I think it’s safe to say here in 2025 that AI is here to stay. AI, CGI, green screen, blue screen, mocap…all of these tools can make for some pretty impressive characters, creatures, and exciting scenes in movies, but at the end of the day, does anything ever really top the physical makeups and costumes that turn actors into monsters or victims? Or the painstaking stop-motion effects of Ray Harryhausen, Willis O’Brien, and those they influenced?
There’s a reason that film buffs and we former monster kids alike still dote on such genre stars as Karloff, Lugosi, and the two Chaneys!
The new book, Making Monsters: Inside Stories from the Creators of Hollywood’s Most Iconic Creatures, is by Howard Berger and Marshall Julius, clearly both film buffs and former monster kids.
BTW it also covers Bud Westmore, credited for tonight’s (Sunday 14th Sep 2025) #Monsterdon movie Creature from the Black Lagoon … even though the creature was actually designed by Milicent Patrick, whom Westmore apparently got fired from the studio while she was promoting the film, out of envy.