Suspense has always been a heavily relied upon device in movies, regardless of genre. No style of movie leans on the tension of the unknown more than Sci-fi and Fantasy movies that feature monsters as an antagonist.
From Jaws to Godzilla, fans have always flocked to the theaters to watch large monsters destroy things. But just how long, on average, does it take until viewers actually see the beasts?
A Redditor by the username of _butterballhotline created a graph depicting how long it takes to see some of the most prominent movie monsters actually appear in their film. The user posted the graph below to the Movies subreddit, comparing each movie’s average based upon its runtime.
First, we have arguably the earliest and most well-known known monster movie to ever grace film, King Kong (1933). At a little over 40 minutes in, The Eighth Wonder of the World appears, halfway or so through the movie. The reveal allowed viewers enough screen time with the giant gorilla, while simultaneously creating suspense in the lead up to his reveal.
75 years later Matt Reeves took audiences’ patience to the limit with Cloverfield (2008). The found footage monster movie didn’t show the hulking presence until over an 80 minutes into the film. Keep in mind, Cloverfield’s runtime was about 90 minutes.
On the other end of the spectrum, Guillermo del Toro knew exactly what his fans wanted, providing gratifications almost instantly. Within the first few minutes, Pacific Rim showed off one of its many monstrous Kaiju, locked in battle with the power ranger-like mechs known as Jaegers.
Other movies and monsters on the list tend to hover close to the halfway mark or so of the film – around the 30 to 50 minute mark – to show off it’s monster.
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