How CGI Ruined Monster Movies

I bought a movie the other night. I was at a discount grocery store, and they had movies for 2.50. I thought about buying Children of Men - an excellent movie, but I ended up going with my more... primal instincts. I bought a giant killer crocodile movie - Primeval.

Ever since I was a kid, I've loved monster movies. Jaws is still one of my favorite movies of all time. Jurassic Park may have been the first movie I saw in movie theaters. To this day, I see a movie about a giant man eating crocodile/shark/dinosaur and I want to go see it in theaters.

However, and there is no denying this, Dumb-People-Getting-Eaten-Movies (DPGEM from here on out) have gone downhill. The absolute peak was 1974 - Jaws. The next comparable quality DPGEM is Jurassic Park in 1993 - and that one movie sparked the slide into mediocrity and sci-fi-channel badness.

Name one quality DPGEM since 1993. Here are your options: Deep Blue Sea, Lake Placid, Anaconda, and Cloverfield. Three of thosel came out in the late 90's and are generally considered "so bad they're almost good."

It's depressing to me that in 10 years we've had more quality X-Men movies (1.5) than DPGEM. And it's all, in my opinion, because of CGI.

In 1974, you had no option when making a DPGEM. You made a robot shark. And even if it was the fakest shark in the long and noble history of fake sharks, it looked real on camera. It was tangible. It had presence.

Now? You film the entire movie and then make the monster later. In the making of Primeval, they had all the principle photography done, and then started working on what the beast would look like. And it just kills the movie...

It changes the shots you do - CGI requires quick composite shots, where as a real creature can do long takes. It changes the way the actors act - compare Robert Shaw's death in Jaws with the death of Saffron Burrows in Deep Blue Sea. One is acting - and one is simply CG gore with no emotional stakes. It even changes the focus of the movie - the strength of Jaws was in the characters, not in the shark. When a movie is focused on the beast and on the kills, you end up with a forgettable movie.

And yet knowing all of that, I'm still sort of a sucker for DPGEM. When the inevitable remake of Jaws hits theaters, I'll go and watch opening night - excited to see people get eaten, and terrified that they'll ruin the characters and story in service of plot and CGI.