Andrew Stengele Developing A Japanese Monster Heavy Documentary

Written By: Ken Hulsey
Source: Andrew Stengele

This past week I was contacted by independent film maker, Andrew Stengele, about his plans to film a very Japanese Monster heavy documentary this upcoming summer.

According to Stengele, the film will center on monsters, both real and imaginary, and their transition from myth and folklore to movies and television.

"It (the documentary) will be a look at mankind's view of monsters from mythical creatures, cryptozoology, and horror/scifi movies, books, video games, and so on."

At this time, due to budget limitations, the film maker will be making the rounds of local Midwest conventions interviewing scholars, people in the movie biz and fans to get his content.

Stengele adds, "I am looking for anyone who might have something to say about monsters, basically. I am going to start by interviewing some people at the University of Illinois about monsters in folklore and literature, and probably some sort of psychology professors as well to get their perspective on why we are fascinated by them and why children always imagine there are monsters everywhere."

So far, Stengele has zeroed in on two Chicago area conventions, that being "G-Fest", the official gathering of Godzilla and Japanese sci fi movie fans, and the Famous Monsters of Filmland convention.

Though, the documentary will feature monsters of all types, the film maker admits that Godzilla and his Japanese monster cousins will steal the show.

"The project isn't limited to kaiju (Japanese movie monsters), but I will admit I know that sub-genre better than the others and will make it a bigger portion of the movie."

Luckily for Stengele, he already has all the equipment necessary to film his movie, but he still needs to raise the money to travel outside his area to do more interviews. Namely, to travel to California to talk to Hollywood monster movie makers, stars, and more fans.

In fact, if he can raise the money, yours truly will be included in that prestigious list.

Stengele has started a fundraiser through Kickstarter, a company that helps independent film makers raise money for their projects, to aid in gathering the funds necessary to produce a top-of-the-line documentary.

I urge all of you out the to give what you can to help get this one going. I have talked with Andrew Stengele in length about his movie, and it sounds like he has great plans for producing something that will be both educational, and very entertaining.

Once again, to donate to this film project, go to Kickstarter (project page here).