98 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.

Godzilla's roar was created in 1954 by rubbing a glove along the loosened strings of which instrument?

A double bass borrowed from a music college made the roar: composer Akira Ifukube loosened its strings, dragged a glove along them and slowed the recording down.

In Universal's 1931 Frankenstein, the scientist's hunchbacked assistant is not named Igor but what?

Fritz, played by Dwight Frye, damages the healthy brain he was sent to steal and brings back a criminal's instead; the Ygor of the sequels arrived later and was never a lab assistant.

Night of the Living Dead (1968) never says 'zombie'; what are its flesh-eating undead called instead?

Ghouls was director George A. Romero's word because he felt his flesh-eaters were something new; 'zombie' then meant a corpse enslaved by a sorcerer in Haitian folklore.

Which country music star made her acting debut as survivalist Heather Gummer in Tremors (1990)?

Reba McEntire had never acted on screen before, and she postponed her honeymoon until the end of the shoot to play the part.

In Alien (1979), shooting the creature aboard the Nostromo is too risky because its blood is what?

Corrosive acid for blood was artist Ron Cobb's idea for making the creature unkillable: any bullet wound would let it burn straight through the ship's hull.

Gamera, the flying, fire-breathing kaiju that Daiei launched in 1965, is a giant version of which animal?

A turtle gave Gamera his name: kame is the Japanese word for the animal, and the -ra ending is shared with Gojira, the rival he was created to compete with.

Which Predator (1987) co-star, a pro wrestler turned actor, was later elected governor of Minnesota?

Jesse Ventura served from 1999 to 2003, the year his Predator co-star Arnold Schwarzenegger won the same job in California.

Which actor is dragged off by a shark in the middle of a rousing unity speech in Deep Blue Sea (1999)?

Samuel L. Jackson's character is snatched from the edge of the pool by the largest shark just as he urges the survivors to pull together.

Which director borrowed the lab props from 1931's Frankenstein for his 1974 black-and-white spoof?

Mel Brooks dressed the set of Young Frankenstein with the very machines Kenneth Strickfaden had built for the 1931 original.

Which composer won an Oscar for the Jaws score, built on a menacing theme of just two alternating notes?

John Williams first played the two notes on a piano for the director, who is said to have laughed, thinking it was a joke.

Which fictional Indian Ocean home of King Kong does filmmaker Carl Denham's ship reach in 1933?

Skull Island is never actually named in the 1933 film: Denham describes only an uncharted island with a mountain shaped like a skull.

Godzilla's Japanese name, Gojira, blends the Japanese words for which two animals?

Gorilla and whale, gorira and kujira, make Gojira; in the most widely accepted account it began as the nickname of a burly studio employee who loved whale meat.

Which comedy duo met Dracula, the Wolf Man and Frankenstein's Monster in a 1948 Universal hit?

Abbott and Costello play baggage clerks who deliver two crates to a wax museum and find the real Dracula inside one; the film became one of Universal's top earners of the year.

Which British actor played both Frankenstein's Creature (1957) and Count Dracula (1958) for Hammer Films?

Christopher Lee went on to play Dracula in seven Hammer films, and both 1950s films paired him with his friend Peter Cushing.

Which star led The Mummy (2017), the reboot meant to launch Universal's Dark Universe of monster films?

Tom Cruise played soldier Nick Morton in the film meant to open a shared universe; its poor reception led the studio to cancel the whole plan.

Which fashion model with no acting experience made her screen debut as the heroine of 1976's King Kong?

Jessica Lange was spotted by producer Dino De Laurentiis while modelling in New York, and she went on to win two Academy Awards.

Clint Eastwood appears uncredited as a jet pilot attacking the giant title creature of which 1955 film?

Tarantula ends with Clint Eastwood as the squadron leader whose jets burn the giant spider with napalm at the edge of town.

In Jaws (1975), what is the name of Quint's fishing boat, which the great white slowly tears apart?

Orca had to be built twice: the production made two identical 42-foot versions of Quint's vessel.

Which actor plays helicopter pilot R.J. MacReady in John Carpenter's The Thing (1982)?

Kurt Russell had already made two films with Carpenter but was the last actor cast, signing on after second-unit filming had begun in Alaska.

In Cloverfield (2008), a piece of which New York landmark crashes into a Manhattan street?

The Statue of Liberty loses its head, which lands in the street; the image was inspired by the poster for the 1981 film Escape from New York.

In Godzilla (1954), what has disturbed the monster and driven him from the ocean depths toward Japan?

Hydrogen bomb tests echoed the news: a few months before filming, fallout from an American test at Bikini Atoll had rained down on a Japanese fishing boat.

Which golden space dragon with three heads and two tails has been Godzilla's arch-enemy since 1964?

King Ghidorah was created as a homage to Yamata no Orochi, the eight-headed dragon of Japanese mythology.

Nosferatu (1922), an unauthorised adaptation of Dracula, changed the vampire's name to Count what?

Orlok fooled nobody: Bram Stoker's widow sued, and a court ordered every copy of the film destroyed, though several prints survived.

Which actor plays treasure hunter Rick O'Connell, who helps awaken Imhotep, in The Mummy (1999)?

Brendan Fraser's adventurer had stumbled on the lost city of Hamunaptra three years earlier, while serving in the French Foreign Legion.

Which effects artist built the Alien Queen for Aliens and Jurassic Park's life-sized dinosaurs?

Stan Winston called the Queen easy by comparison: she was lightweight and, unlike a dinosaur, did not have to look like a real animal.

Which director made Aliens (1986), swapping the original's lone creature for a hive ruled by a queen?

James Cameron also wrote the script, and his heavily armed marines, helpless against an unseen local enemy, have been read as an allegory for the Vietnam War.

Which actor plays Seth Brundle, whose teleporter fuses him with an insect, in The Fly (1986)?

Jeff Goldblum got the part because he was willing to act under prosthetics, and the make-up went on to win an Academy Award.

Which 2018 Dwayne Johnson film, with a giant white ape named George, is based on a Midway video game?

Rampage pits George against a wolf named Ralph and a crocodile named Lizzie, all mutated by a pathogen that fell from a wrecked space station.

In The Blob (1958), which weakness lets the townspeople finally stop the creature outside the diner?

Freezing cold from carbon dioxide fire extinguishers stops the Blob but cannot kill it, so the Air Force parachutes it onto an Arctic ice field.

In Alien (1979), who or what is Jones, the only member of the Nostromo's company to escape with Ripley?

The ship's cat, Jones, leads engineer Brett to his death: he follows the animal into a landing-leg compartment where the full-grown creature is waiting.

Which actor prepared at London Zoo before performing the title ape by motion capture in 2005's King Kong?

Andy Serkis worked with the zoo's gorillas for the part, and he also appears in the flesh in the film as the ship's cook, Lumpy.

In the 1976 King Kong remake, the giant ape makes his last stand atop which New York landmark?

World Trade Center filming drew more than 30,000 would-be extras in one night, and the site's owner halted the shoot for fear the plaza would collapse under them.

In Pan's Labyrinth (2006), the child-eating Pale Man sees through eyes set in which part of his body?

His hands hold the eyes, a feature the Pale Man shares with the Tenome, a monster of Japanese folklore whose name means hand eyes.

The 2010 found-footage film Trollhunter follows students tracking giant trolls across which country?

Norway's own prime minister, Jens Stoltenberg, turns up in a closing news clip in which he appears to admit that trolls exist.

In Shaun of the Dead (2004), which pub do Shaun and Ed pick as the place to wait out the zombie outbreak?

The Winchester has a rifle of the same name above its bar, and Shaun learns that it really works while fighting the pub's zombified landlord.

Which actor, also a playwright, played the grizzled shark hunter Quint in Jaws (1975)?

Robert Shaw partly rewrote Quint's famous monologue about surviving the sinking of the USS Indianapolis himself.

Which actor directed A Quiet Place (2018) and played the father opposite his real-life wife, Emily Blunt?

John Krasinski first read the script simply to play the father, then ended up as the film's director and co-writer as well.

Which 7-foot-2 actor played both the Predator and Bigfoot in Harry and the Hendersons in 1987?

Kevin Peter Hall was the tallest of a family in which every brother stood at least 6 ft 5 in, a build that kept him busy playing monsters.

Which author's 1980 novella about creatures hidden in fog became Frank Darabont's film The Mist (2007)?

Stephen King praised the director for changing his novella's ending, and jokingly wished a hanging on anyone who spoiled it.

In The Babadook (2014), the title monster first enters a widow's home by way of which object?

A pop-up book called Mister Babadook is the way in, and after the mother rips it up it reappears, reassembled, at her front door.

In the 1933 King Kong, who make a cameo as the crew of the plane that finally shoots Kong down?

The film's two directors, Merian C. Cooper and Ernest B. Schoedsack, climbed into the cockpit after Cooper reportedly said they ought to finish Kong off themselves.

In the 1954 original, which invention of the reclusive Dr. Serizawa finally kills Godzilla in Tokyo Bay?

The Oxygen Destroyer so alarms its inventor, who fears the superpowers would force him to build more of them, that he burns his notes before using it.

In An American Werewolf in London (1981), which moorland pub do the backpackers visit before the attack?

The Slaughtered Lamb's regulars turn hostile when asked about the five-pointed star on the wall, then warn the pair to keep to the road and beware the full moon.

Which British director landed Godzilla (2014) after only one feature, the independent Monsters (2010)?

Gareth Edwards had written, directed and shot Monsters himself, building its digital creatures on off-the-shelf equipment.

J. J. Abrams produced Cloverfield (2008), but who directed it and voiced its whispered radio sign-off?

Matt Reeves can be heard in the whispered broadcast at the end of the credits, while producer Bryan Burk is the man shouting in the street early in the attack.

Which future pop hitmaker co-wrote the tongue-in-cheek title song for The Blob (1958) with Mack David?

Burt Bacharach's novelty tune, recorded by a studio group billed as the Five Blobs, reached number 33 on the Billboard Hot 100.

Which suit actor played Godzilla in twelve straight Toho films after studying bears and elephants at a zoo?

Haruo Nakajima fell over at his first costume fitting, because the original suit was built from heavy latex and inflexible materials.

Which German actor played the vampire in Nosferatu (1922) and was long rumoured not to exist at all?

Max Schreck was said for many years to be no more than a pseudonym for the well-known actor Alfred Abel.

Which newcomer, discovered in a Soho pub by the casting team, wore the creature suit in Alien (1979)?

Bolaji Badejo was a Nigerian visual artist born in Lagos, and the creature was the only screen role he ever played.

In 20 Million Miles to Earth (1957), the creature that rampages through Rome comes from which planet?

Venus was the destination of the film's first American spaceship; the creature was to be called the Ymir, but every use of the name was cut from the release.