Film monsters are physical manifestations of our fears and anxieties. They represent the dangers of progress; terrifying, real-world diseases; and the darkness that lurks deep inside of the human heart. But mostly, they’re just a hell of a lot of fun.
Cult of Mac’s Halloween roundup of excellent horror movies continues with five of the greatest monster movies ever, riveting tales about inhuman beasties that are here to mess with our cities — and our minds.
(Got extra room in your horror queue? Don’t miss yesterday’s roundup of five horror classics.)
The Host (2006)
Director: Joon-ho Bong
Runtime: 119 minutes
Availability: Netflix (disc and streaming), Amazon Instant Video, iTunes
Don’t worry — it’s not that alien movie based on Twilight creator Stephenie Meyer’s book. I wouldn’t do that to you.
The good movie called The Host is actually a South Korean film about a family that bands together to rescue its youngest member after a bizarre monster comes out of the Han River and snatches the girl up. The creature design is cool, the story is surprisingly grounded, and it’s a rare monster movie that doesn’t just have you counting the minutes of dead time until the monster comes back. By which I mean that the human characters are actually interesting and relatable.
More people should try that.
— — —
Grabbers (2012)
Director: Jon Wright
Runtime: 94 minutes
Availability: Netflix (disc and streaming), Amazon Instant Video, iTunes
Grabbers tells the story of a tiny Irish island that finds itself with a small case of alien invasion. The titular grabbers are basically just quivering masses of tentacles and mouths, which should appeal to fans of weird-fantasy writer H.P. Lovecraft.
Unfortunately for the intruders, they have a severe aversion to alcohol, which means that their choice of landing sites — right in the middle of an Irish comedy — was not their species’ best idea. Our heroes end up besieged and trying to come up with plans of action while completely smashed, and that’s just a good time for everybody.
— — —
Godzilla vs. Monster Zero (1965)
Director: Ishirô Honda
Runtime: 93 minutes
Availability: Netflix (streaming), Hulu Plus, Amazon Instant Video, iTunes
You can’t talk about monster movies without bringing up the big guy from Japan, and Godzilla vs. Monster Zero (also known as Invasion of Astro Monster, among other things) is one of his best outings.
The movie shows the first contact between Earth and Planet X, a newly discovered world that has its own monster problem. But instead of tentacle beasts, theirs takes the form of three-headed dragon Lord Ghidora. The residents of Planet X ask Earth super-nicely if they can please borrow Godzilla and Rodan (a giant pterodactyl) to drive him away.
You get a lot of fun monster fights, some space action and a pretty hilarious betrayal involving a two-reel tape.
— — —
The Thing (1982)
Director: John Carpenter
Runtime: 108 minutes
Availability: Netflix (disc), Amazon Instant Video, iTunes
If you consider yourself a sci-fi or horror fan, and you’ve never seen John Carpenter’s masterpiece The Thing, you have been doing it wrong. I’m not going to go into all the ways this film is beautifully constructed, shot and acted because we’ll be here all day. All you need to know is that an alien being capable of mimicking any creature it comes into contact with infiltrates an Antarctic science outpost, and horror ensues.
The film’s themes of paranoia, mistrust and isolation make for nonstop tension as the men try to figure out who’s human and who’s about to split open and start growing spider legs or whatever.
The Thing boasts impressive practical effects from legends Rob Bottin and Stan Winston, and you really feel bad for the poor guys trapped with that alien. And there are like 12 of them, so that’s really impressive.
This is one of my favorites ever, and it will probably become one of yours, too.
— — —
The Blob (1988)
Director: Chuck Russell
Runtime: 95 minutes
Availability: Netflix (disc), Amazon Instant Video, iTunes
I’m wrapping up with what I think is an underrated remake from the late ’80s: The Blob, an updated and gorier version of the 1958 cult classic.
Like the original, this movie is about a sentient lump of goo that comes to Earth in a meteorite and then oozes around eating everyone it meets. Unlike the original, the filmmakers went ahead and put a lot of detail into what it means to run afoul of a giant lump of acidic space gelatin. The film’s not for the squeamish, and it has a couple really effective jump scares.
It also has a chase sequence at the end between the Blob and two kids on a motorcycle that would be super-cheesy if it weren’t so undeniably rad.
