48 Fun Facts About Monster Movie

The 1933 King Kong brought its giant ape to life with what technique?

Stop-motion animation: the models' rabbit fur shifted whenever the animators handled them, so Kong's coat seems to ripple from shot to shot.

Which New York landmark does Kong climb in the finale of the 1933 King Kong?

The Empire State Building: when Dino De Laurentiis remade the film in 1976, Kong climbed the twin towers of the World Trade Center instead.

Which actress played Ann Darrow, the woman offered to Kong, in 1933?

Fay Wray: Merian C. Cooper promised her the tallest, darkest leading man in Hollywood, and he meant the giant ape.

Which American actor was spliced into the 1956 US re-edit, Godzilla, King of the Monsters!?

Raymond Burr: nearly 30 years later he returned as the same reporter in Godzilla 1985, the US version of The Return of Godzilla.

Who directed the original 1954 Godzilla?

Ishirō Honda: decades later he came out of retirement to act as his friend Akira Kurosawa's right-hand man on Kurosawa's last five films.

Godzilla Minus One, made for under $15 million, won which Academy Award in 2024?

Best Visual Effects: its sea battles grew after young compositor Tatsuji Nojima showed Yamazaki water simulations made at home, so more ocean scenes were written in.

Who directed the 1998 American Godzilla film?

Roland Emmerich: Toho later brought his creature back as a separate monster, renamed Zilla, for the real Godzilla to fight in a 2004 film.

Which kaiju is accompanied by twin miniature fairies who speak for her?

Mothra: when a showman kidnaps the tiny twins for a Tokyo stage show, she swims to Japan as a giant larva and spins her cocoon on Tokyo Tower.

Which actor played the Monster in Universal's 1931 Frankenstein?

Boris Karloff: rather than name him, the film's opening credits identified the Monster's actor only by a question mark.

Which make-up artist designed the look of Frankenstein's Monster for Universal in 1931?

Jack Pierce: he said he made the head flat because a surgeon would cut the skull straight across like a pot lid to put in a new brain.

In Bride of Frankenstein (1935), Elsa Lanchester plays the Bride and which other role?

Mary Shelley: in her other role, the Bride, Lanchester based the creature's famous hiss on the swans she had watched in a London park.

Who played the title role in Universal's 1941 The Wolf Man?

Lon Chaney Jr.: the Wolf Man's fur was yak hair, glued onto his face a few strands at a time in make-up sessions that lasted hours.

Which stage actor made his American film debut as the unseen Griffin in Universal's The Invisible Man (1933)?

Claude Rains: when he asked to express something with his eyes, director James Whale replied that he couldn't, because he hadn't any face.

The 1954 Universal film about a prehistoric Gill-man has scientists find him in which river system?

The Amazon: the underwater scenes were really shot in the clear waters of Wakulla Springs, Florida.

In Them! (1954), giant ants mutated by atomic tests are found in which state's desert?

New Mexico: the ants were mutated by radiation from the 1945 Trinity atomic test near Alamogordo, and the hunt ends in the storm drains of Los Angeles.

Which future superstar had his first leading role in The Blob (1958)?

Steve McQueen: paid a straight $3,000, he played the teen who realizes the Blob cannot stand cold, so it is frozen with fire extinguishers.

Which effects animator brought the Rhedosaurus to life in The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms (1953)?

Ray Harryhausen: the Beast's attack on a lighthouse comes from a Saturday Evening Post story by his boyhood friend Ray Bradbury.

Which martial-arts star was first cast inside the Predator suit before being replaced?

Jean-Claude Van Damme: he was unhappy in the hot, ungainly first suit and left early in the shoot, and the towering Kevin Peter Hall wore the redesigned creature.

The Jaws crew nicknamed the mechanical sharks 'Bruce' after whom?

Spielberg's lawyer: the prop sharks broke down so often that Spielberg had to hint at the shark instead, and he later called the failures a godsend.

Jaws (1975) was mostly shot on location on which Massachusetts island?

Martha's Vineyard: most of the minor roles went to islanders, so many of the townspeople seen on screen are real locals.

Which film ended Jaws's two-year run as the highest-grossing movie in history?

Star Wars: sure it would lose to Close Encounters, George Lucas had swapped 2.5% of its profits for 2.5% of Spielberg's film, a trade that made Spielberg millions.

Which Swiss artist designed the creature in Alien (1979)?

H. R. Giger: Ridley Scott was sold the moment he saw the painting Necronom IV in the artist's book, and the creature was built from it.

What caught the Alien cast off guard when the chestburster scene with John Hurt was filmed?

Fake blood spraying at them: a jet of it hit Veronica Cartwright, who fell over in shock, so the cast's horrified reactions on screen are real.

John Carpenter's The Thing (1982) adapts which 1938 novella by John W. Campbell?

Who Goes There?: the 1951 film The Thing from Another World dropped the alien's shape-shifting, and Carpenter's version restored it.

Which young effects artist created most of the creature effects in John Carpenter's The Thing (1982)?

Rob Bottin: still in his early twenties, he spent over a year on the film's creatures and ended up hospitalized for exhaustion.

Who won the first competitive Oscar for Best Makeup, for An American Werewolf in London (1981)?

Rick Baker: the Academy created the category after complaints that The Elephant Man's makeup went unhonored the year before.

Which of these is one of the three rules for keeping a mogwai in Gremlins?

Never get it wet: when water spills on Gizmo he spawns more mogwai, and these troublemakers soon trick Billy into feeding them after midnight.

Complaints about violence in Gremlins and Temple of Doom led the MPAA to create which rating in 1984?

PG-13: Gremlins itself was rated PG, which director Joe Dante said was enough, but Spielberg pressed MPAA head Jack Valenti for an in-between rating.

Who provided the voice of Gizmo the mogwai?

Howie Mandel: while voicing the cuddly Gizmo, the comic was also playing wisecracking young doctor Wayne Fiscus on the TV drama St. Elsewhere.

What are the giant subterranean worms in Tremors (1990) called?

Graboids: the film stages most of its monster attacks in broad daylight, so the practical creature effects had no darkness to hide behind.

Which actor plays handyman Val McKee in Tremors?

Kevin Bacon: decades later he pushed to bring Val back, but a Tremors TV series starring him never got past its pilot.

David Cronenberg's The Fly (1986) gave popular culture which tagline?

'Be afraid. Be very afraid.': Geena Davis says it in the film as Veronica, and the warning caught on so widely that variants turn up across film and TV.

Cloverfield's untitled teaser trailer was first shown before which 2007 blockbuster?

Transformers: the teaser showed a release date but no title, and the name Cloverfield was only confirmed by a second trailer shown before Beowulf.

Cloverfield (2008) presents its monster attack as footage recovered from what?

A partygoer's camcorder: the film opens with a Defense Department notice saying the tape was found in the area formerly known as Central Park.

Bong Joon Ho's The Host (2006) features a monster spawned by chemicals dumped into which waterway?

The Han, Seoul: Bong built the story on a real 2000 case in which an American working at a US military base ordered formaldehyde poured down a drain into the river.

In Pacific Rim (2013), what are the giant human-piloted robots that fight the Kaiju called?

Jaegers: piloting one is too much strain for a single mind, so two pilots share the load through a mental link called the Drift.

Who directed Pacific Rim?

Guillermo del Toro: he stepped in to direct it after Universal balked at his $150 million, R-rated Lovecraft film At the Mountains of Madness.

In A Quiet Place (2018), which sound finally makes a creature expose its weak spot?

A hearing aid's squeal: when Regan holds her implant to a microphone, the whine makes the creature's armored head open, and Evelyn shoots it.

In The Meg (2018), a megalodon has survived for millions of years at the bottom of which place?

The Mariana Trench: a layer of water had kept the sharks trapped down there, until a deep-sea mission broke through and let one escape.

Horror's 'Lewton bus' jump scare is named for a scene in which 1940s film?

Cat People: editor Mark Robson cut in the loud hiss of a bus's air brakes as a stalked woman looks back, and Lewton's team reused the trick in later films.

Which town does the great white terrorise in Jaws?

Amity Island: its mayor keeps the beaches open for the Fourth of July tourist trade, and the shark strikes again as the crowds pour in.

Which Godzilla film did Evangelion creator Hideaki Anno co-direct for Toho?

Shin Godzilla: it satirizes Japan's bureaucracy, as ministers keep calling meetings while the monster, drawn partly from the Fukushima disaster, lays waste to Tokyo.

An excerpt from which ballet plays over the opening credits of Universal's 1931 Dracula?

Swan Lake: no original score was written for the film, and Universal reused the same excerpt in another of its horror films, The Mummy (1932).

Universal's Spanish-language Dracula (1931) used the same sets as the English version, but its crew filmed when?

At night: once Browning's crew went home, a Spanish-speaking cast and crew moved in and filmed on the same sets until the next morning.

Which cinematographer of Dracula (1931) went on to direct Universal's The Mummy (1932)?

Karl Freund: the cameraman behind Fritz Lang's Metropolis, he later photographed TV's I Love Lucy in front of a live studio audience.

In The Mummy (1932), which alias does the revived Imhotep use in modern Egypt?

Ardath Bey: he believes a young woman named Helen is his lost princess reborn, and plans to kill and mummify her so she can rise as his undead bride.

The Shape of Water (2017) was inspired by which 1950s monster film?

Creature from the Black Lagoon: The Shape of Water's director had once tried to remake that film at Universal, but the studio never went for his version.

Which creature actor played the Amphibian Man in The Shape of Water (2017)?

Doug Jones: a former street mime, he had already played Abe Sapien, another amphibian man, in the Hellboy films.