The Giant Gila MonsterMovies like The Giant Gila Monster
- Key Features:
- Monster attack, Small town, Survival, Giant monster, Local hero, Creature feature, Destruction, Texas, Science fiction, Low budget, Practical effects
- Tone:
- serious, suspense-driven
- Target Audience:
- Sci-fi fans, B-movie enthusiasts, Horror fans, Cult classic seekers
- Emotional Arc:
- Fear → Panic → Relief
The Giant Gila Monster

A small town in Texas finds itself under attack from a hungry, fifty-foot-long gila monster. No longer content to forage in the desert, the giant lizard begins chomping on motorists and train passengers before descending upon the town itself. Only Chase Winstead, a quick-thinking mechanic, can save the town from being wiped out.
The Giant Gila Monster
A rogue scientist near a small desert town arouses the suspicion of the town's doctor when his lab assistant is found dead from a case of acromegaly, which took only four days to develop. As the doctor investigates, aided by the scientist's new female assistant, they discover that something is devouring local cattle and humans in increasingly large quantities.

An American cowboy living in Mexico discovers his cattle is being eaten by a giant prehistoric dinosaur.

Val McKee and Earl Bassett are in a fight for their lives when they discover that their desolate town has been infested with gigantic, man-eating creatures that live below the ground.

French nuclear tests irradiate an iguana into a giant monster that viciously attacks freighter ships in the Pacific Ocean. A team of experts, including Niko Tatopoulos, conclude that the oversized reptile is the culprit. Before long, the giant lizard is loose in Manhattan as the US military races to destroy the monster before it reproduces and it's spawn takes over the world.

An alien starship crashes in a swamp in a U.S. National Park. Some mosquitos begin to feed from the alien's corpses, causing them to grow to the size of a vulture. These mutant insects became very agressive, killing every human being they find. Will the few survivors fight successfully against this nightmare...?

When a giant alien spider escapes from a military lab and rampages across the city of Los Angeles, it is up to one clever exterminator and his security guard sidekick to kill the creature before the entire city is destroyed.

After a military plane crashes outside of a small American town, its cargo — a genetically engineered, sixty-foot-long python — begins stalking and killing the locals.

After an accidental explosion at a local mine, dinosaurs emerge from the rubble to terrorize a small western town. Now, a group of gunslingers must defend their home if anyone is going to survive in a battle of cowboys versus dinosaurs.

A hungry shark begins feeding on some unsuspecting lake goers in a small Texas town.

Genetically mutated bats escape and it's up to a bat expert and the local sheriff to stop them.

Based on actual creatures that for years have tormented our armed forces in the Middle East, these creatures have now invaded the southwestern deserts of the United States. The Camel Spiders now freely hunt for prey, unafraid of any predator - including man. No place is safe no one is beyond their paralyzing sting. In the end, a small band of hearty fighters are forced to make one last stand against the creatures.

Rancher Cole Hillman is fed up of rabbits plaguing his fields. Zoologist Roy Bennett conducts an experiment to curb their population, but it gives rise to giant rabbits that terrorise the town.

A backwoods game warden and a local doctor discover that giant leeches are responsible for disappearances and deaths in a local swamp, but the local police don't believe them.

Giants Mollusks are released from the earth by an earthquake and start killing people.

When an American oil company sets up an experimental drilling plant out in the vast deserts of Mongolia, they awaken a nest. The deadly creatures begin to breed and spread, devouring everyone in their path. The only person who can stop them is treasure hunter and adventure seeker who spent his life searching for a legendary tomb, fabled to be protected by the Death Worms. He knows he must do what he can to kill the creatures, but stopping these monsters may mean destroying his life's work forever!

When an underhanded pharmaceutical company goes to a remote tropical island to steal King Kong for advertising purposes, they get more than they bargained for when the gigantic ape attacks an unsuspecting village and an enormous octopus.

The residents of a small Alaskan town find themselves under attack by a flying reptile known in medieval mythology as a Wyvern. It has thawed from its ancient slumber by melting icecaps caused by global warming.

A large spider from the jungles of South America is accidentally transported in a crate with a dead body to America where it mates with a local spider. Soon after, the residents of a small California town disappear as the result of spider bites from the deadly spider offspring. It's up to a couple of doctors with the help of an insect exterminator to annihilate these eight legged freaks.

In 1889, seventeen men die under mysterious circumstances, and spooked by recent events, the miners who populate the town leave in droves until there's nothing left but a shell of a community.

A giant alligator goes head to head with a giant Anaconda. The town sheriff must find a way to destroy the two monsters before they kill the whole town.

Giant albino spiders break free from the depths of Earth in New Orleans, making everyone’s worst nightmare a reality.

The California coast is terrorized by two enormous prehistoric sea creatures as they battle each other for supremacy of the sea.

A Native American owner of a kitschy roadside museum accidentally brings to life three dinosaur fossils. Now really annoyed, the giant dinos wreak havoc on the small town and the local university.

When the prehistoric warm-water beast the Crocosaurus crosses paths with that cold-water monster the Mega Shark, all hell breaks loose in the oceans as the world's top scientists explore every option to halt the aquatic frenzy. Swallowing everything in their paths -- including a submarine or two -- Croc and Mega lead an explorer and an oceanographer on a wild chase. Eventually, the desperate men turn to a volcano for aid.

Japan is thrown into a panic after several ships are sunk near Odo Island. An expedition to the island led by Dr. Kyohei Yamane soon discover something far more devastating than imagined in the form of a 50 meter tall monster whom the natives call Gojira. Now the monster begins a rampage that threatens to destroy not only Japan, but the rest of the world as well.

When Susan Murphy is unwittingly clobbered by a meteor full of outer space gunk on her wedding day, she mysteriously grows to 49-feet-11-inches. The military jumps into action and captures Susan, secreting her away to a covert government compound. She is renamed Ginormica and placed in confinement with a ragtag group of Monsters...

Giant lava breathing tarantulas – Lavalantulas – erupt out of ancient volcanos in the Santa Monica Mountains, raining death and destruction upon Los Angeles. With the City of Angels on the verge of incineration, only a washed up ‘90s action hero actor stands in the way of this monstrous swarm of bloodthirsty creatures who burn their victims alive.

A newlywed sheriff tries to stop a shambling monster that has emerged from a spaceship to eat people.

The residents of a rural mining town discover that an unfortunate chemical spill has caused hundreds of little spiders to mutate overnight to the size of SUVs. It's then up to mining engineer Chris McCormack and Sheriff Sam Parker to mobilize an eclectic group of townspeople, including the Sheriff's young son, Mike, her daughter, Ashley, and paranoid radio announcer Harlan, into battle against the bloodthirsty eight-legged beasts.

An ex-Navy seal, his girlfriend and their friends head out on a road trip to New Orleans. The group decides to stop at a roadside convenience store owned by Chopper, who tells them the tale of Lockjaw, a fabled god-like creature who is half-man, half-alligator.

People are dying mysteriously and gruesomely, and nobody has a clue what the cause is. Only health worker Mike Brady has a possible solution, but his theory of killer slugs is laughed at by the authorities. Only when the body count begins to rise and a slug expert from England begins snooping around does it begin to look like Mike had the right idea after all.

A giant mutated alligator runs riot in a small town after the sewer system washes it into a lake.

An ape crash-lands on Earth, which creates a sludge that makes him and a passing lizard grow to giant-size, resulting in a fight for dominance.

When an abused wife grows to giant size because of an alien encounter and an aborted murder attempt, she goes after her cheating husband with revenge on her mind.

At the turn of the century, all of the Earth's monsters have been rounded up and kept safely on Monsterland. Chaos erupts when a race of she-aliens known as the Kilaaks unleash the monsters across the world.

Earl Bassett's celebrity after defeating the Graboid attack against the town of Perfection has proved short-lived, until he's recruited by a Mexican oil company whose workers have found more than they bargained for under the soil.

A baby alligator is flushed down a toilet and survives by eating discarded lab animals that have been injected with growth hormones. The now gigantic animal escapes the city sewers and goes on a rampage, pursued by a cop and a big-game hunter.

Rocks from a meteor which grow when in contact with water threaten a sleepy Southwestern desert community.

Two guys and a female hitchhiker are terrorized by a monstrous looking man driving a giant monster truck.

A baby dinoshark evolves into a ferocious predatory adult, terrorising tourists and locals offshore from Puerto Vallarta, Mexico.

An offshore drilling accident triggers the release of a giant prehistoric shark. When marine biologist Kat Carmichael arrives, she runs up against corporate front man Roger Wade, who plots with Stewart to disrupt her investigation. With the help of Skipper Chuck and disc jockey Dynamite Stevens, Kat tries to find a way to defeat the monster which has evolved to a state where it can walk on dry land and fly...it's the SUPER SHARK!

The advertising director of Pacific Pharmaceuticals, frustrated with the low ratings of their sponsored TV program, seeks a more sensationalist approach. He orders his staff to Faro Island to capture King Kong for exploitation. As Godzilla re-emerges, a media frenzy generates with Pacific looking to capitalize off of the ultimate battle.

After an overly ambitious businessman transports an 80-foot python to the United States, the beast escapes and starts to leave behind a trail of human victims. An FBI agent and a snake specialist come up with a plot to combat the creature by pitting it against a bioengineered, 70-foot boa constrictor. It's two great snakes that snake great together!

As a result of nuclear testing, gigantic, ferocious mutant ants appear in the American desert southwest, and a father-daughter team of entomologists join forces with the state police officer who first discovers their existence, an FBI agent and, eventually, the US Army to eradicate the menace, before it spreads across the continent — and the world.

A drive-in favorite, this sci-fi classic follows teenagers Steve and his best girl, Jane, as they try to protect their hometown from a gelatinous alien life form that engulfs everything it touches. The first to discover the substance and live to tell about it, Steve and Jane witness the blob destroying an elderly man, then it growing to a terrifying size. But no one else has seen the goo, and policeman Dave refuses to believe the kids without proof.

Scientists surgically transform the Creature into an air-breather, but being able to live on land is not enough to make him comfortable with humans. Enraged, he turns his wrath on anyone who comes near as he desperately tries to return to the deep-water world where he truly belongs.

A turn of the century wild west show struggling to make a living in Mexico comes into the possession of a tiny prehistoric horse. This leads to an expedition to the Forbidden Valley where they discover living dinosaurs. They capture one and take it back to be put on display, leading to inevitable mayhem.

A comedy that follows the chaos that ensues when a meteor hits the Earth carrying alien life forms that give new meaning to the term "survival of the fittest." David Duchovny, Orlando Jones, Seann William Scott, and Julianne Moore are the only people standing between the aliens and world domination... which could be bad news for the Earth.

A research team in Antarctica is hunted by a shape-shifting alien that assumes the appearance of its victims.

A group of scientists travel to a remote island to study the effects of nuclear weapons tests, only to get stranded when their airplane mysteriously explodes. The team soon discovers that the tests have given rise to crabs mutated into intelligent, impervious, telepathic giants intent on increasing their numbers by breeding, then travelling to populated areas to feed, and which do not intend to be stopped by their discoverers.

After receiving word about a mysterious carcass/skeleton unearthed in the Arizona desert, a father and his daughter decide to remove it from the burial grounds for further study. Once they do so, they, as well as the town, are besieged by a colony of gargoyles living in some nearby caverns.

A DNA experiment on a rare breed of spider is taking place on a NASA space shuttle, when a freak meteor shower engulfs the shuttle, causing everything to go horribly wrong. One survivor is found on the ship and watched over in a secret location deep in the California desert. The problem continues, as the survivor isn't alone, as another deadly spiders climbs out of him and goes on a rampage around the ship. Curious reporter Marci Eyre must now survive, escape and warn everyone before the spider reaches outside the desert.

A rock concert awakens the legendary monster, who goes on a rampage. The event's organizer plans to kill the beast and create a tourist attraction around its stuffed body, but an environmentalist realizes the creature is the last of its species, and is determined to make sure it does not become extinct.

In a mysterious laboratory located in the desert, the experimental spiders used for genetic research mutate and turn into giant spider monsters, turning the laboratory into a giant spider's lair. A few days later, a special warfare team led by the captain Gao Qiang, escorting Dr. Chen, a scientist of the Kwon Plant Group, goes to the laboratory to rescue the trapped people and try to retrieve the relevant scientific research data

On a hot summer afternoon in the sleepy town of Blackwater Louisiana, a meteor streaks across the sky and crashes through the roof of the local Natural History Museum. The meteor is actually a spaceship containing an alien life form which animates the museum's partially frozen Woolly Mammoth and begins a rampage. Local authorities and Government Investigators join forces with Frank Abernathy, the Museum Curator, and his father Simon, a B-Movie enthusiast, to bring down the giant mammoth in this alien-invasion flick!

Otherworldly creatures inhabit the bootlegging tunnels underneath a small town mining community, and they kill any of the townsfolk who invade their home.

A group of environmentalists arrives at a faraway tropical delta where toxic waste is being dumped. However the water also hides a giant crocodile. The corrupt local officials don't help much either.

A nuclear explosion in the far north unleashes Gamera, the legendary flying turtle, from his sleep under the ice. In his search for energy, Gamera wreaks havoc over the entire world, and it's up to the scientists, assisted by a young boy with a strange sympathic link to the monster, to put a stop to Gamera's rampage.

Mercer's brother, an amateur pilot, crashes on an island and is killed by a giant spider. A year later, when Mercer goes in search of him, she discovers a breed of poisonous arachnids ready to attack.

When a science experiment goes horribly wrong, gigantic fish gain appetites for human flesh.

When an alien prison ship crash lands and unleashes creature after creature in the California desert, they make quick work of the army that tries to stop them. Now, the only hope of stopping the aliens rests with a secret branch of the government specializing in alien weaponry. But with the team untested in actual combat, the battle for Earth will be brutal.

After receiving an exotic small animal as a Christmas gift, a young man inadvertently breaks three important rules concerning his new pet, which unleashes a horde of malevolently mischievous creatures on a small town.

The residents of a small town are excited when a flaming meteor lands in the hills, until they discover it is the first of many transport devices from Mars bringing an army of invaders invincible to any man-made weapon, even the atomic bomb.

When an unprecedented amount of sinkholes erupt all over Florida, a new nest of fire spitting LAVALANTULAS is awakened… wreaking their fiery havoc all over the sunshine state.

When a man is eaten alive by an unknown creature, the local Game Warden teams up with a paleontologist from New York to find the beast. Add to the mix an eccentric philanthropist with a penchant for "Crocs", and here we go! This quiet, remote lake is suddenly the focus of an intense search for a crocodile with a taste for live animals...and people!

Mining engineer Shigeru investigates the disappearance and death of his fellow coworkers when prehistoric nymphs are discovered emerging from the mines. After an attack on the local village, Shigeru heads deeper into the mines only to make a more horrifying discovery in the form a prehistoric flying creature. Soon a second monster appears as the two converge in Fukuoka.

A large man-eating crocodile terrorizes tourists and locals near Krabi, in Thailand. Michael Madsen plays a hunter stalking the immense reptile, while sub-plots include a rivalry between a foreigner, who owns a crocodile-farm, and a Thai man who plays a part in framing the foreigner for the crocodile's rampage.

Three bounty hunters from space fly back to the town of Grovers Bend, hoping to save local residents from a new batch of Critter eggs.

Global panic ensues when it is revealed that a mysterious UFO is actually a giant turkey-like bird that flies at supersonic speed and has no regard for life or architecture.

Earthquakes in central Korea turn out to be the work of Yongary, a prehistoric gasoline-eating reptile that soon goes on a rampage through Seoul.

While moving a group of Apaches to a Native American reservation in Arizona, an American scout named Sam Varner is surprised to find a white woman, Sarah Carver, living with the tribe. When Sam learns that she was taken captive by an Indian named Salvaje ten years ago, he attempts to escort Sarah and her half-Native American son to his home in New Mexico. However, it soon becomes clear that Salvaje is hot on their trail.

Unusual volcanic activity in Japan awakens Gyaos, a bloodthirsty flying monster with the power to slice things in half with an ultrasonic ray. While scientists and the military scramble to devise a way to stop this new threat, a young boy forms an alliance with Gamera; a monster no one else seems to trust.

An oil company expedition disturbs the peace of a giant ape and brings him back to New York to exploit him.

Carnivorous aliens arrive unannounced at a Kansas family farm; two intergalactic bounty hunters soon follow, determined to blow them off the planet.

A mysterious extraterrestrial being resembling Godzilla rapidly approaches Earth. The monster, dubbed SpaceGodzilla, lands to challenge the King of the Monsters.

A young man visits his fiancé's estate to discover that her wheelchair-bound scientist father has discovered a meteorite that emits mutating radiation rays that have turned the plants in his greenhouse to giants. When his own wife falls victim to this mysterious power, the old man takes it upon himself to destroy the glowing object with disastrous results.

A quiet suburb in Southern California is terrorized by a mysterious murderous monster living in a cave. As the bodies pile up -- with incriminating banana peels always near by the crime scene -- a group of teens stumble on the guilty party: a 20-million-year-old Schlockthropus, an ape-like creature with a sense of the absurd.

A psychotic redneck owns a dilapidated hotel in rural East Texas, where he murders those who upset him or his business, and then feeds their remains to his pet crocodile in the swamp beside his hotel.

An eighteen-foot grizzly bear figures out that humans make for a tasty treat. As a park ranger tries rallying his men to bring about the bear's capture or destruction, his efforts are thwarted by the introduction of dozens of drunken hunters into the area.

A fleeing gangland flunky discovers the New York nest of Aztec deity Quetzalcoatl, the man-eating flying serpent.

A band of murderous cowboys has imposed a reign of terror on the town of Warlock. With the sheriff humiliatingly run out of town, the residents hire the services of Clay Blaisedell as de facto town marshal. He arrives along with his friend, Tom Morgan, and sets about restoring law and order on his own terms whilst also overseeing the establishment of a gambling house and saloon.

When an abused heiress grows to giant size because of her encounter with aliens, she decides to get revenge on her cheating husband and those who looked down on her.

A crew of scientists arrives on a far, cold planet to examine archaic artifacts of unknown origin. They discover that their German enemies already have a ship there. When they seek their help after a failed landing, they only find the Germans’ bodies, obviously slaughtered by one of the archaic creatures, awoken to new life. Now the alien is after them.

A strange meteor lands in Japan and unleashes hundreds of insect-like "Legion" creatures bent on colonizing the Earth. When the military fails to control the situation, Gamera shows up to deal with the ever-evolving space adversary. However the battle may result in Gamera losing his bond with both Asagi and humanity.

A creature from outer space, nightbeast, crash lands in Baltimore and starts a killing spree that quickly escelates.

Scientist Dr. Bradford Crane and army general Thalius Slater join forces to fight an almost invisible enemy threatening America; killer bees that have deadly venom and attack without reason. Disaster movie-master Irwin Allen's film contains spectacular special effects, including a train crash caused by the eponymous swarm.

Journalists Ichiro Sakai and Junko cover the wreckage of a typhoon when an enormous egg is found and claimed by greedy entrepreneurs. Mothra's fairies arrive and are aided by the journalists in a plea for its return. As their requests are denied, Godzilla arises near Nagoya and the people of Infant Island must decide if they are willing to answer Japan's own pleas for help.

In Arborville, California, three high school students try to protect their hometown from a gelatinous alien life form that engulfs everything it touches.

Godzilla has become a distant memory for Japan when the destruction of a US submarine raises alarms for Admiral Tachibana. His estranged daughter Yuri investigates the legend of the guardian monsters, who must rise to protect Japan against the vengeful spirits within Godzilla that seek to destroy both the nation and its people for the suffering they inflicted in the Pacific conflict.

A hybrid creature - half piranha and half anaconda -- attacks a low-budget horror movie crew on location near her nest when her egg is stolen. Now they must outrun and kill the deadly piranhaconda as well as stop the mad scientist who stole the egg - before they all become dinner.

Follows the heroic efforts of the crypto-zoological agency Monarch as its members face off against a battery of god-sized monsters, including the mighty Godzilla, who collides with Mothra, Rodan, and his ultimate nemesis, the three-headed King Ghidorah. When these ancient super-species, thought to be mere myths, rise again, they all vie for supremacy, leaving humanity's very existence hanging in the balance.

Six years ago NASA discovered the possibility of alien life within our solar system. A probe was launched to collect samples, but crashed upon re-entry over Central America. Soon after, new life forms began to appear and half of Mexico was quarantined as an infected zone. Today, the American and Mexican military still struggle to contain "the creatures," while a journalist agrees to escort a shaken tourist through the infected zone in Mexico to the safety of the U.S. border.

When a meteorite touches down in the New Jersey woods carrying a monstrous alien slug, it’s up to four teens to stop it before it’s terrifying brood consumes all life on Earth!

Wealthy rancher Bick Benedict and dirt-poor cowboy Jett Rink both woo Leslie Lynnton, a beautiful young woman from Maryland who is new to Texas. She marries Benedict, but she is shocked by the racial bigotry of the White Texans against the local people of Mexican descent. Rink discovers oil on a small plot of land, and while he uses his vast, new wealth to buy all the land surrounding the Benedict ranch, the Benedict's disagreement over prejudice fuels conflict that runs across generations.

In a time when monsters walk the Earth, humanity’s fight for its future sets Godzilla and Kong on a collision course that will see the two most powerful forces of nature on the planet collide in a spectacular battle for the ages.

Two young boys sneak aboard a spaceship and find themselves whisked away to the mysterious planet Terra. There, they encounter Gamera's old foe Gyaos and two female aliens with a taste for human brains. Gamera must save the children and battle the new monster Guiron, whose entire body is a deadly living weapon.

Five friends head out to rural Texas to visit the grave of a grandfather. On the way, they stumble across what appears to be a deserted house, only to discover something sinister within. Something armed with a chainsaw.

Mysterious alien Critters have crash-landed in a small college town, devouring every living thing they encounter. Drea and the kids she's babysitting must try desperately to save themselves from the ravenous, rolling beasts. Will Drea discover her inner badass, and will it be enough to stop the Critter onslaught?

The arrival in a small mountain town of a dissheveled stranger launches a series of murders committed by some sort of animal. As the town doctor and his daughter attempt to help the stranger, the sheriff investigates the murders; and they uncover a sinister experiment involving two rogue scientists, a car accident victim, his wife and children, and a serum that causes a man to turn into a ravaging werewolf.
