The endearing 2024 film Your Monster starring Melissa Barrera and Tommy Dewey will finally reach more people this weekend as it becomes available on streaming. For those who haven't had the chance to watch it yet, I recommend it, and if you love it as much as we did, you might want to check out some of these other great movies featuring human x monster love stories.
Warm Bodies (2013)
- Director/Writer: Jonathan Levine
- Cast: Nicholas Hoult, Teresa Palmer, Dave Franco, Lio Tipton, Rob Corddry, & John Malkovich
- Rating: PG-13
- Streaming: Amazon Prime Video
If you found Nicholas Hoult charming as the embattled Thomas Hutter in Nosferatu, just wait until you see him as R, an atypical zombie who falls head over heels in love with a human girl (Teresa Palmer) during the apocalypse.
In a world infested with zombies, R stumbles upon Julie, who is attacked by some of his undead cohorts. After saving her life, Julie and R bond, with Julie noticing that R is unlike the others. The more time they spend together, the more R seems to regain his humanity. The film is based on Isaac Marion's novel of the same name, which the author based on Romeo and Juliet.
Lisa Frankenstein (2024)
- Director: Zelda Williams
- Writer: Diablo Cody
- Cast: Kathryn Newton, Cole Sprouse, Liza Soberano, & Carla Gugino
- Rating: PG-13
- Streaming: Amazon Prime Video
Lisa Frankenstein and Your Monster share a lot in common: they were both underrated romantic horror movies following a human/monster love story released in 2024 starring rising scream queens (Kathryn Newton and Melissa Barrera). Newton is endearing as the cute-but-psycho Lisa Swallows, a gothic outcast obsessed with morbidity who finds true love in a graveyard when a lightning storm reawakens a corpse with several missing body parts (Cole Sprouse), the film's version of Frankenstein's classic monster.
Devoted to her new beau, Lisa and The Creature begin murdering anyone who wrongs them, stealing everything from an ear to a penis to "replace" the parts her undead boyfriend is missing. The 1980s setting, combined with Diablo Cody's signature snark and dark humor, make this movie an utter delight.
The Shape of Water (2017)
- Director/Writer: Guillermo del Toro
- Co-writer: Vanessa Taylor
- Cast: Sally Hawkins, Michael Shannon, Richard Jenkins, Doug Jones, Michael Stuhlbarg, & Octavia Spencer
- Rating: R
- Rent/buy: $3.99 to rent ($14.99 to buy) from digital retailers like Apple, Amazon, and Google Play
The Shape of Water is a truly special movie. It has become one of the only sci-fi/dark fantasy films to win Best Picture at the Academy Awards the year it was nominated. Guillermo del Toro cast a spell over us all with his dreamy and entrancing film featuring an unlikely love story between a janitor at a secret government lab who falls in love with one of her company's experiments, an amphibious man she and her friends rescue from his tank.
Part of the film's charm is that it doesn't shy away from the central romance, as it would have been easy to merely imply the attraction between Elisa and the creature but embraces its fantastical premise, creating a beautiful and compelling story about acceptance and hope.
King Kong (2005)
- Director/Writer: Peter Jackson
- Co-writers: Fran Walsh & Philippa Boyens
- Cast: Naomi Watts, Jack Black, Adrien Brody, Thomas Kretschmann, Colin Hanks, Jamie Bell, & Andy Serkis
- Rating: PG-13
- Streaming: Netflix
The romantic story at the heart of King Kong is certainly not ordinary, and it doesn't play out like any others on this list. King Kong has long been a source of conversation regarding the implied romance between the female main character and the massive primate.
Peter Jackson's 2005 film plays heavily into their dynamic, and it's sweet if you don't think too much about it. It's clear that Ann and Kong genuinely grow to care for one another, as shown by how protective Kong becomes of her and vice versa.
Ghost (1990)
- Director: Jerry Zucker
- Writer: Bruce Joel Rubin
- Cast: Patrick Swayze, Demi Moore, Whoopi Goldberg, & Tony Goldwyn
- Rating: PG-13
- Streaming: Paramount+
With Demi Moore receiving well-deserved acclaim for her incredible work in The Substance, now is a great time to remember one of her most famous films, Ghost. In it, Moore plays an artist whose boyfriend, Sam (Patrick Swayze), dies. His ghost lingers by Molly's side despite her being unaware of his presence. A beautiful supernatural romance with great performances, it's no wonder Ghost was nominated for several Academy Awards.