“Peek-a-boo!” gets boring after you pass 18 months of age.

If you think an invisible monster is dumb, or not scary at all, watch The Fiend Without a Face or Forbidden Planet. You can chuckle at the reveals, but never underestimate the power of imagination, when spiced with good sound, good music, good acting, and maybe a little on-set trick or two.

Fact is, Forbidden Planet gave me nightmares for a few days after watching it. Admittedly, I was a kid, but it still chills me to watch it now and I’m (arguably) an adult!

It could be argued that holding off on showing a monster is a way of building tension.

However…

I might be off-base here, but I think trying to fabricate “suspense” by not showing the monster is a cheap-ass trick.

One can hold off showing a monster until the end and yet have no suspense at all, or, show the monster right away and still manage to tell a fine suspenseful tale.

This is not to say that “holding out on the monster” can’t be suspenseful, but I’ve run across more than a few people out there who just automatically think that one should not show the monster until the end simply to produce suspense.

This, I think, is simply stabbing the horse in both eyes with wooden shards from the cart’s wheels.

A lot of people mention Jaws, and I think that’s a great example. The suspense in that movie had nothing whatsoever to do with what the shark looked like. We knew from the very beginning that it was a shark. We even saw it kill Chrissie. Right away. The movie was suspenseful (and I’d easily say masterful), but the suspense had nothing to do with what the shark looked like, how big it was, etc.

On the other hand, The Blair Witch Project never ever showed the “monster.” Was that a suspenseful movie? Was it riveting? Would it have been better if the “monster” had been revealed at the end?

A couple years ago, I saw a Korean monster movie called The Host. While it has a lot of flaws, I’ll give it kudos for bringing the monster out right near the beginning. I found it very weirdly structured, but also very suspenseful (I expect I’m a bit of a mutant, here).

One also ought to have a solid respect for the material, if not the entire enclosing genre, lest one end up with sparkling vampires… …an experiment, however, that could just as easily resulted in “a groundbreaking ass-kick to a stale genre trope,” I might add. (follow up — having now watched the entire Twilight movie series, I’m perfectly fine with it, and no longer think it deserves the harsh-on that many people seem to think it deserves.)