How To Make a Monster

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Monster Programs

To coincide with the How to Make a Monster exhibition the Western Australian Museum is presenting a series of programs to help visitors further explore the magic of special creature effects in movies.

Programs include public lectures by speakers in the movie industry, a cult monster movie festival, holiday activities in the Discovery Centre and Little Monster activities for children. There is also a Monster Schools Program for visiting school groups to the Museum.

Cult Monster Movies

Find out where it all began with classic cult monster movies such as King Kong, The Lost World, and short feature films from some of Western Australia’s award-winning filmmakers.

Fridays, 2:30pm, Courtroom in the Old Gaol, FREE.

Friday 24 March
The Lost World
This pre-historic 'lost world' film was the first feature to use stop-motion animation. The creator of the special effects, Willis O'Brien subsequently refined his method on King Kong. A group of explorers from London venture into the wilds of Amazon to bring back proof of living dinosaurs.

Friday 31 March
King Kong
Erotic, ecstatic and destructive, the great semi-human simian symbolises the contradictory impulses of civilised man. This classic monster movie has inspired countless remakes and adaptations.

Friday 7 April
Them
A fifties science fiction classic in which twelve foot ants, mutations caused by atomic testing, terrorise civilisation.

Friday 21 April
The Fabulous World of Jules Verne
Director Karel Zeman uses a unique blend of live action, animation and models to tell an adventure fantasy about an English wanderer, a kidnapped scientist and his captor a pirate bent on world domination. Based on the story The Invention of Destruction by Jules Verne.

Friday 28 April
Razorback
A wild, vicious pig terrorizes the Australian outback. This film catapulted Russell Mulcahy’s directing career to Hollywood heights and gained him the reputation as one of Australia’s most respected directors.

Friday 5 May
King Kong
Erotic, ecstatic and destructive, the great semi-human simian symbolises the contradictory impulses of civilised man. This classic monster movie has inspired countless remakes and adaptations.

Friday 12 May
Island of Lost Souls
Based on HG Wells' novel The Island of Dr Moreau, with an all-star cast including Charles Laughton, Bela Lugusi, Alan Ladd and Randolph Scott. Laughton is memorable as Dr Moreau the fiendish scientist whose experiments in vivisection and grafting between humans and animals have produced a pathetic series of bestial humans kept under hypnotic control.

Friday 19 May
Alice
A live action Alice moves in a marvellous world of animated puppets. This is not a cute child's fantasy but a rendering of the ambiguity between dream and reality. Alice is storyteller, Wonderland - depraved, violent and grotesque - is a product of her imagination.

Friday 26 May
Them
A fifties science fiction classic in which twelve foot ants, mutations caused by atomic testing, terrorise civilisation.

Friday 2 June
Films by Western Australian Animators
A series of stop motion animation shorts from four local film-makers, including Russell Brown, Roseline Lau, Pierce Davison, and Randall Lynton.

For more information call 9427 2792

Animated 'Gilman' figure from the 'How to Make a Monster' Exhibition