With the invention of cinema, there were two notable pioneering
filmmakers who experimented in remarkably different ways with the medium. The
Lumière brothers began making some of the first films by simply setting up the
camera in various settings, the very first being footage of employees leaving a
factory. They were also the filmmakers who shot the film of the train arriving
at the station, which frightened audiences as was shown in Martin Scorsese’s Hugo. Even as they went on to make films
of staged actions, the Lumière brothers stayed grounded in realism, while George
Méliès can be said to have shaped the future of cinema upon its initial
experimentation by taking a particular interest in the fantasy elements. While
the Luis Lumière and his brother pioneered the technical aspects of cinema, it
was Méliès who would show what the medium was truly capable of with A Trip to the Moon (1902) and countless
others. Among them was the first monster movie ever made.
In 1907 Méliès created a parodied version of Jules Verne novel “20,000 Leagues Under the Sea” in a short film, thus
creating the first creature feature. It was later adapted into a feature film
in 1916, featuring the first underwater photography. Even more significant was
the giant octopus which is essential to the film. There is nothing monstrous
about the octopus in 20,000 Leagues Under
the Sea, except for the size of the beast, presumably due to the extreme
depths of the ocean the submarine has submerged.
The same could be said of
King Kong (1933), whose monster is a
giant ape existing on an island containing a prehistoric circle of life that
also includes dinosaurs. The ape in King
Kong only becomes monstrous when confined and enslaved in the metropolis, New York City Empire State
Building
The
large creatures disappeared from cinemas, until the 1950s when Hydrogen bomb
testing “was the timely motive behind the resurrection or mutation of gigantic
monsters in matinee features” (Worland 78). The first of these features was The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms (1953), in which a hibernating dinosaur is unthawed
when an atomic bomb is tested in the Arctic Circle .
The dinosaur named Rhedosaurus attacks New
York
With the clear warnings
about the dangers of the atomic bomb, it comes as no surprise to find that “the
only nation ever attacked by atomic bombs, produced the decade’s most famous
radioactive giant;” Godzilla. Japan United States
with Godzilla, King of the Monsters
(1956), with the references to the actual atomic bombing of Hiroshima
and Nagasaki
Godzilla became the most
iconic radioactive monster, but there were many others. Another dinosaur-like
creature attacked London San Francisco
The creature-feature
appropriately dissipated, until its return in the politically turbulent 1970s.
There was a return to the simple fear of animals attacking after the box office
success of Willard (1971), a film in
which a social misfit uses his pet rats to enact his revenge. The films
following Willard removed the human
element, with the exception of the hormone-induced attacks from the giant
rabbits in Night of the Lepus (1972).
The amphibious attacks in Frogs
(1972) are in response to excessive pollution, and while other creatures are
abnormal only in size and aggressiveness, the frogs are deadly only due to
massive numbers. There was also a remake of King
Kong (1976) as well as another film with a giant ape wreaking havoc, Ape (1976), but the most significant of
the giant creatures was found in Jaws (1975).
The
next wave came in the 1990s, though the creature-feature was less commonly
employed in the horror genre, with an occasional exception. There were
additional large-animal creatures such as large snakes in Anaconda (1997), giant deadly worms in Tremors (1990), a giant crocodile in Lake Placid (1999) and
cockroaches in Mimic (1997).
From
its beginnings the creature film has often represented a lost or untouched
ecosystem in a distant land, disturbed by human capitalism and war. Other times
the creature represents the way in which nature has been mutated into a monster
by the same human folly. In order to convey this message, the monster is rarely
entirely unsympathetic, though its destruction is inevitable. We experience
first-hand the injustices served by humanity in order to deserve the attack,
often with an implicit message about pollution, nuclear or otherwise. Otherwise
the creature is a mutation of normality, often due to the scientific experimentation
on animals.
5. Jaws (1975)
The monster in Jaws is a gigantic great white shark
terrorizing a peaceful American beach community, particularly the heroic
protagonist of the film, Martin Brody (Roy Scheider), the new Chief of Police
in Amity Island
Spielberg managed to
personalize the terror, making it small-scale and familiar to anyone who has
stepped into the ocean. This was the first film I watched that had truly
frightening and gruesome images as a child, and it stuck with me. I can still
close my eyes and picture the severed leg of the fisherman floating through the
water, or Shaw’s final moments with the shark. I can play this film in my head
because the number of times I have already seen it, but get caught up in it
each time I watch it again.
4. The Host (2006)
The Host is a
creature film, but there is remarkable effort to make this a film about the
characters in peril more than the creature in question. The film follows a
family as they try and find their youngest family member, who is struggling to
survive in the creature’s nest deep in a sewer. There are many things going on
besides the creature, but the essence of the film could at any minute switch
back to horror should it randomly appear. Like many horror movies, The Host is a survival film. It is also
a family-in-peril horror movie, somewhat like Jaws, Alien and Little Miss
Sunshine all wrapped up into one South Korean gem.
Just as Jaws made the beach seem
frightening and suspect, The Host
turns the Han River, a dull and unexciting river running through much of Korea
The authority figures are of no help
when a young girl is taken with her family left grieving, but even more
shocking is their refusal to help when the family receives a phone call from
the girl letting them know she is still alive and being held in the creature’s
lair within the sewer. With the authorities claiming the phone call to be just
a bad dream or grief, the family decides to break free from quarantine and
escape to rescue her themselves.
Her father, a near narcoleptic bum,
her grandfather, the owner of a small snack shop by the river, her aunt, a
world famous archer, and her uncle, a college graduate who can’t find a job,
all equip themselves as best they can and set out to kill the creature and save
their youngest family member. Far better than I could have expected in terms of
scale and emotional attachment to characters within a horror film, The Host is one of the best monster film
in decades.
3. The Descent (2005)
With the first
two creatures on this list being monsters found under the sea, the third lives
underground in a wholly unique vision of the creature feature from British
genre director Neil Marshall. When a cave expedition turns disastrous, the
explorers become hunted by underground predators vaguely resembling humans.
These creatures were so unique and frightening in their conception that they
were utilized in garnering sincere performances from the cast full of females.
The cast was not even permitted to see what the creatures looked like until
filming the scenes in which they were being confronted by them.
This was Marshall Marshall an opportunity to direct his first Hollywood blockbuster and inspired a decent sequel.
Though there are the usual problems
that come with a horror sequel, The
Descent: Part 2 still manages to bring on the occasional chilling moment.
The creatures have lost the same impact, but the claustrophobic qualities of
the setting remains as harrowing as the original. When the last remaining
survivor from the previous incident emerges from the Appalachian cave system,
she conveniently has forgotten what was encountered underground. This provides
the perfect opportunity for a brash Sheriff and some tough rescue workers to
reenter the cave with the traumatized victim. Once again people are dying
before they can find a way out, and it seems like they just continue to go
deeper underground with the blind flesh-eating creatures.
2. Cloverfield (2008)
In truth there
is little original about Cloverfield,
but it is the combination of the familiar elements and a short running time
that makes the film enjoyable. Immediately upon the release of Cloverfield it was compared to The Blair Witch Project, because the
entire film is shot as though it were simply a home video. This found-footage
style has become its own sub-genre in horror cinema recently, though Cloverfield was the first creature
feature to utilize the method. This means inevitable shaky camera movement and
a grainy quality, but while The Blair
Witch Project established itself on the fear of something never really
seen, Cloverfield makes certain to
show plenty of the feared creature.
The Host has nearly the exact same plot
as Cloverfield, with the difference being
a creature attacking Seoul rather than New York New York
Long-time collaborator with Abrams, Matt
Reeves, may seem an odd selection for director of Cloverfield, especially considering Reeves has only directed one
feature before and it was quite unsuccessful, but he also spent a great deal of
time working on the night-time soap, Felicity. Again, this may seem a strange
shift, but Reeves brings the soap-opera mentality from the New York
The physical body of the
creature in Cloverfield is dissimilar
to any one animal on Earth. Unlike the city-ravishing monsters of the 50s,
there is no bomb testing or nuclear pollution, nor is there any other
explanation for the creature’s sudden attacks that justify them. The creature
arrives suddenly and begins destroying New
York City
Embedded in single frames
within the few jarring edits of the film, there are images placed from King Kong (1933), The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms (1953) and Them! (1954). This may be a hint suggesting that the creature in Cloverfield is a combination of all
three, though the origins of the creature’s biological structure have been kept
secret even since the release of the film. A sequel was discussed for years. The
concept of an additional camera being filmed at another part of the city during
the same evening was the main preliminary plans for the sequel, but it was
never developed.
1. The Mist (2007)
The
creatures in The Mist also retain a
certain amount of mystery, though their origins are briefly hinted at. The
variety of creatures suggests an alternate ecosystem in which humans are the
weakest species. Some of the creatures in the film resemble enlarged and
altered versions of animals and insects found on Earth, while others are
entirely otherworldly. There are creatures which are insects, though their size
is abnormally large and their sting brutally deadly. There are also spiders
that spin webs of acidic silk and winged creatures which essentially resemble a
type of bird, but the larger the creature becomes the further its appearance is
from normality. The last creature to be discovered is a giant six-legged
behemoth with countless tentacles.
The creatures in The Mist come suddenly, though there is
much debate as to their actual existence. Their initial discreetness is due to
the thick mist that arrives with them. Hearing the screams of those the victims
stuck in the mist, the survivors in a local grocery store are too frightened to
discover the truth for themselves. The point-of-view of the audience remains
with the victims in the grocery store.
The film
begins with a storm which has hit a small lakeside community in Louisiana
.
David
takes his five-year-old son, Billy (Nathan Gamble) with him to the grocery store,
and upon entering we are immediately given a distinct taste of the small-town
community. Highlighted among the customers is a religious fanatic, Mrs. Carmody
(Marcia Gay Harden), the first to begin declaring that Armageddon has arrived
when the mist arrives. Confined within the grocery store, this group is a
diverse community with several individuals that have varying opinions of the
events.
On one extreme side of
the community is Mrs. Carmody insisting that the creatures want ‘expiation,’ believing
that the attacks are warranted and humanity is deserving of the punishment. The
other alternative for David and his son lies with the unknown dangers lying
within the sudden mist that has surrounded the grocery store and its community.
This film frightens me on every possible level, from the intensely emotional
storyline to the diabolical creatures of a remarkable variety. Directed by
Frank Darabont (“The Walking Dead”), The
Mist marks the third film adaptation he has done of a story by Stephen King
after The Shawshank Redemption and The Green Mile.
Click HERE for more Desert Island Lists
Maddrey, Joseph. Nightmares in Red, White and Blue: The
Evolution of the American
Horror Film. Jefferson :
McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers, 2004. Print.
Worland, Rick. The Horror Film: An Introduction. Malden
Print.
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