A couple of years later I came back, and in this viewing something changed. My own perception of life had evolved, the way I watch movies had matured, and the initial surprised reaction of the similarities between its parody version was eliminated. What I had understood as a solid old-timey B-movie revealed itself to me - an experience so deeply sad that I could hardly bear it. It’s still very funny, even goofy, but with repeat viewings the comedy is more like a sick farce, a parody of humor and melodrama. The movie seems to want to allow us to laugh only so we have further to fall when it stops being funny.

Perhaps there is no person alive who wouldn’t feel a shred of guilt when faced with this story, as the mankind who rejected him encompasses all of us. Even after being hunted by the townspeople, after his only chance at friendship is robbed from him and he is carried off to jail bound to a pole much like Jesus to the cross, the Monster’s ultimate goodness does not waver. He resorts to violence only when he feels things he can’t understand or control, as an expression of frustration, like an infant that knows clearly what it wants but cannot make its parents understand.