Talking about monster movies and their history requires one to go back pretty much 100 years at this point. The Lost World came out in 1925, after all, and if you don’t want to count a dinosaur movie as a monster movie, then there’s also 1933’s King Kong, which is more recognizable as a (giant) monster movie. Also, in the 1930s, some slightly smaller monsters were in their fair share of iconic films, including the likes of Dracula, Frankenstein’s monster, and the Mummy.
Such movies have continually remained popular as the decades have marched on, with the 2020s seeing the release of something as groundbreaking as Godzilla Minus One, for example. But to back up a little from there, the 2010s was also a strong decade for this subgenre that often combines action, horror, and sci-fi tropes/conventions. The following movies all have monsters—or the threat of them—playing a decent to large role narratively, and are the best of the 2010s to do so (featuring mainly giant monsters, but also a few movies with slightly less massive ones, too).
10
‘Troll Hunter’ (2010)
Directed by André Øvredal
The coolest thing about Troll Hunter is its presentation, with the found-footage thing contrasting with big monsters, admittedly done a few years earlier, in Cloverfield… but Troll Hunter might do it better. It’s a whole different kind of energy when a found-footage movie becomes about capturing titans on film, rather than creeping around a forest or set of tunnels, catching glimpses of smaller and more in-your-face creatures.
There are some limitations that might hold Troll Hunter back technically, but it’s still pretty impressive with what they’re able to do here, and some of the imagery is striking. It’s a generally entertaining and distinctive spin on the giant monster movie, getting a great deal of mileage out of the mockumentary angle taken to it and having filmmakers who know exactly what to show, and when to show it, for maximum effect.
- Release Date
-
October 29, 2010
- Runtime
-
103 minutes
- Director
-
André Øvredal
- Writers
-
André Øvredal
9
‘Monsters’ (2010)
Directed by Gareth Edwards
Speaking of knowing when to show or not show things, Monsters makes a pretty conscious decision not to actually have many monsters depicted on screen throughout. It aims to accentuate the horror and realism by focusing on people pretty much entirely from start to finish, and perhaps increasing a sense of paranoia with the idea that alien creatures are out there, running rampant in a huge quarantined zone in Mexico.
The two main characters of Monsters have to travel through such a zone, with tension always being high, and perhaps staying at such a level thanks to the minimalist approach (something Gareth Edwards often likes doing). It does also mean that if you want to see tons of cool monsters, you won’t get many in the traditional sense in Monsters, but the film’s not devoid of them entirely, visually. And their presence does still haunt the scenes in which they don’t directly appear.
8
‘Lake Michigan Monster’ (2018)
Directed by Ryland Brickson Cole Tews
A few years before making the incredible action romp that was Hundreds of Beavers, the director and star of that film—Mike Cheslik and Ryland Brickson Cole Tews—also collaborated on the equally wild (but not quite as good) Lake Michigan Monster. Here, it’s Ryland Brickson Cole Tews who directs on top of starring in the lead role, while Mike Cheslik was a co-producer, co-writer, and editor.
It’s all very low-budget, the film seems to fall apart at about the halfway mark (characters leave, and you have to wonder whether the actual actors just straight up left, too), and then the final act is completely gonzo.
Trying to explain Lake Michigan Monster feels like an exercise in futility. It’s about a very poor attempt to slay the titular monster by a disturbed man and a group of people he ropes into helping him. It’s all very low-budget, the film seems to fall apart at about the halfway mark (characters leave, and you have to wonder whether the actual actors just straight up left, too), and then the final act is completely gonzo. It’s uneven, and beyond ridiculous, but there are definite laughs to be had here (just don’t go in expecting something that’s Hundreds of Beavers-level in quality).
7
‘Godzilla’ (2014)
Directed by Gareth Edwards
Across the span of 60 years, three movies came out and were simply called Godzilla. Of course, the 1954 original of that name earns such a title the most, and it’s clearly the best, but the 2014 Godzilla is, to date, maybe the best of the American Godzilla movies, and a film that was a huge step-up in quality from that other movie called Godzilla: the not-very-good 1998 one.
At least 2014’s Godzilla treated the titular king of the monsters with respect, and also laid a solid foundation for the MonsterVerse to be built off. Like with Monsters, Edwards chooses not to show, you know, the monsters at a few points in Godzilla, and that can be frustrating… but it also allows the ending showdown to hit all the harder, and that final burst of action right near the end is pretty awe-inspiring.
6
‘The Cabin in the Woods’ (2011)
Directed by Drew Goddard
Mentioning that The Cabin in the Woods becomes something of a monster movie is a bit of a spoiler, but maybe not too much. Ideally, it’s the sort of movie you should go into knowing nothing, but the idea of monsters appearing happens pretty early on. What’s more surprising is just how many monsters are fit into the whole thing eventually, and the way so many of them are used.
So, specifics won’t be spoiled. This is a movie, after all, about young people going to a strange cabin in the woods, all until it decidedly isn’t. But when The Cabin in the Woods wants to be a full-on monster mash, it’s a blood-drenched blast, and the level of creativity and variety on offer for some of these wild sequences really does have to be seen to be believed.
5
‘Kong: Skull Island’ (2017)
Directed by Jordan Vogt-Roberts
Honestly, even though Godzilla (2014) worked as something that made Godzilla kind of awe-inspiring again (again, at least compared to the 1998 American film), the best all-out monster movie of the MonsterVerse in the 2010s was probably Kong: Skull Island. It took until the 2020s for the two legendary monsters to actually clash, but all the foes for Kong in this film made up for the lack of Godzilla.
There are just so many weird, dangerous, and sometimes even genuinely frightening giant monsters throughout Kong: Skull Island, and some moments that are pretty surprising to see in a PG-13-rated movie. It’s a film with broad human characters played by endearing actors, a great deal of action, and a fair bit of bloody/splattery violence, too. It’s far from subtle, sure, but it’s also very far from boring.
4
‘Okja’ (2017)
Directed by Bong Joon Ho
There have been a decent number of Bong Joon Ho movies featuring monsters now, with The Host quite comfortably being the best, and Mickey 17 (that had creatures play a fairly large role in the story) probably being the worst. In the middle is Okja, which has an odd tone (sometimes funny, sometimes sad), but you can say that about many Bong Joon Ho movies.
Also, like the director usually does, some aspects of capitalism (and over-production) are critiqued here, never very subtly, like always, but a good deal of it lands. This is, sure, a movie about a little girl and the bond she has with her giant pig, but it’s also a bit more than that. It takes some very familiar narrative conventions and twists them slightly off-kilter, giving you something that blurs the lines between being bizarre and honestly rather approachable. Classic Bong Joon Ho, in other words.
- Release Date
-
June 28, 2017
- Runtime
-
120minutes
- Director
-
Bong Joon Ho
- Writers
-
Jon Ronson, Bong Joon Ho
3
‘Pacific Rim’ (2013)
Directed by Guillermo del Toro
Perhaps even more than Bong Joon Ho, Guillermo del Toro really understands how to best present monsters on screen. He’s done this for most of his career and made arguably his greatest monster-related film with 2006’s Pan’s Labyrinth. In 2013, he tackled giant monsters with Pacific Rim, released that year, having a story about giant monsters attacking Earth, and giant, pilotable robots being the only things that can stop them.
It feels a bit like the sort of idea a kid might come up with while playing with their toys, but then that kid is given a huge budget to realize their vision on screen (also, the kid is one of the most talented filmmakers of the 21st century so far). Some might call Pacific Rim stupid, but nah, that’s stupid. It’s a movie that knows what it is, it delivers some great action, and it wears its heart on its sleeve despite also being just the right level of self-aware. It’s glorious.
2
‘Shin Godzilla’ (2016)
Directed by Shinji Higuchi and Hideaki Anno
For as fun as the MonsterVerse can be, the best Godzilla movie of the 2010s was not, actually, contained within it. Instead, it was a Japanese production, and the first theatrically released feature for the Godzilla series since 2004’s Godzilla: Final Wars. That movie was Shin Godzilla, and it had a particularly warped, strange, pitiful, and frightening take on the all-too-familiar king of the monsters.
In Shin Godzilla, Godzilla is in constant pain, and is continually changing form, which makes a government response already hindered by red tape even less effective against a threat to the whole of Japan. More than just about any Godzilla film, Shin Godzilla really feels like an effective disaster movie, and there are some genuinely haunting moments (alongside a fair bit of effective and darkly funny satire) that make this film stand out, and ultimately feel like one of the more underrated Godzilla flicks.
1
‘The Shape of Water’ (2017)
Directed by Guillermo del Toro
Once more, Guillermo del Toro made a monster movie with The Shape of Water, but this one was different. This 2017 film aimed to be both a fantasy and an unlikely romance film, with the main relationship forming here being between an amphibious man and a mute janitor working at the facility he’s being held at, during the early 1960s (with Cold War paranoia high).
On paper, you might not think that such a romantic story would work, but del Toro approaches it with enough heart and sincerity that he honestly does, somehow, make it soar rather effectively. Not just a well-received monster movie, The Shape of Water was also surprisingly successful at the Academy Awards, being one of the rare “genre” films to win Best Picture, alongside other trophies for Best Director, Best Original Score, and Best Production Design.