THE WACKIER THE MONSTER THE BETTER

As far back as I can remember I’ve always loved monsters. I still consider King Kong and Gojira to be two of the greatest films ever made and certainly two of the most genre defining and influential. I love the aforementioned behemoths along with the giant bugs from Them, Tarantula and The Monster Who Challenged The World. I also always enjoy seeing small creatures such as the goblins from Troll 2 or the little creatures from Don’t Be Afraid Of The Dark. I owned dozens of monster video games for my Nintendo and my Commodore 64. I bought comic books featuring Devil Dinosaur and DC’s Strange Adventures series which was host to a load of odd monstrosities. I guess I enjoy monsters so damn much because for the most part their appearance in cinema or literature combine my favorite genres of horror and science fiction. A monster is terrifying when done correctly and over 50% of the time there’s some scientific element to this beast. Monster movies can be frightening or fun and the monsters themselves can range from terrifying to totally ridiculous. Although I like most non-CGI monsters, these days I tend to prefer the more ridiculous creations and that is what this list is dedicated to. The lizards, scorpions or giant worms of Perfection, Nevada I also enjoy, may not be require a huge leap of film making imagination, but the oddities on this list certainly do. It takes a filmmaker with a very dominant right side of the brain to come up with an alien that looks like a lumbering carpet or a living dead being that looks like a frilled neck lizard with hot dogs in it’s mouth. Goofy yes, but creative as well in many cases due to budgetary constraints. With the exception of Roger Corman, I would not ever claim that any of these directors or special effects guys have the genius of a Spielberg or Merian C. Cooper, but I enjoy their movies just as much due to the wacky and/or insane creature creations. Of course it’s hard to argue that the kaiju monsters who fought Godzilla or Iron King are the strangest and most surreal monsters in all of cinema or television, but that is a whole separate list for another time. I think whether you enjoy more obscure creatures like Bullton from Ultraman and the tree monster who stars in the flick From Hell It Came or far more popular horrors like Kong and xenomorph from Alien, you should find at least one film on this list that will satisfy your craving for more movie monsters...

5. Creature From The Haunted Sea (1961)

No offense to the great Roger Corman who earned money on every film he ever made including this one, but this is the most boring movie on the list. It commits the cardinal sin of bad monster movies in that it doesn't show enough of the titular creature. Still worth seeing at least once and no matter how little the very odd monster is seen, he is one of my all-time favorites. Like a walking Brillo pad with Freddy Krueger claws.

4. Sting Of Death (1965)

My most recent discovery was found simply because I ordered a movie called Death Curse Of Tartu about a vengeful Native American zombie shapeshifter and this film was on the same disc. I never knew there was a movie about a mutant jellyfish man nor did I know that there was a Neil Sedaka song called "Do The Jellyfish", but Sting Of Death proves they both exist. Watching 36 year old "college students" get stung, poisoned and slaughtered is always a plus in my book even if the monster looks like a guy in an everyday basic wetsuit with a mylar balloon on his head.

3. The Giant Claw (1957)

Because of it’s giant close ups and it’s constant ridicule this is perhaps the most iconic monster on the list (of course I am using the term iconic very loosely here). The special effects with the planes and the creature itself are below par at best. However, the story about some French Canadian legend connected to a turkey vulture from outer space is VERY original. I remember first seeing this when I was in my early 20s and it sparked in me something my mother used to tell me about. She used to mention the constant nightmares she had as a child about a giant bird coming over this hill and attacking her. She never had any run in with birds to cause this fear and eventually we connected this film, which she would have seen in theaters, to at least the visual aspect of her horrific memory. Proof that one person’s joke can be another person’s nightmare.

2. The Horror Of Party Beach (1964)

Listed by some as a “zombie” movie these aren’t like any zombies anyone else has ever created. I suppose corpses (well skeletons anyway) turning into lizard like people with their arms outstretched due to chemical waste would clear the technical requirement for a zombie. Whatever they are technically supposed to be, the look of these creatures is fascinating. The costumes are great, the black looking blood from the victims is even better and the zombies meeting their end via sodium looks very reminiscent to old Georges Méliès special effects which is probably not an homage as much as it is a sign that the budget was small. After all they had to pay that crappy band to play all those awful songs and that doesn't come cheap. In case you couldn't tell by the photo above, these are the aforementioned lizards with hot dogs in their mouths.

1. The Creeping Terror (1964)

Like the movie listed above, I discovered this one thanks to watching Mystery Science Theater 3000 when I was in college up in Greeley, Colorado. I loved the lampooning of this inept film but like an Ed Wood classic, the ineptitude made the movie charming. The creature creation is the wackiest thing ever witnessed in cinematic history but I applaud the filmmaker for that. No one except for a complete loon could envision an alien like this. A giant carpet with tubes and vegetation coming out of it that slumbers around swallowing up people looked just great. The director was obviously carrying out some mild sort of perversion through his analogy of “eating” women and making sure to give us a close up of their stockings and garters as they are being swallowed. The narration is a result of the director losing, destroying or simply not recording dialogue in many scenes, but I think that this helps make the film stand out as if it's almost trying to be a documentary. The film and the story behind it are so interesting that in 2014 they made a movie about this movie...now that's just cool.