This thread: So. The movie King Kong is about the black man, right? - Cafe Society - Straight Dope Message Board has got me thinking. Most monster movies are tired cliched crap. Now I’ve never been a big fan of the genre because most of it is truly awful. So I’m going to ask for people to tell me what their favorite monster film is and tell me why. Please only chime in on a movie already mentioned to add more on why it is wonderful or the poster is wrong.
My two mentions:
King Kong Perfect execution of a mythical monster concept. Showmanship, mystery, good guy gets killed trying to get away with the girl.
Jaws Moby Dick perfectly translated to the screen after countless efforts. I’ll include John Huston’s Moby Dick as a very well done example also, although this effort is serious enough to not be a “monster” movie.
That was Huston? (looking) Sho’ 'nuf, and it is obvious in retrospect. Did Huston film everything with an eye for him playing the best part? I can more see him playing Ahab than Peck.
As most monster movies defy both nature and Lawsonomy by blowing and sucking at the same time a “best” list is likely limited.
Them!, SF from the 50’s, giant mutant ants resulting from atomic bomb tests. Don’t laugh! This is notAttack of the Crab Monsters.
The effects aren’t all that great, but a lot of what’s scary about the movie isn’t what you see but what you don’t see – a cop investigating a noise in a sandstorm and then shots, a traumatized little girl reacting to the sounds the ants make, a kid lost in a storm drain.
And the acting is tops --James Whitmore, James Arness, Fess Parker – and there’s the requisite wise scientist with a pretty daughter.
It scared the bejezus out of me in 1954 and I can’t think of a better monster movie from that time period. And there were a lot of monster movies in the 50’s.
Peck is hit or miss for me. He is usually far too wooden for me to like as an actor. But in Moby Dick, To Kill A Mockingbird and The Boys From Brazil he just nails it. Huston would have been interesting in the role, but this is a Peck role that is classic.
I’ve been a fan of the macabre since I was in fourth grade and my English teacher mom handed me a copy of In Sunshine and in Shadow, an anthology of Edgar Allen Poe stories. (Never did figure out what the “sunshine” part was supposed to be. Heh.)
And I’d be hard pressed to determine the best monster movie of all. But last night I watched, for the first time, “The Brain that Wouldn’t Die” and now I understand why I never saw it when I was a kid, Mom being a Poe fan notwithstanding.
It’s truly a nasty little piece of work and must have been shocking for its time. It’s treatment of sexual implications may seem even more morbid post-feminism and it’s difficult to tell which seems the most monsterous - the crazed doctor or the What’s Behind-The-Door?"
W-B-T-D is delightfully over the top and the special effects are so hopelessly done that young people watching it in it’s day must have been unsure whether to laugh or scream.
But certainly it is the sly girly film aspects of the whole thing and the doctor’s leering, so very fifties, that gave me the goosebumps.
I’ll second Alien: it captures monster-as-predator better than anything else I know of, has some of a Lovecraftian horror at an impersonal universe at its heart. Good stuff (despite the dude who will inevitably come in here and link to his ridiculous article explaining why he doesn’t like it).
The Host, a recent Korean monster flick, was also very good; the monster was something of a metaphor for American imperialism, but worked on many levels, including the basic badass monster movie level.
If I were you I’d explicitly exclude humanoid monsters from the mix, but you didn’t, so I’ll mention Let the Right One In, my all-time favorite vampire movie.
Tremors - a tongue-in-cheek monster movie with a colorful cast and interesting, somewhat original monsters (the “graboids”). On paper, it seems like it should be awful, but somehow everything in this movie just works. It’s not an all-time great movie, but it’s damn entertaining.
The James Whale/Boris Karloff Frankenstein holds up well, I think. Bride of Frankenstein is very different and perhaps even better. Son of Frankenstein is enjoyable as a B-movie. After that the series goes downhill fast. Young Frankenstein, an affectionate parody of the series, particularly “Son of…,” is great in its own way.
Silents- Nosferatu, with Chaney’s Phantom as a close second.
Universal talkies- Bride of Frankenstein above & beyond the rest, tho Lugosi’s Dracula, Karloff’s The Mummy & Chaney’s The WolfMan all have great moments.
Giant Monsters- Original King Kong, with original Godzilla next. Mothra a close third.
Hammer- Cushing & Lee’s Curse of Frankenstein, Cushing & Peel’s Brides of Dracula. As iconic as Lee’s Dracula is, he just does not DO much- his is more of a looming presence than a real interactive character.
AIP- Vincent Price in Poe’s Masque of the Red Death. Closest thing to an art film they did & still packed with chills today. Also, Lovecraft’s The Dunwich Horror.
Moderns (mid-70s to now)- the original Nightmare on Elm Stree, Re-Animator and his Bride.
Of all the Frankensteins- the original Bride, with a surprise close second- the ABC Dan Curtis 1973 production starring Bo Svenson.
Of all the Draculas- the BBC 1970s Louis Jourdan version with Coppola’s a close second.
I have very high hopes for next week’s The WolfMan.
I’m not really sure if it’s a true “monster” film, but I want to mention Cronenberg’s Shivers AKA Orgy of the Blood Parasites. That’s one creepy movie.
The Hidden is a fun, clever, truly wonderful low-budget monster movie. You only see the monster twice (it’s an amoral, hedonistic interstellar criminal enjoying life on Earth, um, a bit too much), but boy howdy, is it memorable. Highly recommended: Hidden - Wikipedia
The Legend of Boggy Creek. I saw it at 9 years old in the theater, and the scene where the guy is sitting on the pot and suddenly the monster comes through the window trying to grab him gave me nightmares and stuck in my head for years.
Greatest effing movie evah! Though Fred Ward’s “Alumax/Yankton” cap may’ve turned my head recalling the times I called my opposite number at our Yankton, SD, plant about the weather because it is usually about 24 hours from here. And Kevin Bacon was properly impaired. And Michael Gross’s Burt was “someone I knew.” And Reba is still someone I’d like to know.
The Lost Skeleton of Cadavra The director decided to make a spoof of the classic '50s “B” monster films by…making a '50s style “B” monster film
It’ got it all, the awkward pauses, over-embelleshment of lines, overacting and underacting, cheesy “monster” effects, and a rather attractive woman who was made out of four different forest animals, Rowr!
“Ranger Brad, I’m a scientist, I don’t believe in anything”
“Amish Terrarium, must get Amish Terrarium”
<Human couple>- Please, have a seat <Alien couple>- Fold yourself in the middle!
“I sleep now!”
Sorry, you’re wrong. It IS one of the all-time great movies, one of my very favorites. As you said, everything just works. We never get tired of watching it. Tonight’s selected quote: “Consider it stepped on.”
