Creature Features

Creature features are any movies featuring a non-human horror element. They’re monster movies, man vs. monster, sometimes nature vs man, survival is usually on the line. Nearly all Universal’s classic monster movies are creature features, Dracula, Frankenstein, Wolfman, Creature from the Black Lagoon…and, we certainly cannot forget the legendary King Kong, 1933.

All vampire, werewolves, and zombie films are creature features, so are most of the Hammer Horror, and the atomic-age creatures from the 1950s, like The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms, the giant ants of Them! and of course, the King of the monsters, Godzilla, along with all his friends.

Creature Features was a weekly American television broadcast that started in 1950s and ran through the 80s and featured Univeral monster classics, Hammer films and other British horror, RKO gems, American International Pictures, including Roger Corman b-movies, Toho Studios Kaiju films, and all the atomic nuclear monster hits of the 50s. If you ask any movie director, actor, or filmmaker over 30, I’d bet good money they’ll admit it was weekly theater matinees and these late night horror shows that inspired them to get into the business.

Animal horror from the 70s, 80s & 90s brought real terror with movies like Willard, Ben, Grizzly, Cujo, and Piranha, a bloody fun franchise with military experiments and girls gone wild. Spanning over 40 years, the Piranha and Piranha DD movies grossed over $100 million collectively.

As eye-opening as that sounds, it pales in comparison to the now iconic Jaws, 1975, the first summer blockbuster about a vengeful man-eating shark that spawned 3 sequels, its own shark horror sub-subcategory, domestic inflation-adjusted lifetime gross of $1.5 billion dollars (just Jaws 1) and hundreds of millions of people worldwide suffering from galeophobia, the fear of sharks. What a legacy!

Personally, I’m a big fan of scary movies featuring mythical forest beings like Bigfoot, wendigos, evil fairies, trolls, and whatever that terrifying Norse creature was in The Ritual, 2017.

While it’s true many are horror films, two of the greatest sci-fi movies, Alien and Predator, are considered the top-grossing creature features franchises of all-time, with Alien films grossing $1.6 billion collectively and Predator following close behind with $885 million. These two behemoths crossed over into each other’s territory in the 2004 film Alien vs. Predator or AVP.

Alien vs. Predator (AVP) 2004, (20th Century Studios)

Proving that creature features have no genre, anyone looking for quieter entertainment should search out Neil Jordan’s Ondine, 2009 starring Colin Farrell, set in Irleand, or Spring, 2014 starring Lou Taylor Pucci and Nadia Hilker set in Italy, a beautiful romatic horror film, one of my faves.

Of course, no one does creature features like the masterful Guillermo Del Toro, whose magnum opus Pan’s Labyrinth, 2006 won three Academy Awards, and changed the landscape of fantasy films forever. Ten years later, The Shape of Water, 2017, would also win four Oscars, including Best Picture and Best Director, securing his place as the greatest creature feature director ever to walk the planet.

Pan’s Labyrinth, 2006 (Warner Bros. Pictures)

I could go on forever raving about how much I love creature features, but I better just let you go to watch some of these great films instead. Hit up Google or IMDB or check local listing to see where you can stream one of the movies listed above, and don’t forget to leave a comment and tell me your favorite creature feature.

Stay safe out there!

Monthly Haiku Corner – July 2026

Wow, the summer heat this July is no joke! This is the part of the year when I’m most miserable…hot, tired, cranky and longing for the Halloween season.

As my little pumpkin plant struggles to grow, I can’t help but think how climate change is slowly destroying our planet and worry it won’t be long before it affects our human traditions. Will there be less pumpkins? Smaller pumpkins? No pumpkins at all?

The only relief is the cooler temps of dark summer nights. Who doesnt love sitting under the moonlight with a tall glass of lemonade, watching old 50s scifi horrors, Them! The Blob, Godzilla, Invasion of the Body Snatchers.

I’m not sure I would’ve loved anything about the 1950s except hiding out all adternoon in a Saturday matinee. Some say it was a simpler time but it was also filled racism, suspicion, and hatred. No thank you. Truth is, our monster films were the mirrors of society for voices often too scared to speak during that time. This is perhaps the best reason why I love old horror and creature features. This was a time when movie magic was born from real human creativity, crafted by skilled hands, and reflecting the best of the human spirit. Horror films today still show us who the real villains in society are and it isn’t the creatures. We should never lose sight of this.

summer moon above
shadows dance across the screen
old creature features

Be safe out there.

Happy 50th Anniversary Jaws!

June 20, 2025 marks the 50th Anniversary of Jaws.

Distributed by Universal Pictures and directed by young and upcoming wunderkind named Steven Speilberg, the oceanic horror-thriller was based off Peter Benchley’s best selling novel of the same title grossed $7.9 million dollars and spent 14 weeks at the top of the box office, making it the very first “summer blockbuster” of Hollywood films. A critical and commercial success, the movie changed the landscape of all art and film and would go on to be the first film to earn $100 million dollars.

Jaws is a masterclass in fear, even John Williams’ brilliant score alone was enough to send shivers up spines and keep people outta the water. It isn’t just about facing the horror of giant man-eating vengeful shark though, it’s a psychological look at the breakdown of smalltown life. It’s the fear of a simple man overwhelmed with the job of trying to protect his community. A weary wife and mother afraid of losing her family. The fear of a elected official losing the faith of his community. The fear of a community losing their economy, their livelihoods, and their lives to something they cannot control. The fear of a young insecure college grad being ridiculed for his intellect and his ideas. And, the fear and trauma of an old fisherman who survived a horror greater than war.

It was years before I truly understood how great the story of Jaws was. I was very young when I first saw it in a drive-in theater in San Diego, CA. It’s my first movie memory, peeking inbetwen the car seats up at giant screen, yards away, as young swimmer was violently yanked under the water. This was back in the day when parents didn’t really shield kids from sex and violence in movies and TV. I watched a lot of old 70s horror movies this way. In fact, this is where my love for horror movies began. Being the first movie I ever saw, Jaws has a very special place in my heart. I try to watch it every year, usually around Fourth of July, when the story is set. I must have seen this film a hundred times at least and it never gets old.

Some may argue Jaws didn’t do any favors for sharks. Yes, it created mass hysteria and worldwide fear of sharks, For all the fear it generated, I think Jaws also sparked interest in sharks. Something that led to the increased study of sharks and all sea life behavior, maybe even put marine biology on the map. This all helped create conservation of sharks and ocean life. It’s been a long hard fought battle to save this planet by learning not to be afraid of what lurks in the ocean. Love it or hate it, Jaws is an unforgettable masterpiece worth celebrating.

Sinister Saturdays- The Boogeyman 2023

Title: The Boogeyman
Director: Rob Savage
Starring: Chris Messina, Sophie Thatcher, Vivien Lyra Blair
Distributed by: 20th Century Studios
Running Time: 1hr 38m

Based off the 1973 short story by Stephen King, I found this one on Hulu the other night. I hadn’t read the story before, so I thought maybe it would be a paranormal movie, but it kinda turned into a creature feature. For anyone new to the lore, a Boogeyman is predominantly North American mythos of a hellish creature that hides in closets, under the bed, or other dark creepy places and eats children who misbehave, or in this case, are just unlucky.

A recently widowed psychologist Will Harper (always solid Chris Messina) and his two daughters, teen Sadie (Yellowjackets star ingenue Sophie Thatcher) and young Sawyer (very talented Vivien Lyra Blair) are still reeling after the unexpected death of the mother, when the youngest girl suddenly finds stalked by the Boogeyman. It’s a little unclear how the creature came to find young Sawyer, maybe the family’s collective grief invited the Boogeyman into the home.

Or it could have been this sad welp below, who lost his family in the movie’s opening scene.

Lester Billings (played by my new favorite character actor David Dastmalchian) shows up in doc’s office, totally unannounced, without an appointment, and talking about the creature that comes for your kids when you’re not paying attention. Dark stuff and the doc Harper agees, there’s something off about this dude. For some creepy reason, while Harper is in the next room calling 911, Lester decides to check out the families’ closets and quickly finds out the Boogeyman eats adults too. Btw, the Boogeyman is also an extreme multi-tasker because it manages to haunt two families at the same time.

Now about that Boogeyman, filmmakers kept all the traditional tropes to make their monster feel familiar to audiences, hiding in the dark, afraid of light, mimicing voices, fast traveling like ghosts or a spirit, but, then, they also smartly added some new characteristics to unnerve and surprise filmgoers, moving away from a paranormal entity to a more corporeal physical creature.

It was ugly, had tentacle-like appendages walked on ceilings, moved in all directions, making it near impossible to outrun.

Monsters are not all powerful though. In fact, they have a lot of limitations, and Sadie and Sawyer turn out to be two smart cookies, who manage to defeat the Boogeyman, for now at least. People should probably still check under the bed and in the closet.

I found this PG-13 horror thriller to be a short enjoyable romp. The film relies on the creeponess of the dark, jump scares and the anxieties of a grieving family to scare audiences. Much like Lake Mungo, a film I reviewed earlier this month, grief is a powerful negative emotion that really opens you up to supernatural. Since there’s no gore, sex, and only mild use of drugs and bad language, The Boogeyman is probably good for families looking to introduce older kids into horror.

Scariest scenes: When young Sawyer rolls her lamp ball under the bed to reveal the Boogeyman for the first time and another jump scare moment when the Boogeyman suddenly appears and grabs Sadie.

Of Beaches and Monsters

‘Ber months may start tomorrow, but Summer isn’t over just yet. There’s still 23 days left to celebrate Summerween. I couldn’t decide which is scarier, horror films featuring spooky cabins or mysterious beaches. So, here’s a double list with the best of both worlds. From creature features to crazed killers, you can find all of these films streaming somewhere. Let me know which list you think has the scariest movies.

Cryptid Monster Marathon – Monstrous, The Retreat, and Dawn of the Beast Movie Reviews

After missing my own self-imposed deadlines in January and February, where I was to present a movie review for the month, I am determined not to miss March! Thus, I decided to triple down and do three movie reviews in celebration of our legendary creatures theme.

The truth is, earlier this March, I watched Dawn of the Beast, but it was only when I started writing the review did I realize the movie was actually the third cryptid monster film, following Monstrous and The Retreat, all directed by Bruce Wemple. Naturally, I had to watch the other two films.

Armed with a great love for campy horror films and his trusty cast of relative unknowns, New York director Bruce Wemple creates fresh horror that makes the socially conscious Gen Z crowd proud. All boxes checked. Wemple knows all the horror tropes, and these films felt like proper indie horror movies. There was decent acting, strong female characters, and lots of action. The camerawork makes good use of those shadows, close-up shots, and practical effects to perpetuate the scares and despite the low budget, the production quality was pretty good. I was even forgiving of the few man-in-a-monster-suit shots, which were super cheesy, but hey look, considering the third film was entirely developed during the pandemic, all of us should be impressed by that. I’ll be honest, I never gave much thought to Adirondack mountains before watching these films, and whatever location Wemple chose to shoot on location is some damn beautiful country. If I wasn’t so scared of the real Wendigo, I’d run out and buy a Winnebago.

There’s a lot of good psychological horror here too, especially in the second film, The Retreat. The biggest flaw of this cryptid trilogy was the films suffered from having too much story. I guess having too much story is better than having no story, right? It’s just these long drawn out or overly heavy exposition scenes take away our monster time, and when you make a feature film starring these two legendary creatures, you have got to have more monster!!

I should also mention upfront, each of these movies is stand-alone. You’ll understand each of them on their own just fine, but movie marathons are so much more fun.

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