Monster movie

A monster movie, monster film, creature feature, or giant monster film is a film that focuses on one or more characters struggling to survive attacks by one or more antagonistic monsters, often abnormally large ones. The film may also fall under the horror, comedy, fantasy, or science fiction genres. Monster movies originated with adaptations of horror folklore and literature.

The most common aspect of a monster movie is the struggle between a human collective of protagonists against one or more monsters, who often serve as the antagonistic force. In Japanese cinema, giant monsters known as kaiju often take up this role.

The monster is often created by a folly of mankind – an experiment gone wrong, the effects of radiation or the destruction of habitat. Or the monster is from outer space, has been on Earth for a long time with no one ever seeing it, or released (or awakened) from a prison of some sort where it was being held.

The monster is usually a villain, but can be a metaphor of humankind's continuous destruction; giant monsters since the introduction of The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms (1953) have for a time been considered a symbol of atomic warfare, for instance. On the contrary, Godzilla began in this fashion yet as time moved on his reputation quickly grew into that of a cultural icon to the Japanese, as much as Superman is a cultural symbol to America, with a number of films presenting Godzilla as a sort of protagonist who helps protect humans from other, more malevolent monsters.

The attempts of the humans to destroy the monster would at first be the usage of an opposing military force – an attempt that would antagonize the monster even more and prove useless (a cliché associated with the genre). The Godzilla series utilized the concept of a superweapon built by Japanese scientists to suppress him or any of the monsters he fights.

Historically, monsters have been depicted using stop motion animation, puppets, or creature suits. In the modern day, many monster movies have used CGI monsters.

The first feature-length films to include what are regarded as monsters were often classed as horror or science fiction films. The lost 1915 German silent film The Golem, directed by Paul Wegener, is one of the earliest examples of film to include a creature. Wegener released a sequel in 1920 entitled The Golem: How He Came into the World, which is one of the earliest extant feature films within this category. This was followed in 1921 by the Italian science fiction film The Mechanical Man, directed by André Deed. The fragment that exists of this film features an early example of a giant monster battle, in this case involving large humanoid robots. The German Expressionist Nosferatu in 1922, and the depiction of a dragon in Fritz Lang's Die Nibelungen in 1924, followed tradition. In the 1930s, American film studios began to produce more successful films of this type, usually based on Gothic tales such as Dracula and Frankenstein in 1931, both heavily influenced by German Expressionism, followed by The Mummy (1932) and The Invisible Man (1933). Classified as horror films, they included iconic monsters.

Special effects animator Willis O'Brien worked on the 1925 fantasy adventure The Lost World, based on the novel of the same name. The book and film featured dinosaurs, the basis for many future movies. He began work on a similar film known as Creation in 1931, but the project was never completed. Two years later, O'Brien produced special effects for the 1933 RKO film King Kong, directed by Merian C. Cooper. Since then, King Kong has not only become one of the most famous examples of a monster movie, but also is considered a landmark film in the history of cinema. The monster King Kong became a cultural icon, being featured in many other films and media since then.