King-Sized Categories
In the span of four months, we’ve had two feature-length Godzilla films grace the silver screen: Godzilla Minus One in December of 2023, and Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire in March of 2024. Despite sharing the titular character, these films portray Godzilla in very different ways. Yes, he’s an antagonist in Minus One and a rival in New Empire, but I’m referring to their narrative themes, their focus. My bother has shared an interesting way to categorize these films with me. Essentially, every Godzilla movie falls into one of two camps: Horror or Campy.
Yes, I drew this via convoluted graphite-transfer-tracing technique I used as a kid because my Photoshop skills are atrocious.
HORROR
To fall under this category, the focus of the film needs to be on the human characters, not on the G-man himself. The humans are the main driving force of the story. We follow and relate to them the most.
If Godzilla isn’t our focus, why is his name in the title? In the Horror entries, Godzilla often takes a villainous role, a malevolent force of nature that threatens humanity. The humans need to adapt to his rampage and find a way to survive his wrath. In fact, in the very first Godzilla film from 1954, the king of the monsters debuted as a villain. He was the physical manifestation of the nuclear horrors that befell Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Minus One sits nicely within the Horror camp. The narrative focus lies on a World War II pilot wrestling with severe survivor’s guilt. Godzilla looms overhead as the cause and reminder of his trauma. We, the audience, connect with the pilot. We cheer when he gets up, hope when he can’t, and rejoice when he overcomes Godzilla.
While writing this, a question popped into my mind: can Godzilla be in a Horror film and not be the villain? There have been times when he was not the big bad, but he was still a big bad.
The closest I could think of was 2003’s Godzilla vs The Smog Monster. Hedorah, the aforementioned Smog Monster, was a space-born abomination that grew off of pollution. Both the humans and Godzilla dealt with it as best they could, but to little success. Ultimately, the humans provided the means to defeat Hedorah. As he left, Godzilla gave the humans one last glare, as if to say the ordeal was their fault.
That being said, there were some silly shenanigans in that movie, too. Some people threw an end-of-the-world party near a volcano, and Godzilla flew after Hedorah via atomic breath propulsion. This leads us to our other category.
CAMPY
To be clear, when we use the word “campy,” we are not implying “wacky” or “hokey,” even though we do get some ridiculous moments (looking at you, 30 Meter Drop Kick). To fit the Campy category, the narrative focus lies on the monsters instead of the humans. These films tend to lean into the monsters’ clashes. Sure, the humans are there as audience inserts, but we all know why we’re really here: to watch giant monsters lay the smackdown.
Godzilla is not the only Horror character that can receive the Campy treatment. Take Freddy vs Jason or Alien vs Predator. In their solo films, they’re terrifying and we want to see them as little as possible. In their versus films, however, we want to watch them duke it out as much as possible. The excitement nearly eliminates the fear.
Legendary’s Monsterverse movies generally fall in the Campy camp (the only ones I’d argue fit in the Horror camp would be Godzilla from 2014 and Kong: Skull Island from 2017). Although they feature titanic fights, they are presented in a non-comedic tone. The films take themselves seriously.
As the movies progressed, they moved their focus further and further onto the monsters. In Godzilla vs Kong, the narrative revolved around the humans’ dilemma and the monsters’ heavyweight title match in near-equal measure. In New Empire, Kong is practically the protagonist and the humans are just along for the ride. As I heard it put best, New Empire is a monster buddy cop film, featuring the new kid trying to prove himself and a grizzled veteran who hates people muscling in on his turf.
Regardless of where they land on the Horror-Campy spectrum, Godzilla films have earned a special place in movie-monster fans’ hearts. Whether he’s a Horror villain or a Campy wrestler, we always enjoy watching the king of the monsters stomp across the screen.