DETAILS

Title: Nuclear creatures

Categories:

Horror

Science Fiction

Location: John Wyndham, The Kraken Wakes John Taine, Seeds Of Life

Pagination: 0

Illustrations: - radioactive waste/nuclear accident - monsters of outrageous proportions, heightened/supernatural powers

Document Type: Graffiti

Notes:

Nuclear creatures comprise a very specific subgenre of horror, one more known in its B-movie incarnation. These monsters emerge out of the Atomic Age of the 1950s, and its concurrent fears of the new technology. The creatures themselves are rather nondescript, generally following the format of "The Blob," "The Thing," or just "It," but their appearance in popular fiction marks a very real fear and response to the nuclear horrors of WWII. Nuclear creatures are most frequently seen in pulp paperbacks of the 1950s, and continue to live on in comic books and as formulaic plot devices in both science fiction and horror writing.