Movie monsters and strange creatures have helped enrich genres like horror and science fiction since the days of Alien, Forbidden Planet, and The War of the Worlds. As special effects, CGI, and make-up have progressed, filmmakers have been able to bring audiences more disturbing and grotesque creatures. From malevolent aliens to demons from Hell, horror, science fiction, and dark fantasy have no shortage of unsettling monsters.
Movie monsters have always appealed to audiences of all stripes, with some being fun and lovable and others truly being the stuff of nightmares. In the case of the latter, artists have pushed themselves to bring people creatures that, while disturbing beyond belief, are almost impossible to look away from. These creatures have elevated already good stories into truly great movies.
10
The Pale Man
Pan’s Labyrinth (2006)
Guillermo del Toro has established himself as one of modern cinema’s masters of horror, and nowhere was his unique style as present as in Pan’s Labyrinth. Documenting the story of a young Spanish girl, Ofelia, as she descends into a realm of nightmares, the story reaches its peak when she encounters the Pale Man. A gruesome creature whose eyes are in the palms of its hands, it soon chases the girl through the labyrinth, becoming the film’s biggest threat.
Pan’s Labyrinth
10/10
- Release Date
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January 19, 2007
- Runtime
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118 minutes
- Director
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Guillermo del Toro
- Writers
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Guillermo del Toro
Pan’s Labyrinth is a great film in its own right, but it’s hard to imagine it being nearly as memorable as it is without the eerie, grotesque inclusion of the Pale Man. Perfectly channeling a sense of otherworldly terror, the creature rightly became the face of the movie. The dread of what the monster would do if it catches Ofelia gives the movie its most terrifying sequence, and it’s hard to look away from the stalking, emaciated being.
9
The Bear
Annihilation (2018)
When it released, Annihilation quickly caught the attention of cosmic horror and sci-fi fans alike for its otherworldly tone and tension. The breakout feature of the movie was a gruesome bear, one whose body is in a state of mange-like decay, while its face is the stuff of nightmares. On one side, the bear’s head resembles the creature’s skull, while the other side has a terrifying, humanoid skull, replete with an eye, staring at the viewer.
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While people’s opinions of Annihilation’s story are mixed, virtually everyone agrees the bear is by far the most memorable and terrifying part of the film. In-keeping with the appeal of cosmic horror, the monster almost looks impossible, like an amalgamation of beings forced into the form of a dead animal. Every minute the creature is on the screen, it’s impossible to ignore, and its ability to copy the screams of its victims plays into the existential dread that defines the movie.
8
The Beverly-Creature
The Void (2016)
Cosmic horror has always been a genre film-makers can struggle with, but 2017’s The Void nailed the terror and impending doom that makes it great. Revolving around a group of people trapped in a small town hospital by a cult, things take a turn to the horrific when a woman becomes host to an Eldritch monster. As it uses her body to attack the group, every injury it sustains leads to a new, gruesome mutation.
The Void
- Release Date
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September 22, 2016
- Runtime
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90 minutes
- Director
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Jeremy Gillespie, Steven Kostanski
- Writers
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Steven Kostanski, Jeremy Gillespie
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Aaron Poole
Daniel Carter
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By the end of The Void, the Beverly-Creature has almost fully transformed into an otherworldly monster, using the woman’s skull to conceal the full horror of its form. From the impossible inhuman movements of the creature to its twisted, deformed limbs and blank stare, the monster’s evolving form leaves you terrified of its final appearance. The more you look at it, the more you feel it simply shouldn’t exist.
7
Loki’s Offspring
The Ritual (2017)
Mythology has been a great source of inspiration for some of Hollywood’s best horror movies, and 2017’s The Ritual’s use of Norse creatures is a great example of this. Following a group of friends on a trip to Sweden, it uses the isolation of the woods to instill a sense of dread and paranoia in its characters and the audience as they’re stalked by an unseen monster. When it finally appears, the friends are confronted by Norse creature Moder, a deity worshiped by a cult in the woods.
The Ritual
4/10
- Release Date
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October 13, 2017
- Runtime
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94minutes
- Director
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David Bruckner
- Writers
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David Bruckner
From a distance, Moder resembles a large, oddly-shaped moose. However, upon closer inspection, its humanoid features, giant form and small, piercing eyes make it seem like something ripped from Hell itself. The film does a great job of hiding enough of Moder to force the audience to fill in the gaps themselves, but what they do see is a composite of Norse monsters, Satanic iconography and otherworldly terror.
6
The Offspring
Alien Romulus (2024)
The Alien franchise has made a point of bringing cinema some of its best monster designs, going all the way back to the original Xenomorph in the 1979 movie. Since the third film, directors have brought their own unique designs for creatures, and Alien Romulus followed through on that spectacularly. After the heroes survive the Xenomorph colony aboard the space station, they’re left to contend with the mutated child of Kay.
Alien: Romulus
7/10
- Release Date
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August 16, 2024
- Runtime
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119 Minutes
- Director
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Fede Alvarez
- Writers
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Fede Alvarez, Rodo Sayagues, Dan O’Bannon, Ronald Shusett
The Offspring resembles a pale, stretched and emaciated human, with impossible proportions to its arms and legs. The true eeriness of the creature comes from its face, with an appearance that’s almost on the uncanny valley level of disturbing and unsettling. Too alien to look human yet disturbingly familiar, the creature serves as a great reminder that some of the eeriest creatures are those that come closest to seeming “human.”
5
Grant Grant
Slither (2006)
James Gunn’s Slither follows a small town that becomes the focal point of an alien infestation — beginning with the possession of local man Grant Grant. Consumed by appetite, the man’s transformation into a monstrous alien is shown throughout the film, with each new appearance seeing him more inhuman. Developing gruesome, infected-looking skin, new appendages and even absorbing locals, his growing mass begins to literally consume the town.
Slither
7/10
- Release Date
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March 31, 2006
- Runtime
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95 minutes
Grant Grant’s transformation throughout the movie plays on both body horror and dark comedy, with the small semblance of his humanity giving the film some unsettling moments, particularly a kiss. The film is one big exercise is grotesque body transformations, but Grant’s gradual change resembles all the worst human ailments. By the end, the monster looks like a cancerous, infected mass of flesh, and it sells Slither as one of the best modern body horror stories.
4
Chatterer
Hellraiser (1987)
Clive Barker’s Hellraiser franchise focuses on the struggles of various characters against a group of demonic torturers, the Cenobites. Led by Pinhead, these beings are the tortured forms of humans who interfered with the Lament Configuration, damning them to centuries of pain. While all the characters are horrific, Chatterer often captures the attention of the audience better than most as the eeriest, most inhuman of the group.
Hellraiser
The Hellraiser franchise is a British-American horror series, based on Clive Barker’s novella The Hellbound Heart. It centers around the Cenobites, beings from a Hell-like dimension summoned by the Lament Configuration puzzle box, with the iconic Pinhead as the primary antagonist. The franchise includes eleven films, comics, prose works, and more, exploring dark, sadistic themes of pleasure and pain. The latest film was released in 2022, with a TV series in development at HBO.
- Cast
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Doug Bradley, Jamie Clayton, Ashley Laurence, Clare Higgins, Sean Chapman, Andrew Robinson, Kenneth Cranham, Imogen Boorman, Terry Farrell, Craig Sheffer
Of all the Cenobites, Chatterer is, by far, the most hellish and disturbing, in no small part due to an almost featureless face save for his gruesome, mutilated mouth. Looking more like a monster from a Lovecraftian horror than anything remotely human, the creature serves as a reminder of just how extreme the Cenobite torture methods are. All the more unsettling about the character is the revelation that, when his torture began, he was a child.
3
BrundleFly
The Fly (1986)
Body horror has given the genre some of its most nauseating character designs, but David Cronenberg’s adaptation of The Fly took things to extremes. Casting Jeff Goldblum as a scientist who accidentally fuses his DNA with that of an insect, it follows him in various states of change as he slowly becomes a human-fly hybrid. As the instincts and appetite of the creature set in, he loses touch with his humanity — something accelerated by his hideous form.
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The Fly’s last half hour of runtime sees its main character reduced to a slimy, coarse mutation, eventually seeing his human side almost entirely gone. When the Fly takes its final form, all the audience sees is a threatening monster, reflecting the tragedy of Seth’s story. A marvel of practical effects and make-up, the creature’s form is almost impossible to look away from, and remains one of the most grotesque designs in movie history.
2
Count Orlok
Nosferatu (2024)
In 1922, Max Schreck stepped into the role of Nosferatu, a Dracula-inspired vampire count whose story mirrors that of Bram Stoker’s novel. In 2024, Bill Skarsgård took on the role for Robert Eggers’ remake, delivering an instant classic of a vampire. Unlike other modern vampires, this version looks like death in every sense of the word, from his rotting corpse and ill-formed body to his dead eyes and deep voice.
Nosferatu
8/10
- Release Date
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December 25, 2024
- Runtime
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132 Minutes
The 2024 version of Nosferatu sheds the romanticized view of vampires that has defined three decades of horror, instead trying to explore a “realistic” look at what vampirism would be like. The tortured, decaying form of Count Orlok plays into the film’s depiction of him as the manifestation of disease and death, and makes everyone who sees him terrified. Things are made all the more unsettling when the creature feeds, with the sound of its drinking only making its hunched form creepier.
1
The Dog-Thing
The Thing (1982)
Widely regarded as the greatest cosmic horror movie of all time, John Carpenter’s The Thing details the fight for survival of a group of US Antarctic researchers against a shape-shifting alien. When the creature is first seen, it springs from the form of a dog, shooting wiry, tentacle-like appendages out into the base’s huskies, absorbing them into its form. From the jump, this transformation, accentuated by the howls of terrified dogs, established the grim tone of the movie.
The Thing
10/10
- Release Date
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June 25, 1982
- Runtime
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109 minutes
- Writers
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Bill Lancaster
The Thing is full of eerie versions of the alien, but the Dog-Thing is by far the most tortured, disturbing and gut-wrenching form it takes. A testament to the special effects that made the film so great, the creature slowly changes from a healthy husky to a mangled and twisted monster. The contrast between lovable animal and snarling creature makes the monster the film’s most unsettling, combining body horror with animalistic creature feature terror.