Blog Archives
Special: Monster Legacy’s Monstrous Hundred – Part 2
We continue with the second part of the Monstrous Hundred. Now we dive in he 70s and the glorious 80s, which saw a renaissance of practical effects.
King Kong (1976)
Probably the weakest of all Kong films (not including the abhorrent Skull Island), and one with a remarkably extended and multi-limbed controversy behind it. Regardless, this 70s colossal doesn’t fail in portraying the lonely and tragic nature of its main character, whose death is particularly well-orchestrated and effective.
Howling Beasts
In adapting Gary Brandner’s 1977 seminal horror novel The Howling director Joe Dante hired John Sayles — a writer he had already collaborated with on Piranha — to completely rebuild the story, after the first drafts — written by Jack Conrad and Terence H. Winkless — proved unsatisfying. “One guy tried to adapt the book,” Dante told Combustible Celluloid, “and it really wasn’t working. That’s when I hired John Sayles. He wrote this picture after Piranha. He wrote Alligator and The Howling together at the same time in the same hotel room. You’d knock on the door, and he’d ask who it was, and you’d tell him either The Howling or Alligator and he’d slip the appropriate pages under the door.”
Monster Legacy 