BTTM FDRS

The 2019 graphic novel BTTM FDRS finds its monster in the legacy of gentrification and exploitation, with beautiful ideas twisted and then abandoned, and the people on the lower rungs of society left to deal with the resulting mess. Writer Ezra Claytan Daniels (author of 2018’s Upgrade Soul) and artist Ben Passmore (creator of numerous comics across mediums including the completely unsparing Sports Is Hell) make no bones about the racial make-up of both sides of that equation, showing its black protagonists putting up with the indifference and hostility of white people in positions of relative power, something used as both a source of horror and of comedy. This is a story that reflects a wider recognition of social stratification, a heady mix of self-consciousness, guilt and anger, and that complexity puts it well beyond just a simple vehicle for social critique and a side of the grotesque—although it is also both of those things, rather pointedly.

Colossal (2016)

Colossal falls in with the sorts of postmodern-ish alternative monster movies that seem tailor-made to make the rounds on cult movie websites that have particular love for high concept genre takes, a category that includes the likes of Big Man Japan, Rubber, and Bad Milo! Writer-director Nacho Vigalondo’s 2007 time travel thriller Timecrimes was another favourite in those same circles, and so his particular high concept take on the giant monster genre had some clout going in. Even so, for a project like this, there’s always a risk that the people making an “unusual” take on the genre have no real understanding or connection with that particular genre and produce something that is actually less “unusual” or interesting than they think, or that the big concept and meta jokiness takes the place of actual substance or entertainment value (I’m looking at you, Rubber.) While Colossal‘s use of giant monsters sticks to the standard ideas and imagery (Vigalondo apparently pitched it at film festivals by mentioning Godzilla and even using images of Godzilla, which earned him a ticket to lawsuit city), its purpose is to act as a fantastical shadow of the human narrative, reflecting it as well as looming over it.

Hatching (2022)

Now begins our brief evaluation of some of the monster movies of the previous year, to see just where filmmakers have been taking the form in recent times. At least in the beginning, the Finnish film Hatching (Pahanhautoja), directed by Hanna Bergholm, seems to lean into modernity, introducing us to a family documenting itself in online video form, and positioning itself as aspirational in the way social media influencers often do, with their gleaming, crystalline European abode and their coordinated normalcy (their house is really the only way they flaunt any kind of wealth, which is the one crucial difference between them and most other influencers.) This, as it turns out, is really only one component of the story, an inescapable twenty-first century incarnation of some well-worn themes of image obsession and parental pressure, all your favourite adolescent anxieties presented here with the addition of a gross and bizarre monster, a thing of pure chaos that manages to both briefly assuage and act upon those anxieties.

Bad Milo! (2013)

This really brings me back to when I voraciously read movie websites ten or so years ago—I distinctly remember reading about Bad Milo! when it was new, as it’s the exact sort of high concept, mid-tier film that those websites loved to give attention to, with a real “ha ha can you believe this?” vibe. That felt like the beginning of a time when bigger names in Hollywood were trying to half-jokingly reach for the schlock heights usually left to disreputable, low-budget movies—and it usually begins with a premise that, on paper, is meant to sound incredibly stupid. Most reviews from relatively mainstream sources would begin with that premise, either to say “it certainly lives up to it!” or “it turns out to be more than that!”, and in either case the rest comes off as a slightly bewildered spiral around the gravity of the premise. It’s not hard to see why: just saying “a monster comes out of man’s butt” will automatically make you think it’s a gross-out parody, and the cast of comedy veterans would lend to that view. But, in fact, Bad Milo! is not a parody, and turns out to be rather sincere in many places—which is something that works for and against it.

Creature Classic Companion: The Brood (1979)

David Cronenberg’s name is synonymous with body horror—he spent the first three decades of his career defining it (and recently came back to it after a long absence), pushing the envelope when it came to fleshy protuberances and disturbing hybridization. But as repulsive as the effects could be in his movies, they’ve never really felt like puerile shock for its own sake, as there has always been a sense of fascination about the way bodies could be warped, and an equal amount of fascination with how physical changes affect people. They are visceral both physically and psychologically, and that’s why Cronenberg’s filmography is a thing unto itself, an idiosyncratic fusion of horror and science fiction.

It all started in low-budget exploitation films of the seventies, beginning with Rabid and Shivers, all shot in his home town of Toronto (where all, or at least most, of his movies have been filmed), which overcame moral outcry from local sources who took umbrage at their combination of sex and violence to be reasonably profitable, allowing him to continue making increasingly larger-scale movies. All of his obsessions were there from the beginning, from bizarre body modifications and infections to, yes, a combination of sex and violence (and music brought to us by regular collaborator and future Lord of the Rings composer Howard Shore)—and his seventies run culminated in The Brood, distributed by Roger Corman’s New World Pictures, which was the big leagues, comparatively speaking. Here, Cronenberg went beyond just the parasitic terror of his first two movies and turned to both parenthood and psychotherapy, and with those themes created some of those notably Cronenbergian images that would define his aesthetic. But this is a movie that is also deeply personal in a way that his other movies aren’t, which makes it all the more disturbing.

Pumpkinhead (1988)

To think, I haven’t written about a single Stan Winston movie yet, despite his prominence and importance to movie special effects and to movie monsters in particular. Winston and his team are responsible for the effects of some of the biggest movies of the eighties and nineties, but Winston himself only directed a few himself (which includes both A Gnome Named Gnorm and the Michael Jackson “Ghosts” video, and it’s hard to tell which is a more ignoble mark on his record), with Pumpkinhead being his first. Of course, you’d expect a movie directed by a guy who is a specialist in animatronics and detailed monster costumes to mostly be a straightforward vehicle for both (not unlike what Equinox was doing for creature effects in the late sixties/early seventies), but it actually manages to mash together a lot of different ideas, producing something that is never really just one thing. It’s a backwoods supernatural horror story, a melancholy morality play, a killer-chasing-young-people flick—I thought Equinox was a movie that was just looking for the most efficient path to justifying having a bunch of monsters on screen, but Pumpkinhead puts in a surprising amount of work into feeling like some legitimate modern folklore.

The Bermuda Depths (1978)

We’ve had a bit of a nautical theme for the last few entries, and I’d call it a maritime monster month, but it actually took place over two months, so that would be a lie. Next up is October, and let’s say that I already have plans for then that will be…seasonally appropriate. Yes, that is an accurate, straight-to-the-point description of it.

The Bermuda Depths represents the third of three collaborations between Rankin/Bass and Tsuburaya Productions—yes, the people behind Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer and the creators of Ultraman, together at last! R/B frequently employed the talents of Japanese studios to make their television specials, so it’s not that much of a surprise—what was surprising was just how prominent Rankin and Bass’ names were in the opening credits, even compared to their other productions. Rankin is credited as co-writer, and Bass penned the lyrics for this thing’s very on-the-nose theme song. It almost feels like all those beloved holiday specials were what they made to pay the bills, but this represents what they really wanted to make.