Giant monster movies are often considered the ugly stepchild in the horror community. They're not scary, the effects are laughable by today's standards, and there's a lot of sloppy editing, not to mention the ridiculously bad dubbing that's become a joke in itself. So why have they endured? What makes these characters so iconic, the thrills so durable, the imagery so revealing? And above all, what makes them so much damn fun?
What most people don't get is that most of these films were written to illustrate something far more important than a radioactive beast wreaking havoc on metropolitan areas. Godzilla (1954)
Of course, there was good old-fashioned fun to be had too. Naturally, American audiences wanted something more lightweight with their monsters, and so King Kong
Everyone's heard of Godzilla and Kong, of course, but there are literally dozens of different giant animals that populated movie theaters from the 1930s through the 1970s, most of them created by the Tokyo-based Toho Company as allies or enemies for Godzilla. Giant monster movies have been few and far between in the last 40 years, although there were offshoots in the "freaks of nature" category, such as Jaws
Thanks to the ever-decreasing expense of CGI and fan interest in old-school shlock, waves of giant monster flicks have been released in the last few years. Most of them are pretty terrible, but they're still somehow incredibly watchable. A handful have actually been good, like Cloverfield
That's all well and good, but I haven't exactly answered the question of what makes these movies so much damn fun. It's as simple and as complex as you could imagine. These movies last because they offer the over-the-top nonsense of professional wrestling with the storytelling weight of classic horror literature. The filmmakers who did it best always knew: lure the crowd in by advertising the big bout between the monsters, then slip in some shrewd social commentary that gets 'em thinking. Why do you think zombies have remained popular? In the best of these movies, the monsters are never just monsters. They're also atomic bombs, or STDs, or consumerism, or racism. Just a guy in a rubber suit? No, it's a lot more than that.
thanks you fed my frankenstien! he was hungry for knowledge and it's feeding time.
ReplyDeletejeremy [iZombie]
Aw, shucks, it was nothing, Rabbs.
ReplyDeleteAnyway, yeah, big monster movies are a lot of fun. I think, in a way, slashers are a lot like giant monster movies. In both, the villains cause destruction (be it people, buildings, or both), both can't be stopped until the end of the movie, and sometimes both have a reason for their killing. I like to think of it as the Giant Monster Movies being like a bulldozer, destroying cities along with people; slashers are like surgical knives, destroying in a slightly more precise way.