Richard Terry wades into the Amazon after reports of a dog-sized spider terrorising riverside villages, rigs infrared cameras beside a Chiapas coffee plantation where a night-prowling predator has left a trail of eviscerated dogs, and crawls through Sulawesi mangroves hunting a monitor lizard blamed for livestock kills. Each 60-minute film ends with him holding whatever creature he can net, declaring it either culprit or scapegoat, then walking back towards the boat with the locals still unconvinced.
Nat Geo Wild commissioned the series as a straight wildlife investigation, but editors quickly leaned into the cryptid angle once viewing figures spiked after the Amazon episode. Three seasons followed the same pattern: Terry lands, hears eyewitness accounts, sets trip-cameras baited with chicken, and records whatever turns up, whether jaguar, crocodile or an oversized tarantula. The show never finds a new species, yet the travel budget kept rising, taking the crew to Manus Island, Bolivia’s Madidi and finally Nepal’s Bardia floodplain where a man-eating tiger had killed 14 people.
Produced by UK indie Icon Films, Man v. Monster ran for 16 episodes between 2011 and 2013, quietly ending once the commissioning editor moved to another channel. Reruns still surface on weekday afternoons, sandwiched between shark documentaries and vet rescues. Terry, meanwhile, returned to wildlife cinematography, his passport now stamped with the same remote coordinates as the legends he chased.
Production Details
Nat Geo Wild / 1 Season / 1 Episode / 2011 - Present
Main Cast
