“Cryptozoology,”
according to Dictionary.com: “The study of evidence tending to substantiate the
existence of, or the search for, creatures whose reported existence is
unproved, as the Abominable Snowman or the Loch Ness
monster.” We’re completely fascinated by tales of creatures unknown to
science, which is why you’ll see news stories of mysterious beasts show up
regularly on CNN – usually accompanied by a blurry photograph or very
indeterminate video footage.
The latest is the “Muck Monster” of the Lake Worth Lagoon in
south Florida
(story here).
This current caught-on-tape creature consists of a strange wake in the water,
captured on camera by a couple of lagoonkeepers (yes, apparently that’s a
word). There’s not much to it, but then again, it doesn’t take much to fire up
the imagination when it comes to “cryptids.” All you really have to do is give
them a name to entrench them in the public consciousness (at least until the
next one comes around).
Not surprisingly, cryptids have been the subject of many a
B-horror movie, most of them pretty friggin’ terrible. However, there are a few
titles worth mentioning, so I decided to list my five faves. Note, I kept the
list to entirely fictional creatures, like the sasquatch, and didn’t include
giant version of animals that already exist, so nothing with giant sharks,
snakes, hogs or bugs. And while I was tempted to add The Life Aquatic, as Team Zissou is searching for the “Jaguar
Shark,” I stuck to films that focus
on the critter in question. OK, no that I’ve laid that out, here it is, in
alphabetical order: Five Essential Cryptozoo Movies.
- Incident at Loch Ness
(2004)
Writer/director Zak Penn, who’s written a bunch of comedies
and superhero movies, makes a brilliant move in casting legendary filmmaker
Werner Herzog (as himself!) in the lead role. The movie has Penn (also playing
himself) making a documentary about Herzog making a documentary about the Loch
Ness monster. The whole thing begins quite seriously and slowly reveals itself
as a comedy as Herzog and Penn become increasingly at odds with each other.
Despite gags such as the bikini model/sonar operator, the film manages to
become quite tense and downright scary when something actually shows up in the
murky waters. The best part of Incident
at Loch Ness, though, is that it plays perfectly on Herzog’s reputation as
a dead serious, nature-obsessed filmmaker.
- The Legend of Boggy Creek (1972)
This no-budget drive-in hit was a huge influence on the Blair Witch Project and sparked the
Bigfoot craze of the ‘70s. Directed by Charles B. Pierce, it’s done as a
docu-drama, which lends it that faux-reality look, and seeing the creature walk
through the Arkansas
swamps is downright terrifying (and recalls the famous Patterson-Gimlin film).
Like The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, the
movie’s ragged, low-budget verité style really works in its favour,
especially when the beast attacks. Based on supposedly true events, most of the
cast members are real people playing themselves. Making it even weirder is the
film’s folky theme, sung by Pierce himself, which you really, really need to
listen to, here. Few
films are this ludicrous yet genuinely scary. “Hey Travis Crabtree, do you see
what I see?” Yes, I do: the trouser-crapping sight of a hairy beast over there
in the trees.
3. The Mothman
Prophecies (2002)
Richard Gere fans don’t generally want to watch a horror
film, and horror fans aren’t usually interested in Richard Gere; not to
mention, this film’s about West Virginia’s
Mothman, so no wonder it didn’t exactly become a hit. Regardless, it’s one of
the most chilling modern genre movies of the past decade because director Mark
Pellington has a gift for crafting terrifying atmosphere and disturbing,
original sequences. Gere plays a widowed reporter who ends up in Point Pleasant, West
Virginia to investigate the mysterious title creature
that has been spooking the locals but good. But this ain’t a monster movie –
instead it’s a full-on mind-f**k as Gere’s character discovers a connection to
the sightings and his wife, the beings (whatever they are) decide to mess with
him, and he discovers a series of patterns that seemingly predict a future
catastrophe. The ending kinda goes Hollywood-lame, but the build-up contains
plenty of stuff to give you nightmares, particularly the creepy mythology stuff
in the story (based on John A. Keel’s book of the same name). A no, it doesn’t
end with Gere building a giant bug zapper.
- Piranha Part 2: The Spawning
(1981)
Although it’s not exactly in the vein of more traditional
cryptids, such as Nessie or Bigfoot, nevertheless, this first feature by James
Cameron fits the criteria. And it deserves a spot for its sheer audaciousness.
A total Jaws rip-off, it has a school
of piranhas that not only attack scuba divers having sex… underwater… in a
sunken boat, they have wings caused by government experimentation, and they use
them to fly right on to land to chow down on humans. Even better: Lance
Henriksen play the Roy Scheider cop character. The pièce de résistance, however, sees one of the
resilient critters fly out of a corpse, that’s been sitting in the morgue for a
day, to attack an attendant before flying away through a window. It has all the
blood, boobs and broken logic of a classic B-monster movie of the time, but
it’s pretty well made, and more fun than most of the Jaws sequels. Plus, these things would eat the Muck Monster for a
snack.
- Yeti:
The Giant of the 20th Century (1977)
This Italian-Canadian co-production was shot in Toronto and features a
Yeti running around downtown T.O. terrorizing its citizens (and you thought the
garbage strike was a problem). Obscure, yet worth tracking down (try here), it riffs on
King Kong, as a “humane expedition up to Northern Canada” results in the
capture of the massive hairy monster-man, who floated to the coast of
Newfoundland after being trapped in a iceberg. Thawed out with a flamethrower,
it’s trapped in a big plastic box, brought to the city and put on display. Of
course these sorts of things are never a good idea, and before you can even
properly marvel at the yeti, which looks like James Brolin in a homemade
Chewbacca costume, an urban rampage is afoot – a very big foot, so to speak. And
yes, as promised by the movie poster (I grabbed the image from here), Toronto’s
city hall is included in the scenery. Canadian flags fly in the background, a
bizarre Lassie-type subplot unfolds and at one point the Yeti takes such a
shine to a human girl that his nipple gets hard (I kid you not).
This one probably should’ve been called the Greatest Movie of the 20th
Century.
-Dave Alexander
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