Everyone loves watching some big and scary creature wreak havoc on the world in one action movie or another. But how many of these creatures wreaking havoc are doing so out of actual malice?
Here are some of our favorite monster movies where humans are actually the ones to blame.
Godzilla
There are dozens of iterations of Godzilla in the cultural zeitgeist that show him causing a general sense of destruction to humanity, or to other monstrous creatures that have secretly awoken somehow. But all roads lead back to the origins of the character. Godzilla is the tragic result of human experimentation with atomic weapons.
He was technically already alive, living dormant in the sea, but the rapid, violent tests awoke and provoked him. I know that if I were taking the best nap of my life, and a bunch of fire ants kept biting me, I’d want to find and destroy the nest so they’d stop bugging me. Why shouldn’t the king of the monsters feel the same way? Instead of having him team up with King Kong, who is secretly wielding Thanos’ Infinity Gauntlet, we should have probably partaken in some real reflection into how our species really got here.
King Kong
‘King Kong’Credit: Warner Bros.
Speak of the devil…or giant gorilla. King Kong is another character that we have seen brought to the screen so many times, and if we’re going off of the themes of the original film, the poor guy was perfectly happy just chilling where he was. If the greedy American filmmakers hadn’t shown up, disrupted everything, then continued to try and shift the blame when the creature retaliated, there would have been no conflict whatsoever.
The arguments about the meaning of the iconic final line “twas beauty killed the beast” have shifted back and forth for decades, but I tend to believe that Carl Denham meant it as if the creature was killed by his love of Ann Darrow. A stupid argument, obviously, considering Kong didn’t just show up in New York on his own. But Carl’s undying narcissism is compounded in these final moments, seemingly unable to take responsibility for the death of a creature that needed absolutely no intervention.
Frankenstein
‘Frankenstein’Credit: Universal Pictures
It’s a tale as old as time: the creator that hates his own creation. Various film adaptations of Mary Shelley’s original novel have graced our screens over the years, and each film takes its own liberties with how much malevolence the monster actually has. But the core theme remains the same every time: Victor Frankenstein is the most evil of them all.
The paradox behind the creation of the monster is one of the most fascinating in artistic history. The monster is a being that devolves into malevolence through consistent mistreatment by his creator for not fully embodying his vision. While he takes his anger and rage out on innocent people, his lack of desire to be made in the first place makes his downfall all the more tragic.
Pan’s Labyrinth
My personal favorite entry in the Guillermo Del Toro misunderstood monster cinematic universe, Pan’s Labyrinth makes it abundantly clear early on that there is no intent to make the villains of the film ambiguous.
One of the most daring anti-war fantasy films of all time, the creatures, while sometimes violent and aggressive, are purposefully exaggerated fronts for the real horrors beyond young Ofelia’s line of sight: the torturous war crimes being committed by her stepfather, Vidal.
A prophecy claims Ofelia as a long-lost princess of an otherworldly realm that must prove her worthiness of the throne by completing various tasks at the behest of the fantastical creatures. She must defy her well-meaning, but complicit mother, her vile stepfather, and anyone else that stands in her way to be able to do it. While a hard R-rated, violent film, the child-like wonder at Ofelia’s emotional core is one that is absolutely unforgettable.
Jaws
‘Jaws’Credit: Universal Pictures
Jaws has villainized sharks in popular culture irrevocably since its initial release in 1975, so it is sometimes easy to forget that basically the entire movie could have been avoided if Mayor Vaughn had stopped thinking with his wallet for two seconds and closed the darn beaches.
Yes, the first shark attack in the opening scene is one that happened randomly and to be as fair as possible, Chrissy was behaving pretty irresponsibly by swimming far out into the open ocean in the dead of night.
Jaws is one of the greatest summer blockbusters of all time. Ironically, given its financial success, the behavior of Mayor Vaughn and its consequences serve the film in its plight to offer biting (haha) commentary about the ways in which capitalism can corrupt morality until it’s too late.
