Monsterland
In these days of CGI overkill, Monsterland is a documentary that harkens back to the days when movie monsters were real. From the origins of the latex monster in devastated post-war Japan, to the aliens and serial murderers of 1980s' American cinema, and on to the rise of King Kong's digital descendants and the latest 21st-century terrors.
Director Jörg Buttgereit assembles some of the great masters of the genre, including: Gremlins creator Joe Dante; analytical horror director John Carpenter; monster designers such as artist H.R. Giger, special effects guru Gregory Nicotero, makeup artist Rick Baker and Godzilla performer Kenpachiro Satsuma.
They discuss their lives and work with their monstrous creations, and relate to us the dark passion that they share. This film is a visual journey of exploration to the centres of creature culture: the monsterspawning megacity of Tokyo; the sunshine city of Los Angeles, where knife-wielding killers roam the streets; and the high-rise cityscape of New York, which in both film and reality has been transformed into a doomsday panorama. Impressions of these places converge in the dense images of old and new monster films, and are blended with sinister, surreal drawings by monster designers; views into the chambers of horror that are the special effects studios; and pictures of fans in bizarre creature costumes.
A must see for any genre fan.
Information
- country
- Germany
- year
- 2009
- runtime
- 71 min
- language
- English
- director
- Jörg Buttgereit
- distributor
- Avanti Media
- format
- Digibeta
screens with short documentary film JEFFREY AND THE DINOSAURS