Battle of the Beasts: Monsters

  Of all the film scenes throughout history, nothing has ever matched the simplistic chill of Jurassic Park: A single coffee cup, shot up close as it ripples with the heavy footsteps of the approaching T-Rex. Why does this single image continue to instill so much dread in the general public? Because monsters are big. Really big.
  Monsters take us back to a less evolved time when our ancestors spent their days looking over their shoulders because we weren’t quite so sky-high in the food chain. They scare us in a way that other creatures can’t because they come at us on a primal level. When Godzilla, (being the only word to this day that you can pronounce in a corny Japanese accent without appearing politically incorrect), appears on the horizon, your first reaction isn’t to search for the good inside his soul, (sodding Vampires), but to leg it away as fast as you can, preferably screaming inanely as you do. Monsters have the power to level cities and pluck up their citizens like KFC popcorn chicken. It takes whole swarms of the undead to raise a town, but any half-decent monster could manage it in an afternoon. They’re lurking under our beds, at the bottom of caves, and in any semi-decent toxic waste facility.
  Monsters also have the horrible knack of leveling the playing field; all the animals you abused as a child now reappear 50ft tall and attack you in late 1950s B-movies – ants, spiders and – erm, women! All we fear deep down is just one radioactive leak away from being our newest predator and there’s nothing any of us can do about it, because at the end of the day, we’re all just something stuck between their teeth.

Mark Pettit