Reviewing The Host yesterday had me thinking monster movies all day. What makes a great one great? After a little bit of thought, I realized that, to me at least, what’s required is that the movie (starting with the “monster” and spreading out to plot, characters, special effects, etc) create a sense of thrill in the viewer. It just has to be thrilling. Not in the sense that a roller coaster’s thrilling, but in an earlier meaning of the word. It encompasses a feeling of mystery, a feeling that penetrates the recipient and produces strong emotions up to and including tingling sensations of excitement. A sort of horrible wonder. But that feeling of mystery is key with the monster movie. All the best ones leave a little bit hidden, unresolved, unexplained. It’s a cliché that the scariest parts of any movie are not shown; those originate in the viewer’s imagination. And it’s so very true.
So there needs to be a thrill and a mystery. Action movies with “monsters” (like the Terminator films) do not fall in this category. Nor does torture gore, that disgusting genre that’s currently rave in Hollywood nowadays. Nor does its predecessor, the slasher flick. It’s a surprisingly difficult type of movie to pull off, the LE monster movie, but I managed to come up with my ideal list. Going back an arbitrary thirty years, the ‘modern’ era of film-making, I came up with an even dozen.
So if we leave The Host out, how about the other eleven? Well, I found it impossible to rank them in any true order, but I could group them into two tiers: the really, really thrilling, and the really thrilling. Any true fan of the genre will have seen them all, numerous times, and possibly own a couple, if not all, on DVD. But if there’s a flick here that you haven’t seen, well, what’s your excuse???
So there needs to be a thrill and a mystery. Action movies with “monsters” (like the Terminator films) do not fall in this category. Nor does torture gore, that disgusting genre that’s currently rave in Hollywood nowadays. Nor does its predecessor, the slasher flick. It’s a surprisingly difficult type of movie to pull off, the LE monster movie, but I managed to come up with my ideal list. Going back an arbitrary thirty years, the ‘modern’ era of film-making, I came up with an even dozen.
So if we leave The Host out, how about the other eleven? Well, I found it impossible to rank them in any true order, but I could group them into two tiers: the really, really thrilling, and the really thrilling. Any true fan of the genre will have seen them all, numerous times, and possibly own a couple, if not all, on DVD. But if there’s a flick here that you haven’t seen, well, what’s your excuse???
The Top Shelf Items
- Alien (1979). The greatest modern monster movie. My coming-of-age monster movie, too. I remember reading the novelization of the movie before seeing it, and feeling horrified and thrilled at once. I had to see it, and when I did when it came around to cable TV, I was not disappointed.
- Aliens (1986). Saw this in the movies. One of the most intense experiences of my life, in that movie theater. That rare breed of sequel that could be considered better than the original. Intense, scary, dreadful, it’s very, very close to perfection.
- Signs (2002). M. Night Shyamalan’s last really thrilling movie. Yeah, there’s tons of plot and script inconsistencies, and its arguably not a ‘true’ monster movie, but it has some thrilling scenes that are incomparable. How about that alien Mel glimpses briefly on the roof of his barn? Or at night in the cornfield? Or – well, no spoilers here. See it.
- War of the Worlds (2005). Next to Aliens this is second most intense movie I’ve ever seen. Is there any filmmaking more effective than when we first encounter the alien tripod? And when Tom and the others are in the middle of the airplane wreckage, and we hear the tripod signal in the distance, a blanket of dread fell over me.
- Cloverfield (2008). Forgot about this one when I was writing The Host review yesterday. I saw it this past January in the theaters and – shaky-cam aside – it left my jaw hanging open. A great concept whose time had come, executed with near perfection. The only drawback was a lack of backstory and likeable characters, but a thrilling ride nonetheless.
The Best of the Rest
- The Puppet Masters (1994). I think I’m the only one who actually liked or even remembers this movie. Based on the Heinlein novel, I thought the monsters were bad in a good way and I liked the characters. Alien slugs infest a couple of American cities. Apparently red-tape and bureaucracy killed this from being a better movie; I say see it anyway.
- Pitch Black (2000). Plot and script inconsistencies, but as for the monsters – who only come out every 20-odd years when a solar eclipse … ah, forget it – the monsters were scary. And the characters were just fodder.
- The Blob (1988). My only remake on the list, this is a scarier, meaner blob than its '50s predecessor. The original scared me awake many sleepless nights as a kid (you can’t hide from the blob, see, it just oozes under the door), and the remake took a little courage for me to watch. I think I finally did about ten or twelve years after it came out.
- Predator (1987). Almost an action movie as opposed to a monster movie, but I’ll give it the benefit of the doubt because there were a few scary scenes with the title creature.
- Species (1995). Definitely a second-tier flick, but because they made the monster a female, and I really liked the characters assembled to hunt her/it down and kill her/it, I put it on the list.
- Tremors (1990). One of the best mixtures of comedy and monster movie, a very noteworthy achievement in itself. Memorable characters and highly original monsters. Haven’t seen it in a good many years, but I remember enjoying it lots when it first came out.
- Aliens (1986). Saw this in the movies. One of the most intense experiences of my life, in that movie theater. That rare breed of sequel that could be considered better than the original. Intense, scary, dreadful, it’s very, very close to perfection.
- Signs (2002). M. Night Shyamalan’s last really thrilling movie. Yeah, there’s tons of plot and script inconsistencies, and its arguably not a ‘true’ monster movie, but it has some thrilling scenes that are incomparable. How about that alien Mel glimpses briefly on the roof of his barn? Or at night in the cornfield? Or – well, no spoilers here. See it.
- War of the Worlds (2005). Next to Aliens this is second most intense movie I’ve ever seen. Is there any filmmaking more effective than when we first encounter the alien tripod? And when Tom and the others are in the middle of the airplane wreckage, and we hear the tripod signal in the distance, a blanket of dread fell over me.
- Cloverfield (2008). Forgot about this one when I was writing The Host review yesterday. I saw it this past January in the theaters and – shaky-cam aside – it left my jaw hanging open. A great concept whose time had come, executed with near perfection. The only drawback was a lack of backstory and likeable characters, but a thrilling ride nonetheless.
The Best of the Rest
- The Puppet Masters (1994). I think I’m the only one who actually liked or even remembers this movie. Based on the Heinlein novel, I thought the monsters were bad in a good way and I liked the characters. Alien slugs infest a couple of American cities. Apparently red-tape and bureaucracy killed this from being a better movie; I say see it anyway.
- Pitch Black (2000). Plot and script inconsistencies, but as for the monsters – who only come out every 20-odd years when a solar eclipse … ah, forget it – the monsters were scary. And the characters were just fodder.
- The Blob (1988). My only remake on the list, this is a scarier, meaner blob than its '50s predecessor. The original scared me awake many sleepless nights as a kid (you can’t hide from the blob, see, it just oozes under the door), and the remake took a little courage for me to watch. I think I finally did about ten or twelve years after it came out.
- Predator (1987). Almost an action movie as opposed to a monster movie, but I’ll give it the benefit of the doubt because there were a few scary scenes with the title creature.
- Species (1995). Definitely a second-tier flick, but because they made the monster a female, and I really liked the characters assembled to hunt her/it down and kill her/it, I put it on the list.
- Tremors (1990). One of the best mixtures of comedy and monster movie, a very noteworthy achievement in itself. Memorable characters and highly original monsters. Haven’t seen it in a good many years, but I remember enjoying it lots when it first came out.
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