From Cthulhu To The Mummy: All the Monster Movie References In 'Minions & Monsters' Explained
The following contains spoilers for Minions & Monsters
Minions & Monsters (2026) is a goofy entry in the long-running Illumination series, as well as a love letter to the Golden Age of Cinema, which means plenty of movie monsters from across the history of Hollywood. The movie focuses on a tribe of Minions previously unseen in the universe established by Despicable Me (2010). This batch of Minions includes James, an artistically minded member of the species who finds himself at home when they end up in Hollywood.
Quickly becoming movie stars during the era of silent films, many of the creatures that James encounters before and during his time in Hollywood are actually references to the larger history of movie-making. The references go through the early days of film through the creature features of the 1950s, all the way to modern storytelling. Here are all the monster movie references hidden across Minions and Monsters.
Creature from the Black Lagoon (1954)
The references to cinematic history come hard and fast in Minions & Monsters, with an early background gag directly referencing Creature from the Black Lagoon. The monster movie was one of the latter additions to the loosely connected Universal Monsters pantheon of characters, a surprisingly somber story that would go on to inspire plenty of creations, including Guillermo del Toro's Academy Award-winning film, The Shape of Water (2017).
The Creature is among the classic films referenced in the movie museum at the beginning of Minions and Monsters, alongside shout-outs to movies like The Invisible Man (1933). The Creature from the Black Lagoon nod also contains a secondary layer of self-referential allusion, considering that the Creature featured in the shot is modeled after Fishlips, the tribute to the Creature who appeared as a notable super villain in Minions (2015).
The Mummy (1932)
As one of the many deep cuts hidden throughout the film, the reference to The Mummy also comes with a pretty standard punchline about the character. This version of the Mummy is one of the “bosses” that the Minions worked for during the course of history, only for one of them to accidentally grab his wrappings and use them as toilet paper, leading to the rest of it being pulled off him, killing him just as they’ve accidentally slain many of their other bosses over the years.
While this reference is largely focused on the version of The Mummy that appeared in the early days of the Universal Movie Monsters brand, the music score that plays in the background during this sequence is from the more action-packed remake of The Mummy (1999).
Jaws (1975)
Often heralded as one of the best monster movies ever made, Jaws gets two very deliberate shout-outs over the course of Minions and Monsters. The first comes as an exhibit at a museum of movie history at the beginning of the film, with the shark peeking out of the water as it eats Quint’s boat.
The other big reference occurs during the film itself, when the movie uses the shark’s advancing fin to indicate that it’s approaching a little otter that James and Harry are calling for. The shark even attacks the boat in a similar manner to how the great white in Jaws operates, although the scream from Goomi is enough to send the shark and the otter fleeing in terror. Seeing how Jaws is one of cinema’s most iconic creatures, it makes perfect sense that the film would want to pay homage to the creature.
Clash of the Titans (1981)
The opening of Minions and Monsters sees the tribe of Minions allying themselves with a massive cyclops, who enjoys himself thoroughly by roaming ancient Greece and crushing buildings. The cyclops is a riff on the classic mythological interpretation of the creature, which has appeared in plenty of films over the years.
The one seen here feels specifically attuned to the version that appeared in the classic fantasy adventure film Clash of the Titans (1981), as well as the gleefully evil rendition that was in Hercules (1997). This reference also highlights the enduring nature of this monstrous imagery, as the cyclops who appears in Minions and Monsters also bears some passing resemblance to the version of Polyphemus briefly glimpsed in the trailer for Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey (2026).
Cthullu
Introduced by H.P. Lovecraft, Cthulhu has become one of the defining monstrous creatures of modern fiction. Shows like Lovecraft Country (2020) and movies like Underwater (2020) include overt appearances of the monstrous elder god, while movies like In the Mouth of Madness (1995) and Love, Death & Robots (2019) play with the idea of the entity in shorts like "In Vaulted Halls Entombed."
A very goofy version of Cthulhu, dubbed Goomie, serves as the villain of Minions and Monsters, hoping to trick the Minions into helping him unleash his friends onto an unsuspecting world. Goomie is played by Trey Parker, who previously appeared in Despicable Me 3 (2017) as Balthazar Bratt, and the show he co-created with Matt Stone, South Park (1997), featured the cosmic horror in a three-part storyline during Season 14.
Godzilla: King of the Monsters (2019)
While the movie doesn’t feature any overt references to Godzilla or specific entities from that franchise, there are some broader takes on the giant monsters known informally as “kaiju” in Minions and Monsters that recall specific films like Godzilla: King of the Monsters. When James and Henry recruit Goomie to find monsters for their movie, Goomie tricks them into visiting a distant island so that they can unfreeze his kaiju allies from the blocks of ice that they’ve been trapped within.
This is similar to plenty of movies in the larger Godzilla franchise, most notably in Godzilla, Mothra and King Ghidorah: Giant Monsters All-Out Attack (2001) and Godzilla: King of the Monsters, where King Ghidorah is found in a similar state and eventually unleashed to bring chaos to the world.
King Kong (1933)
While King Kong himself doesn’t appear much in Minions and Monsters, there are a lot of influences from the classic King Kong film hidden throughout. On a musical level, composer John Powell told The Hollywood Reporter that he specifically played up the music to be operatic and “overwrought” in the way that was common in the Golden Age of Cinema, specifically citing composers like King Kong’s Max Steiner.
Aside from that, Kong can also be briefly glimpsed in the movie museum. There’s also the underlying plot, which sees Minion/aspiring director James going to a remote monster-filled island to get good footage for his movie, which is also the plot of the original King Kong and the Peter Jackson-helmed King Kong (2005) with director Carl Denham.
The Blob (1958)
The ultimate threat of Minions and Monsters turns out to be Irene, an ancient evil that is unleashed by Goomie in an effort to wipe out life on Earth. Irene just so happens to be a monstrous blob of orange goo with countless eyes, which seeks to consume everything in her path. The creature’s movement and means of absorbing anything it encounters draw specifically from The Blob.
While survivors in The Blob defeat the creature in the 1958 film, as well as the Chuck Russell-directed remake of The Blob (1988), with extreme cold, Irene is brought down in a different manner in Minions and Monsters.
The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951)
One of the most unexpectedly important references in Minions and Monsters is the extended riff on The Day the Earth Stood Still. The classic sci-fi film, as well as the 2008 remake, focuses on a mysterious alien, Klaatu, and his robot companion, Gort, who arrived on the planet to determine if humanity is too much of a threat.
In Minions and Monsters, Klaatu’s story of an alien visitor who discovers love with a human woman is combined with the robotic figure, leading to Dort, a goofy alien visitor who ends up recruiting the Minions and defending the Earth when Irene goes on a rampage. Dort ends up being one of the most important references in the film, with his love story giving the movie one of its big emotional throughlines and setting up the climactic battle of Minions and Monsters.
