A Beginners guide to the Monster Genre, part 1: What is a monster?

I recently finished my run at Community College everybody! It's been 2.5 years since I got out of High School and moved towards my adult life. It's been an odd ride, with teachers as interesting as the classes, but I prevailed. It's really advantageous for me to have done this, it means I'll be able to actively pursue my English Major full time when I enroll in University this Fall. All right, personal update, check.

For those who follow me on here, you must have deduced that I don't post on here all that often, though there is a reason. Blogger is a neat place, to be sure, but I must say it is not my main haunt of 'teh intanet.' That goes to my Deviantart page, where I am something of a contributor to a genre that has been rather dry for. . . 30, 35 years? That genre happens to be one of the oldest in the movies, the monster movie.

I love it myself, though many question why one would have fascination for obviously fake films with bad acting, poor to par special effects, and a tendency to repeat itself? I'll deal with those issues later, but let's just say that the genre isn't as dead as you think. DA (what I say in place of DeviantArt, and will use from now on) is home to many fans that are in fact quite devoted and quite contributory to the genre that no one really pays any attention to these days. I myself have made several contributions, in fact I've been writing in the genre for nearly a year now, with no shortage of ideas. As such, I thought I would give a little introduction to the genre itself.


Monsters have existed since human sentiency, and they have always held a special in the human mind, the place where fear goes, right next to the imagination. Different cultures embraced different monsters, but at the root they were the same, beings that existed outside our realm of sense that embodied what we should be afraid of. Some monsters were given form to embody dangerous elements of life. Remembering this is key when you work in the genre, for the creature needs to show itself as a visual metaphor for whatever it is you are going for. You can be direct or indirect with this, and you can be as fun as you want, but it helps to remember this.

Now, the idea of putting them in the movies is quite diverse, with numerous ideas and the like. You can have a good monster, a bad one, an anti-heroic one, and anything in between. I'll list a famous example for major types.


Villainous Monster:


Example: The Blob






The Blob doesn't look like much, but he is one of the most frightening icons in monster history. It is cold, it is unfeeling, and it will digest you regardless if you are a serial killer or a 4 year old looking for his pet dog in a hallway. This is several human fears in one body, an alien protoplasm that gets bigger the more it eats, and is deemed to be indestructible by man. A picture doesn't do much justice, so see the film, or even scarier, the 1980's remake.


Heroic Monster:

Examples: Gamera





This guy is one of the more obscure names to American audiences, but in Japan, at the height of the monster genre, this guy was the second biggest name in the genre after Godzilla. He's been a hero since movie two, and he's been saving people, namely children for some reason, for over forty years.

The company that made his movies went bankrupt in the seventies, (times were tough, and they overused him in too short a time) the name was bought by one of the biggest movie studios in Japan, and in the nineties, the Gamera Trilogy was made. Best Monster Movies EVER! The premise is that the ancient Atlantean empire created a monster known as Gyaos, a giant bat like creature that ate anything, designed to clean up waste. They just happened to be TOO good at their job, reproducing and killing the society itself. In their dying times, they created the Gamera, giant guardians meant to kill the Gyaos, but it was too late for Atlantis, and the empire sank into the sea, or something like that. You can figure out the plot from there. ;)

Gamera has never really blurred the line of hero, except in one case where he was tainted with by some evil dude, or something, I'm not sure it's been a while.


Anti-Heroic Monster:

Example(s): Godzilla and King Kong






These two are the most iconic giant monsters of all time, with entire books written on the study of the blokes.

They are considered anti-heroes simply because they ride both lines. Kong is viewed as the more heroic, but that's only because he's a mammal, a giant gorilla at that, and we see his tender side towards whatever hollywood hotty he has his eyes on. Godzilla, he destroys cities and that's almost all we see.

Godzilla was originally made as an icon of fear. That fear was the lingering effects of the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in the end of WWII, which left a once proud nation forever scarred. However, his character changed over time, from a villain to loving father to a villain again, to. . .no one's entirely sure anymore. He's saved the world and destroyed it in different movies, making his role very strange and thus, very unique. Kong, while heroic to the girl, is a terrifying villain to everyone else, killing without discretion. Thus, the two really can't be labeled on good or evil.

I plan on covering various other aspects of the genre in future entries, including some of my own work and the work of others. Any suggestions or questions will be addressed.

Until next I write.