A Brief History
On June 20, 1975, the blockbuster movie, Jaws, starring a huge and hungry great white shark, was released in the US and immediately started setting box office records. The real star of the film is usually just called “Jaws,” but the movie prop actually had a name, “Bruce.”
Digging Deeper
While horror films have featured monsters such as semi-humans, ala Frankenstein, Dracula, and Hannibal Lecter, or even aliens or made-up monsters such as Godzilla, today, we ask you which movie monster based on actual critters is or are the most epic? Some to choose from include:
King Kong, the mightiest of the Great Apes, hitting the screen first in 1933.
Our homicidal feathered friends, The Birds, from 1963 and a remake in production now.
The T-Rex from Jurassic Park, that debuted in 1993, setting a new standard for movie dinos.
Or the impossibly large Anaconda from the eponymous movie of 1997.
Note: Other nominees could include Piranhas, giant ants from Them, Cujo, the rats from Willard, the gigantic praying mantis from The Deadly Mantis in 1957, or the giant murderous shrews (actually made-up coonhounds) from 1959’s The Killer Shrews, creatures so scary they had remake the film in 2016!
Question for students (and subscribers) to ponder: What is your pick for the most epic movie monster?
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Historical Evidence
For more information, please see…
Peter, Benchley. Jaws. Ballantine Books, 2013.
Wallace, Edgar. King Kong. Modern Library, 2005.
The featured image in this article, a photograph by an unknown author from 1977, is in the public domain both in Brazil and in the United States because it was first published in Brazil (and not published in the U.S. within 30 days) and if it was copyrightable, it was first published before 1 March 1989 without complying with U.S. copyright formalities, such as copyright notice and it is one of the following:
- A work whose author died before 1936;
- An anonymous work or a work deemed to be anonymous, or a work by a collective person whose authors were not individually identified, published or disclosed before 1936;
- Photographic works not considered to be “artistic creations” produced before 20 June 1998. (Includes documentary photography in general (commercial or not), as well as non-artistic photographic portraits. See here for some guidance on this);
- Cinematographic, phonographic, photographic and applied arts works completed before 1936.
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