Early history The idea of giant monsters in city environments appear variously before the 20th century. A noteworthy example includes
Camille Flammarion's ''Le Monde avant la création de l'homme'' ("The World Before Man's Creation") series in 1886, which includes several illustrations that depict appearances of bipedal dinosaurs in period society. A 7000 word feature article published in the
Chicago Tribune and other American newspapers on April the 1st, 1906 told the story of a purported recent invasion of Chicago by "hordes of prehistoric monsters, dealing death and destruction". The article included eight
doctored photographs showing gigantic sauropods, tyrannosaurs, pterosaurs and other creatures attacking or otherwise interacting with famous Chicago landmarks such as the
Art Institute of Chicago, the Montgomery Ward Building tower and the
Lincoln Park Zoo. Genre elements were present at the end of
Winsor McCay's 1921 animated short
The Pet in which a mysterious giant animal starts destroying the city, until it is countered by a massive
airstrike. It was based on a 1905 episode of McCay's comic strip series
Dreams of the Rarebit Fiend. It is likely the earliest "giant monster attacking a city" on film.
Prehistoric monster era (1920s–1940s) The first feature films starring giant movie monsters made their debut during the
interwar period. The period is defined by its use of prehistoric creatures that survived to modern times in undiscovered natural areas or through prolonged hibernation, such as natural cryopreservation in caves and icebergs, which then come into contact with troublesome humans and then begin their rampage. The 1925 film
The Lost World (adapted from
Arthur Conan Doyle's 1912
novel of the same name), featured many dinosaurs, including a
brontosaurus that breaks loose in London and destroys
Tower Bridge. The film's layout was revolutionary and laid the foundation for future giant monster films. The film takes place on an unexplored mountain plateau like a deserted island teeming with prehistoric dinosaurs. The dinosaurs of
The Lost World were animated by pioneering
stop motion techniques by
Willis H. O'Brien, who would some years later animate the giant gorilla-like creature breaking loose in New York City in the 1933 film
King Kong. The enormous success of
King Kong can be seen as the definitive breakthrough of giant monster movies. This influential achievement of King Kong paved the way for the emergence of the giant monster genre, serving as a blueprint for future kaiju productions. Its success reverberated in the film industry, leaving a lasting impact and solidifying the figure of the giant monster as an essential component in genre cinematography.
First Japanese kaiju movies (1930s) The Japanese style of making giant monster movies, where the monster is portrayed by actors in monster suits (
suitmation), first appears in the early 1930s. Early examples includes the 1933 King King spoof
Wasei Kingu Kongu, the 1934 feature
The Great Buddha Arrival, and 1938 feature and
The King Kong That Appeared in Edo. The 1934 film presumably influenced the production of the
Ultraman franchise.
Mutant and atomic monster era (1950s) After
World War II, the roots of giant movie monsters started to shift from giant prehistoric monsters to monsters stemming from animals which had been exposed to strong
radiation and then mutated into gigantic monsters, a result of the fear of
nuclear proliferation that spread around the world during the
Cold War. One of the early prolific examples is
Ray Bradbury's short story published in the Saturday Evening Post, June 23, 1951, "The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms", which came to serve as the basis for the film
of the same name from 1953, featuring a fictional dinosaur, called a
Rhedosaurus (animated by
Ray Harryhausen), which is released from its frozen, hibernating state by an
atomic bomb test within the
Arctic Circle. The American movie was released in Japan in 1954 under the title
The Atomic Kaiju Appears, marking the first use of the genre's name in a film title. It directly inspired
Godzilla, released in 1954 (subtitled: "H-Bomb Giant Monster Movie", , ), and many more giant monster movies of similar nature, such as
Them! (featuring giant ants),
Tarantula, and
Attack of the 50 Foot Woman, etc. In 1954,
Tomoyuki Tanaka, a producer for
Toho Studios in Tokyo, needed a film to release after his previous project was halted. Seeing how well the Hollywood giant monster movie genre films
King Kong and
The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms had done in Japanese box offices, and himself a fan of these films, he set out to make a new movie based on them and created
Godzilla. Tanaka aimed to combine Hollywood giant monster movies with the re-emerged Japanese fears of
atomic weapons that arose from the March 1954
Castle Bravo nuclear testing accident, which resulted in the spread of
radioactive fallout over a vast area of the
Pacific Ocean, including the Japanese
Daigo Fukuryū Maru fishing boat. The incident received widespread coverage globally as one of the crew members of the boat would eventually die from his exposures, and a nationwide panic on tuna consumption resulted after it was discovered the ship's contaminated haul had been entered into market circulation. The accident also stimulated Japanese public interest in discussing the
atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, which had largely been censored by the American authorities during the
Occupation of Japan, which had only ended two years prior. With this recent history in mind, Tanaka put a team together and created the concept of a giant radioactive creature emerging from the depths of the ocean, a creature that would become the monster Godzilla.
Godzilla initially had commercial success in Japan, inspiring other
kaiju movies. Following the success of Godzilla's first appearance, Toho followed up the following year with a sequel, called
Godzilla Raids Again, which introduced the concept of the "monster fight", in which two Kaiju fights one another.
1960s-1970s During the 1960s, the Japanese studio
Toho started to experiment with having kaiju from different movies fight one another, culminating in
RKO Pictures later licensing
King Kong to
Toho, resulting in the co-productions
King Kong vs. Godzilla (1962) and
King Kong Escapes (1967), both directed by
Ishirō Honda. With the advent of the
Space Race and
Space Age, themes of giant monsters from outer space and alien invasions started to appear in kaiju movies. Examples include the Godzilla film
Ghidorah, the Three-Headed Monster, where the "space dragon"
King Ghidorah is introduced for the first time, but also more obscure films such as
The X from Outer Space. Giant monsters from outer space are traditionally associated with fictional aliens who bring them to Earth to conquer the planet or similar. During the 1960s, a rival franchise to Godzilla would also be launched by Japanese studio
Daiei Film, introducing the giant monster turtle
Gamera, which have come to play a significant role in forming the genre along with the
Godzilla franchise and the
Ultra Series. == Terminology ==