The notion of monster comes from the Latin word monstrum . The term can be used in different ways depending on the context .
The first meaning mentioned by the Royal Spanish Academy ( RAE ) in its dictionary refers to the being that, compared to the rest of the members of its species, shows rarities or abnormalities . That is why an individual of great ugliness or unusual perversion is mentioned as a monster, to point out two possibilities.
For example: “That man is a monster, I would never notice him” , “My grandfather was a monster: he hit my grandmother and my mother and enjoyed torturing animals” , “The San Jacinto monster fell: the police arrested the “Subject who kidnapped and raped his daughter for fifteen years.”
Starting from this meaning, we can establish that there are many words that can serve as synonyms for monster. Among them we must highlight some such as engendro, grotesque, deformed, scarecrow, stafermo or even endriago.
Just as it is used in a negative way, the concept of monster can also be linked to one who shows aptitudes and conditions superior to those usual: “Lionel Messi is a monster! Only he can score a goal of those characteristics” , “The guitarist of this band is a monster, I admire him a lot” , “The Dream Team that won the basketball gold medal at the Barcelona Olympic Games was made up of twelve monsters” .
A monster, on the other hand, is something very big , which has an extraordinary magnitude or dimensions: “McDonald's is a fast food monster, it has thousands of restaurants and employees around the world,” “The company was born as a family business and it grew to become a monster.”
Monsters, finally, are fantastic creatures that generally provoke fear. These beings are usually represented with abnormal physical features in human beings : two heads, one eye, five arms, horns, etc.
One of the most successful films in recent years from Disney and Pixar responds precisely to the name “Monsters SA”. It was released in 2001 and is directed by Pete Docter, David Silverman and Lee Unkrich.
The film introduces us to the city of Monstruópolis, where monsters live far from humans. That is the case except in one company, Monstruos SA, where its employees dedicate themselves to scaring human children in order to obtain the necessary energy from their screams so that the city has the light it needs.
The biggest "scarer" is Sulley, who is helped by Mike. However, their lives will take a turn when after a day's work they realize that, through the doors that they access to the children's rooms, there is a little girl who has sneaked into the company.
Another film that has the term in question in its title is the drama “A Monster Comes to See Me”, which premiered in 2016, which is directed by Juan Antonio Bayona and which adapts the novel of the same name by the American writer Patrick Ness. Among the actors who make up its cast are Lewis Macdougall, Liam Neeson, Geraldine Chaplin and Felicity Jones.