially this is an intense and claustrophobic ride
A Jaws copy made by regular Roger Corman scriptwriter Charles B. Griffith. Shot on the cheap in the Philippines and featuring a fish of unidentified species attacking a holiday resort, this is one of the most miserably cheap Jaws copies that came out during this era
Japanese monster movie from the same team that created the original Godzilla. The English-language version has simply kept the effects scenes and cut everything else, replacing it with scenes of the US military ordering the Japanese about
M. Night Shyamalan creates three-quarters of a tense and eerie film about a 19th Century village under siege from mysterious creatures only for it to fall apart when he produces a damp squib of a twist ending
Low-budget AIP monster movie largely premised around rehashing the monster from The She-Creature and a cheap backlot jungle. Marla English plays for all she can and gives the film an undeniable vigour
From Ishiro Honda, the creator of Godzilla, this bizarrely features two giant Frankenstein monsters battling it out. A fairly typical Japanese monster movie of its era featuring cheesily ridiculous rubber monsters, copious mass destruction and a largely irrelevant human element
A standout Spanish film about a 19th Century family at remote house in the midst of a great plain who are under attack by monsters that may just as easily exist in the mind
The first of three sequels to the Dean R. Koontz adaptation about an intelligent dog, although for each sequel producer Roger Corman has just remade the book
An amusing take on the Japanese Monster Movie that takes place in the aftermath of a monster battle as various government agencies debate what do with the carcass of a giant monster lying in the countryside
Live-action version of a manga that was previously made as an anime. This Hong Kong-made version is the lesser, lacking the perverse sexual imagery of the anime. It does feature the wildly fantastical action scenes typical to HK fantasy of this era but this has been conducted on a low-budget and looks rubbery (*)
A horror anthology that ostensibly tells a series of children’s tales but heads for an admirable grotesquerie
Low-budget Alien copy directed by makeup effects artist Gary J. Tunnicliffe with a plot that prefigures Armageddon as drillers uncover an alien nasty on an asteroid
The greatly underrated Brad Anderson makes a film about a father and daughter trying to survive in a world overrun by monsters. A film that reaches for something epic but lets it fall through its hands