Here is my list of monsters that were so well made as to appear (almost) real!


The Walrus

I was twelve when my neighbourhood community center showed "Sinbad & the Eye of the Tiger", several years after its original release. I was a fan already of Ray Harryhausen's work so I was delighted to see this on a reasonably big screen, and I enjoyed myself immensely even though the movie broke 3 times. Monsters, heroes, lost civilisations, Jane Seymour naked... it doesn't get much better when you're twelve!

But the film REALLY made me jump when Sinbad visits an Arctic waste, investigates an odd noise and a Giant Walrus suddenly breaks through the ice! Following that is a typical Ray Harryhausen monster fight, with noticable stop-motion, but for years I thought that the first few shots were filmed using an actual walrus, with the people being the special effect.
Ah, my innocent youth...

The Snake

Less than a year later, a local cinema accidentally switched the rating for "Conan the Barbarian" from "above 16" to "above 12". Curious, me and my 14-year old sister went to see it.
Wow! Decapitation, fornication... and this was the Italian cut where Arnie's tumble with the were-witch lasted a full two minutes longer than the current DVD! My sis gave a concise review for my parents when we got home: "...it was just people killing and fucking, but it was still a good movie!". Needless to say I remember Conan with fondness.

Many years later, the special effects crew of "Anaconda" claimed that their movie was the first one with decent giant snake effects. Hang on, I thought, I recall a pretty good one in Conan!
And indeed Thulsa Doom's pet viper, which Conan encounters when trying to steal jewels from a temple, is a fine example of a movie monster. Like the rest of the movie, the fight looks more gritty and realistic than expected and much blood is used (although it never goes over the top). It was impressive in 1982 and still looks convincing in most shots. To this day I don't know if the beheading was done with an animatronic snake or otherwise.


The Bitch

Ever since secretly reading the comic version in 1980 I was terrified of "Alien", so much so that when I finally saw it on video years later I was both impressed and disappointed. It was nowhere near as scary as I had been telling myself, but still a damn good horror picture.
Fast-forward to 1986, and me willing and able to watch James Cameron's sequel in the cinema. And boy, did it deliver! "Aliens", like the original, is one of my absolute favorites, and may be the most intense time I ever spent in a cinema. I got rid of all my remaining horrorfilm fears in a single afternoon, and at the same time got a nice lesson on how you should do an action movie.

Cameron designed several parts of the sets and weapons himself (using the steady-cam principle to support a heavier gun is a nice touch), but his finest hour came in the finale when the brood-queen of the aliens shows up. Using Giger's brilliant design as a template, Cameron created an ornamented fever-dream version of a giant alien on steroids. Or should that be oestrogens?
When the thing gets mobile the effects get even more impressive: while all the "normal" aliens are stuntmen in suits, their queen couldn't possibly be. And it's here that I had to throw in the towel: I had no clue how they did it. In every shot surrounding the classic line "Get away from her you BITCH!!!", the so-called bitch is a stunning succession of different special effects, as mysteriously fabricated as they are powerful. Incredibly well done, especially when you consider that no CGI was used.
Speaking of which...

The King

Goethe is often (mis)credited for having said: "If the world ends I'll go to the Netherlands, because everything happens 50 years later there". And indeed, while it's not quite THAT bad it certainly felt like it in 1993 when everyone and his mother had already seen "Jurassic Park" and we still had to get it in cinemas.
Rest assured that on premiere day my ass was in the seat, and while slogging through the snooze-inducing first half my mind kept going "T-rex, T-rex, T-rex...". When the creature finally broke through the fence, my jaw dropped on the floor and I suddenly realised we weren't in Kansas anymore, special effects-wise.

By that time decent CGI was very expensive, but there already were some fine examples on display. "The Abyss" and "Terminater 2" come to mind, but both used the new technology to show very abstract creatures, with light bending or reflecting through water and chrome. When I read Spielberg was having a shot to create dinosaurs with this technology I was as incredulous as if he'd tried to clone the real things.
But ILM knocked this assignment straight out of the ballpark: the step forward was so huge that I'm not sure we'll ever see another one quite like it. ILM claimed in 1981 that they could do any effect with 100% realism, given enough money. It was a boast, but in 1993 they proved it was certainly true from then on.


The Host

Now this little film called "The Host" hasn't really been wanting for attention here on this site, so its inclusion in the list might induce a groan or two. But if you've read all of the above it'll come as no surprise to hear me say that I love monsters in movies, and this is such an excellent example why. Korean society as depicted here is indeed a cruel, dumb, corrupt, greedy, pompous and callous monster, and it'll easily kill you if you happen to end up in front of it without any protection.

But never mind all that, there was also an amusing critter in this film and it was far better realised than it had any right to be. More than a decade after Jurassic Park, its special effects can now be delivered on desktop and all that remains necessary is enough time and talent to use these tools.
And use them they did! The "Gwoemul" is a ridiculous creature, cobbled together from parts that do not make any sense (what are those fish doing in its back??), with a dubious origin and strange behavior. Director Bong Joon-Ho just needed some "thing" to lure people into the cinema and show them an ugly mirror, so it's quite an achievement when the end result is as excellent as this one.
Because it really is excellent: the beast is laughable yet scary, and undoubtably one of the best special effects of the past few years. Its much-discussed reveal at the start of the movie, in full daylight no less, is a cherished one rewatched hundreds of times now that I've got it on DVD. It's not purely CGI either: while some shots can only be done using computers, I know they made animatronic parts as well. But it's difficult to tell which are used when, and therefore this one can safely be allowed to close my list.


Did I miss any?
Undoubtably, and I probably missed them in the cinema as well which is a shame. Please mention as many examples as you can come up with in the comments, I'll be very grateful especially if I've never heard of them before!