A Brief History of Small Creatures Made Huge In Monster Movies

In this year’s big-screen adaptation of “Land of the Lost” (on DVD October 13) Marshall, Will and Holly enter a parallel dimension and come face to face with, among other terrifying creatures, a crab roughly the size of a Winnebago. In addition to scaring audiences away from seafood for the next 10 years, the scene joins a great tradition of “Giant Versions of Small Creatures” common in the great B-movies of yesterday, the straight-to-DVD releases of today, and the occasional Jon Voight film. Here is a brief overview of the overgrown pests that have terrorized movie screens through the years.—Pat Cassels

What these creatures lack in a descriptive title, they make up for in massive, pinching mandibles that sent ’50s America running for the nearest fallout shelter.
BEST, GIANT DEFENSE:
Giant kid with magnifying glass


Attack of the Crab Monsters (1957)
SMALL CREATURE MADE GIANT: Crabs

Is the “attack” in “Attack of the Crab Monsters” title really necessary? Even neutral crab monsters would terrify us. In fact, we’re reasonably sure the “monsters” is necessary to terrify us. Crabs are as scary to us as any attacking monster. They have claws!
BEST, GIANT DEFENSE: Giant obese seafood patron


Mothra (1961)
SMALL CREATURE MADE GIANT: Moth

Godzilla may be Tokyo’s most famous and flashy colossal beast, but while Mothra lacks atomic breath, claws, and razor-sharp teeth, we’d like to see Godzilla spin fine silk cocoons.
BEST GIANT DEFENSE:
Giant drunk hillbillies with bug-zappers


Anaconda (1997)
SMALL CREATURE MADE GIANT: Snake

Unlike most monster movies, which use radioactive waste or gamma rays to explain animal gigantism, Anaconda simply claims (quite horrifyingly) that snakes as long as Greyhound busses naturally occur in nature. Even scarier, claims the movie, so do boat trips with Jon Voight and Owen Wilson.
BEST, GIANT DEFENSE:
Um… an even bigger snake?


Shark Attack 3: Megalodon
SMALL CREATURE MADE BIG: Shark

Okay, it’s a bit obtuse to call sharks “small.” They don’t call them “great” whites because of how friendly they are. But when the alternative is big enough to eat bad actors on jet-skis without even chewing (immortalized in a notoriously awful water sequence), we’ll let the oversight pass.
BEST, GIANT DEFENSE:
Giant Robert Shaw (or, if you must, Giant Richard Dreyfuss)