A very thorough and intricate collection of Monsters throughout the history of film.
It doesn't only center on horror genre. Animated and fantasy series make up a large chunk of the history.

I definitely recommend this to newbies. What is interesting is each section starts with a cold open that sets the tone for the section perfectly. Even if you feel like you know 90% of the content (as I did) it still has information I was not aware of.

1. The Critters species are called Krites??

2. Ernest Scared Stupid Troll's name is Trantor the Troll? ALSO FUCK THAT TROLL

And bits of fun canon humor.
e.g. under Xenomorph weaknesses is Ellen Ripley. <3

The Ultimate Book of Movie Monsters
by Christopher Carton
Pub Date: 30 Apr 2022
Gonna have to get this one for our library. Movie monsters and high schoolers go hand in hand.
They will devour this book.

If you're an avid horror fan or just love monsters in general, you can't go wrong with this book. Focusing on monsters new and old, it takes a look at creatures from across various genres, like sci-fi, musicals, and of course, horror, who have terrorized the screen for years. Those looking for Freddy Kruger or Jason Voorhees will be disappointed, but if you want to read about icons like Frankenstein's Monster and Godzilla, then you're in the right place. Not only does it have some great facts, it also has wonderful pictures of the monsters themselves. A must have for those who are drawn to things that go bump in the night.

I received a complimentary copy of this book from the publisher through Net Galley in exchange for an honest review.

The Ultimate Book of Movie Monsters examines and categories monsters from horror, fantasy, and science fiction films. The categories include: vampires, zombies, giant creatures, ghouls, monsters from the sea and from the air, supernatural monsters, and a few more.


One of the things I liked about this book is that it stuck to the topic of monsters very closely. This means that while you’ll find King Kong, the shark from Jaws, and the flock of birds from The Birds here, you won’t find Jason Vorhees, Michael Myers, or Leatherface. This was a rather quick read, which is a definite plus for me given the state of my TBR pile.

I gave The Ultimate Book of Movie Monsters four stars. Although I appreciated that it wasn’t too lengthy, it also left me wishing there were more to it. It did bring up a few older movies from the 1980s such as Legend and Labyrinth that I’ve never seen that I might just make an effort to track down now based on the author’s recommendations.

This fun and informative book of film monsters old and new film monsters is a fun treat for all horror fans. It includes photos and descriptions and even dives deep within the folklore and numerous films that they may have appeared in.

We deal with Jason, Freddy and the like but we also get some great coverage of classics like Them!, Body Snatchers, etc. The only fault I would have is that this is not a book to be enjoyed on a kindle or e-reader but full book version would be the best way to enjoy this.

I really do not have much to say beyond that this is a definite for any genre buff and a fun book that you can pick up again and again. A real winner.

A highly entertaining, informative, and well written book about monsters written from the fan POV.
Loved it.
Highly recommended.
Many thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for this ARC, all opinions are mine

Loved this and reading as a fan from a fan's perspective is always fun. Thinking of getting this for my teen for his birthday but also selfishly for myself to look over again!

Mr. Carton has written a brief history of our love of monsters in the cinema. The boogeymen of the big screen and the fuel of our nightmares and why we love to terrify ourselves by watching the supranatural, or plain domestic horror created in the minds of men Carton does an admirable job.

Carton is clearly a huge horror fan, and this book is full of movie monsters of every description. There are plenty of pictures (which a scaredy cat like me could not handle, but horror movie fans will probably love). As another reviewer mentioned, this book definitely could've used an index. Chapters are organized by type of monster, but you will find random entries that defy categorization, like the killer rabbit from Monty Python and the Holy Grail. Good for fans of B movies and horror, as well as movie history and trivia.

Many thanks to NetGalley and White Owl Publishing as well as Christopher Carton for this amazing ARC. I’m very grateful.
#NetGalley #UltimateGuidetoMovieMonsters #WhiteOwlPublishing #ChristopherCarton
This book was an in-depth guide to everything that has scared and entertained me in my beloved horror movies.
I LOVED this book. I’m a huge horror fan and particularly love books that help show me why I love horror so much. This was a treat to read. I don’t usually do this, but as soon as it’s published, I’m going to be purchasing the hard copy. I want to hold this one in my hands. Every monster from Dracula and Frankenstein to baddies from video games and even the obscure ones from lore. We’re even treated to monsters from musicals and comedic monsters. It’s not common to find so many B movies in a book like this. I can’t wait to see the pictures in color as my kindle can’t give me that.

A really good book of monsters to add to your collection. That covers everything from classic monsters like Dracula to Godzilla and 80s slashers to Monsters inc. It is full of awesome photos throughout and has a very good easy to follow layout. I highly recommend adding it to your shelf.

Author Christopher Carton is a guiding light to take us to the heart of a bestiary of movie monsters… Look at this book cover, and you’ll think Alien, Dracula, Godzilla, Monsters Inc and Jurassic Park. Then open it discover so many more in this labyrinth of movie monsters with Carton as your sterling companion lighting the way.

Recently in my twice weekly Finnish lesson – when discussing emotions -, I learned the words, pelätä, säikähtää, jännittää, kauhistua, hermostuttaa and uhata. These Finnish words when translated into English – by Google Translate – are defined as to be afraid, to take fright, tense, to be frightened, to ruffle and to threaten respectively. In this book, The Ultimate Book of Movie Monsters, the author Christopher Carton is our handy expert on these movie monsters who have made us feel in these ways and much, much more.

This is the second book from the pop culture guru, Christopher Carton, and I recently reviewed his exemplary first book, A Guide to Video Game Movies (2022). After promoting my post about this book on Social Media, I was thrilled when Carton thanked me personally for my review and wrote some lovely words regarding my review. He then invited me to give my thoughts on this new book, The Ultimate Book of Movie Monsters.

Carton lures you in to discover this maze crammed full of monsters with a captivating cover showing some infamous mythical creatures. Carton switches this fear inducing tone immediately, as he warmly thanks his close family for introducing him to this genre in the movies. Then he switches back to the monster-themed content as you discover his contents page.

Carton divides his book into 10 short chapters and an introduction. The book is a short but succinct 216 pages long. But is an extensive guide to this movie trope in many of its forms. These chapter titles immediately have your adrenaline flowing with thrilling titles. These will appeal to your dark side and will enthral every monster fanatic. These chapters include those titled, The Undead, Fantasy Fiends… and Friends?, Terror from Above, From the Depths, Colossal Beasts and Ghastly Ghouls.

In his introduction, Carton explores briefly how filmmakers have used fear in their movies for over a century. He explores their varying means and methods when using these monster based plots to captivate and terrify us in the name of entertainment. He advocates that the filmmaker’s role is to…

“tap into our psyches and raise hairs on the back of our necks, is by putting us face to face with monsters…”

Carton then delves into short vivid descriptions of the many roles of monsters on screen. This be they be evil, “misunderstood” or fun monsters and he argues that they take a part in every film genre. In his book, he aims to explore the world of,

“some of the most iconic, unique, inventive and terrifying creatures ever to grace a screen”.

Then you join Carton in meeting these creatures, as the chapters begin with the first chapter titled Vicious Vampires. Carton sets the scene for these monsters impeccably with a compelling and creatively written yet eerie description of this fictional monster. This description is a quote from a book or from his imagination as he describes a movie monster in films. As Carton introduces you to this creature, you’ll believe you are confronting this monster in your visual imagination as you read this text.

Following this, Carton gives a shout out to a number of filmmakers’ creations regarding this monster. These monsters are illustrated, in sections describing their different interpretations in films that feature their presence. Each of these subsections has enticing titles and further titles with the name of the monster. Carton then adds their filmmaker or author creator. He also lists the film franchises that these monsters can be found in, along with the years these films were released. He then helpfully – just in case you are a sensitive soul and encounter these monsters in your sleep in a nightmare or dream – adds these monsters’ strengths and weaknesses.

This introductory description is accompanied by a short introduction to this monster type. It is followed by Carton’s enthusiastic analysis of these monsters in individual films. Subsections demonstrate how these monsters have been portrayed in a wide variety of ways in a number of films. There are a variety of films that were released over the decades from forgotten films and silent movies to the present day described in his always accurate descriptions and reviews.

Carton’s sterling research and subsections with films from every decade concur with his earlier descriptions of monsters where he tells how movie audiences have watched them over recent centuries. His analysis includes vivid descriptions of these monsters, film plots and star cast lists.

This content introduced this movie blogger to some new films – as well as reminded me of some great contributions to this sub-genre – and it was illuminating to learn more about each subject. Carton blends facts with his captivating descriptions and analysis. The book follows the same format for each of these chapters, where each concentrates on subgenres including ghosts, dinosaurs, sharks, vampires and zombies.

An example found in this book is found as he discusses Dracula. Carton outlines the contributions of Bela Lugosi, Christopher Lee, Max Shreck and Leslie Neilsen. He analyses notable films such as The Lost Boys (1987) and Carton adds other films such as Interview with a Vampire (1994), Dracula Untold (2014) and Dracula Dead and Loving It (1995). Each film is analysed separately and Carton’s Dracula themed content includes films from every genre such as horror, silent movies, animations and horror and slapstick comedies.

You can use this book in other ways such as by dipping into individual films separately or reading each chapter as a whole. In both methods you to discover Carton’s encyclopedic knowledge – and unspoken love – of each of these critters. For each individual entry, Carton adds a black and white or colour photograph of this monster. This adds a pictorial reference and these well chosen shots compliment his vivid descriptions and analysis.

Like his previous book, I was captivated by his descriptions of plots – often littered with puns and his humour – and in this book, he additionally captured my imagination with vivid and visual descriptions of monsters. I was happy to see that as well as a chapter looking at Classic Monsters such as those in Gremlins (1984), The Blob (1958) and The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975), that Carton catered for us B-movie lovers.

In this latter chapter, titled The Best of the B Movies, Carton introduced me to some films that I’ve since added to my to-watch list. I’ve also added films describing witches and werewolves in the Cursed Calamities chapter after I recently enjoyed both The Howling (1981) and Silver Bullet (1985) with Darlin Husband so this book came with perfect timing.

In this book, Carton examines the role, creation and history of fear in movies with examples of films from filmmakers including Alfred Hitchcock, Guillaume Del Toro, Francis Ford Coppola and The Asylum films and franchises like Lord of the Rings, Sharknado and Star Wars. It’s also a treasure trove for every completist with those lists with many sequels, prequels and reboots.

Finally, another thing I learned while writing this post is that the word bestiary is the collective noun for a large number of mythical creatures. So now I’m proposing a sub-genre for us movie aficionados who love monsters be they big or small, comic or scary or from the sky or the sea.

And when creating this collective noun, doesn’t this author’s name contain the perfect word…? I now advocate the use of this subgenre as “a carton full of movie monsters”. I’m sure that many of those heroes and heroines who challenged, killed, confronted and watched these (movie) monsters might agree with this word. This is after they’ve literally faced their monsters and then contained their fears and still entertained us every time.

A fascinating book that discusses all the different genres of horror movies. It starts with “Vicious Vampires” then continues to “Cinematic Classics.” The majority of the movies I have seen and enjoyed. It was a pleasant surprise to discover movies I haven’t seen. The author does give the titles and years they were produced. I find that quite helpful for the movies I haven’t seen. He gives good information that brought back memories for me of the horror movies I have seen throughout my life. It made me missed them. I will be hopefully be able to rewatch some of the horror movies. It includes musicals, fantasy and B-movies. Besides the text there are great pictures of monsters throughout the book. This book is excellently written. Film lovers and horror aficionados will enjoy this book. Watch out, you may become a fan of horror movies!

This was an okay book, but it is far from the ultimate book on movie monsters. Gives some good info on different movie monsters but I was hoping for more.

"Just ok", is about the best I can give The Ultimate Guide to Movie Monsters. First of all, it's not an "ultimate guide" and secondly, it doesn't contain an index. It's not a very long book and it glosses over a number of famous film favorites in exchange for pages on Krull, Harry Potter, Critters, Blair Witch, and so on. It seemed to be the kind of book that a publisher rushed an author to finish. There's not a lot of in-depth information and not much background or research. Just a list of monsters by chapter of what author Carton believes are members of the cinematic all-star movie monster team.
For this reviewer, the book spent way too much time and emphasis on more modern films, and not enough on the classics. C'mon, the Sta-Puft Marshmellow Man, the Corpse Bride, Coraline, and the Hocus Pocus witches movie monsters? Really?
My thanks to Net Galley and Pen & Sword Books for this ARC.

The title kind of discusses what the potential reader should find here, and it's accurate in that it intends to produce discussion of beasties from cinema history alongside a lot of large images to flesh it out and pay homage to all that it hangs from. Starting with vampires, what we get is a little ungainly – Stoker's vampire is first (alongside Max Schreck's), and that makes full sense, but what we might have had is a singular chapter veering from this example to the other, rather than chopping the flow into shorter sections so as to move from one franchise to the next. The book felt like it wanted – and felt like it could – provide some kind of media studies commentary on all vampires and their variants, but made sure it bashed out "The Lost Boys" then this then that then the other, in slightly too bitty form.

The undead (ie zombies, mostly) follows that pattern too, giving us too much of the obvious, both in choices of film and in what it has to say. OK, not all the zombie films featured have been on British TV half as much as the vampire ones, for one reason or another, but any horror fan will be able to play bloodshed bingo or something and tick all the usual suspects off. Yes, it's ahead of itself with "Evil Dead Rise" etc, and some of its contents were new to me (hello, "Rawhead Rex" and the Evil Bong), but such up-to-dateness does not really make for a standout collection of comments about our cinema's darkest genre characters. Werewolves, witches, and a spread from Lucasfilm to Troma make this welcome time-passing, but nothing fresh enough to demand an urgent purchase.

Thank you to Netgalley for providing an ARC copy.

The Ultimate Book of Movie Monsters is a pretty cohesive guide to all types of movie monsters from classics like Count Dracula to more modern monsters like Ragen from the Exorcist, from massive beasts like Godzilla to even the more obscure monsters like Audrey II from Little shop of horrors.

No matter if your prefer the creatures found in fantasy, puppets, animation or just straight up horror, this book has it.

Do I think it could have been longer, yes (for example the summaries are pretty short and a section on Scarecrows and more aliens would have been lovely) but for the amount it did cover, this book did a fantastic job. By the end you will want nothing more then to watch all the films listed.

My thanks to both NetGalley and Pen & Sword Books for an advanced copy of this film history title.

From sophisticated horror films, to drive-in creature features, to grindhouse double features, creepy monsters, undead zombies, vampires and ghouls have always had a big role in the movie going experiences. Christopher Carton in his book The Ultimate Book of Movie Monsters, gives us an overview of these creatures who dwell in darkened theaters only a jump cut away.

The book features monsters from over one hundred years of film history, starting and exploring the role of vampires in film over the decades, quite in depth. Frankenstein's monster, other Universal creatures, Godzilla, Jurassic Park, even Monsters, Inc., are investigated and given their due. There is quite a bit of coverage on B- movies, a bit of grindhouse and video nasties, some which usually don't get much coverage, so that was a nice treat.

The sections are broken down into a brief history of the creature, which in the case of vampires gets quite a bit of attention. Famous films, actors, trivia, follow. The listings are informative, not earthshakingly new, but cover the basics well. There are many pictures, movie stills and behind the scene photos. Some are rare, but again many will be familiar. The writing is good, clear and concise, and is informative, but familiar.

A book that appeals to horror fans, but I would say ones who are new to the genre. Nothing is new, but the information is presented well, the photos are nice, and is more up- to- date on information and films covered. Recommended for people new to horror, for those who want to keep up with the latest films and for film completists who like to have everything.

NB: free ARC received for honest review

This is an enthusiastic (sometimes a little too much so) introductory overview of various cinematic creatures, whether original to the screen or inspired by mythology or works of prose.

Hardcore existing fans likely won't find anything they didn't already know, but it definitely provides a good launchpad for any newbie monster-fans looking for memorable movie experiences.

The images were typical off the IMDB so nothing new or any effort to get the right scene. A lot on vampires but not so much on the progression of their characteristics