Monster Allergy

The popularity of the Godzilla films in their heyday did not just lead to homegrown competitors and imitators—as we saw with Yongary and Gorgo, film makers worldwide sometimes made their own attempts at similar monster material. I’ve written about that particular “Monster Boom” period pretty extensively, but a very similar pattern emerged following Pokémon, a later monster-based phenomenon that was clearly inspired by nostalgia for the original Monster Boom. That series’ thundercrack emergence in the late nineties led to a plethora of other media based on the idea of monster collecting and battling, especially in Japan, and I’ve written about some of those as well (you can also find a surprisingly deep recollection of even more Pokémon coattail riders in Daniel Dockery’s 2022 book Monster Kids)–but wouldn’t it be interesting to see how the basic ideas of a monster collecting franchise could be filtered through a completely different cultural lens?

This brings us to Monster Allergy, an Italian kids comics-turned-attempted-franchise that doesn’t outright announce its indebtedness to Pokémon and the other kids monster series of its era, but come on—it’s about “monster tamers” capturing monsters in small objects, and that alone makes the connection obvious. It’s certainly no rip-off, as any similarities largely disappear past those barest of surface elements, and instead follow more traditional western low fantasy storytelling. But regardless of the degree of intention, this does represent a very European take on some of Pokémon‘s core ideas, a kid-focused adventure in a monster-filled world, and In this way, it is to Pokémon what a Gorgo or a Reptilicus was to the original Godzilla.

Nightbreed (1990)

By the late eighties, Clive Barker had enough clout in the movie world that he could pursue bigger and grander projects, including writing and directing an adaptation of his dark fantasy novel Cabal, which constructed a mythology tailor-made to appeal to the horror and monster-loving outsiders of the world. “Humans are the real monsters” is a common enough theme (that’s why I have an entire tag for it), but Cabal and its film counterpart Nightbreed might be the most blatant examples, presenting a story that explores the allure of the monstrous and the macabre, especially to the disenfranchised, and pitting it against the violent prejudice of the close-minded mass of mainstream society. In interviews, Barker explains this story in terms of obvious fantasies that monsters let us live out—of possessing immortality and other amazing abilities—but it also clearly draws a connection between monsters and underground subcultures, often similarly persecuted, which I’m sure was a very meaningful thing for an openly gay writer like Barker to explore, especially at the very end of the AIDS-haunted eighties. So the subversion in having the monsters be the “good guys” in the scenario carries a lot of weight.

Before I get into the bulk of the post, I should clarify which version of Nightbreed I watched—because this was famously one of those movies that the studio mishandled completely, leading to some crucial changes to the final product that in turn led to multiple cuts of the movie existing. The original 1990 theatrical version was 102 minutes; altered and removed footage was rediscovered in the late 2000s and early 2010s, which were re-inserted into what is called the Cabal Cut and has been re-released with lengths from 145 minutes to 159 minutes. The version I went with was the 2014 Director’s Cut put out by Shout! Factory, which is just over two hours long and utilizes footage from the Cabal Cut. None of us want to be here all day, so I won’t go over the differences between the versions.

Creature Classic Companion: Society (1989)

So ends a month spent with Arrow, and let’s cap it off with the type of movie that makes you appreciate the existence of these specialty services, because you know most mainstream streamers wouldn’t touch this with a ten-foot pole.

There’s a particular strain of eighties movies, genre movies especially, which are almost entirely about how the eighties were terrible, and specifically railed against the wealthy and the corporate culture that seemed to increasingly dominate everything during the Reagan era. Robocop is probably the highest profile example, but you also have John Carpenter’s The Live and Larry Cohen’s The Stuff all espousing the same kind of anti-authority stance—and in using genres and styles that were considered disreputable to mainstream consensus feels like an appropriate punkish way to do so. Horror with B-movie sensibilities, ultra-violent action, and an emphasis on gross special effects have a visceral anger to them, and thumbing your nose at the idea of good taste probably felt like the most subversive way to get your point across. Society is another example of this from the tail end of the decade, and it acquired a strong cult following among horror aficionados by taking things as far as they could go.

This is the first film directed by Brian Yuzna, who was mostly known for producing the movies of the late Stuart Gordon, including such favourites as Re-Animator and From Beyond (which he co-wrote.) Apparently after Gordon and him co-wrote the initial version of Honey, I Shrunk the Kids(!), Yuzna wanted more independence, and was able to secure financing for whatever he wanted as long as he also produced a sequel to Re-Animator. Taking that sweet deal for all it was worth, he picked up an intriguing script about a Beverly Hills teen becoming increasingly suspicious of his rich family’s secret life, but felt that the cult/slasher angle of its ending was not his speed, and so altered the twist into something else entirely—a monster movie, but more than that. What was produced was one of the most audacious and disgusting of all eighties horror movies, one that left an indelible impression on everyone who stumbled upon it during the heyday of practical horror effects.

Monster Multimedia: Kipo and the Age of Wonderbeasts

Netflix has been funding plenty of original animation in recent years, and statistically there was always a decent chance at least some of it would be creature-based, or at least creature adjacent, and so would attract my attention (and there may be enough of it for multiple blog posts, hint hint.) Last year saw the release of Kipo and the Age of Wonderbeasts, a thirty episode series split into three “seasons” over the course of ten months, which was produced by Dreamworks’ television animation division with the actual animation provided by South Korea’s Studio Mir (which previously animated shows like Legend of Korra and Netflix’s Voltron reboot), and this is about as creature-centric as it gets, providing a post-collapse sci-fi world filled with unique specimens, rendered in some of the most eye-catching colours I’ve seen in a recent animated thing (it’s based on a webcomic made by series creator Radford Sechrist, an animation veteran, and admirably captures his comics’ colour palette and angular design sense.) Kipo has the serialized plot and gradual worldbuilding of much recent genre work (especially aimed at adolescent audiences), but its emphasis on action and its regular introduction of wacky new ideas and characters throughout give it a feel not dissimilar to the Saturday morning cartoons I used to watch as a kid, only much better in execution. But while it has a focus on excitement and humour, it becomes surprisingly nuanced as it goes along, not afraid to depict its characters’ legitimate struggles with morality and cooperation, while never giving up on their initial optimism and drive. It’s compelling as both a story and candy-coloured blast of imagination, which is still feels like a rare accomplishment.

(I don’t usually signal this, but since this show is still relatively recent and some people may still want to watch it, I’ll note that this post contains heavy spoilers for the entire series, so proceed with caution!)

Yokai Monsters: 100 Monsters (1968)

If you recall, around Halloween time last year I reviewed the 1968 Daiei classic Yokai Monsters: Spook Warfare, and briefly mentioned that it was the second film in a “quickly-produced” trilogy—actually, I don’t think I said it was “quickly-produced” that time, but I should have, because all three of those movies premiered within a twelve month span (so, slightly longer than the Daimajin trilogy.) Daiei was all about striking when the iron was (potentially?) hot. Whereas last week’s post was about a sequel to a tokusatsu classic, this week’s is about a prequel—100 Monsters (AKA One-Hundred Yōkai Tales, which is a more fitting title because there definitely aren’t one hundred monsters in this movie) released nine months before Spook Warfare, and despite utilizing a lot of the same suits, it’s actually a very different movie. Where the second Yōkai movie is definitely meant to be the more lighthearted and fun take on Japan’s native supernatural creatures, this is a moralistic pseudo-horror film…very much like Daimajin, actually, right down to the corrupt authority figures who anger the paranormal forces and get their comeuppance. Would it surprise you that this was directed by Kimiyoshi Yasuda, director of the the first Daimajin film? He brings a more foreboding character to this movie, whose set design and tone feels more in line with the actual yōkai stories themselves.

Yokai Monsters: Spook Warfare (1968)

The only real difference between the Japanese yōkai, the multitude of spirits that inhabit the country’s traditional stories, and the mythological creatures of other nations is that there has been more of historical trend towards treating yōkai as a collective group of popular characters rather than just creatures in various stories. Although they originate in tales that are often meant to be scary (or at least creepy), most yōkai have ended up becoming more like weird but lovable mascots than figures of terror, and despite often coming from different contexts, they’ve also been treated as one big group for even longer. Yokai Monsters: Spook Warfare (called The Great Yōkai War in Japan) is an example of how they’ve come to be used in culture—the second in a loose trilogy produced by Gamera/Daimajin studio Daiei (just to further solidify the connection between this and Daimajin, this movie is directed by that movie’s cinematographer), the only thing that seems to connect the three movies are the yōkai themselves, a whole host of them brought to life with sixties tokusatsu ingenuity. Considering that most kaiju films, and Japanese media about monsters in general (even later when you get to stuff like Pokémon) are heavily indebted to depictions of yōkai, it seems rather obvious that they’d get some movies made about them in this style. It’s an homage to where much of the monster movie tradition in the country originated.