what makes a good monster movie

[Henry88]

[toho-gfan]

[jellydonut25]

Just watch John Carpenter's The Thing

THAT'S what makes a good monster movie. Everything else is beneath it.

To answer honestly, it's ALL of those things:

The monster - needs to be either very original (the thing, the mist, godzilla) or very believable (king kong, jurassic park) in not only its appearance, but also its actions

The plot - doesn't need to be earth-shattering, but there has to be some more meat than "monster appears and runs amok"

The actors - again, they don't need to be world-beaters, but a couple solid, understated performers (like Sam Neil, or Keith David) or a guy that can literally carry a scene all on their own (like Kurt Russell or Jeff Goldblum) is important...

The music - a good score is imperative to make ANY movie GREAT...unfortunately, even some of the good movies overlook this one and are stuck as being merely "good" and not GREAT...

The director - a keen directorial eye is yet another must for a good movie

it all has to fall into place...or at least like 75% of it for the movie to be "good" for it to be "great" it ALL has to fall into place