Creature Features: Nature Turned Nasty in the Movies

by William Schoell

This work offers a critical, colorful and informative examination of different types of monster movies, spanning the silent period to today. Chapter One focuses on dragons, dinosaurs, and other scaly giants from films like 1953's The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms , an impressive stop-motion production that ushered in a new era of atomic-spawned monster films. Chapter Two examines "big bug" flicks, beginning with 1954's giant ant-infested Them . Chapter Three focuses on ordinary animals grown to improbable proportions through scientific or sinister experimentation, such as the huge octopus in 1955's It Came from Beneath the Sea . Chapters Four, Five, and Six look at films in which nature goes berserk, and otherwise innocuous animals flock, swarm, hop or run about on a menacingly massive scale, including 1963's The Birds and 1972's Frogs . Finally, Chapter Seven focuses on films featuring beasts that defy easy definition, such as 1958's The Blob and Fiend Without a Face .

Genres: Film, Animals

204 pages, Hardcover

First published July 1, 2008

About the author

WILLIAM SCHOELL was born in Manhattan where he resides. He is the author of over thirty-five books in various genres, including celebrity biographies (some written with co-author Lawrence J. Quirk); horror-suspense novels; biographies of such people as Edgar Allan Poe and Giuseppe Verdi for young people; and books on the performing arts and pop culture. He has been a radio producer and talk show host, worked for Columbia pictures, and is a blogger, playwright, and activist.

Reviews

[Michael P.]

This book is written like an unalphabetized encyclopedia, with each film largely isolated from the others. Films are organized in the least revealing way, with a chapter on giant lizard movies, another on giant insect movies, and so on. Films that shed light on each other are not grouped together by time, theme, filmmaker, or any other way that helps readers understand the society into which the films were released, patterns across films, or meaningful influences among filmmakers. Since the same producers and directors made movies covered in different chapters, it is obvious that they would not put their work in these fake categories.

Schoell writes in cliches, dozens of them, and repeats verbal formulas often. Two examples: most actors are called “competent” in the first couple of chapters, and Schoell has a habit of summarizing a film in a one-sentence paragraph. As if at a certain point he read the manuscript he had written so far, Schoell begins to substitute words such as “professional” for “competent” and tacks those summarizing last sentences onto the previous paragraph, but he did not go back and fix his past sins.

Schoell does not like most of the English films he surveys. He does not like that they are more situation and character driven. He decries the character development that puts the creatures on the back burner.
Schoell shows little understanding of direction, editing, and screenwriting, and is a poor judge of actors: comments about Sigourney Weaver are way off base, as shown by her performances in THE YEAR OF LIVING DANGEROUSLY and DEATH AND THE MAIDEN. Worse, the way Schoell writes about most of these artists takes the least revealing path, with comments such as, “his performance is competent,” rather than “his performance brings out the terror in a man who is afraid of what the monster within might do to the people he loves.”

This book is tedious and an offence to good writing.

[Ella De · Rating 2 out of 5]

I really love creature features even the trashy ones. So I hoped for a loveletter to this special genre of horrorfilms, some deep insights or an interesting discussion of the usual tropes, topics und techniques surrounding this genre. This book is none of that.
It is an uninspired listing of movies that the author defines as creature feature (it is up for debate wether aliens belong in a book with the subtitle "nature turned nasty). Most of the book are simple retellings of movie plots and the author seems to be more interested in the looks, talent and further careers of the actors than in deatils of the creatures.
You even get the feeling, that the author doesn't like this genre very much. The whole books reads like script for a youtube clip. Not very professionell, not very interesting... wouldn't waste my time on reading it again.

[Toxic Graveyard · Rating 5 out of 5]

Growing up as movie obsessed youth I cut my teeth on Harryhausen dynamation epics, action movies, and whatever monster flick my folks would let me put my hands on. As I grew older I moved on to more grotesque films and pursued the goriest of the gory and the most over the top action films I could find. Somewhere in there I missed a step though, loving simple creature films where the creature was the focus and not the red stuff. I have since mined the various genres for gooey treats and find myself less interested in the mayhem and more curious about more innocent monster movies. Creature Features is an excellent resource that fills that gap.

Creature Features: Nature Turned Nasty in the Movies, is a book with a simple mission statement: expose the reader to a plethora of monster flicks, many of which they may have never seen before. Each chapter is separated by a different kind of creature and the author takes us on a tour of the origins of that particular creature in film (bugs, dragons/dinosaurs/, animals attacking etc), up to films released recently. He cherry picks good examples (and some bad films too) and writes a synopsis of each including interesting trivia and reviews the films as well. After reading a few chapters, names keep popping up and he makes note of this so the reader can start to see how many of these creature films were made by and starring the same people. I love the historical context of the reviews. It’s great to know how each subgenre started and where they went over time. It puts each film in the correct context and paints a clear picture of the time and place in which the film was made so it’s better understood where it stands in the pantheon of creature films. It’s a very organized and clear approach that I appreciate.

The author does not discuss direct to video releases nor does he talk about films where gore is the main selling point. Because of this the book is far from comprehensive but that wasn’t the goal of the author to begin with. It’s clear the author has a passion for these films and has his own personal taste (he finds gore films highly distasteful) which I can understand. The writing is breezy and fun and never too stuffy which makes for an enjoyable read, and one that will have you taking notes on which films to watch next.

To be honest, I’m actually glad he doesn’t include direct to video movies (though I personally love those flicks!) or gore flicks (ditto!), because he doesn’t like them. It would be a chore to read a bunch of reviews for films the author detests. What would be the point? Also, there are numerous books on the subject of gory flicks so his coverage would likely have been redundant anyway.

If you’re in the mood for a good giant bug movie or dinosaur flick and you want to dive into the films of the 50’s and 60’s but don’t know where to start (there’s a lot of garbage out there), Creature Features will help direct you to the right place while educating you about the genre players so you can start to check out favorite director’s filmographies as well. It’s a fun book about a fun subject. What else do you need?

[Matthew Baker · Rating 3 out of 5]

Next to zombies, creature features are one of my favorite kinds of horror films. The ‘unknown’ element of each film is what draws me; after all, I would bet every one of us has been scared of the thing under our beds or in our closets at one point. And why shouldn’t we be? The unknown has always thrilled yet secretly terrified us. If you’re a fan of these beloved films like me, then I have a book for you: CREATURE FEATURES by William Schoell. This book is definitive look at strange and horrific beasts in cinema over the past century.

I absolutely LOVE books like this, where talented authors take the time to analyze movies of a certain genre and then critique them. With that being said, I don’t always agree with said author’s reviews. As such, when I recommend a book like this, it is not because I agree with everything the author states…I recommend them because they are comprehensive, well thought-out, and informative.

With CREATURE FEATURES, author William Schoell takes us way back to the very early years of the genre and then brings us all the way up to the present. He explores a wide variety of titles, many of which I have never seen, and some I have never even heard of. This shows you just how much effort was put into writing this book.

CREATURE FEATURES is written well for the most part, with straight-to-the punch analysis and in-depth reviews. I will confess that some of the text comes across like it’s being dictated from a college thesis paper, with dry tones and a humorless voice…however this is a minor complaint, and it is only on a personal level. Most readers will probably not notice it at all.

I am surprised the book does not contain more pictures. There are a few, intermingled here and there throughout the whole book, but I think this title could have been so much more if it had been given more visuals. Again, this is just a personal preference, and it should not dissuade you in any way from checking the book out.

Despite my comments, CREATURE FEATURES is a definite win for me, and I’m proud to add it to my horror library. If you’re any kind of fan of cinema or horror films, this book is for you. Give it a look for sure.