Aliens & Monsters
1950’s mutant creatures and alien invaders
Audiences were first introduced to mutant creatures and aliens in movies in the 1950’s. The first 50’s movie to feature outer space and aliens was a low-budget movie called ‘Rocketship X-M’. This then started a trend of sci-fi films. Some of the most popular and films of the genre were ‘The Thing’, ‘The Day The Earth Stood Still’, ‘Invasion Of The Body Snatcher’, ‘It Came From Outer Space’ and ‘War Of The Worlds’.
Mutant Madness
Existing life forms made monsters as they could be photographed using blue screen techniques. Early special effects worked well in the King Kong movie, 1933. On screen monsters represented the cutting edge of movie technology and was seen as a good way to draw audiences away from tv.This era’s obsession with the monster movie stems from the fears generated by co-existence with the atom bomb.Monster movies offered a vision of destruction created by non-humans; instead of generating chaos and disaster, humans represent a force of good. These monster movies of 1950’s were the first blockbusters.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WFnSxeDfENk
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GEStsLJZhzo
Invasion Of The Body Snatchers
This was such a big movie of its time because it refers to communists. The aliens in the film made everybody the same once it had taken over their body, which is much like what the communists did. Society was in fear that the communist would take over and make everybody the same.
The Blob was released 1958 and there has been 2 re-makes of the film since then. The message of this film was to warn people of the potential dangers of space travel. The Blob is an unidentifiable creature that feeds and expands on individuals fears. One could say the same thing about the targets of Senator Joseph McCarthy’s “Red Scare” accusations.
Technology scare in the 1950’s
In the 1950’s, people were worried that we were ahead of time in terms of technology and were scared that it would take over their lives. People lived in fear
that the effects of technology was going to mutant and deform people. Films after the war in the cinemas didn’t concentrate on the war and fighting but
the pace of technology we were using. For example the atom bomb, guns and machinery.
The race to space was also a major thing in the 1950’s. Because of the new obsession of aliens and mutant creatures in movies, Countries wanted to got to space and explore and see if there is other life form. The competition was mainly
between the USA and Russia.
ALIEN & MUTANT CREATURE FILMS NOW!
Even now, there’s still and obsession with space and what’s out there. People are always coming up with new ideas of what creatures out in space look like. And we see this in the new alien and mutant creature movies. In todays generation there’s some stereotypes and less fear and more mocking of the creatures. Movies such as Monsters Inc and Alien VS Monsters.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2gCLOANe5q8The Wasp Woman 1959
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kZKZxpwBPG0Monsters Inc
COMPARISON
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