Men or Snakes? Who Are the ‘Monsters of God’?

Watching the new five-part HBO documentary series, Monsters of God, from filmmaker Eric Goode, the Emmy-nominated director behind Chimp Crazy and co-director of Tiger King, my fiancé yelled out, “How the fuck does he find these people?” And if you’ve seen any of Goode’s other work, you understand what she’s talking about: Goode has a knack for finding nightmare sections of society.

Monsters of God drops into the bizarre, obsessive, and frequently criminal world of exotic-reptile collecting and smuggling, tracing the trade from the 1970s through the global black market it eventually became. Between 2015 and 2021 alone, the United Nations documented wildlife trafficking involving around 4,000 different plant and animal species.

Goode follows traffickers, collectors and federal agents — including notorious figures such as Tommy Crutchfield, Hank Molt and Anson Wong — as rare snakes, lizards and other reptiles become trophies worth risking prison over. You know, totally normal stuff, especially if you’re in the market for a highly illegal Fiji iguana. To give you an idea of how enormous the legitimate and illicit reptile pipeline has become, more than 19.4 million live reptiles protected by Appendix II (of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora) on were exported internationally between 1996 and 2010 alone.

The show opens with a guy nearly getting killed by a big ass cobra, so immediately, you know where this all is going: someone will get hurt. (Crutchfield gets scraped up constantly, highlighted by the constant bandages on his arms from lizard talons. Part of the trade, I guess.)

The series shows how the reptile trade grew into what the series describes as a billion-dollar criminal enterprise, with collectors’ demand for increasingly rare animals helping push some species toward extinction. According to the United Nations’ 2024 World Wildlife Crime Report, 59% of the 405 reptile species recorded in wildlife seizures were identified by the IUCN as facing an ongoing threat from intentional harvesting. No big deal or anything, just that the National Zoo and the San Diego Zoo were buying from Molt at top dollar.

The arc of the show is less “this person is insane,” ala Chimp Crazy, and more an exposé of the underpinnings of the reptile business, along with the outsider mentality it typically draws. Like Goode’s previous work, Monsters of God is less a traditional nature documentary than a gonzo character study: a story about animals that quickly becomes one about marriage-ending obsession, greed, toxic masculinity, crime, and the strange people willing to build their entire lives around possessing something almost nobody else can have. Just Google Hank Molt — a guy who flew around the world, smuggling lizards in his pants and suitcases, while also killing others for revenge against perceived enemies, out of love of the game.

And for every episode of the series, you’re like, “wow, that was crazy” and think it’s all about to wrap itself up neatly. Nope. For five episodes, there is a new person — all of them in Florida, because of course, who does crazy illegal shit whether its importing an exotic form of iguana or some snake that kills you with its sweat. Either way, binge watch it and wonder about humanity.