10 Types Of Cinematic Apocalypse
5. The Monster Apocalypse
A sleepy town in Maine. Mist rolls down from the mountains, swathing the streets in minutes. A small group of survivors take refuge in a supermarket. And then the monsters come. Big ones, small ones, winged ones, crawling ones, and every one out of a nightmare. Frank Darabonts The Mist (based on the book by Stephen King) is, for me, the ultimate monster movie, the ultimate monster apocalypse.
Its not about an enormous mutant lizard or slathering alien rampaging through an urban center (Gojira, Cloverfield) or goliaths from the deep waging war against humanity (Pacific Rim) it cuts to the heart of what makes monsters scary: their attention on us. Monsters come in all shapes and sizes (the zombie apocalypse gets its own entry merely because of its prevalence), but theyre at their most terrifying when theyre a personal threat. Sure, King Kong tossing airplanes from the top of the Empire State Building is a pretty grave threat if youre on the ground, but youre more likely to become collateral damage than actually get any face time with the beast.
Monsters are a childhood fear and in our childhood theyre always in the closet, under the bed, up close and personal. Theyre not necessarily out to cause carnage, what they want to do is eat you. Put that on a large enough scale and you have a monster apocalypse. Its why I Am Legend fundamentally didnt work because the monsters werent monstrous enough but nor were they human (enough so, at least, to make Nevilles wholesale massacre of them more morally dubious ala Richard Mathesons book). Zombies work because theyre our loved ones made monstrous; monsters work because they are not us and they are hungry.