Monster Movie

The Monster Movieresearch paper due and don't know how to start it? How about like this?It is the purpose of this paper to discuss the history of the monster movies from the mid-1930s to the early-1990s. We can begin our treatment of this cinematic genre by noting that films of this type have been produced throughout the entire history of the movie industry and that an enormous number of them have been made. Stephen Jones' The Essential Monster Movie Guide has nearly 4000 entries, most of which deal with movies of this type. While critics have derided many of the individual productions of the genre-most of the movies of which have been quintessential "B movies"-the endurance and profusion of the monster film has been proof positive that these films' impact something universal in the heart of movie-goers. It is the thesis of this paper that the monster movie has endured-and sometimes flourished-because it has provided the movie-goer with two intense experiences: horror and laughter. Some of these films frighten and some of them amuse. Both experiences are emotionally gratifying.

THE FUNNY MONSTER FILMS; THE HUMOROUS APPEAL: Two amusing types of monster film are identifiable. Films such as Mel Brooks' Young Frankenstein (1974) were deliberate and sophisticated spoofs of genre classics; they were satires. But another type of monster film was frequently created, the film that was so improbable and so poorly executed that it had the kind of humor that is best denoted by the term "camp." Many of the Godzilla-type productions of Japanese filmmakers in the 1950s and 1960s, for example, were often so poorly done as to seem ludicrous rather than scary. Believability was always an issue with respect to monster films. As Monstrous Movie Music's review of Warner Brother's classic movie about giant ants, Them (1954), notes, this movie was a stand-out because it was one "of the truly believable monster movies." Many movies of the genre have been borderline with respect to believability and not capable of evoking real fear. Many of them have been so far removed from the domain of credibility as to have made the movie-going experience a matter of cracking jokes rather than an encounter with a sense of horror.