13 “What the Heck” Monster Movies (Worth Watching)
Sometimes a “bad” movie can still give viewers a good time—including Godzilla, Universal Monsters, Killer Tomatoes, and more.
“Bring me back to a life of misery and despair?”
These days, there are lots of amazing monster movies out there. But what about those that share that sensation of being “so bad they’re good”? Fine, there are “good” monster movies and there are “bad” monster movies. But then there are those that fit somewhere between: Sure, you can complain about this or that—but it’s still as engaging as all get out.
For all you freaks out there who want to see some monster movies that are technically bad but are fun to watch, we’ve got a list for you below. They include movies with Frankenstein’s Monster, Godzilla, Dracula, King Kong, alien invaders, flying sharks, man-eating vegetables, and more. These titles may never live up to the standards of applauded horror movies, but you just can’t say they aren’t fun to watch…
ALSO: Watch for the info below about the all-new Robot Monster graphic novel anthology!
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13 “What the Heck” Monster Movies (Worth Watching)
Weird movie #1 Robot Monster (1953)
One of the most unusual monster movies of all time features Ro-Man, an alien robot that looks suspiciously like a gorilla wearing a diving helmet. The oddly dressed robot from outer space came to Earth to, well, kill everybody. And then made an exception.
A movie on lots of “so bad it’s good” lists, the 1953 sci-fi monster movie Robot Monster includes bits of stock footage from several other movies. And a bubble machine.
“What makes people think that Robot Monster is a bad film is that Ro-Man is a gorilla with a diving helmet on. Otherwise, the film would be long forgotten as most films of that time are. But the great thing about this aspect of the film is that the filmmakers are completely in on the joke.” (Psychotronic Review)
A movie that has grown in cult status over the years, Robot Monster was featured (and mocked) by both Mystery Science Theater 3000 and Rifftrax.
The main monster of Robot Monster has shown up here and there over the years, including the Power Rangers Zeo episode “Invasion of The Ranger Snatchers,” the Rocko’s Modern Life episode “Popcorn Pandemonium,” and the 2003 movie Looney Tunes: Back in Action. There’s also a reference in The Cars music video “You Might Think.”
There were also Ro-Man lookalikes in the 2010 animated movie Megamind, the 2012 series Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and the 2016 cartoon Milo Murphy’s Law.
The original movie Robot Monster was recently restored for a special DVD and Blu-Ray (with bonus features) by 3-D Film Archive.
Kickstarter announcement
ROBOT MONSTER COMICS IN 3-D 64-page graphic novel anthology!
Finally able to share a project I’m working on: A new 3D comic based on the cult classic 3D movie Robot Monster! This campy 1950s movie got restored last year and was a huge hit—so we’re keeping the fun going with new stories based on the character. For this anthology, I wrote a script that my wife is doing the art.
This hardcover book will be a 64-page graphic novel anthology in 3-D. Others involved include writer-producer Harold Buchholz (MYSTERY SCIENCE THEATER 3000), writer-director Owen Kline (FUNNY PAGES), EISNER-nominated 3-D graphic designer Charles Bernard (FANTAGRAPHICS), popular comics artists Chris Allan (TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES) and Glenn Whitmore (DC COMICS), and veteran comics writer-editor Paul Castiglia (ARCHIE COMICS). The team also includes several top-notch indie comics contributors, and up-and-coming talents making their comics debuts.
Greg Moffett—the last surviving Robot Monster cast member—is directly involved, with story concepts and autographed bookplates!
If you can’t chip in, I totally understand. But if you would, please share this info! I’d really appreciate it.
Find out more about the Robot Monster comics collection here!
Weird movie #2 Godzilla vs. the Smog Monster (1972) AKA Godzilla vs. Hedorah (1971)
Released first in Japan as Godzilla vs. Hedorah, this environmentalist-driven movie featured the monster Hedorah, which was birthed from pollution. When the environmentally hazardous smog-spitting monster threatens the world—as pollution is apt to do—Godzilla tells Hedora to knock off the crap. And then there’s a part where Godzilla flies.
The first American dub of the movie, released in 1972 as Godzilla vs. the Smog Monster, included the song “Save the Earth.” It was based on the song “Give Back the Sun,” heard in the original Japanese version of the movie. (Somewhere along the way, a different English dub took over and we lost having a movie where one of the leads was called the “Smog Monster.”)
By the way, the movie’s director, Yoshimitsu Banno, wanted to do more Godzilla movies for Toho—but apparently the execs there were unhappy enough with this movie that they pushed him aside. However, he later was credited as part of the production team for the MonsterVerse films Godzilla (2014), Godzilla: King of the Monsters (2019), and Godzilla vs. Kong (2021).
“Godzilla vs. Hedorah earns points for trying something new, to break away from what was fast becoming a tired formula. The film isn’t as entertaining as Gigan or MechaGodzilla but it is more original and daring.” (DVD Talk)
Related links:
Weird movie #3 Sharknado (2013)
When a strange hurricane strikes Los Angeles—and now man-eating sharks are flying through the air and weaking havoc—a bar-owner sets out to rescue his estranged wife and daughter. A crazy made-for-TV sci-fi disaster movie, Sharknado succeeded in launching a whole franchise.
While the first movie wasn’t technically a “comedy,” its bizarre plot led the follow-up movies to be more comedic on purpose. The five sequels(!) include Sharknado 2: The Second One (2014), Sharknado 3: Oh Hell No! (2015), Sharknado: The 4th Awakens (2016), Sharknado 5: Global Swarming (2017), and the time-travel finale The Last Sharknado: It’s About Time (2018).
Want more of that kind of stuff? Lucky for you, there were even MORE spin-off movies—including Lavalantula (2015), the mocumentary Sharknado: Heart of Sharkness (2015), 2 Lava 2 Lantula (2016), and the Asylum alien crossover movie 2025 Armageddon (2022).
There was also the 2015 Archie Comics crossover issue Archie vs. Sharknado.
Weird movie #4 Mad Monster Party (1967)
There are at least a couple of generations who are thoroughly familiar with Rankin/Bass for their stop-motion puppet Christmas specials, like Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer and The Little Drummer Boy. But did you know they also made a Halloween-themed stop-motion movie that’s full of classic monsters?
In Mad Monster Party, Baron Von Frankenstein (voiced by monster movie legend Boris Karloff) is planning to retire. So he’s throwing a party to tell all the monsters about his replacement.
His guest list features some very famous monsters, including Frankenstein’s monster and the monster’s wife (voiced by—and modeled after—Phyllis Diller), Dracula, the wolf-man, the mummy, the invisible man, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, plus a surprise monster.
While the baron expects to hand over control to his nephew, some of the monsters would rather knock off the young man and take control themselves.
A little rickety in some places, Mad Monster Party is nonetheless charming in the best creepy way. And that song over the opening credits is fabulous.
Related articles:
Weird movie #5 Attack of the Killer Tomatoes (1978)
One of my favorite indie monster movies EVER, Attack of the Killer Tomatoes is one of those flicks that over the years I have shown to lots of friends. Playfully suggesting in the credits that it’s inspired by Alfred Hitchcock’s movie The Birds, this parody of disaster pics is a crazy movie with wacky jokes about killer vegetables, government conspiracies, popular music, action movies, scientists, board meetings, advertising and more.
(There was recently a hilarious novelization by horror comedy author Jeff Strand. Read my interview with author Strand here!)
The official movie description:
UFOs! Bigfoot! Communists! The government has swiftly dealt with many a crisis... But can it survive the diabolical ATTACK OF THE KILLER TOMATOES?
Just when you thought it was safe to go back in the supermarket, you’re face to face with terror so bold, so frightening it has never been seen on-screen before or since (not until the sequel, anyway).
After a series of bizarre and increasingly horrific attacks from pulpy, red, seeded fruit, Mason Dixon (David Miller) finds himself leading a “crack” team of specialists to save the planet. But will they be quick enough to save everyone? To save you?
You can’t run! You can’t swim! There’s nowhere to hide! THE KILLER TOMATOES ARE EVERYWHERE!
There have actually been several follow-ups to Attack of the Killer Tomatoes—including sequel movies and a cartoon TV show. So far, I have not been able to sit through any of them. (That’s still a work in progress.) But I simply can’t let go of the original…
Related links:
Weird movie #6 King Kong Escapes (1967)
One thing that’s always bothered me about the giant robot ape in the Japanese kaiju movie King Kong Escapes: This giant ape robot was created because the supervillain didn’t realize he could have simply rented an excavator. You know, like a backhoe or something.
The second thing that’s always bothered me: None of the supervillain’s henchman ever said, “You know, we could just rent a backhoe or something.”
King Kong Escapes was made by the same folks who also made lots of 1960s Godzilla movies—including director Ishirō Honda and special effects creator Eiji Tsuburaya. A Japanese-American co-production between Toho and Rankin/Bass, the movie is apparently kind of based on a Rankin/Bass TV show titled The King Kong Show. As such, this Kong looks way different than the Kong that showed up in 1962’s King Kong vs. Godzilla. (In fact, this Kong looks a lot like he came from a Rankin/Bass holiday special.)
And then there was that King Kong giant robot.
After this movie, Toho wanted to use Kong again. But they ran into problems:
They tried to include him in 1968’s Destroy All Monsters, but their rights to the character were about to dry up. So they went with used Gorosaurus instead.
In the early 1970s, they thought about using the robot Kong in another Godzilla movie. But it turned out even the robot was a rights issue—so, they replaced Mechani-Kong by creating Mechagodzilla.
Related link:
27 Monster Musicals: From King Kong and Young Frankenstein to Monster High and more (also including that musical written by Stephen King with John Mellencamp and that musical based on Beetlejuice)
Weird movie #7 Gorgo (1961)
A fun Godzilla knock-off, the British sci-fi monster movie Gorgo sees a volcano in the North Atlantic erupt and drive to the surface a gigantic amphibian sea creature. Two treasure hunters catch the monster and take it to England to make it part of a London circus.
However, they soon find that this giant creature is just a child—and its mom is headed their way. When Gorgo’s mom charges out of the ocean to get her kid, she trashes the city before the humans can get rid of the two creatures.
Gorgo was directed by Eugène Lourié and starred Bill Travers and William Sylvester. In the years since it was released, the movie has been celebrated in several ways:
In the 1960s there was a Gorgo comic book by Spider-Man co-creator Steve Ditko. (A few years ago they published some books collecting issues from that series.)
Gorgo made a cameo appearance on an episode of the 1995 cartoon The Twisted Tales of Felix the Cat.
The movie was heckled on Mystery Science Theater 3000 in 1998.
Gorgo was used by rock band Ash for the promo video for “Ichiban.” The song was part of their 2009 project A–Z Series.
The 2010 short comedy film Waiting for Gorgo featured a British government agency commissioned to prevent the return of Gorgo.
The original movie:
Gorgo vs MST3K:
Weird movie #8 Birdemic: Shock and Terror (2010)
OK. Birdemic is an…
Awkward romance movie.
Awkward disaster movie.
Awkward horror movie.
An indie “romantic thriller-horror film,” Birdemic: Shock and Terror revolves around a romance between the two main characters…until the small town is attacked by birds. Written, directed, and executive produced by James Nguyen, the movie starred Alan Bagh and Whitney Moore.
Like Attack of the Killer Tomatoes, the more recent movie Birdemic is also inspired by Hitchcock’s movie The Birds. (Surprisingly, the bird attacks in Birdemic are nearly as unbelievable as the tomato attacks were in the earlier movie). The director has also claimed that Birdemic was also inspired by the anti-war film Apocalypse Now and Al Gore’s environmental documentary An Inconvenient Truth.
Birdemic is famous for the movie’s wooden acting, stiff dialogue, weird plot, and awkward special effects. Somehow, all of that is quite engaging. Professional movie hecklers broadcast the RiffTrax Live event featuring Birdemic.
Somehow, the movie also had two sequels: Birdemic 2: The Resurrection (2013) and Birdemic 3: Sea Eagle (2022). While the first movie was (it seems like) intended to be a serious drama, the sequels have been said to be (attempted) comedies. I have no idea how they turned out.
The original movie:
RiffTrax vs Birdemic:
Weird movie #9 The Horror of Party Beach (1964)
A fun mash-up of popular summer movie genres, The Horror of Party Beach attempts to be a tribute to monsters AND beach parties AND bikers AND musicals. Shot in two weeks for $50,000 outside Stamford, Connecticut by local producer/director Del Tenney, Horror of Party Beach was advertised as “The First Horror-Monster Musical.”
When nuclear waste dumped into the ocean mutates a shipwreck full of corpses, it unleashes an onslaught of bikini teens, dubious science, an intrepid maid, The Del-Aires, and arguably the greatest worst monsters in horror movie history. For its day, apparently the movie was considered pretty violent. In fact, the New York Times reviewer said that the director had “not stinted on the gore.”
The Horror of Party Beach was featured on Mystery Science Theater 3000.
BTW, the DVD and Blu-ray editions of The Horror of Party Beach from Severin have several bonus features, including a documentary.
Find Horror of Party Beach on Amazon
Find whether you can stream Horror of Party Beach on JustWatch
Find MST3K vs. Horror of Party Beach on Amazon
Find out from JustWatch whether you can stream MST3K vs. Horror of Party Beach
Weird movie #10 Leprechaun (1993)
Considered by many as a so-bad-its-good magical horror comedy movie, Leprechaun features an evil Irish fairy that escapes from a crate and goes on a gory quest for his 100 stolen gold coins. Written and directed by Mark Jones, Leprechaun was the movie debut of Friends star Jennifer Aniston.
Leprechaun is said to have been originally planned as a straight horror movie—but star Warwick Davis (as the title character) kept adding humor throughout the shoot. Reviews for the movie were negative, but it made money—leading to a whole series of movies. This included a couple of hip-hop-themed movies and another set in outer space. (Apparently, there has even been talk of setting a sequel in the Old West.)
While Davis played the title monster in most of the movies, there was also Leprechaun: Origins (2014) with Dylan Postl, and Leprechaun Returns (2018) with Linden Porco.
Weird movie #11 King Kong (1976)
This remake of the classic 1930s movie King Kong has some elements that are good—but also element that make you go, “Wait—what?”
Made in the 1970s, it makes some sense that the story was shifted in the direction of being about environmentalism. A ship’s crew from the Petrox company is searching for new source of oil—and ends up on a strange island. Unfortunately, they also discover a giant ape—King Kong.
When the oil search fails, the ship’s crew decides to save their trip by capturing Kong and using him as a mascot for the oil company. However, during the introductory show in front of an audience, the giant ape wakes up, breaks out of his cage, and terrorizes New York. Instead of the Empire State Building, this Kong climbs up the World Trade Center.
The movie starred Jessica Lange (in her movie debut), Jeff Bridges (with a LOT of hair), and Charles Grodin (wearing a very noticeable hat). The filmmakers also created a giant “robot” to play the part of Kong on screen—however, despite all the money and all the work that went into it, the mech beast only worked in a shot or two. In the rest of the movie, Kong was played a guy in a suit.
The 1976 version of King Kong was produced by Dino De Laurentiis and directed by John Guillermin. The movie came out to mixed reviews, and apparently made less money than expected. But it did win a Special Achievement Academy Award for Best Visual Effects.
Possibly the most important part of the film was the score composed and conducted by John Barry. He was a composer known for lots of great movie scores—including several Bond movies, plus lots of others. His score for this version of King Kong injected a lot of drama and emotion into the movie.
Whatever you think of this King Kong movie, in 1986 came the even-worse movie for a sequel, King Kong Lives.
Related links:
Kong and Godzilla fight Justice League in upcoming crossover saga
16 King Kong innovative (sometimes surprising) books and comics
27 Monster Musicals: From King Kong and Young Frankenstein to Monster High and more (also including that musical written by Stephen King with John Mellencamp and that musical based on Beetlejuice)
Weird movie #12 Van Helsing (2004)
Making some changes to the classic literary monster hunter character, the 2004 movie Van Helsing was an action movie where the title character heads to Transylvania to battle Dracula and his army of vampires. And along the way he meets up with the Wolf Man and Frankenstein’s Monster.
The movie was clearly paying tribute to the Universal Monsters movies of the 1930s and 1940s, as well as the classic novels Dracula by Bram Stoker and Frankenstein by Mary Shelley. Of course, seeing as it was written and directed by Stephen Sommers—who also brought action-movie stuff to the 1999 movie The Mummy—Van Helsing also featured some tonal elements borrowed from the James Bond movies, and starred Wolverine (well, Hugh Jackman).
The original version of the title character was introduced in the 1897 classic horror novel Dracula. Of course, in that book he was an older man who is a doctor and philosopher. Professor Abraham Van Helsing has been adapted many times as a vampire slayer, monster hunter and enemy of Count Dracula.
The movie was initially planned to kick off a series of movies—but the mixed bag that was Van Helsing cut off that plan. Of course, there were a couple of related projects:
At the time of the movie’s release, there was the animated prequel Van Helsing: The London Assignment. That revolved around Van Helsing stopping Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde from threatening England.
Dark Horse also published a one-shot comic book, Van Helsing: From Beneath the Rue Morgue. This special touched on classic stories like the Edgar Allan Poe’s 1841 short story “The Murders in the Rue Morgue,” H.G. Wells’ 1897 novels The Island of Doctor Moreau and The Invisible Man, plus the 1954 movie Creature from the Black Lagoon.
BONUS VIDEO: Dracula vs Van Helsing: Who is Van Helsing based on?
In this episode of my show, I explore some surprising info about the origins of the Van Helsing character from Bram Stoker’s original 1897 novel Dracula. I also share several notable examples of Van Helsing from various media.
Weird movie #13 House of Dracula (1945)
While the Universal Monsters movies are generally considered amazing and wonderful—the 1945 movie House of Dracula is only “great” in that it’s a great example of how boring they could be. (In fact, while some fans have complained about the 1948 follow-up Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein, the fact is that the comedy crossover movie actually featured a much smarter, more reasonable story than House of Dracula.)
An example of the monster rally movies that were then coming out of Universal, House of Dracula found Count Dracula (played this time by John Carradine) showing up at Dr Edelman’s laboratory, asking for a cure for his vampirism. But it’s a trick—apparently, he wants Edelman’s assistant to become a vampire bride.
Meanwhile, another patient at the lab is Larry Talbot (played again by Lon Chaney Jr), who hopes he can be cured from being the Wolf Man. When the cure fails, Talbot jumps off a cliff to attempt suicide.
However, instead of dying, Talbot lands in an underground cavern where he digs up the buried Frankenstein’s Monster (played by Glenn Strange).
If you have never seen this movie, I know what you’re thinking: “This movie Dracula and Wolf Man and Frankenstein’s Monster. When they fight, it’s going to be great!”
If you have seen the movie, then you know the problem: Instead of focusing on the monsters we care about, the movie introduced a much more boring monster instead. See, Dr. Edelemann then fights Dracula, and then there’s a blood transfusion (for some reason), and then Edelmann wakes up a crazy man.
And then way too much of the movie seems to think we care about this guy. Instead of, you know, Dracula and Wolf Man and Frankenstein’s Monster.
This was the final “serious” movie in the Universal Monsters brand tying together the Frankenstein series, the Dracula series, and the Wolf Man series. The classic Universal Monsters versions of these three monsters showed up one last time on screen in the 1948 classic Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein.
Related links:
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The Rondo Awards honor the best in classic horror research, creativity and film preservation. This year's winners include the reissue of ROBOT MONSTER, the movie GODZILLA: MINUS ONE, the TV series WHAT WE DO IN THE SHADOWS, and more! Find out the details here.