The Water Horse: Legend of the Deep (2007)

There have been films about the Loch Ness Monster pretty much from the beginning—the first movie about the monster released in 1934 (a film edited by future Lawrence of Arabia director David Lean), only a year after the first noteworthy sightings took place. Needless to say, very few of them are particularly noteworthy, so The Water Horse: Legend of the Deep can take the crown as both the most well-known Loch Ness Monster movie and the best one almost by default (I’ve already written about the only other contender.) Based on a novel by Dick King-Smith (whose book The Sheep Pig was adapted in the movie Babe), Water Horse is pitched as a traditional sort of whimsical family movie, with a cast of respected British thespians and the structure of a “child befriends an animal” story enlivened with fantastical elements ala ET. It burnishes this well-worn plot by taking advantage of the historical context of the Loch Ness Monster story, arguing why a legend like this may have resonated in an era of strife.

Big Man Japan (2007)

Much like Incident At Loch Ness and Rubber, Big Man Japan was brought to my attention by cult movie websites—probably the most receptive audience to these sorts of genre pastiches/parodies as they made their way through the film festival circuit. The mid-to-late-two-thousands was a period rife with self-reflexive takes on older genres and styles, and those movies and their particular quirks would even find some mainstream attention. But not only does Big Man Japan evoke that very particular period in film, it also seems to be chronicling a very particular period in the history of its titular country as well. Giant monster parodies are nothing new, and neither are parodies of the giant hero subgenre—but director and star Hitoshi Matsumoto’s comedic offering here is less about kaiju, and more about using kaiju film (as a very Japanese style of entertainment) as a vehicle to satirize an entire nation’s collective apathy. The world it presents is one where a once-strong symbol of heroism and national pride has degraded into a mediocre television show, carrying on traditions out of a halfhearted sense of obligation, and culminating in an absurd demonstration of just how little impact it actually has on a global stage. Don’t get me wrong, it’s also a very silly movie containing some of the goofiest giant monsters around, but the satirical intent of it is also made abundantly clear.