1. The Clover Archives, 2008, USA
Director: Matt Reeves
Writer: Drew Gundam
Starring: Liz Capan, Jessica Lucas, T. J. Miller, Michael Starr David, Mike Vogel
Recommended Reason: Exploiting humanity's fear of the unknown to take monster movies to the extreme.
Monster movies end up asking the question, what is the most frightening monster? The monsters listed above are all visible monsters, and the real creepy ones are the invisible monsters. Simply put, the unknown is always the most terrifying, and the film "Clover Files" is about such an unknown monster.
At the beginning of the film, the head of the Statue of Liberty, a symbol of New York, is thrown to the ground, a detail that allows the audience's imagination to be used to the extreme, and what a big guy who has so much strength and ease to touch the monster point of the Statue of Liberty. It is precisely because of this shooting method that the terrifying monsters are always seen in the film, and we can hardly see the full picture of the monsters through the lens, and the director depicts the basic image of the monsters through pieces of destroyed buildings and huge roars. This ubiquitous, mysterious monster has always held the audience's heart tightly throughout the film, and the principle of creating a horror atmosphere is too simple to be simple - the unknown is the horror.
2. "The Monster of the Han River", 2006, South Korea
Director: Bong Joon-ho
Screenwriter: Bong Joon-ho
Starring: Song Kang-ho, Park Hae-il, Bae Doo-na, Bian Hee-bong, Gao Xing
Recommended reason: A new monster movie with multiple meanings.
The story begins at the morgue of U.S. troops in South Korea, where highly toxic liquids flow into the Han River through sewers, and a few years later a giant monster between lizards and reptiles lands on land and suddenly attacks the crowd on the shore. Jiang Dou, who runs a small shop by the Han River, saw his daughter being swept away by the monster with his tail, so the Jiang Dou family began to look for the monster.
In addition to thriller shots such as monsters eating people, the story is more from the two lines of family and social topics. In the black humor and horror images, the social situation such as environmental pollution, corruption, and indifference is portrayed, which makes the film have both a stunt gimmick and a realistic background. "Monsters of the Han River" not only expresses the deep affection that blood is thicker than water, but also is full of home and country feelings. The film's spiritual line is also quite obvious, the monster symbolizes the crisis encountered by the family on the one hand, and on the other hand, it is also a clear metaphor for the military presence of the United States and the shadow of the former South Korean military government. In the closing paragraph, the family's duel with the monster and the Korean anti-American parade meet, and the political implications of the molotov cocktail thrown from the uncle's hand defeat the monster one by one.
3. The Loch Ness Monster, 2007, New Zealand
Director: Jay Russell
Writers: Robert Nelson Jacobs, Dick King-Smith
Starring: Alex Ettle, Emily Watson, Ben Chaplin, Brian Cox
Reason for recommendation: Explain the mysteries of the century with a warm fairy tale.
The film is based on the Loch Ness Monster, a topic that has been in the spotlight since the 1930s, and is one of the most mysterious and fascinating mysteries on earth. The film does not describe the story from the perspective of the monster in the news, but from the beginning puts this puzzle that has plagued us for a century in front of us, watching the monster grow up day by day, and eventually become a hot photo on the news.
Although the director plays the signature gimmick of the water monster, the focus of the film is not to restore a mysterious monster with gorgeous CG and shocking sound effects. The film is basically faithful to the original route of the novel, focusing on the warm card of affection between the little boy and the water monster, comparing the innocence of the child with the worldly and suspicious adults, calling for the innocence of human beings. Director Jay Russell is known for his family themes, so far his films are all about family issues, Russell's usual gentle approach to the performance of such a fairy tale story as this film, it is really a match made in heaven.
4. King Kong, 2005, New Zealand
Director: Peter Jackson
Writers: Fran Welsh, Felipe Hoeffles, Peter Jackson
Starring: Naomi Watts, Jack Black, Adrian Brody, Thomas Clay Schumann, Colin Hanks
Recommended reason: The spread of human feelings.
It is a bit far-fetched to say that gorillas are monsters, but following the Hollywood theory of horror, amplification is equal to horror, and the gorilla with a height of one or two meters is unremarkable, which can be seen in the zoo, but what about the gorillas that are tens of meters tall? As early as 1933, a giant orangutan had been holding a sexy girl in one hand and climbing on the spire of the Empire State Building in New York with the other, swearing to the world his loyalty and courage to love. The barbarians, on the other hand, used their arrogant posture, their mocking voices, and their proud warplanes to conquer this mighty animal from a primitive tribe.
The birth of the "King Kong" film can be said to be an inevitability in the history of cinema. By the time cinema, a special form of artistic expression, had developed into that era, there had been an increasing variety of forms of expression and alternative themes that had been introduced to the big screen by clever filmmakers. Amplification is not the selling point of this movie, Beauty and the Beast is the ultimate highlight of the film.
5. Godzilla, 1998, USA
Director: Roland Emmerich
Writers: Dean Devlin, Roland Emmerich
Starring: Matthew Broderick, Jean Renault, Maria Pitillo, Hank Azaria, Kevin Doon
Recommended reason: The combination of fantasy monsters and real environments makes the horror index rise.
No matter how frightening the monster, as long as it does not happen on the doorstep, it can only be listened to as the news, which is the common mentality of people living in the city. Nuclear radiation eventually caused the island lizard to mutate, this giant beast came to New York to lay eggs, the whole of New York fell into chaos, the panic and destruction caused by the giant beast is too great, if it is not stopped, everything it goes will be reduced to ruins, and its descendants will destroy humans, which is the background of the story of the movie "Godzilla".
Maybe it's a horror movie for Americans, because the scene is set in New York, and all the street buildings are places that New Yorkers are familiar with and can't be familiar with anymore. Maybe you stayed in the place where some monsters appeared yesterday, and then in the next episode you became a ruin, using what you know best to scare you, I'm afraid there is nothing more powerful than this trick. The monsters that appear in the film are three points like lizards, seven points like dinosaurs, big mouths, eat all over the world, giant tails are thrown, and the places they pass by are immediately reduced to ruins, and they are surprisingly large, in its eyes, humans are just ants that can walk upright, this monster is really frightening.
6. "The Scourge of The Python", 1997, Brazil
Director: Louis Rocha
Writers: Hans Bauer, Jim Cash
Starring: Jennifer Lopez, Ace Cooper, John Walter, Eric Storz, Jonathan Hyde
Recommended reason: Human beings always have an endless curiosity about horrors.
Since ancient times, snakes have been considered the embodiment of evil and terror, and people either turned away from them or worshipped them. In the amazon rainforest, there is such a group of people, they regard pythons as gods, in order to unravel their mysterious veil, anthropologist Carl decided to go to the rainforest to investigate, while the documentary director Krul is also ready to go to shoot, so a group of people boat into this mysterious rainforest, this is the background of the story of the film "The Plague of The Python".
At the beginning, the author mentioned human curiosity, sometimes curiosity makes people forget fear, or the more they feel fear, the more they want to know the truth behind the horror, which is called curiosity kills cats. These desperate guys have a good day, but go to the jungle to find the source of terror, and from another point of view, they are also a tour guide in the horror atmosphere of the jungle for those of us who are curious. The same jungle, the same water monsters, unlike crocodiles, pythons are more agile, less detectable, and the horror effect is more scalp-numbing. We Chinese willing to imagine these monsters as demons with human thoughts and emotions, such as cultivating for thousands of years to become beautiful and dignified Bai Suzhen. In Western literary and artistic works, The snake is still a snake, and there is no other idea in the mind except to look for prey, which is why there are only monsters in Western works, and only demons in our films.
7. "Prehistoric Crocodile", 1999, Usa
Director: Steve Miner
Writer: David M. E. Kelly
Starring: Pierre Pullman, Brigitte Fonda, Oliver Pratt, Brydan Gleason, Betty White
Recommended reason: Listen to the thunderous monster giant in the silent place.
If sailing is at risk of encountering monsters in the sea, it should be safe to live safely on the banks of the scenic jungle river. Not necessarily, as long as there is water, there will be danger. No, the little jungle village is suffering from a catastrophe invaded by unknown monsters. In recent years, the film industry has been very popular youth horror films, not only the whole of Asia is filled with the shadow of terror, but even the United States is also a murderous sound, as if the whole world is immersed in a bloody rain.
"Prehistoric Crocodile" is such a beautiful and monster youth horror film, through the lifelike crocodile model, and CG technology-aided realistic effects, to create a horror film. Residents living in the jungle hear that crocodiles are already unincorporated, not to mention this oversized prehistoric crocodile, which has been tested and the bite force of crocodiles is the highest of all animals in the world. The prehistoric crocodile in the film amplifies this lethality infinitely, and it seems that through this nonsensical monster story, we are told a truth, the praying mantis catches cicadas, the yellow finches are behind, and not only the bears in the jungle can hurt people, but more terrible is still behind. No wonder the Film's English title literally translates to "Calm Lake", the true meaning of which is only up to us to figure out.
8. Extreme Deep Cold, 1998, USA
Director: Stephen Sommers
Writers: Stephen Sommers
Starring: Tritt Williams, Famick Jensen, Anthony Hilde, Kevin J. O'Connor, Wes Stady
Recommended reason: Amplify humanity's primitive fear of water to the extreme
As the saying goes, those who drown are all water, and human beings have a natural fear of water before they learn to swim. Later, he invented the boat and sailed on the water with trepidation, but he was still full of terrifying imagination for the creatures under the ship and in the water, and he always felt that there was always a pair of strange eyes staring at him in the deep sea.
The film "ExtremeLy Cold" is a film based on this fear as the original point, the giant sea monster in the film has many tentacles, its large mouth and full of sharp teeth are chilling, according to the characters in the play, this should be a creature that grows unrestricted on the seabed and resembles leeches. The way this creature eats people is extremely cruel, and the corpses are completely swallowed and corroded by powerful digestive juices, such as the undigested corpses at the bottom of the cabin in the film, which brings great shock to the audience. With tentacles, can secrete mucus, and only an octopus grows like this, the animator enlarges the octopus infinitely, and installs it with a large mouth with sharp teeth, and places it on the bottom of the sea as a terrifying marine monster. Speaking of which, in order to scare themselves, humans really came up with a lot of ideas, the Titanic-like large ship encountered a sea storm, and let a ship of people die, plus a deep-sea monster octopus, horror plus unknown, people encountered in addition to scalp numbness, trembling, I am afraid there will be no other first reaction.
9. "Galactic Team", 1997, Usa
Director: Paul Verhoeven
Writers: Edward Normer, Robert M. A. Heinlein
Starring: Caspar van Dean, Dina Meyer, Dennis Richards, Jack Busse, Neil Patrick Wells
Recommended reason: 1000 times magnified cockroaches that are difficult to deal with with nuclear radiation.
In the movie "Galactic Team", ordinary monsters are several times larger than humans, with indestructible shells, powerful pliers, sharp teeth, and they are tenacious and belligerent, a terrible killing machine. The first encounter ended in the defeat of the Federal army, with 100,000 soldiers spilling blood on the battlefield... There is nothing terrible about insects on Earth, but what about alien insects? In an unknown environment, encountering unknown monsters, there is nothing more terrifying than this. The worst thing is that these monsters cannot be put to death with ordinary weapons, and the hard shells and belligerent personalities make these monsters terrifying.
A few years ago, there was a sensational biology report that said that when the earth's environment gradually became harsh, the last remaining creatures were not humans, nor mammals, but cockroaches, these small insects that usually crawled around in the human kitchen, and it was said that even nuclear radiation could not kill them. Our first reaction when we see cockroaches is to shoot them to death, but if we are on a strange planet and see a cockroach that is magnified 1000 times, do we have so many slippers and guts? After the film "Galaxy Team" was seen by the audience in China, many people shouted, what machine guns, machine guns, China as early as the early 80s invented a special cockroach medicine, called "Rifle". No matter how big the cockroach is, it is also a cockroach, as long as you spray it with the righteous Raffle Spirit, even the largest pest will be killed in an instant.
10. "The Octagonal Monster", 2002, USA
Director: Erore Ekaim
Writers: Jesse Helms, Erore Ekaim
Starring: David Arquette, Cary Wool, Tom Nonnan, Scarlett Johansson, Rick Overton
Recommended reason: Amplify human fear of spiders by hundreds of times.
When highly toxic chemical waste encounters a highly toxic spider, what kind of monsters will be produced? In the movie "Eight-Legged Monster", a remote and quiet town is transformed overnight, and in the unexpected situation of toxic chemical waste leakage pollution, thousands of small spiders become huge in a short period of time. The people of the town did not realize that a group of behemoths were quietly approaching them, and these hunters, each of whom were at least two meters long, would turn this remote and quiet town into a purgatory on earth in a very short period of time...