I’ve been thinking a lot about monsters lately (and all the time, sure, but more so now that I am working on a book about them). Specifically, my brain is stuck on how monsters were an object of fascination on and off throughout the 20th century, in a way that differs significantly from both the 19th and our current 21st centuries. I struggle a bit with parsing all this (sometimes you just gotta write it outta your head), so please think of this as more of a live hashing out of ideas than a formal appraisal or anything like that. I’m shooting from the hip here and this is an enormous topic I’m primarily glossing over.

Let’s go chronologically. Why is the 19th century different? I think, in part, because there was just one monster medium, the written word, and not a lot of leisure time to enjoy it. There’s Frankenstein (1818) and then a pretty big gap, bridged in part by the sometimes monster-centric penny dreadfuls mid-century, to a density of important monsters that lurch into being at the end of the century – The King in Yellow (1895), Dracula (1897), War of the Worlds (1898) and so on. There were certainly enthusiasts for all these monsters and more, but something changes in 20th century that allows for periodic pockets of sustained intense interest in not just a singular monster of the moment, but in monsters broadly. And by large groups of people! I’m totally serious when I suggest that this phenomenon parallels labor reforms like the invention of the weekend (1879 in the UK, sorta; 1909 in some parts of the US, though the 40-hour work week wasn’t codified in law until 1938) and child labor restrictions (1933 in the UK and ’38 again in the US). Another thing to keep in mind: this is the first time in human history where monster stories were (mostly) intentionally fiction, and that perhaps invites fascination in a way cautionary legends (that were presumed to be at least partly true) did not.

These waves of interest in monsters (and ghosts and aliens and so on – I’m not making much distinction between the various flavors of unnatural weirdos) seem different, too, from the sort of pop culture adulation that results in something like Beatlemania. But unmistakably, monsters pushed into the cultural mainstream over the last century and, more or less, stayed there. 

The Pulps – the inheritors of the penny dreadful legacy, these were magazines printed on cheap paper (hence the “pulp”) that contained sensational, often lurid genre fiction, beginning at the turn of the century and lasting until the mid-’50s, though the heyday ran from the mid-’20s until World War II. Lovecraft’s Cthulhu and Robert E. Howard’s Conan both emerge from pulp pages and while monster-related pulp stories (like those often appearing in Weird Tales) were a minority compared to crime and westerns, they nevertheless amounted to the largest month-to-month penetration of monsters into the mainstream up to that point. Worth noting that just about all the pulps, regardless of genre, involve scantily clad women, at the very least in the art, which will go on to become a fixture in the bug-eyed monster (BEMs) movies of the early ’50s and, well, pretty much everywhere else, honestly.

Monster Movies – concurrent with the pulps, the release of King Kong (1933) redefined cinematic spectacle. It was so successful that the sequel, Son of Kong, released later the same year. During this same period, Universal was busy converting the literary monsters of the previous century into stars of the silver screen – The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1923), The Phantom of the Opera (1925), Dracula (1931), Frankenstein (1931), The Invisible Man (1933) and Bride of Frankenstein (1935). Two originals round out the monster royal family: The Mummy (1932) and Werewolf of London (1935). Again, while folks of course love specific Universal monsters, the sheer variety of films available speaks to a broad interest in the monstrous.

Monster Movies Again – The next sensation comes in 1952, with the re-release of King Kong into theaters, which kicks off the giant monster craze, including the birth of Godzilla (1954). Meanwhile, the public’s interest in UFOs, begun with Kenneth Arnold’s 1947 sighting of nine flying metal objects near Mount Ranier, fueled a boom in science fiction films that often featured the aforementioned BEMs. Both of these segued directly into…

Monster Movies on TV – In 1957, Universal syndicated 52 of their horror films to television as a package known as Shock Theater. Many local stations hired costumed horror hosts – Philadelphia’s Zacherley, the cool ghoul, is probably the most famous of the initial crop – to present the films, usually late at night. Shock Theater created a whole generation of “Monster Kids” who became obsessed with monsters. European horror films, which had dried up during the war, saw a revival as well, most notably the Hammer films of Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing, many of which were edgier modern takes of the stuff kids were getting through Shock Theater. And Famous Monsters of Filmland magazine (launched in 1958) kept kids occupied between matinees. The fad crested in the mid-’60s, sometime between “The Monster Mash” (1962) and The Munsters (1964), but cast a long shadow, influencing the likes of Stephen King, John Carpenter, Joe Dante and more. It was mostly over by 1968, when Night of the Living Dead and Rosemary’s Baby signaled a shift toward horror “realism” that would dominate the next decade and eventually mutate into the slasher films of the ’80s.

Cryptids – pop culture monsters took the back seat to supposed real-world monsters in the mid-to-late-’60s. First, in 1966, analysis of Tim Dinsdale’s film footage of something crossing Loch Ness suggested the subject was alive and not a boat, reigniting interest in that most famous Scottish lake monster. Then, 1967 witnessed back-to-back shockers – the mothman manifestations in Point Pleasant, West Virginia, which supposedly culminated in the collapse of the Silver Bridge in December, and the film debut of a wild Bigfoot in the Patterson-Gimlin footage, shot in June. These three events, which were prime fodder for documentary shows like In Search of… (1976-1982), have arguably sustained decades of continued interest in cryptozoology.  

Back to Books – Beginning in the late-’60s and continuing intermittently until dropping off in the late-’90s (probably in part because of easy access to the internet), monsters became the subject of hundreds of books, many of them in encyclopedia format. Richard Cavendish’s Man, Myth and Magic probably crystalized the trend, first as a run of 112 magazine issues from 1970 to 1971, then as a 24-volume set of hardcovers (I am unclear when they were published, but I imagine a couple years later). Other important writers include Daniel Cohen, Georgess McHargue and Joseph Nigg, all of whom made careers out of writing about monsters. David Larkins’ narrative art books – Gnomes (1977), Faeries (1978) and Giants (1979) fed a new mainstream appetite for fantasy (spinning out of Lin Carter’s Ballantine Adult Fantasy fiction line) that was often imitated. Usborne published two series of influential, monster-oriented books for young readers around the same time – three volumes of Worlds of the Unknown (1977) and three volumes of Guide to the Supernatural World (1979). Time-Life put out the crown jewel for this sort of book series twice, first with 21 volumes of The Enchanted World (1984-1987) and later with the 33-volume Mysteries of the Unknown (1987-1992). Oh, and the Monster Manual (1977). When Dungeons & Dragons created roleplaying games, it essentially gamified obsessing over monsters in a way that most other RPGs have emulated ever since.

Pre-Millennial Tension – the ’90s was all about aliens and vampires. The former was driven by the success of the The X-Files and a resurgence of all manner of paranormal conspiracy theories in both fiction and the news. The latter was the product of existing goth culture, Neil Jordan’s film adaptation of Interview with the Vampire and the popularity of Vampire: The Masquerade RPG. And I guess Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Both intensity of both threads of interest largely evaporated with the closing of the millennium.

Which leaves us with…what, exactly? Zombies were a thing for a while, but a thing that also feels…not the same as these other monster fixations, and doesn’t even seem of a piece with the highly metaphorical zombies of the previous century. And there are plenty of monsters around, of course, but they all seem to be constituent parts of something rather than the focus (the first Cloverfield comes to mind, as does the smoke monster from Lost and maybe, to an extent, the recent excitement over Nosferatu). Folks still like monsters, they just don’t seem to be obsessing over them broadly (see also the abject failure of Dark Universe film franchise, thank god, though I guess they are working up to trying that again, coming back from the dead like a good monster). I honestly want to blame capitalism, and there is probably an argument to be made about the way contemporary “intellectual property” practices throttle organic interest by commoditizing fandoms, but I’m not actually convinced that’s the root cause. Maybe a better theory is that over a handful of generations, monsters have been saddled with a sort of commodified permanence they never previously had to contend with, and this made them extremely excited for a while and now, they’ve become just more cultural furniture to move around. The clearest example of this to me is Dungeons & Dragons. Initially, D&D monsters drew inspiration (and/or were stolen) from all sorts of places. But the commercial success of the game has led to the fossilization of its intellectual property, which has nevertheless been embraced so broadly that modern fantasy now draws on the language (both verbal and visual) of D&D far more often than the other way around.

But also, all sorts of previously established paradigms are crumbling, so maybe we’re on the verge of a new monster moment. Johan Egerkrans has put out a series of narrative art books about monsters that reminds me David Larkins’ projects. Adam Allsuch Boardman’s illustrated guides similarly harken back to the Usborne guides. And DK just put out a big monster book called Supernatural Creatures. And folks seemed really into Nosferatu. Maybe something is starting to happen.

In the immortal words of Operation Ivy, “All I know is that I don’t know nothing.” I am sure other folks have thoughts, and I’d love to hear them. Orrin Grey, noted monster guy, said upon reading this essay that is, “a stone skipped across the surface of a bunch of very deep waters,” and I entirely agree. What did I miss? What’s the monster future look like from where you’re sitting?