Many of the best monster movies function as a kind of logic puzzle: given these factors (which have to be worked out over the course of the story), how do you overcome this challenge?

Tremors (which I just re-watched recently) is one of the best examples of this: the characters spend about the first half of the film figuring out the rules of the Graboids – they can move very fast through dirt, but can’t move through rock. They cannot see or smell, only hear, but their sensitivity to vibration is enough that all by the softest footsteps will attract them, etc. – and the second half trying to find ways to apply it: how can you avoid them? How can you fight them? How can you escape them?

Don’t neglect the logic puzzle aspect of storytelling: it can be one of the most enjoyable things about it, and it doesn’t just apply to detective stories.