KING KONG!

  Certainly one of the most popular, and at the time, innovative monster movies of all time is King Kong.   Discovery of komodo dragons inspired this tale of prehistoric creatures surviving in a remote environment. The original version had everything that makes a great monster movie, and is totally one of the greatest!
   Kong was brought to life with a combination of stop-action models and early "animatronics"... a big head that chews up people and a long, really mechanical-looking arm &hand that's out of scale with the rest of Kong's body. But the stop-action sequences are cool and totally believable. The scene where he rocks men off the tree-bridge is well staged. His battle with the T-rex is classic. In another scene, a dragon-like dino wraps itself around Kong's throat....this was re-created in Monsters, Inc. in Randall's final showdown with Sully....didn't notice? Check it out.
   The Empire State Building and the biplanes; who could forget that? "No, the airplanes didn't get him; 'twas Beauty killed the Beast!" How about the sequence when he busts through the giant gates and grabs Ann Darrow (Fay Wray)? Uh, pretty much the whole movie is awesome! It's no wonder no one even bothered to try a remake until...
   Jessica Lange, the Twin Towers, ...and a guy in a monkey suit. Some dude looking for a new place to drill oil picks up shipwreck survivor named "Dwan"- that's not a typo. So she calls Kong a "male chauvenist pig" which was supposed to be like, modern or something. This is a movie ya see once, and don't bother again. Lame-o. 
   The Jack Black version is far better. I'm not a big fan of CGI, but this film is well crafted. Some cool scenes in this one...the Skull Island natives are way creepy. The dino stampede was nifty.I liked the bit where she does her vaudeville dance for Kong, and he thinks it cute to knock her down. This Kong behaves more like a gorilla than earlier kongs. His "ice-skating" on the lake at Central Park was neat. Wisely, this film was set in the era of the original, not in our time. But the original is in a class by itself.

Matt da Ratt

Why Monster Movies Work...or Don't

What makes a good monster movie? What makes a great one? There are certain elements the best ones have in common....let's see if we can boil it down.
   First, the Monster has to look halfway believable. A few ways monsters are depicted on screen are: an actor in make-up; an actor in a full body suit; a stop-action model; a puppet (or muppet); an animal stand-in; animatronics; classic animation, and CGI. Each has is own weaknesses and cues that cry "FAKE!" Stop-action miniatures can have jerky motion; rubber suits can look rubbery; CGI can look like it was pasted on.
   Back in the days of matte painting, you would often see a bright blue line all around the "monster". A fake-looking creature can ruin the whole movie. Of course, there are exceptions to every rule; in this case it's the Killer Rabbit from Monty Python's Holy Grail . The monster is cool precisely because it's so fake!
   A musical score could make or break a scene; lighting can set or spoil the mood. But most important, to me, is the characters. The hero(es) must be likable, people we can identify with- see ourselves in their shoes! Whether the hero vanquishes the beast or merely escapes from it, he or she has to connect with us somewhere. Finally, there needs to be something that scares us-- duh, right? The concept behind  Snakes on a Plane, for example, was to take two things people fear most- snakes and flying- and put them together. 
   It's this tapping into our inner fears that makes a monster movie successful.Remember when you were a kid, and you'd go out to play in the sand-box some summer morning? You pick up a toy you left the day before, and out from beneath crawl out two or three creepy  earwigs. YIKES! They look scary with those menacing pincers on their tails, and the name "earwig" conjures up images of the little beasts crawling up in your ear canal and doing something horrible! Really, those pincers are just for show-they're totally harmless; what's more, the bugs don't really climb into people's ears. But That's what kids think.
   This childhood fear was brought to life on the screen in  Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan. What happened to Chekov is exactly what we knew would happen to us! That's the secret recipe.

Matt da Ratt  

Why We Love Movie Monsters

"There is nothing wrong with your television set ", the Voice said, "do not attempt to adjust it in any way". Such was our introduction to another world of monsters, aliens, and experiments gone wrong. ... ...Our old b&w TV brought us not only to The Outer Limits , but to corny "B" movies, Japanese giant monster movies, and a few classics now & then (not to mention The Addams Family and The Munsters like, every night). Thus were my brothers and I hooked for life! What a treat it was to pick up the latest copy of Famous Monsters of Filmland and learn behind-the-scenes secrets of movie magic! KING KONG! Godzilla! Dracula! The Hunchback of Notre Dame! The Creature from the Black Lagoon! Attack of the Giant Crab Monsters! The Crawling Eye! How cool was that?!

     Monsters come in all shapes and sizes: they may be animals, plants, bugs, birds, fish, humans, aliens, spirits, machines, or any combination thereof! Hamlet said, "There are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in your philosophy, Horatio." Intuitively we know there are things out there no one knows or understands, and something inside us wants to catch a glimpse of what lies just beyond "our philosophy"!

Hence our fascination with monsters, and monster movies!

    In this blog we remember our favorite monsters, dinosaurs, robots, aliens, villains, & the like. The coolest, the creepiest, the wildest, the weirdest, the scariest, the sexiest! What works and what doesn't. Memorable scenes, scenes we wish we could forget! So come along, and bring your friends: we're just getting started! : )

Matt da Rat