Love and Monsters (2020)

If Reign of Fire was a purely 2002 vision of the apocalypse, Love and Monsters is its late 2010s counterpart, the same basic story with a completely different approach. Where Reign loudly communicated its era by draining itself of colour and humour and having only vague self-awareness of the limitations of its CGI effects, L&M reflects its own by saturating itself with bright cartoon hues and quippy narration and CGI that has become so advanced and widespread that its generally seamless integration feels almost effortless (in fact, it received an Academy Award nomination for Effects.) The interesting contrast between these two movies might be further bolstered by eerie coincidence: Reign took place in a decimated world in 2020, while L&M was released in the midst of a decimated world in 2020, which mostly killed its theatrical run minus a few small-scale screenings and left it to become a perennial item in the Netflix back catalogue. In short, choosing to watch these two in close proximity definitely gave me even more to think about.

The Magic Serpent (1966)

Here’s another Japanese period piece/fantasy film from 1966, but whereas Daimajin was only styled to resemble an old legend, The Magic Serpent (Kairyu Daikessen in Japan) is actually based on a famous Japanese fairy tale—specifically, the story of the ninja master Jiraiya, whose ability to shape-shift into a giant toad is likely the basis for every piece of Japanese pop culture that connects ninjas with amphibians. Considering the story is already about large animals duking it out, translating it into a full-on kaiju flick was probably a no-brainer, as well as a symbol of how the old stories of Japan had continuity with the new ones of the Monster Boom. Produced by powerhouse studio Toei—which would become the dominant force in tokusatsu television with their endless Kamen Rider and Super Sentai shows—it is definitely a much lighter piece of filmmaking than something like Daimajin, stagier and focusing a lot more on silly action set pieces, but at least it didn’t feel like I was watching the same movie again.

Frogs (1972)

Let’s try something fun: a theme month! April’s batch of entries will all be examples of eco-horror, a subgenre I find fascinating, not just as someone interested in nature (and how it’s depicted in fiction), but as someone who is also interested in examining the ups and downs of storytelling trends. There are specific periods in time when eco-horror seemed to proliferate in movies especially (although it seems like they haven’t been as prominent in recent years for whatever reason), and one of those periods is represented in this first entry…

One of the lasting legacies of the counter-cultural movements of the sixties was the creation of modern environmentalism, which became one of the more prominent offshoots in the seventies and beyond as the free love types mostly stuck to getting stoned and selling ice cream. Although the movement took close to a decade to have some mainstream influence (following its first major event, the publication of Rachel Carson’s expose Silent Spring), there did seem to be an attempt by the mainstream to acknowledge or address the issues they brought up, as you saw the establishment of the EPA and the creation of Earth Day—but as was the style of the time, the supposed good vibes masked a widely held apocalyptic belief that modern society was on the edge of collapse. The environment and the human abuse of it became yet another thing to be afraid of, and another thing for grody schlock to exploit—thus we have the creation of eco-horror, a genre that seemed to be at its peak in the seventies. This new wave of creature features benefited from a much more intimate scale than their B-movie predecessors: compared even to monsters created by nuclear power (which was still a cultural fear at the time, mind you), monsters created by everyday pollution seem a lot closer to home. It’s especially true when the monsters aren’t even “monsters”, but everyday organisms who are simply pissed.