{"id":6803,"date":"2026-09-09T10:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-09-09T09:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/stevenallain.co.uk\/Blog\/?p=6803"},"modified":"2026-09-08T11:28:28","modified_gmt":"2026-09-08T10:28:28","slug":"stevereviews-monsters-of-god","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevenallain.co.uk\/Blog\/stevereviews-monsters-of-god\/","title":{"rendered":"#SteveReviews: Monsters of God"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

If you know much about the reptile pet trade, you will be aware that it has an illegal and upsetting dark side. Eric Goode\u2019s Monsters of God<\/em> is an uncomfortable documentary series because its subject is simultaneously fascinating, disturbing and deeply depressing. Across five episodes, the series follows the history of the exotic reptile trade and, more specifically, the people who transformed an interest in snakes, lizards, crocodilians and other reptiles into a highly lucrative international business. The result is part true-crime investigation, part character study and part environmental warning. It is also, perhaps unintentionally, an indictment of an entire culture in which living animals can become commodities, trophies and objects of personal status. The timing of Monsters of God<\/em> is significant. The series arrives at a point when reptiles have become increasingly popular as pets, when social media has made spectacular and unusual animals more visible than ever, and when the distinction between legitimate captive breeding and wildlife trafficking can sometimes appear frustratingly blurred. HBO describes the series as following Goode\u2019s own lifelong fascination with reptiles into the ‘dark underworld’ of exotic-animal smuggling, with traffickers, collectors and law-enforcement officers forming the central cast. Yet the most important achievement of Monsters of God<\/em> is not that it exposes a few colourful criminals. It demonstrates how a market based upon fascination with wildlife can become destructive when the desire to possess increasingly rare animals overwhelms considerations of animal welfare, conservation and law.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The series begins with an apparently simple premise. People love reptiles. Some people collect them. Some breed them. Some sell them. Others want increasingly unusual species and are willing to pay enormous amounts of money to obtain them. Somewhere along this continuum, however, a legal hobby becomes an illegal enterprise. That transition is at the heart of Monsters of God<\/em>. The series focuses heavily on personalities such as Hank Molt and Tommy Crutchfield, whose histories provide a route into the development of the American exotic reptile industry. Rather than presenting wildlife trafficking as an impersonal economic process, Goode gives it faces, voices and personalities. This is one of the documentary’s greatest strengths, but it is also one of its most significant weaknesses. There is an undeniable entertainment value in watching extraordinarily eccentric individuals explain themselves. The larger-than-life personalities, rivalries, egos and apparent self-belief provide Monsters of God<\/em> with the same strange energy that characterised Goode’s earlier work, particularly Tiger King<\/a><\/em>. Contemporary reviews have repeatedly noted the resemblance. The Guardian<\/em>, for example, describes the series as giving its reptile smugglers something of the ‘Tiger King’ treatment, while nevertheless acknowledging the darker issues of animal cruelty and environmental destruction beneath the spectacle.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This makes the series compelling television. It does not necessarily make it comfortable television. The danger with this approach is that criminals can become celebrities. A charismatic smuggler can be more memorable than the thousands of anonymous animals that passed through his hands. A feud between two dealers makes an excellent narrative. The destruction of a population of wild reptiles does not. This is particularly problematic when considering illegal wildlife trafficking from a conservation perspective. The individual animal is only one part of the story. Removing animals from the wild can affect population structure, reproductive potential and genetic diversity, while the cumulative removal of individuals can become particularly serious when a species has a restricted range or naturally low population density. The economic value placed on rarity can actually make the rarest species the most desirable targets. That is the perverse logic of the trade: scarcity can increase desirability, and desirability can increase exploitation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One of the most powerful aspects of Monsters of God<\/em> is that it makes it difficult to maintain the comforting idea that wildlife trafficking is simply a matter of a few obviously evil criminals operating at the margins of society. The documentary instead reveals an ecosystem. There are collectors, there are dealers, there are smugglers, there are breeders, there are intermediaries, there are customers, there are institutions, there are transport networks, there are corrupt or inadequate regulatory systems, and there are consumers willing to pay for the animals. The trafficker is therefore only one component of the problem. This is crucial because discussions of the illegal reptile trade can sometimes become overly focused on the person who physically moves an animal across a border. That person is important, but the existence of the smuggling operation depends upon demand. Without somebody willing to pay extraordinary sums for an unusual reptile, there is considerably less financial incentive to collect it illegally. The series repeatedly returns to this concept of obsession. HBO’s own description identifies extreme fascination with reptiles as one of the forces pushing individuals beyond legal and environmental boundaries. The documentary consequently presents collecting not merely as a hobby but, in its most extreme forms, as an addiction to rarity. This distinction matters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There is nothing inherently wrong with being fascinated by reptiles. Indeed, the study and keeping of reptiles can inspire genuine interest in natural history and conservation. Captive breeding programmes can have legitimate scientific and conservation value. Responsible reptile keepers can contribute to public understanding of animals that are often misunderstood or feared. The problem begins when fascination becomes possession for possession’s sake. A snake ceases to be an animal with ecological and biological significance and becomes ‘the snake I need to own’. A tortoise becomes an investment. A lizard becomes a status symbol. A rare species becomes desirable precisely because few other people possess one. At that point, conservation has been inverted. The rarity that should make us more concerned about protecting a species instead makes the animal more valuable to collectors. This is a paradox that has plagued wildlife and their products for centuries, while also driving the illegal trade that Monsters of God<\/em> only just managed to scratch the surface of.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Perhaps the most disturbing element of Monsters of God<\/em> is the way the documentary demonstrates the commodification of living animals. The language of commerce permeates the world it depicts. Animals are bought, sold, exchanged, transported and valued according to rarity. The implication is that almost anything can acquire a monetary value if there is somebody willing to pay for it. This is particularly troubling when the animals are wild-caught. A wild reptile is not simply an object that happens to be located in a forest, desert, wetland or grassland. It is part of an ecological system. It has a role within a food web. It carries genetic information. It represents reproductive potential within a population. It may have taken years to reach maturity. Removing that animal for a private collection therefore has consequences extending beyond the individual. The documentary’s accounts of cruelty make this commodification even harder to ignore. Reports surrounding the series describe deeply disturbing treatment of animals, including accounts of animals being buried alive. Such scenes are not merely examples of individual cruelty. They expose the fundamental ethical problem created when animals are regarded primarily as merchandise. A commercial product that becomes damaged can be discarded. A living animal cannot.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It experiences stress, injury, disease and, potentially, prolonged suffering. Reptiles are particularly vulnerable to being misunderstood in this respect. Their relatively alien appearance and very different behavioural ecology can encourage people to underestimate their capacity to experience adverse conditions. The fact that a reptile does not display suffering in the same manner as a mammal does not mean that inappropriate temperatures, dehydration, starvation, injury, overcrowding or prolonged transport are harmless. Illegal trafficking compounds these problems. Smuggling requires secrecy. Secrecy undermines welfare. An animal concealed inside a container, suitcase or other inappropriate enclosure cannot be expected to receive the same level of care as an animal being transported through a properly regulated wildlife-trade system. The incentive is to avoid detection, reduce costs and maximise profit. Welfare becomes secondary. That is why the illegal reptile trade should not be romanticised as a daring adventure undertaken by adventurous naturalists. It is a form of exploitation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The strongest conservation argument against illegal reptile trafficking is that the trade can undermine populations that have taken generations to evolve. Reptiles are particularly vulnerable to exploitation as many species are naturally difficult to monitor. Their secretive behaviour, low population densities and often limited distributions can make it difficult to establish how many individuals remain in the wild. This creates an information problem: animals can be removed from populations without anybody immediately knowing the scale of the decline. The trade can therefore operate below the threshold at which conservation authorities can easily detect its effects. A collector might see one animal. A conservation biologist sees one less reproductive individual. A trafficker sees a sale. A population biologist may see the gradual erosion of a population. Those perspectives are fundamentally different. Monsters of God<\/em> is at its most effective when it encourages the viewer to adopt the latter perspective. The issue is not simply whether one particular snake, lizard or tortoise survives in captivity. It is whether the continued removal of animals from the wild is compatible with maintaining viable populations. That question becomes especially important for species with highly restricted distributions. An animal that is common over a huge geographical range may theoretically be more resilient to limited collection than a species restricted to a single island, mountain range, valley or fragmented habitat. For the latter, relatively small levels of exploitation can potentially have disproportionately large consequences.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The economic model of the illegal trade also creates a particularly unpleasant feedback loop. Rare species become valuable. High prices encourage collectors to seek them. Collectors create demand. Demand encourages further collection. Further collection makes animals still harder to find. Increased scarcity can then increase their market value. The cycle repeats. This is precisely why the idea that the illegal trade is merely a problem involving individual ‘bad actors’ is inadequate. The market itself can create incentives for exploitation. One of the most intellectually interesting themes in Monsters of God<\/em> is the uncomfortable boundary between legal reptile keeping and illegal wildlife trafficking. The two are not synonymous. This point deserves emphasis. A documentary about illegal reptile trafficking should not be interpreted as an indictment of everybody who keeps reptiles. Millions of people around the world keep reptiles legally and responsibly. Many care deeply about their animals and have never participated in wildlife trafficking. The problem is that the legitimate reptile trade can exist alongside an illegal one. The distinction between the two depends upon provenance, documentation, legislation, welfare standards and enforcement. An animal that is legally captive-bred is fundamentally different, from a conservation perspective, from an animal illegally removed from the wild. However, determining provenance can sometimes be difficult. Once an illegally collected animal has entered the legitimate market, its history can become obscured.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is where laundering becomes such a serious issue. A wild-caught animal can potentially be presented as captive-bred. Documentation can be falsified. Records can be incomplete. Animals can move through several dealers and countries before reaching their final owner. The farther an animal travels through a supply chain, the more difficult it can become to establish its original source. Monsters of God<\/em> is particularly valuable because it shows how porous these boundaries can become. The fourth episode, ‘Operation Chameleon’, moves into a modern world in which high-value, ostensibly legal reptile dealing intersects with illegal activity. The episode also examines the involvement of major zoological institutions in the wider wildlife-trade network This is one of the documentary’s most important contributions. It refuses to suggest that wildlife trafficking is simply something that happens in dark alleys between criminals. It can intersect with respectable institutions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The involvement of zoos is particularly uncomfortable. Modern zoos vary enormously in their approach to conservation, welfare and animal sourcing, and it would be simplistic to portray contemporary zoological institutions as equivalent to illegal wildlife traffickers. Many modern zoos participate in carefully regulated breeding programmes, conservation initiatives, research and public education. Historically, however, zoological collections were often built around the acquisition of unusual animals. The distinction between ‘collecting animals for science’ and ‘collecting animals because they are impressive’ was not always as clear as it should have been. Monsters of God<\/em> uses this history to expose an uncomfortable truth: the demand for rare animals did not originate exclusively among criminals. Wealthy collectors, private menageries, entertainment businesses and zoological institutions could all contribute to demand. This matters because conservation has changed. The modern conservation movement increasingly recognises that protecting species means protecting populations and habitats rather than simply maintaining specimens in captivity. An animal in a zoo is not necessarily evidence of successful conservation. A species can survive in captivity while disappearing from the wild. That distinction should be central to any discussion of reptile trafficking.Indeed, one of the greatest ironies of the illegal reptile trade is that people who claim to love rare animals can contribute directly to making them rarer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As television, Monsters of God<\/em> is often excellent. As a conventional environmental documentary, it is more complicated. Goode understands that audiences are attracted to people who are strange, charismatic, obsessive and occasionally outrageous. His subjects are therefore presented not as anonymous wildlife criminals but as characters. Tommy Crutchfield is particularly central to this approach. His history within the reptile trade and his subsequent legal troubles provide the documentary with a recurring protagonist-antagonist figure. His career illustrates the transformation of reptile collecting from niche hobby into a much larger commercial enterprise. The series also follows Hank Molt and other figures involved in the trade, building a narrative around rivalries and relationships. Contemporary reviews have praised the resulting character-driven storytelling while criticising the series for occasionally becoming too sprawling and tangential. That criticism is justified. There are moments when Monsters of God<\/em> appears to become more interested in the personalities than the reptiles. This is a strange problem for a documentary about wildlife. The animals are supposed to be the victims, but humans dominate the screen. We hear their stories. We watch their arguments. We learn about their businesses and egos. We listen to their explanations and justifications. The reptiles cannot provide an interview. Their perspective is therefore inevitably absent. That absence makes the filmmaker’s responsibility even greater. The documentary must speak for the animals without pretending to speak on their behalf. At its strongest, it achieves this through imagery and testimony. At weaker moments, the spectacle of the smugglers threatens to overwhelm the ecological message.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Perhaps the most interesting ethical dimension of Monsters of God<\/em> is Goode himself. This is not an outsider documenting a world he has never encountered. Goode has acknowledged his own history as a reptile enthusiast and his previous involvement in the exotic animal world. Vanity Fair describes the series as particularly personal because Goode’s own fascination with reptiles once brought him into contact with practices he now examines critically. That admission makes the documentary stronger. It would have been easier to portray wildlife traffickers as monsters and position the filmmaker as the morally superior observer. Instead, Goode acknowledges that the culture he is investigating is connected to his own history. This introduces a far more interesting question: Where does fascination end and exploitation begin? There is no simple answer. A person can genuinely love reptiles and still participate in harmful practices. Someone can understand an animal’s biology and nevertheless treat it as a possession. A person can consider themselves a conservationist while contributing to the market demand that threatens wild populations. This moral ambiguity is arguably the most sophisticated element of the documentary. The title Monsters of God<\/em> therefore works on multiple levels. The ‘monsters’ are not simply the reptiles that humans fear. The real monsters are the human behaviours surrounding them: greed, obsession, status-seeking and the willingness to treat living creatures as commodities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The documentary also gives considerable attention to wildlife law enforcement. This is essential because illegal wildlife trafficking is fundamentally a regulatory problem as well as a conservation problem. The series follows U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service investigations and operations against traffickers, including the investigations that developed into Operation Chameleon. These sections provide an important counterpoint to the smugglers. The traffickers operate according to one set of incentives: profit, secrecy and risk. Investigators operate according to another: evidence, legislation and prosecution. The resulting cat-and-mouse dynamic gives the documentary much of its thriller-like quality. However, Monsters of God<\/em> also illustrates why enforcement alone cannot solve wildlife trafficking. Arresting one trafficker does not eliminate demand. Closing one route does not eliminate another. Confiscating one shipment does not prevent another from being organised. A market that generates large profits will adapt. This is why conservation policy must address the entire supply chain. Law enforcement is necessary, but so are consumer education, traceability, international cooperation, effective licensing systems, appropriate penalties, improved animal-welfare standards and, crucially, a cultural shift away from viewing rarity as something to be possessed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The biggest criticism that can be levelled against Monsters of God<\/em> is also the most obvious consequence of its entertainment-driven approach. The series is so interested in its villains that there is an occasional danger that they become glamorous. This is not because the documentary endorses their behaviour. It clearly does not. Rather, charismatic criminals make good television. They have stories. They have rivalries. They have extraordinary anecdotes. They have enormous personalities. The anonymous collector who quietly purchases a smuggled tortoise does not. Yet the anonymous consumer is arguably more important to the future of the illegal reptile trade than the flamboyant dealer. The dealer exists because somebody buys. That point deserves much greater emphasis. Every exotic animal purchased illegally represents demand. Every demand signal encourages somebody somewhere to collect another animal. The consumer therefore has an ethical responsibility. This applies especially to rare reptiles. If someone is purchasing an animal because it is unusual, difficult to obtain or exceptionally expensive, they should ask why. Where did it come from? Was it legally acquired? Was it captive-bred? Can its provenance be demonstrated? Does the seller have a credible record? Is the species threatened? Could the purchase inadvertently support laundering? These are not unreasonable questions. They are basic conservation ethics.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One of the unintended consequences of Monsters of God<\/em> may be that responsible reptile keepers become frustrated by the portrayal of their hobby. That frustration would be understandable, and I have discussed this point with a few friends of mine that keep reptiles. The overwhelming majority of people who keep a corn snake, gecko, python, tortoise or other reptile are not wildlife traffickers. Indeed, responsible keepers have an important role in demonstrating that reptiles can be appreciated without being exploited. The solution is not to demonise reptile keeping. It is to draw a much stronger line between responsible captive husbandry and wildlife exploitation. The reptile community should be among the loudest opponents of illegal wildlife trafficking because trafficking damages legitimate keepers as well as wild populations. Every major trafficking scandal gives politicians another reason to impose restrictions on reptile ownership. Every illegally imported animal increases disease and biosecurity risks. Every wild population depleted for the pet trade damages the reputation of people who genuinely care about reptiles. Responsible keepers therefore have a vested interest in transparency. The industry should demand traceability. It should reject suspicious animals. It should discourage the purchase of poorly documented specimens. It should support enforcement against illegal traders. And it should recognise that ‘rare’ is not automatically a synonym for ‘desirable’. Sometimes rare should simply mean protected.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For all its strengths, Monsters of God<\/em> could have gone further. The series is excellent at explaining who the traffickers are and what they did. It is less consistently successful at explaining the ecological consequences in sufficient scientific detail. The viewer sees the human drama, however what is sometimes missing is the population-level perspective. What happened to the wild populations from which these animals were removed? How many individuals were taken? Which species declined? Which populations were permanently damaged? What were the genetic consequences? What role did habitat loss play compared with collection? How much of the modern trade is genuinely captive-bred? How effective are existing regulations? How much wildlife trafficking currently occurs outside the United States? These are important questions, especially from a conservation perspective but also for attempting to place the actions of those highlighted in the documentary into the wider context of the global illegal wildlife trade. The documentary’s focus on America makes narrative sense because many of its central characters and investigations are American. But reptile trafficking is a global issue. The international nature of the trade means that focusing predominantly on American personalities can obscure the communities and ecosystems that actually supply the animals. The reptile disappears from its ecological context and becomes a character in an American crime story. That is a limitation. A more conservation-focused documentary would spend more time in the source countries and with the people working to protect wild populations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The most important thing to remember while watching Monsters of God<\/em> is that this is not really a story about criminals. It is a story about animals. The smugglers may be fascinating, the investigators may be admirable, the rivalries may be entertaining, and the money may be extraordinary. None of those things matter as much as the reptiles themselves. The animals have no choice in the transaction, they do not decide to leave their habitat, they do not decide to cross an international border, they do not decide that captivity is preferable to the wild, and they do not decide what price they should command. Humans make those decisions, and humans bear the responsibility for the consequences. This is particularly important because reptiles are often culturally treated as less emotionally important than mammals. A trafficked puppy produces an immediate emotional reaction. A trafficked tortoise may not. To me, that disparity is irrational. A tortoise can live for decades, a snake can occupy a highly specialised ecological niche, or a lizard may represent an evolutionary lineage found nowhere else on Earth. The fact that an animal does not resemble us does not reduce its ecological value. If anything, the very strangeness that attracts collectors should make us more determined to protect it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Monsters of God<\/em> is an absorbing, disturbing and frequently infuriating examination of the illegal reptile trade. It succeeds because it recognises that wildlife trafficking is not simply a criminal enterprise but a culture of obsession. Its greatest strength is its willingness to expose the uncomfortable relationships between collectors, dealers, smugglers, institutions and law enforcement. Its greatest weakness is that the same character-driven storytelling that makes the series compelling can occasionally turn criminals into celebrities and push the conservation consequences into the background. Nevertheless, the central message is difficult to ignore. The illegal reptile trade exists because people want rare animals. Traffickers respond to that demand. The animals pay the price. That price can include stress, injury, disease, death, population decline and the erosion of wild ecosystems. In the worst cases, animals become disposable objects within a commercial system in which rarity increases financial value and therefore increases exploitation. The tragedy is that the people involved often claim to love the animals. That contradiction lies at the heart of Monsters of God<\/em>. Loving an animal does not give us the right to possess it. Knowing how to keep an animal does not mean that we have the right to remove it from the wild. Being fascinated by a species does not justify contributing to its decline. And making money from wildlife does not make exploitation conservation. The reptile trade needs a much clearer ethical distinction between responsible captive keeping and wildlife trafficking. If after watching Monsters of God<\/em> you want to learn more, I recommend you read The Lizard King<\/a><\/em> by Bryan Christy (who features at points in the series) and Stolen World<\/a><\/em> by Jennie Erin Smith.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Captive breeding, where genuinely sustainable and properly regulated, can have a legitimate role. Education can inspire conservation. Responsible keepers can become advocates for species protection. Zoos can contribute to research and conservation programmes. But none of these arguments can justify taking animals illegally from the wild simply because somebody is willing to pay for them. That is why Monsters of God<\/em> ultimately works best not as a story about colourful smugglers, but as a warning about what happens when fascination becomes obsession, obsession becomes possession, and possession becomes profit. The title is fitting. The real monsters are not the snakes, crocodiles, tortoises and lizards. The real monsters are the human systems that transform them from living components of ecosystems into luxury commodities. And if Monsters of God<\/em> leaves the viewer angry, uncomfortable and questioning where their own fascination with wildlife sits on that spectrum, then it has achieved something considerably more valuable than simply producing another entertaining true-crime documentary. It has reminded us that the rarest reptile is not a trophy. It is a species that has survived millions of years without us. Our responsibility should be to ensure that it can continue to do so.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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