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U.S. audiences tend to accept Toho's earlier Godzilla movies as being high camp, usually thanks to Gen-x's half-remembered airings of late-'60s kaiju flicks broadcast on Uhf TV channels back in the 1980s. While there are some absurd and terrible Godzilla films from the Showa era (1954-1975), and many of them contained surreal, kitschy plot elements like invading aliens, one might also find several movies -- "Gojira," "Destroy All Monsters" -- that focus on Japanese national pride, the role of destructive weapons in the world, and a barely-simmering resentment lingering after a massive attack on the country. If modern superhero movies sprung from the U.S. subconscious as a fantastical revenge/preventative measure against 9/11, so too did Godzilla spring fully formed from the trauma left behind by the U.S.' atomic bomb attacks.

In the original "Gojira," that is literal. The titular creature, a stories-high amphibious animal,...

Released in Japan in June 2020 and getting its international premiere at Fantasia Film Fest, “Monster Seafood Wars” is Minoru Kawasaki’s first film in four years. The film is loosely based on one of the earliest ideas by the SFX legend Eiji Tsuburaya about a giant octopus attacking Tokyo, getting killed with vinegar, and eaten by Tokyoites.

Monster Seafood Wars is Screening at Fantasia Festival

Yuta Tanuma (Keisuke Ueda) is a disgraced scientist-turned-sushi-assistant. One day, while on delivery to the nearby Shinto shrine, Yuta gets into a small bicycle accident and loses his mixed seafood box. Its contents soon turn up in the form of a monster squid and octopus who start wreaking havoc over Tokyo. The two are soon joined by a mutated crab. Realizing the Self-Defence Forces are powerless against the three seafood monsters, nicknamed Ikara, Takora, and Kanira, the government creates a Seafood Monster Attack Team which...

Here are ten rules for making a movie monster that will leave audiences screaming in the aisles…

For every genuinely menacing screen monster, there are at least a dozen unintentionally funny, shambling travesties. For every Giger-designed Alien, there's a legion of creatures like the rubbery octopus-type thing from Yog: Monster From Space, or the man in a bear suit from Robot Monster.

Here, then, is the Den Of Geek guide to creating a scary movie monster, and a few examples of the pitfalls you should avoid.

A lack of eyes is scary

Designed by H.R. Giger, the titular xenomorph from 1979's Alien is arguably one of the most disturbing creatures ever to grace the big screen, quite possibly due to its apparent lack of eyes. And while Giger's monster has suffered from over-exposure in recent years (not to mention its appearance in the woeful Aliens Vs Predator movies), its original...