Monster Movie Studio

Get a back stage pass to the Museum's back lot to see how, and also why, monster movies, have been made.

Monster Movies - Check out the history and technology behind these larger than life productions including classics like Frankenstein, King Kong, The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms and more...

The Universal Monsters - The year was 1923 and the film was The Hunchback of Notre Dame. The movie, based on the classic book by Victor Hugo, was made by a studio named Universal and would be the first of a series of films that for more than the next three decades would, in equal measure, horrify and delight filmgoers.

Godzilla: Monster of Monsters - In 1954 Japanese film producer Tomoyuki Tanaka was pondering the recent, accidental exposure of some fishermen to radiation from an American H-bomb test when suddenly he had an idea for a film. It would feature an aquatic, lizard-like creature grown to gigantic proportions by atomic radiation. His beloved skyscraper high creation would eventually be featured in over 30 films and be adored by monster movie fans around the world.

Rise of the Zombies - Vampires have been popular figures in horror since Bram Stoker wrote Dracula in 1897. The root of werewolf folklore can be traced all the way back to the ancient Greeks. Zombies, in their current form, however, have only shuffled their stiff-legged corpses onto the silver screen in the last few decades. Where did the zombie myth come from and why are they now so popular?

King Kong - What's the story behind the film with the largest leading man, well ape, in history?

Stop Motion Photography - Before the era of slick, computerized film creatures we have today, artists had to create their monsters though this painstaking animation technique.

The Magic of Ray Harryhausen - In May of 2013 a pioneer in film industry died at the age of 92. Ray Harryhausen brought to life hundreds of monsters and fantasy characters and in the process influenced a whole generation of movie makers from George Lucas to Tim Burton.

Harryhausen's Dynamation - Film buffs will want to check out this monster making film technique. Perhaps the greateste of stop motion animation artists, Ray Harryhausen, found a way of putting his model monsters into real environments while using the primative filmmaking tool available in the 1950's.

Conan-Doyle's Trick Monster Film - Arthur Conan Doyle, the creator of Sherlock Holmes, puts on over on his friend, Harry Houdini, and a room full of other great magicans by taking them back in time.

Crypto Cinema - Hundreds of motion pictures have movie monster in them. Here a list of some you may want to check out.

Alien Autopsy Film - This is a monster movie of a different type. Did somebody really film the autopsy of a creature from a different planet, or was it just more movie magic?

Not so many monsters, but related to film...

The Roots of Indiana Jones - Indiana Jones was spawned in the mind of George Lucas as a way of bringing the short serial movies he'd watched as a child back to life. What were these cliffhangers and why were they so inspiring?

Home Movies - There was a time when home movies meant an eight millimeter black and white film of your kids playing in the sand down by the beach. In the last few decades, technology has been steadily closing the gap, however. The type of equipment that big studios could only have dreamed about thirty years ago is now available to any teenager with a PC on his desk. As a result, films made by small groups of amateurs, or even individuals, are starting to look more and more like Hollywood productions.

Under An Iron Sky - A look at the production of the Finnish/German scifi film production released in 2012 that pioneered a new way of making movies.

Copyright 2014 Lee Krystek. All Rights Reserved.