10 Recent Monster Movies Better Than Godzilla: King Of The Monsters

Kathy is the alcoholic mother of the young Lizzy. They live together since Kathy's husband Roy left her, and she neglects her daughter. Kathy is supposed to drive Lizzy to her father's home in the morning, but she sleeps until late afternoon and they have to travel during a rainy night.

While driving through a lonely road through the woods, Kathy hits a wolf that breaks her car, leaving them stranded on the empty road. The mechanic tells them that he needs to fix the axle and an oil leakage to tow her car. While repairing the vehicle, a monster attacks him but neither Kathy nor Lizzy realize.

The director of The Monster effectively creates a tense mood well before the actual scary stuff starts, since the principal characters are already living a more banal kind of domestic horror-show. It takes nearly an hour before the leads become fully cognisant that they’re under attack, but it’s time well spent building character dynamics and an atmosphere of dread.

By contrast, Godzilla: King of Monsters' human protagonists talk a lot about what Godzilla means, but they, unlike the pinprick-sized soldiers in the first Godzilla-film, don’t seem to be surprised that their time is up - making for a total lack of suspense in what should have been a suspenseful movie.

Not only does The Monster keep you in the dark about what lurks outside of Kathy's car for the entire movie, but the dialogue between Kathy and Lizzy is more convincing and moving than a single moment in Godzilla: King of Monsters, which was riddled with emotionless militia and plot holes.