"People need an explanation, a reason, for why things happen. Not knowing the cause of an event is unacceptable to us. So humans have invented philosophies and religions to cope with and to try to explain the unknowable. No one truly knows what there is before we are alive, and what happens to us after we've died. Different cultures have created different answers. Most of these answers involve monsters. From winged angels in the clouds above to the demons down below, the religious view is check-a-block with fantastical beings."

//John Landis "Monsters in the Movies".