Stuck inside, and with precious little to do other than read books, bake things, and bug our friends and family members, there is no time like the present to fully put to use all those streaming services we've been paying for and underusing. For this column, we're rounding up the current 10 best films in a given genre you can stream at home. Given the multitude of streaming options, we're limiting our search to a selection of the biggest and best-known services -- Amazon Prime, Disney+ and Netflix -- along with a niche offering -- Criterion Channel -- that we honestly couldn't live without.
This Week's Genre: Monsters!
Again, we carve out a more specific subgenre from a broader topic, Horror, upon which we've already covered. This isn't just one of those "the real monster is man" collections, no sir -- though, God knows, that would be appropriate in this unfortunate time. Instead we went searching for films about creatures, singular or in groups, that raise the hackles on the backs of our necks. With great restraint, I steered clear of the most obvious fits for the category -- alas, "Jaws" and "Alien," you are too well established -- in favor of a range of possibilities, from cinema's dark ages, to the modern canon. We called all the monsters, and these are the ones who showed up for the party.
"Creep" (2014): Many of our entries on this list concern a nonhumanoid, but Patrick Brice's found-footage horror show about the pathological Josef (Mark Duplass, who co-wrote), who tricks a young videographer to come up to his small mountain town to film his "dying words" features a monster of the all-too human variety. The lo-fi flick spawned at least one sequel (2017's "Creep 2"), but best to start with the original.
Intended Audience: Found Footage Fetishists/Duplassians/Macabre Humor Buffs
Creature(s) in Question: Just a man
Sample Dialogue: "Oh my God. Oh my God. This is going to be a good day."
Streaming Service: Netflix
"Godzilla" (1954): The Tokyo Tornado, as he first appeared in Ishiro Honda's classic black and white tour de force. This original Japanese version -- as opposed to the more American-friendly cut (Godzilla, King of the Monsters!) two years later -- focuses the atomic bomb metaphor with katana-like sharpness. The practical special effects, mainly involving intricate miniatures and the quintessential man-in-a-rubber-suit, are nothing short of sublime.
Intended Audience: 'Zilla Heads/Monster Metaphor Mavens/Kaiju Historians
Creature(s) in Question: A giant, scaly dinosaur-esque lizard with radioactive flame breath
Sample Dialogue: "I can't believe that Godzilla was the only surviving member of its species .... But if we continue conducting nuclear tests, it's possible that another Godzilla might appear somewhere in the world again."
Streaming Service: HBOM
"Piranha" (1978): The massive worldwide success of "Jaws" in 1975 spawned many a cheap ripoff, but perhaps none of those awful cavalcade of films ("Grizzly," anyone?) became as beloved as Joe Dante's bloodsoaked treat, involving a school of government-spawned mutant piranha accidentally let loose on an American riverway that leads to a summer camp and a tourist-infested lake. The screenplay, written by John Sayles, is a good deal more lively than you might expect, but you're here to see the razor-teeth-drawn mayhem, and it does not disappoint.
Intended Audience: '70s Irony Cultists/John Sayles Completists/Fresh Lake Swimmers
Creature(s) in Question: Tiny Brazilian mutant fish
Sample Dialogue: "Terror, horror, death. Film at eleven."
Streaming Service: HBOM
"The Babadook"(2014): Horror-as-metaphor can create films whose impact resonates far beyond the initial scares on the screen. Jennifer Kent's Sundance-winning rave, about a widowed mother (Essie Davis) and her young son (Noah Wiseman), terrorized by a nightmarish creature after reading a children's book about him, gives ample voice to the foreboding of single-parenthood, and the rage against a love lost to tragedy.
Intended Audience: Single Parents/Children's Lit Professors/Scare-Loving Feminists
Creature(s) in Question: A spooky kids' book phantasm with a top hat
Sample Dialogue: "You can bring me the boy. You can bring me the boy. You can bring me the boy."
Streaming Service: Amazon Prime/$3.99 rental
"The Blob" (1958): The American '50s were one of the prime monster-flick spawning grounds, with producers and writers straining to conjure up ever more creatures and terrors. This early Steve (called Steven in the credits) McQueen picture, directed (mostly) by Irvin S. Yeaworth Jr., finds our teen hero having to convince the squares that a hostile alien force resembling the form of a giant Jell-O mold has arrived, as it rolls through a small town, devouring everything in its path and gaining in size.
Intended Audience: Creature Feature Lovers/McQueen McFans/Dessert Fetishists
Creature(s) in Question: A gelatinous cube of growing circumference
Sample Dialogue: "I think you should send us the biggest transport plane you have, and take this thing to the Arctic or somewhere and drop it where it will never thaw." (NOTE: This was made pre-Global Warming.)
Streaming Service: Criterion Channel
"The Golem" (1920): You can't beat the German Expressionists for silent-era horror -- and, again, many of their makeup effects remain potently disturbing even now, as in this case. This Carl Boese/Paul Wegener-helmed early masterpiece posits the clay-man of Jewish legend as a protector, summoned by a Prague Rabbi in the 16th century to defend his people from persecution.
Intended Audience: German Expressionistphiles/Jewish Folklorians
Creature(s) in Question: A huge man made of clay and of fierce disposition
Sample Dialogue: n/a
Streaming Service: Criterion Channel
"The Host" (2006): Fans of last year's Best Picture Winner, Parasite, have a fabulous back catalogue of Bong Joon Ho genre-blending films to peruse. This mashup of monster movie/family drama/comic satire stuffs its material to the point of busting the seams, but Bong Joon Ho's precision and mastery of tone keep it from bursting.
Intended Audience: Bong Joon Ho Acolytes/South Korea Purveyors/Big Families
Creature(s) in Question: A tentacled squid/dinosaur-like apparition coming from the depths of the ocean
Sample Dialogue: "Don't deny it. Why touch other people's things? Think of it from the customer's perspective. A squid. The torso tastes delicious, but the legs, especially the longest one, has something special, right?"
Streaming Service: Amazon Prime
"The Mist" (2007): While it's true that dozens of Stephen King's novels have been adapted into films, so few of them are truly good, we must give proper dap to the ones that make it off the sludge pile. Frank Darabont scored a triumph with "The Shawshank Redemption," based on a King novella, so he clearly had a connection to the writer's methodologies. His adaptation of this novel, about a sneaky group of creatures who appear after a freak storm and hide out in the New England fog, picking off townspeople one-by-one, is considered one of the decent ones, and has something of a cult following as a result.
Intended Audience: King Purveyors/New Englanders/Grocery Store Shoppers
Creature(s) in Question: Small, spider-like beasts; and a huge crustacean-like entity with crab claws
Sample Dialogue: "As a species we're fundamentally insane. Put more than two of us in a room, we pick sides and start dreaming up reasons to kill one another. Why do you think we invented politics and religion?"
Streaming Service: Amazon Prime/$3.99 rental
"Trollhunter" (2010): A curious mockumentary from Norwegian filmmaker André Øvredal involving a group of students (one of whom is a cameraperson, and, yes, it is another found-footage piece), who travel out to the Norwegian countryside to investigate a series of mysterious animal killings and discover the existence of mythological trolls, and a man who hunts them down on government orders. Fun and frivolous, the film reportedly still packs in some genuinely creepy bits.
Intended Audience: Grimm's Readers/Diehard Mockumentary Fans/Billy Goats
Creature(s) in Question: Giant, humanoid-type monsters with odd deformities and protrusions
Sample Dialogue: "They are not bright. They manage to eat. But how hard is it to survive on rocks? I once saw a troll try to eat its own tail. His head between his legs, he tried to suck down his own tail. He started gagging on it, tipped over, and rolled down a hill like a wheel."
Streaming Service: Amazon Prime/$2.99 rental
"Vampyr" (1932): Fittingly, we close out this week's list with one of the seminal examples of the genre. The brilliant Carl Theodore Dreyer directs his first "talkie" film, and it's an absolute wonder of atmospheric mood, and spooky storytelling. The story concerns a young man spending the night at an inn who gets embroiled in a horrible local tragedy involving a young woman being taken over by a vampire-like demon. Filled with indelible imagery (German Expressionism, man, I'm telling you!), and a pervasively creepy vibe, it holds its edge almost nine decades after its creation.
Intended Audience: Vamp-ers/German Expressionistphiles
Creature(s) in Question: An elderly woman in a coffin, who is, in fact, a vampyr herself
Sample Dialogue: "I'm afraid of dying. I am damned! My God! My God! My God!"
Streaming Service: Criterion Channel