Or the monster is from outer space, has been on Earth for a long time with no one ever seeing it, or released (or awakened) from a prison of some sort where it was being held.
On the contrary, Godzilla began in this fashion yet as time moved on his reputation quickly grew into that of a cultural icon to the Japanese, as much as Superman is a cultural symbol to America, with a number of films presenting Godzilla as a sort of protagonist who helps protect humans from other, more malevolent monsters.
The Godzilla series utilized the concept of a superweapon built by Japanese scientists to suppress him or any of the monsters he fights.
The fragment that exists of this film features an early example of a giant monster battle, in this case involving large humanoid robots.
Special effects animator Willis O'Brien worked on the 1925 fantasy adventure The Lost World, based on the novel of the same name.
[2] Two years later, O'Brien produced special effects for the 1933 RKO film King Kong, directed by Merian C. Cooper.
Since then, King Kong has not only become one of the most famous examples of a monster movie, but also is considered a landmark film in the history of cinema.
The film was about a fictional dinosaur, a Rhedosaurus, that was awakened from frozen ice in the Arctic Circle by an atomic bomb test.
"[8] A parallel development during this era was the rise of the Z movie, films made outside the organized motion picture industry with ultra-low budgets.
Grade-Z monster movies such as Plan 9 from Outer Space (1959) and The Creeping Terror (1964) are often listed among the worst films ever made because of their inept acting and amateurish special effects.
[9] In 1975, Steven Spielberg directed Jaws, which while labeled as a "thriller", features a large, animatronic great white shark.
[10] Jaws is one of the few monster movies based on a real incident: the New Jersey shark-attacks of 1916 (from which Peter Benchley got the idea for the story).
Since the mid-1970s, with Mel Brooks' Young Frankenstein, and into the 1980s, monster movies like Larry Cohen's Q, the Winged Serpent (1982), Tom Holland's Fright Night (1985), George A. Romero's Creepshow (1982) and Ron Underwood's Tremors (1990) used comedy as a scaring device.
Just before the technological revolution that made possible to create digital special effects thanks to CGI, the last generation of SFX artists impressed many with the quality and realism of their creations: Rick Baker, Stan Winston and Rob Bottin are among the most remarkable names in the industry.
1993 saw the release of Jurassic Park, based on the 1990 novel of the same name by Michael Crichton and directed by Steven Spielberg, which set a new benchmark in the genre with innovative use of CGI and tried-and-tested animatronics to recreate dinosaurs.
[8] Jurassic Park was an enormous critical and commercial success and at one point held the title of the highest-grossing film of all time.
While the films showed allegedly authentic dinosaurs which had been recreated by genetic engineering and could be understood as science fiction, advanced contemporary animation technology made it also possible to revive medieval legends about dragons.
[13] The following year The Water Horse: Legend of the Deep (2007) was released, in which the legendary Loch Ness Monster is portrayed as a playful creature menaced by overly aggressive humans.