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.

Creature Classic Companion: The Host (2006)

I was definitely not expecting to see anyone with a major hand in creature feature history take home the Academy Award for Best Picture within my lifetime, but the last few years gave us not one, but two. Of course, Guillermo Del Toro’s Oscar nod for The Shape of Water has the double validating effect (not that I need validation, especially not from the Hollywood fatcats) of being for an actual monster movie, even if a revisionist one, but Bong Joon-ho’s win with Parasite was notable on its own for being the first non-English, non-Western film to get the gold. That’s an impressive first to have on your resume! Joon-ho’s career has spanned over twenty years and various genres, producing many critically-acclaimed films in South Korea and abroad—but I can imagine that a lot of you reading this first heard of him back when his monster movie was making the rounds in the film festival circuit and attracting the attention of cult movie websites, as I did. Fifteen years later, and The Host is still a genuine classic, one of the most engaging and inventive monster movies in recent memory, with a stylistic and cultural specificity that remains singular.

A*P*E (1976)

There is a very specific reason why I am writing a post about the 1976 movie film A*P*E (I refuse to type it any other way), and that’s because I have been regularly using an image from it on the Internet for years. I probably had no idea where the picture/GIF of the gorilla suit man flipping us off originated from, but I knew in an instant that it was a perfect visual, one that would provide endless amusement and would have an infinite number of applications in my everyday existence online. Do I need to respond to someone I don’t like? The gorilla is there! Do I need something to properly represent my mood? The gorilla is there! Do I just want to make myself laugh? The gorilla is there! I have always kept that image somewhere in my files, and since I learned of where it came from, I considered checking that out, just to see how a bird-flipping-gorilla fit into an actual movie. Now that I have seen it, I’m still not entirely sure it is a movie.

I’ve written about some lower budget or lower quality productions in the series (looking at you, Frogs), but I haven’t quite gotten into the truly bottom-of-the-barrel stuff. That ever-dropping barrel bottom, though, is an important part of monster movie history, especially in the fifties and sixties, when barely coherent excuses for film (which were sometimes imported films, but not always) found their way into cinemas, often as part of double bills. Sitting through something like The Creeping Terror or The Beast of Yucca Flats was a rite of passage for many burgeoning monster fans, as they promised terrifying delight, but mostly provided endless tedium because unexciting things are cheaper to film—basic competence was no longer a guarantee. These movies provided good examples of what separates different kinds of schlock: while some movies may not have coherent plots, consistent special effects, or top tier acting, they at least have ideas, style, or atmosphere—others seem like they could have been home movies (and some of them pretty much were), and contain so little of what they advertised that they are basically a scam. A movie like Inframan is super silly, but it feels like the people making it knew what they were doing in the end. A movie like A*P*E on the other hand…

Yongary, Monster From The Deep (1967)

Yongary represents something a bit different—this is a South Korean production (with special effects work provided by Toei), which I guess shows just how widespread kaiju had become at the time. Historically, the relationship between Korea and Japan is, let’s say, interesting—so the fact that Korean filmmakers would make something in a very Japanese genre is pretty fascinating. According to the easiest-to-find sources, this movie does have images and ideas that would have resonated with South Korean audiences—things that would call back to the still-in-living-memory Korean War, and even references to Japanese imperialism—much as the original Godzilla had imagery that was meaningful to the Japanese audience of the fifties. So, although this has similar trappings to all the other Monster Boom movies,it also has a specific context to it that makes gives it even more historical interest.

(It’s also worth noting that the original Korean language version of Yongary is apparently lost, so the English dub is the only one available.)