In the conspiracy-minded 1970s, before YouTube or Wikipedia existed, monster “documentaries” ruled the box office — and a Utah production house called Sunn Classic Pictures turned UFOs, Bigfoot and the Bermuda Triangle into a goldmine. A new IGN retrospective by Max Evry, published October 31, 2026, looks back at the age of the weirdumentary and the studio that made a fortune selling the unknown.
The Mysterious Monsters (Credits: IGN)
Sunn Classic Pictures: The Studio That Sold the Unknown
The formula was irresistible. As Peter Graves intoned in The Mysterious Monsters (1975): “Scientists representing the world’s foremost research centers took part in the examination of the evidence. The facts that will be presented are true. This may be the most startling film you’ll ever see.”
Sunn Classic’s partially-dramatized “documentaries” tantalized viewers with possibilities beyond the veil. During the turbulent era of Vietnam and Watergate, when dark revelations about the government, military and justice system made the public rethink everything, subjects like ESP, UFOs and cryptozoology became the studio’s bread and butter.
Why the Weirdumentary Boom Happened in the 1970s
James L. Conway, who worked as a writer, producer and director at Sunn Classic, told IGN: “I think it was people just questioning what the norm was… what is real, what isn’t real. There were very few outlets back then to experience these things, very few TV channels. Through a theatrical window, we were able to make movies about these subjects. They were incredibly popular because there was no other place for people to get knowledge about this… no YouTube, no Wikipedia, no social media.”
Conway was a college senior at the University of Denver around 1971 when Charles E. Sellier Jr., who ran an industrial film and commercial company in Denver, rang his department — and pulled him into the monster business. The happy veneer of 1950s and ’60s America had cracked, and audiences hungry for the unusual had nowhere to go but the cinema.
The Legacy of the Weirdumentary Era
The weirdumentary wave may have faded as cable TV and later the internet fragmented the audience, but its DNA is everywhere: in today’s true-crime docuseries, paranormal reality shows and viral cryptid hunts. Sunn Classic proved that “what if” could sell tickets — and the public’s appetite for the unexplained has never really gone away.
Source: IGN — read the full story there.
