water monster movie review

Water Monster

A man killed by "water monkey" while fishing with his son. Ten years later, "water monkey" reappears and kills people. The son has to assemble villagers together to fight the "water monkey " to protect his lover. Water Monster featuring Liu Lincheng and Lilan Zhu is streaming with subscription on Hi-YAH! (Via Prime Video). It's a fantasy movie with a less than average IMDb audience rating of 5.3 (134 votes).

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Currently you are able to watch Water Monster streaming on Hi-YAH! (Via Prime Video).

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Streaming availability last updated: 03:30:21 AM, 08/21/2024 PST

More Information onWater Monster

Hesheng xiang, qiuliang xiang, liu lincheng, wang hongqian.

Third Uncle

Wang Jianguo

Rong weifeng.

Brother Biao

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Cast & Crew for Water Monster

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The water monster.

Directed by Xiang Hesheng , Xiang Qiuliang

Shui Sheng witnessed his father being killed by the "water monkey" monster when he was young. Ten years later, the water monster reappeared and killed the younger brother and father of the heroine Xiang Lan. In order to save her, Shui Sheng launched a fierce battle to break feudal superstitions and to catch the water monster.

Liu Lincheng Zhu Lilan Wang Hongqian Wu Hao Wang Jianguo Rong Weifeng Li Gaoji Le Sihong Wu Chengzhi Yi Xie Daimo Lee

Directors Directors

Xiang Hesheng Xiang Qiuliang

Alternative Titles

Thủy Quái, 水怪 ウォーター・モンスター, El monstruo del agua, Su Canavarı

Fantasy Horror

Releases by Date

12 jul 2019, releases by country.

85 mins   More at IMDb TMDb Report this page

Popular reviews

Review by More_Badass ★★★½

The best Creature From The Black Lagoon wuxia-horror reimagining Ching Siu-tung never made. The Water Monster is a taut 77 minutes of creature horror and monster-hunting martial arts, its lurking-beast swamp-mist atmosphere erupting into acrobatic gill-man action with harpoons and traps aplenty.

Featuring just enough characterization and village fears to engage between monster thrills, this was a very enjoyable genre blend. Effective (largely practical?) creature design too, quite refreshing compared to the less-than-great giant CG monsters of other Chinese genre fare. A pleasant surprise that has me eager to seek other Xiang Brothers films

Review by Ben “🕵️‍♂️” Jones ★★★★

The much maligned cinema of Mainland China has struggled to find a foothold outside of its own country, in part due to quality and the enforced censorship of the CCP. Not that it matters so much when you have the largest populace on Earth (as of writing this), so catering to that inbuilt audience makes every sense. Sure people could point to the odd success, Zhang Yimou’s Seasons tetralogy or Diao Yanin’s Black Coal, Thin Ice, but for an industry as massive as China’s these are the exceptions to the rules, because most of it is Wuxia or poor CGI monster films (think of a Chinese Asylum film and you’d be on the right track). Then we come to something like…

Review by doppelgangerdev ★★★½

78 minutes of that pure monster crazy shit. Dude in a suit creature from the lake aka the Water Monkey terrorizing a village. Only a small band will ride out in their janky ass ship to face off against this gnarly ass whooper. The son of a fisherman the creature killed years ago. Ramps up in the best, goofy ways and completely with confidence. There's some great editing in those ship battles. Great specificity in each move. A hell of a lot of fun.

Review by arkheia

This looks cool as shit

Update: indeed it is. 78 minute runtime. Great nighttime photography, foggy atmospheres, and wide-angle lenses. Delayed monster reveal worth the pay-off too. Watched a copy on Ytube that had English subtitles to a completely different movie and several of the comments were about how you don’t need subtitles to enjoy it because actions speak louder than words. 🥰🥰🥰

Review by David Haddon ★★★★

A Chinese period horror that is somehow equal parts CREATURE FROM THE BLACK LAGOON, JAWS, and kung fu epic. 

There’s so much here that’s very very cool that it overshadows some of its weaker elements (like an odd attempt at comic relief here or there).

The film sets up a cool cast of characters as monster hunters who honestly, I’d like to see in other stand alone monster hunting movies.

Review by Maffioletti ★★★

The pitch: It's like Creature of the Black Lagoon but in China, with less romance and more kung fu.

The skinny: You never really think monsters movies can benefit from more acrobatics until a water monkey (!?) side-flips to dodge a spear while grabbing a man, then pirouettes him on a 180 to put another man on a scissor choke and finally spin-toss both while landing on its feet. Wire work is the order of the day in this fun Chinese take on the creature feature, along with histrionic fighting scenes and the occasional bloody death to reminds us this is not a martial arts film, despite the evidence. And clocking in at just over 1 hour, it is also the right length to keep the paper thin premise afloat and avoid sinking under the weight of its own silliness.

Review by JamesPopinski ★★★½

This is under 80 minutes, and wastes no time. The simple story is set up quickly, and we get a number of awesome villagers vs monster scenes.

If you ever wanted a Creature of the Black Lagoon movie with more cartoonish action, kung fu, and violence…this will hopefully satisfy that desire.

The monster looks great. It’s not a ugly CG creature like I expected, it’s a man in a suit! 

The characters are simple/broad, but that’s fine for a movie like this. It’s biggest problem is it’s moments of melodrama and social messaging that seem heavy handed and too obviously emotionally manipulative for my tastes. Feels like something the Chinese censors forced into the story, which is never a good…

Review by Robert ★★★

Even with a perfect sub-90 minute runtime, parts of this still found a way to drag. It’s okay though because it mostly rules. It takes 30 minutes to get a good look at the monster but once it shows up, it shows up. The (expected) climactic battle gets pretty brutal.

Review by MarioCDM ★★★★

This review may contain spoilers. I can handle the truth.

Shui Sheng a vu son père tué il y a plus de dix ans, terrassé par un monstre sorti de l’eau. La créature réapparait et tue cette fois le jeune frère et le père de la femme qu’il courtise en vain, Xiang Lan. Il jure de tuer cette fois la créature hideuse, hyper rapide, souple comme un artiste du cirque du soleil et meurtrière comme un tueur en série. Ils vont se mettre à plusieurs pour l’attirer et l’emprisonner dans une cage. Pendant que le village fête leur exploit, la bête se sauve, non sans avoir encore tué sauvagement un des leurs. Quelques braves, menés par Shui Seng, vont y aller d’un dernier grand coup.

La plupart des films de…

Review by Joseph Jackson ★★★★

This is a kung-fu Creature From The Black Lagoon set in China. Imagine a acrobatic Water Monkey who has the skills of Abe Sapien from Hellboy, and skills of Iko Uwais from The Raid. We're screwed as characters lol. This film has a fun unique an creepy concept. Combining creature feature horror with martial arts an Chinese folk lore. The story gives us true Moby Dick experience humans vs a mythological monster. Cinematography, directing, editing, acting, action choreography, horror choreography, an practical effects all extremely top notch. Writer/Director duo Hesheng Xiang & Qiuliang Xiang create a compelling action horror story that's simple an fast paced. The creators know why the viewers are here, and know what they came to see. You…

Review by Koaladolphin ★★★

It's "Creature from the Black Lagoon" but with over the top acting (which is sadly par for the course for mainland chinese films) and the Gillman knows kung fu. Fun movie.

Review by ScubaDoo ★★★½

The Water Monster is China giving us the modern The Creature From The Black Lagoon that Universal Studios hasn’t. This thing has all of the atmosphere and charm of a theme park dark ride and I mean that in the best way possible.

A doctor travels from Shanghai to an isolated village deep in a marshy forest only accessibly by boat in search of her missing reporter brother. The village worships/fears a being they call Lord Water Monkey and blames everything that goes wrong on him such as a little girls malaria being a curse set upon her simply for speaking with the reporter brother about The Water Monkey. During her investigation in this foggy little town she begins to…

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The Water Monster (2019)

Original title: 水怪.

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Shui Sheng witnessed his father being killed by the "water monkey" monster when he was young. Ten years later, the water monster reappeared and killed the younger brother and father of the heroine Xiang Lan. In order to save her, Shui Sheng launched a fierce battle to break feudal superstitions and to catch the water monster.

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“Underwater” is the kind of no-nonsense B-movie with an A-list cast that Hollywood used to make more often. It's a lean and mean film that gets you into its action instantly and then doesn’t release the pressure until the ending credits. In an era of increasingly long blockbusters with pretensions of greatness, it’s refreshing to see a tight movie that knows exactly what it needs to do and sets about doing it. Anchored by another impressive performance from Kristen Stewart and really effective cinematography from Bojan Bazelli , “Underwater” absolutely bullies you into liking it. There's no time not to. Some of the midsection succumbs to incoherent effects in which the murky setting overwhelms the ability to actually be able to tell what the heck is going on, but the flaws of the film never linger long enough to, sorry, sink “Underwater.”

Stewart plays Norah, a worker on an underwater research site that’s literally miles below the surface. An annoying opening narration that feels tacked on by a producer during the film's delayed post-production details how time starts to lose all meaning when you’re that far underwater. There’s no light and you sometimes can’t even tell if you’re awake or dreaming. Just about then, while you're still trying to find your seat in the theater, all hell breaks loose. The hull of the rig starts to crack and explode. Norah runs to safety, eventually finding other survivors that include characters played by Vincent Cassel , Mamoudou Athie , John Gallagher Jr., Jessica Henwick , and T.J. Miller. That’s it. It’s six people trying to survive a catastrophe that has killed the hundreds of other people aboard the site. No shots of emergency crews on the surface. No flashbacks. The escape pods have either been used or destroyed. Their only hope is to literally walk a mile along the ocean floor to another site and hope there are pods that work there. Then they discover they’re not alone.

Yes, “Underwater” is half disaster movie and half monster movie, combining two B-movie genres that I’ve always loved. As “Underwater” shifts from something more akin to “ The Poseidon Adventure ” to a submerged riff on “ Alien ,” the transition doesn’t always work but director William Eubank directs his cast to incredibly strong in-the-moment performances that hold it together. We need to believe Norah’s plight, and Stewart sells the immediacy of her waking nightmare, well-assisted by Henwick and Cassel in particular. (On the other hand, Miller’s schtick gets old fast, but that’s the only weak link). The writers tack on a few too many manipulative back stories to try to heighten the emotional stakes, but that’s commonplace in both genres on which “Underwater” is riffing.

It also helps that the producers of “Underwater” tapped the eye of the great Bojan Bazelli to shoot the film. The cinematographer behind “ A Cure for Wellness ” and “ The Ring ” knows how to build tension with a combination of extreme close-ups that put us inside Norah’s helmet while never losing the geography of where these people are fighting against incredible odds. When the movie becomes a full-out monster flick, Bazelli and Eubank could have dialed down the underwater murk a few degrees, but it’s still an effective film visually, the value of which cannot be understated. Most bad B-movies like “Underwater” rely on a steady diet of jump scares and shaky camerawork to disguise their low budgets and lack of visual acuity. What sets this apart is that there’s an artistry to the visuals and captivating sound design. The film is filled with flashing lights of broken or breaking equipment and the din of metal creaking under the pressure of water. It’s all necessary to enhance the tension.

What I think I responded to the most in “Underwater” is its relentlessness. It’s almost real time for at the least first chunk of the movie, and the immediacy of the filmmaking gives it power. "Underwater" discards all that on-the-surface nonsense that worse movies would have forced viewers through, in which we meet the characters and foreshadow weird happenings underwater. There’s no time for that. Don’t show up late. It’s a film that’s about panic, and how unexpected heroes can be made through instinctual response to adversity. That, and underwater monsters.

The final act of “Underwater” will likely divide some people, but I’m a fan of when a B-movie really goes for it, and there are a few beats in this one’s final scenes that are impressively ambitious. My kids are at an age where they’re fascinated by the idea that there could be species so far below the ocean’s surface that we have yet to identify them. When they’re old enough, I’ll show them “Underwater.” Maybe they’ll like B-movies too. 

Brian Tallerico

Brian Tallerico is the Managing Editor of RogerEbert.com, and also covers television, film, Blu-ray, and video games. He is also a writer for Vulture, The Playlist, The New York Times, and GQ, and the President of the Chicago Film Critics Association.

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Film credits.

Underwater (2020)

Rated PG-13

Kristen Stewart as Norah Price

T. J. Miller as Paul

Vincent Cassel as Le capitaine

Jessica Henwick as Emily

• William Eubank
• Brian Duffield
• Brian Berdan
• Todd E. Miller

Cinematography

• Bojan Bazelli

Original Music Composer

• Brandon Roberts
• Marco Beltrami

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The Best Movies With Water Creatures

The allure of the ocean brings audiences flocking to movies in which water creatures play significant roles. They offer viewers a thrilling peek at life beneath the surface of the sea. These films highlight the mysteries of the deep, revealing the unknown, and sometimes terrifying, aquatic beings that inhabit oceans, lakes, and rivers. These movies invite audiences to immerse themselves in the hidden world of water-dwelling creatures. 

Revealing the beauty and terror of the underwater world, these sea creature movies present narratives that include many facets of aquatic existence and its impact upon human characters. From fearsome underwater predators to peaceful inhabitants of the depths, these movies bring these enigmatic creatures to life, demonstrating both their behavior and their impact on humans. Through stunning visuals, compelling storylines, and engaging character development, these movies create an immersive experience for viewers, a peek into how it feels to encounter the unknown beneath the waves. 

Lake Placid, Creature from the Black Lagoon, and Underwate r are example of the water creature movie genre. In Lake Placid , a gigantic crocodile wreaks havoc in a peaceful lake, creating a horrifying scenario and challenging conventional ideas about underwater monsters. Creature from the Black Lagoon , a classic gem from the 1950s, tells the tale of a mysterious amphibious creature discovered in the Amazon, while Underwater presents a group of deep-sea researchers facing a new kind of terror in the ocean depths. 

Water creature movies continue to captivate viewers by revealing the mysteries of the deep and allowing us to see the extraordinary realm inhabited by these remarkable beings. By shedding light on the thrilling, chilling, and captivating aspects of these remarkable beings, these films provide insight into the mystery of water creatures. 

Lake Placid

Lake Placid , an enthralling horror-comedy film, revolves around the mysterious presence of a massive crocodile in a serene lake, leading to a series of gruesome events. Featuring an impressive ensemble cast, including Bill Pullman, Bridget Fonda, and Oliver Platt, this late '90s gem skillfully combines suspenseful moments with quirky humor, resulting in a truly entertaining experience. The realistic portrayal of the colossal water creature by director Steve Miner elevates the film's thrilling atmosphere while keeping viewers invested in the unfolding action. Undoubtedly, Lake Placid holds its ground as one of the best movies featuring water creatures.

• Released : 1999
• Directed by : Steve Miner

20,000 Leagues Under the Sea

Based on Jules Verne's classic novel, 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea is a groundbreaking adventure film that immerses viewers into a fantastical underwater world. Produced by Walt Disney and directed by Richard Fleischer, this pioneering movie offers a captivating story centered around the enigmatic Captain Nemo and his astounding submarine, Nautilus. In addition to its compelling narrative, the film showcases an array of imaginative sea creatures through impressive special effects for its time. As an adventurous journey beneath the ocean's surface with an unforgettable giant squid battle scene, 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea remains an influential masterpiece in films featuring water creatures.

• Released : 1954
• Directed by : Richard Fleischer

Creature from the Black Lagoon

A definitive classic in monster cinema, Creature from the Black Lagoon tells the haunting tale of an amphibious humanoid discovered during a scientific expedition in Brazil's Amazon rainforest. Directed by Jack Arnold and impeccably designed by Milicent Patrick, this 1954 film not only introduced audiences to one of horror's most iconic figures but also delved into ecological issues ahead of its time. With its gripping atmosphere and alluring underwater photography showcasing interactions between humans and the mysterious Gill-Man, Creature from the Black Lagoon continues to captivate generations of moviegoers as one of the best water creature-focused films ever made.

• Directed by : Jack Arnold

From visionary director James Cameron comes The Abyss , a thrilling sci-fi adventure set in a claustrophobic underwater environment where oil rig workers encounter otherworldly beings deep below the ocean's surface. Starring Ed Harris and Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio as estranged partners facing mortal peril together amidst their personal turmoil adds emotional depth to this visually stunning film. Revolutionary special effects techniques employed for creating mesmerizing aquatic spectacles still hold up today while offering thought-provoking themes about humanity and our relationship with Earth's oceans alongside captivating performances.

• Released : 1989
• Directed by : James Cameron

Set deep beneath the ocean's surface at a drilling facility, Underwater is an action-packed sci-fi thriller that follows a group of researchers who find themselves under attack by unknown aquatic entities. Starring Kristen Stewart and Vincent Cassel in riveting performances, this visually striking film offers breathtaking underwater cinematography and heart-pounding action sequences. The mysterious creatures lurking beneath the depths are masterfully brought to life through innovative special effects and design work, making Underwater essential viewing for fans of marine-based thrillers.

• Released : 2020
• Directed by : William Eubank

Set at deep-sea mining outpost besieged by mysterious underwater creatures genetically engineered as bio-weapons, Leviathan is a captivating sci-fi horror blend reminiscent of '80s classics like Alien and The Thing. Directed by George P. Cosmatos and starring Peter Weller, Richard Crenna, and Amanda Pays, this 1989 film boasts impressive special effects to portray its grotesque aquatic antagonists and their nightmarish transformations. Rich in atmosphere and suspense, Leviathan delivers an engaging tale that delves into the potential consequences of humanity's irresponsible manipulation of nature.

• Directed by : George P. Cosmatos

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Every Titan Godzilla Beat In The MonsterVerse (& When)

Deep blue sea: 10 cheesy '90s creature features to watch if you loved it, 10 scariest creature feature films from the 1950s.

• Sea monster movies tap into the fear of the unknown depths, offering a mix of horror and entertainment that resonates with audiences.
• Films like "The Shape of Water" and "Godzilla" bring sea monsters to life with emotional stories that elevate the genre to new heights.
• From classic creature features to modern horrors, sea monster movies continue to captivate and terrify viewers with their imaginative tales.

As much as the ocean is a popular tourist destination, the best sea monster movies have caused anxiety about going into unfamiliar waters. Just as the vastness of space has given way to countless fictional stories about possible terrors up there, the unknown depths of the world's oceans offer tales of aquatic mystery. Though the topic of sea monsters has given the world a seemingly endless amount of schlock, there have been several cinematic riffs on the formula, mostly in the horror genre, but not always.

There has always been something terrifying about the possibility of creatures lurking below the surface, and these movies capitalize on that shared fear. Some tell more grounded stories, while others embrace the campiness of the horror subgenre . The wide variety of aquatic creature features of this kind shows just how much these stories resonate and entertain people. From Best Picture Oscar winners to enduring B-Movie classics , the best sea monster movies stand out for both the monsters themselves and the world in which they live.

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20 Godzilla Minus One (2023)

Toho revives godzilla.

Not available

There have been a lot of Godzilla movies released over the years. The American versions finally picked up steam with the MonsterVerse, but many fans prefer the Japanese movies. But no matter what kind of Godzilla enthusiast a viewer may be, the fandom's world was rocked in 2023 when Toho released its latest version of Godzilla in the new movie, Godzilla Minus One . This film does several things right, but the most important is that it makes the sea monster scary once again.

The best thing about Godzilla Minus One is that it makes the humans mean something as well.

Godzilla is a force of nature here. He isn't trying to save Japan from other monsters nor is he making connections with humans and finding some sort of soul. This Godzilla is a rampaging beast who destroys everything in his path and can't be stopped. The best thing about Godzilla Minus One is that it makes the humans mean something as well, as it is one of the rare movies where viewers actually feel for the people rather than just wanting to see the monster destroy everything.

19 Pacific Rim (2013)

Giant robots versus underwater kaijus.

Guillermo Del Toro has become a master at making art that geek fans love and doing it in a way that pays homage to his love of melodrama, fairy tales, and classic horror monsters. Here, Del Toro appeals to monster movie nerds tenfold and throws giant mech robots together with giant kaiju sea monsters rising from the bottom of the ocean in an epic battle . The movie sees humans controlling the robots, but the battle with the kaiju seems to be one that they can't win.

There was a sequel that arrived to lackluster reviews, but this original movie delivers what fans wanted to see — giant robots punching and shooting giant kaiju, and vice versa. There are some solid human actions and drama as well, but even in a movie by Del Toro, who wants to make things as well-rounded and fulfilling as possible, it is all about visceral action. For movies about sea monsters and giant robots, Pacific Rim delivers everything a fan could want.

18 Deep Blue Sea

Genetically engineered sharks.

There are a lot of shark attack movies, but those are about animals in the oceans, and they are not technically "monsters." However, that is not the case with Deep Blue Sea . These sharks are not regular beasts swimming in the waters and protecting their homes. The sharks in this movie are genetically engineered, which gives them increased intelligence, super strength and speed, and the ability to hunt and kill humans with relentless precision.

The story is silly, as a scientist (Saffron Burrows) has genetically engineered these killing machines in an attempt to learn more about Alzheimer's disease . However, everything goes wrong when the sharks decide they are tired of the experiments and want to kill everyone aboard the water research station. There is also the "tough guy" (Thomas Jane), a shocking and crowd-pleasing death (Samuel L. Jackson), and a chef who wants revenge for his dead parrot (LL Cool J).

17 The Meg (2018)

A megalodon rises from the deep.

Sharks tend to get a bad rap within the movie world despite generally being standoffish creatures. However, the giant prehistoric shark in The Meg would turn off even the staunchest shark defenders. The movie stars Jason Statham as a deep sea diver who faces off with the megalodon shark , one of the largest predators in existence that was slumbering deep in the ocean's depths.

Though shark movies generally follow a human-vs-the-wild story, The Meg is truly a monster movie. The shark is impossibly large and can destroy an entire ship if it feels angry enough. It is also a fun action movie, with Statham fighting the megalodon one-on-one in the finale. The Meg: The Trench continued the story in 2023 , turning this into a new sea monster movie franchise by adding more Megs, prehistoric dino-creatures, and a giant octopus, all attacking a small island.

16 The Sea Beast (2022)

An animated movie based on a legendary beast.

The Oscar-nominated animated adventure The Sea Beast delightfully throws the concept of sea monsters on its head by suggesting the creatures people fear are just animals trying to exist . The Netflix original movie follows a veteran sea monster hunter on the trail of Red Bluster, a legendary destructive beast, before finding a young stowaway. They then discover the unseen side of these creatures. With most sea monster movies focusing on horror, this refreshing take still delivers great monster action.

The animation in this movie is top-notch, with similar techniques used in the Spider-Verse movies used here. The reviews were overwhelmingly positive, with the movie sitting at 94% positive on Rotten Tomatoes. On top of the Oscar nomination for Best Animated Feature, it also picked up six Annie Awards nominations and four nominations from the Visual Effects Society Awards.

15 Leviathan (1989)

A mutated aquatic monster is discovered by a submarine.

RoboCop 's Peter Weller stars in 1989's Leviathan as a geologist overseeing a mining operation that discovers a scuttled Soviet sub at the bottom of the sea, where they discover a safe containing information about the ship's crew as well as a deadly infection. That infection begins to kill and mutate the staff of the mining facility, using their bodies to transform into a horrifying giant aquatic monster that becomes known as homo aquaticus, as it earned a spot in cinematic history.

It is an unforgettable creature design and one of the most grotesque cinematic creatures to emerge from the ocean

Though the movie itself seems to have faded from relevancy, it is an unforgettable creature design and one of the most grotesque cinematic creatures to emerge from the ocean depths. It's the perfect example of a sea monster movie that isn't widely known to those who aren't fans of the subgenre but is highly enjoyable for those who are. For horror movie fans, there is a lot to love about this monster classic.

The 10 Scariest Movie Sea Monsters, Ranked

The ocean is a scary place, which is why Hollywood has terrified moviegoers for decades by using different sea monsters, from sharks to mutated crabs.

14 Deep Rising (1998)

A giant tentacled sea creature of unknown origin.

1998's Deep Rising follows a team of jewel thieves as they attempt to infiltrate a luxury gambling cruise ship only to discover it has already been attacked by strange tentacle-like monsters that begin devouring the survivors. As they make their way through the ship on the hunt for their big score while attempting to survive the beast, they learn the tentacles are all a part of the giant Octalus, which was nesting in the ship as it fed on the crew and gamblers after attacking and disabling it.

It is a clever way of hiding the monster to have its sentient tentacles appear to be a threat for most of the movie, only to reveal they are attached to a gigantic monster at the end . The movie was a box office failure with a few familiar faces (Famke Janssen, Djimon Hounsou, Jason Flemyng), but it has since become a cult classic for fans of monster movies.

13 Cloverfield (2008)

A creature from a deep sea incident attacks the surface world.

While the found-footage horror Cloverfield takes place in Manhattan as a giant and mysterious monster attacks it, the "Clover" is revealed to have started its attack after exiting the ocean. During the film's promotion, an alternate reality game was launched that teased the monster's origins through the revelation of a deep-sea drilling accident that awakened it . The movie only glimpses the monster as the characters run, yet it makes for a memorable monster to kick off the Cloverfield universe .

It sits at 78% on Rotten Tomatoes and is compared to The Blair Witch Project meeting Godzilla .

While the original film itself didn't reveal its status as a sea monster movie, its status as one after the fact makes it one of the most successful in the genre. I t was a huge success, making $172.4 million on a $25 million budget (via Box Office Mojo ). It also received mostly positive reviews, sitting at 78% on Rotten Tomatoes, and is often described as The Blair Witch Project meets Godzilla .

12 Godzilla (2014)

A world war ii era atomic sea monster.

The giant atomic lizard first appeared in 1954's Godzilla before the legendary kaiju achieved mega-stardom and appeared in 30+ movies over the years that further cemented the sea monster's cinematic legacy. While Godzilla has appeared as a villain against humanity, he is also seen as Earth's protector against other kaiju — including other sea monsters. 2014's Godzilla kicked off the new MonsterVerse that eventually pits the sea monster against a giant ape in Godzilla vs. Kong.

This movie wasn't Hollywood's first time trying to make a Godzilla movie, but the last attempt failed with Roland Emmerich's 1990s version. This time, things worked out better, with great visual effects and a story featuring some exciting humans and a new mythology for the sea monster. It worked out so well that it spawned several sequels and a TV series on Apple TV+ exploring Godzilla's past .

Several Titans have fallen to the King of the Monsters, both on screen and off. Here's every Titan beaten by Godzilla in the MonsterVerse.

11 The Host (2006)

A mutated sea creature rises in south korea.

Before winning an Oscar for his Korean drama Parasite , Bong Joon-Ho's 2006 monster movie The Host explores the consequences of the U.S. Military's disposal of toxic waste in Seoul's Han River, which mutates an aquatic lifeform into the monstrous Gwoemul , the original name of the South Korean film. The Gwoemul attacks the citizens of Seoul and kidnaps a small child after unleashing an infectious disease on the city.

The first scene of the Gwoemul attacking the on-lookers cements it as a brilliant 21st-century movie sea monster.

This plot point further highlights the dangers of the illegal disposal of toxic waste that has led to the creation of far too many dangerous sea monsters over the years. The first scene of the Gwoemul attacking the on-lookers cements it as a brilliant 21st-century movie monster, capturing the feeling of an animal causing chaos without reason. However, what makes the movie special is the family trying to survive, as they are more than just canon fodder for a sea monster; they are characters viewers want to see make it to the end.

10 Underwater (2020)

A deep sea creature based on cthulhu.

After sitting on the shelf for a couple of years before finally getting an early January 2020 release, Underwater seemed destined to fly under the radar. Though the Kristen Stewart-led thriller has the inescapable feel of being sewn together from elements of sci-fi thrillers past, a handful of inspired sequences stand out and make for some fantastic sea monster moments. The movie takes place in the future (2050) with a research team exploring the ocean.

The most unforgettable of those sequences is the Lovecraftian finale, which gives viewers a high-budget rendition of the iconic Cthulhu . This ending offered something that most fans watching the movie never expected, as the Cthulhu remains the most iconic of all sea monsters. Having it arrive here to cause havoc was a perfect ending to an otherwise decent horror survival movie.

9 Lake Placid (1999)

Giant mutated crocodile on the hunt.

Lake Placid is a blend of comedy and creature features , and it is a lot of fun to watch, the definition of a guilty pleasure. Bill Pullman, Oliver Platt, and Bridget Fonda lead a team of scientists trying to defeat a giant crocodile who can't stop eating cows. It's silly, but Betty White's supporting turn as a local who quips her way around the film helps make it an enduring romp that delivers something a little off-kilter.

The practical effects used to create the crocodile also help elevate the movie as a beloved creature feature. What really makes the movie stand out is the humor (especially from the foul-mouthed White) and the main cast taking things way too seriously. These moments helped elevate this from a forgettable B-grade monster movie into a true cult classic that picked up several sequels (none of which were anywhere as good as the original).

In the years after its release, Deep Blue Sea has become a great guilty pleasure among creature feature fans. Here's more of that gorgeous schlock.

8 Sea Fever (2019)

A parasite rises from the deep.

This Irish indie sea monster movie is the debut of director Neasa Hardiman. Relying on atmosphere and mounting suspense over special effects and set pieces, Sea Fever is a claustrophobic 'parasite from the deep' tale . After a trepidacious biologist joins the crew of a fishing vessel, the ship's captain veers them into forbidden territory. What follows is a brilliantly written nightmare with at least two scenes guaranteed to make anyone's skin crawl.

A film with cult potential, Sea Fever marks a great showing of potential for its debut director. It premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival in 2019 and arrived as a VOD release in 2020. The movie had a surprising number of positive reviews for a smaller release, sitting at 87% fresh on Rotten Tomatoes, with praise for its claustrophobic atmosphere and sci-fi-horror elements making it an effective scary movie.

7 Sweetheart (2019)

A humanoid sea creature on a deserted island.

2019's Sweetheart plays like a mix of Jaws and Cast Away . After a young woman is stranded on a tropical island, her quest to survive is complicated by the revelation that a humanoid sea creature is living offshore in a pit on the ocean floor. From the first scene onwards, Sweetheart maintains steadily growing tension that culminates in a riveting final showdown between woman and beast . The film relies heavily on star Kiersey Clemons ( Dope ), and thankfully, Clemons is more than up to the task.

A Jason Blum horror movie production, the film premiered at the Sundance Film Festival before being released as a streaming video rather than a theatrical one in 2019. It received almost universal acclaim, with a 93% rating on Rotten Tomatoes and critical reviews that made it Certified Fresh. Most of the praise went to Clemons's performance as the survivor trying to survive the sea monster.

6 Tale Of Tales (2015)

An anthology tale with a sea monster story.

A dark fantasy anthology of fairy tales, Tale of Tales begins with a surreal sea monster story that sets the tone for all the bizarre events. Salma Hayek leads the story dealing with the sea monster in a performance that breaks from her usual sly seductress. The mixture of CGI and practical effects used in the film to bring the leviathan-like sea monster to life results in an unusually unsettling sequence of imagery . One of the more traditional renditions of the classic sea serpent, Tale of Tales is a singular work.

The movie itself is based on a series of fairy tales called Pentamerone , and the film is inspired by three of those tales, with the sea monster story influenced by The Enchanted Doe . Tale of Tales premiered at the Cannes Film Festival and competed for the Palme d'Or, although it didn't win that prestigious award. It did receive critical praise, sitting at 83% fresh on Rotten Tomatoes.

Those who love all the cheesy goodness of creature features from the 1950s need to look no further for a list of the best!

5 The Lure (2015)

A mermaid horror story.

The Lure (2015)

"Original" is a word thrown around a lot when it comes to genre films. However, there is no doubt the Polish oddity The Lure is worthy. One part disco musical, one part mermaid horror film , and another part modern fable, The Lure is the story of two mermaid sisters who become land-walking, lounge-singing, love-seeking girls in a local community. Based loosely on The Little Mermaid by Hans Christian Anderson, the film's unusual mixture of cinematic entertainment with genuinely unsettling stretches of body horror secured its spot as a cult classic from the time of its release.

Critics loved it, ranking it at 89% fresh on Rotten Tomatoes.

The Lure enjoyed its premiere at the 2016 Sundance Film Festival and followed that up with a screening at the Fantasia Film Festival. Critics loved it, ranking it at 89% fresh on Rotten Tomatoes. The film has gone on to have a loyal following and a Criterion Collection release.

4 The Creature From The Black Lagoon (1954)

The universal monsters sea creature.

One of the more pure pulpy and entertaining films under the "Universal Monsters" banner, The Creature from the Black Lagoon is one of the best B-movies of the 1950s . After a geological expedition uncovers an Amazonian monster with gills and fins, the titular monster wreaks havoc around the crew's steamboat. Less iconic than its earlier peers, Dracula and Frankenstein , the film nonetheless spawned a series, none of which matched the campy heights of the original. The film is simply one of the best of its kind.

The Creature from the Black Lagoon is also the first real version of a sea monster on film when it comes to its legacy holding up in modern times. Guillermo Del Toro made his Oscar movie, The Shape of Water , with this as its true inspiration, and just about any movie with a humanoid sea monster has The Creature from the Black Lagoon to thank for its existence.

3 The Lighthouse (2019)

A creepy movie featuring merfolk.

A stomach-churning descent into nautical madness, The Lighthouse was one of 2019's most talked about horror films. It's a chamber piece of a tête-à-tête between a lighthouse keeper (Willem Dafoe) and an employee keeper (Robert Pattinson) . Sea monsters and myths of the old sailor worlds play a role in the world-building, including one of cinema's most terrifying depictions of merfolk . The Lighthouse 's surreal edge makes it one of the more challenging and unique horror experiences of the past decade.

Shot in black-and-white with an almost expressionistic feel, this was Robert Eggers' daring thriller about claustrophobic terror, and the sea monster was just an added twist. Critics praised the look and feel of the movie, awarding it a 90% fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes. It also picked up an Oscar nomination for its cinematography, although it didn't win. Eggers won the FIPRESCI Prize for directing at the Cannes Film Festival.

2 The Abyss (1989)

The discovery of an alien city deep in the oceans.

James Cameron's sea monster movie about an oil crew investigating a sunken submarine thousands of miles below the sea was notoriously hard to make. Cameron's vision has rarely been as focused and imaginative as it is here, especially in later sequences utilizing revolutionary computer-generated effects. One of Cameron's oft-forgotten films, The Abyss stands as a fitting conclusion to the filmmaker's incredible run in the 1980s.

This was the film that made Cameron fall in love with his underwater filmmaking obsession.

The movie was also a foreshadowing of the further blending of technological progress and blockbuster filmmaking that he would go on to achieve in the following decade . The Abyss was what made Cameron fall in love with his underwater filmmaking obsession, leading to Avatar . Not only was it beloved at the time, but The Abyss received a new chance for fans to discover it with its first 4K release, including a short return to theaters at the end of 2023.

1 The Shape Of Water (2017)

A love story between a woman & a sea creature.

Guillermo Del Toro has always shared a love for both dark fairy tales and classic horror monsters. In The Shape of Water , he was able to take both those loves and create a strange yet touching romantic drama. The movie featured a sea creature captured from his home in South America and brought to America to be studied and experimented on.

The Shape of Water is one of the most creative sea monster movies of the past 20 years.

Truly a masterful blend of old-school monster movies and classic doomed love stories, The Shape of Water is one of the most creative sea monster movies of the past 20 years. The fact that this dark romance film about a deaf woman falling in love with a reptilian water-based humanoid took home the Academy Award for Best Picture is still mind-blowing to this day. Sally Hawkins gives a career-best performance as the solitary woman and gives the film its emotional pulse that elevates the entire affair — it's a masterpiece and easily one of the best sea monster movies ever made.

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The Shape of Water

At a top secret research facility in the 1960s, a lonely janitor forms a unique relationship with an amphibious creature that is being held in captivity. At a top secret research facility in the 1960s, a lonely janitor forms a unique relationship with an amphibious creature that is being held in captivity. At a top secret research facility in the 1960s, a lonely janitor forms a unique relationship with an amphibious creature that is being held in captivity.

• Guillermo del Toro
• Vanessa Taylor
• Sally Hawkins
• Octavia Spencer
• Michael Shannon
• 1.7K User reviews
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• 87 Metascore
• 137 wins & 350 nominations total

Top cast 51

• Elisa Esposito

• Zelda Fuller

• Richard Strickland

• Amphibian Man

• Dr. Robert Hoffstetler

• General Hoyt

• Elaine Strickland

• Brewster Fuller

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• Trivia Director Guillermo del Toro said about Sally Hawkins , "Not only was she the first choice, she was the only choice. I wrote the movie for Sally. I wrote the movie for Michael [Shannon]. Sally is... I wanted the character of Elisa to be beautiful, in her own way, not in a way that is like a perfume commercial kind of way. That you could believe that this character, this woman would be sitting next to you on the bus. But at the same time she would have a luminosity, a beauty, almost magical, ethereal."
• Goofs After Richard Strickland's children leave to get on the school bus, Strickland's wife Elaine states she wants to have sex upstairs, but the establishing shot of their house a few seconds earlier does not have a second story.

[last lines]

Giles : If I told you about her, what would I say? That they lived happily ever after? I believe they did. That they were in love? That they remained in love? I'm sure that's true. But when I think of her - of Elisa - the only thing that comes to mind is a poem, whispered by someone in love, hundreds of years ago: "Unable to perceive the shape of You, I find You all around me. Your presence fills my eyes with Your love, It humbles my heart, For You are everywhere."

• Crazy credits The opening credits roll over footage of a flooded apartment.
• Connections Featured in FoundFlix: The Shape of Water (2017) Ending Explained + Analysis (2017)
• Soundtracks You'll Never Know Music by Harry Warren Lyrics by Mack Gordon Performed by Renée Fleming & The London Symphony Orchestra Arranged & Conducted by Alexandre Desplat Recorded & Mixed by Jonathan Allen at Studio de la Grande Armée, Paris Assistant: Ludovick Tartavel Piano: Frédéric Gaillardet Double Bass: Riccardo Del Fra Drums: Jeff Boudreaux (as Jeffrey Boudreaux) Bass Flute: Alexandre Desplat Courtesy of Decca Music Group Limited Under license from Universal Music Operations Ltd.

User reviews 1.7K

• Sleepin_Dragon
• Feb 17, 2022
• How long is The Shape of Water? Powered by Alexa
• December 22, 2017 (United States)
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• Fox Searchlight
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• La forma del agua
• Hamilton, Ontario, Canada
• Double Dare You (DDY)
• Fox Searchlight Pictures
• TSG Entertainment
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• $19,400,000 (estimated)
• $63,859,435
• Dec 3, 2017
• $195,243,464

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• Runtime 2 hours 3 minutes
• Dolby Digital

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Water Monster Reviews

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After years in hiding, the water monster returns and wreaks havoc on a small village.

The Most Ridiculous Aquatic Monster Movies That Actually Happened

More than 70 percent of our world is covered by water — oceans, seas, lakes and rivers, and even icecaps and glaciers. At its deepest point — the Mariana Trench  — the ocean reaches a depth of more than six miles, which is enough to cover Mount Kilimanjaro if it were dropped to the bottom of the trench. Approximately 80 percent of the world's oceans remain unmapped and unknown, so it's no wonder that deep bodies of water leave us feeling a little unnerved.

Much of that fear is rooted in what might be living in that water, and what it might do to us if we ran afoul of it. In some cases, these fears are reasonable (such as in the case of sharks) while others, like sea monsters, are figments of our imaginations — at least, for now. Our aquatic terrors have manifested themselves in entertainment, including books, television, and movies. Some of the latter are bona fide classics, like " Jaws ," while others are guilty pleasures, like "Piranha" or "The Meg." 

Monsters of the deep aren't solely limited to studio films, however. Dozens of low-budget, half-baked, and just plain weird features have hinged their horror on watery creatures, which has produced some memorably bizarre and downright laughable movie beasts. With that in mind, here is a soggy, spoiler-y breakdown of the most bizarre and ridiculous aquatic monster movies that surprised audiences by simply getting made.

Secret of the Loch marked Nessie's movie debut

This 1934 British comedy coincided with a boom period in sightings of the Loch Ness Monster, capped by the famous (if fictitious) " Surgeon's Photograph ," which was released to the public one month before " The Secret of the Loch ." The film, directed by actor-turned-filmmaker Milton Rosner and co-written by frequent Alfred Hitchcock collaborator Charles Bennett (an Oscar nominee for "Foreign Correspondent"), is widely regarded as the first on-screen depiction of the lake monster, although its portrayal in the film is handled by an iguana, which nips sluggishly at romantic lead Frederick Peisley when he descends into the loch.

This encounter takes place 65 minutes into the 75-minute film, which is largely devoted to broad stereotypes of the Scottish population and the dotty ravings of a professor (played by British theater veteran Seymour Hicks) determined to prove the existence of the monster. "Secret of the Loch" is a minor entry in sea serpent cinema, and probably remembered best today as an early credit for David Lean (" Lawrence of Arabia "), who served as editor on the film. It shot at the legendary Ealing Studios, which produced some of the best-regarded British comedies of the 1940s and 1950s.

Monster from the Ocean Floor was an early Roger Corman credit

The 1954 creature feature " Monster from the Ocean Floor " is significant for several reasons, though none of them have to do with its titular sea monster. It's the first film produced by Roger Corman, who parlayed the writing fee from his debut film, "Highway Dragnet," into the paltry budget for "Ocean Floor." The film also marks the first appearance of actor Jonathan Haze, who plays a boat captain in the picture, and would go on to star in and/or write several Corman features, most notably the original "Little Shop of Horrors." The modest success of the film also helped to connect Corman with Samuel Z. Arkoff and James H. Nicholson, who served as producers for many of his features in the 1950s and 1960s.

The movie itself, which is directed by then-student filmmaker Wyatt Ordung (who also plays a Mexican fisherman), concerns an American tourist (Anne Kimball) in Mexico who discovers that a huge, one-eyed octopoid creature is responsible for a series of deaths in which the victims appear to have been dissolved. The creature's ominous ability is due to exposure to radioactive testing, but it stands little chance against Kimball — a pretty ballsy female hero for a 1950s feature, who shows a lot more mettle than the ostensible hero (singer Stuart Wade), who works overtime to mansplain or undermine her every move. The monster, created by puppeteer Bob Baker , is underwhelming, but its demise via one-man submarine is, at the very least, inventive. Corman himself turns up briefly as a member of the scientific team investigating the creature.

Corman went for comedy with Creature from the Haunted Sea

Some movie monsters are so poorly constructed or bizarrely conceived that the only logical answer for their existence seems to be as an elaborate private joke on the part of the filmmaker. That's true in the case of " Creature from the Haunted Sea ," a 1961 horror-spy drama-thriller produced and directed by Roger Corman. 

Shot back-to-back with two other films ("Last Woman on Earth" and "Battle of Blood Island") in Puerto Rico and built from leftover footage and funds from the former title, "Creature" is a comedy of sorts anchored around a gangster (Anthony Carbone) who plans to rob a Cuban general of money lifted from his country's treasury and blame it on the legendary title creature.

The wrench in the works is that the monster is real, and decimates the entire cast save for undercover spy Robert Towne — yes, the Oscar-winning "Chinatown" writer, hiding here behind the pseudonym "Edward Wain." How the creature accomplishes that goal is a bit of a mystery, since the beast — constructed by cast member Beach Dickerson from a wetsuit, tennis balls, an oilcloth and Brillo pads — appears unable to take a step without an intense struggle, much less devour a person. That may or may not have been due to the pair of divers' swim fins it sports when emerging from the Haunted Sea.

The King of the Monsters fights seafood in Godzilla vs the Sea Monster

Godzilla 's seventh on-screen adventure sent him to a balmy South Seas island, where he encountered an eclectic array of foes, including Mothra, a giant condor, and Ebirah, a killer crustacean made colossal by nuclear waste from the weapons-making efforts of a terrorist organization. Their battles, filmed in 1966 as "Godzilla, Ebirah, Mothra: Big Duel in the South Seas," was released to Japanese theaters as " Ebirah, Horror of the Deep " before earning the less evocative title "Godzilla vs. the Sea Monster" for American TV audiences in 1968.

Special effects designer Eiji Tsuburaya creates an impressive suit for Ebirah, with different-sized claws and an ugly mouth, and director Ishiro Honda lends a degree of menace to its opening scene, where it capsizes a boat, and a follow-up where Ebirah skewers and devours two men attempting to flee the island. But all that advance notice has little impact on his two fights with Godzilla: though Ebirah briefly gains the upper hand by dragging the King of the Monsters underwater, Godzilla responds by first frying the sea creature with his atomic breath and then ripping off both claws. Godzilla even mocks the mutilated Ebirah by clacking the detached claw open and closed.

Ebirah returned twice to the Toho fold, first in the surreal "All Monsters Attack" (a.k.a. "Godzilla's Revenge"), which recycles footage from "Horror of the Deep," and later in "Godzilla: Final Wars," which teamed the creature with Hedorah, the living pile of radioactive sludge from "Godzilla vs. the Smog Monster." Once again, Ebirah plays the chump: blasted out of the waters of Tokyo Bay by Godzilla's atomic breath, the crustacean crashes into Hedorah and puts out its eye with a claw. The pair are spared further humiliation when Godzilla immolates them both with a single blast.

Kung fu meets giant octopi in Little Hero

There is precious little in your life that can prepare you for the onslaught of strange and silly images that comprise the 1978 Taiwanese action-fantasy film " Little Hero ." The film serves as an excellent introduction to the strange film career of martial arts star Polly Shang-Kwan , who began with the legendary director King Hu but found her groove, as it were, in bizarro Taiwanese films like "Little Hero." As was the case in many of her films, Polly here plays a character regarded as a boy, despite all evidence to the contrary. That element underscores the film's deep departure from any sense of reality, which only deepens with each passing moment.

Volumes could be written about the film's inherent weirdness — its competing teams of outré heroes and bad guys, which include kung fu superstar Lo Lieh in a gold mask, dudes in tiger makeup, and a little person named Vampire — and the late, great historian and blogger Todd Stadtman does an excellent job of detailing its eccentricities here . For the purposes of this article, let us look at a sequence in which Polly, in pursuit of Lieh, finds herself on a beach occupied by two enormous if cumbersome octopi.

Said mollusks take it upon themselves to challenge Polly to a fight, which turns in her favor largely due to her ability to step gingerly over their tentacles. The octopoids mount a unique offense — they produce and shoot what appear to be baby octopi at her like missiles — before two of Polly's sidekicks show up to turn the tide. The trio pursues the creatures as they flee into the ocean and appear to beat them senseless, laughing wildly all the while. And from there, things get weird.

Atlantis, mad science, and Barbara Bach — it's all in Island of the Fishmen

Consider the 1979 Italian horror/science fiction hybrid " The Island of the Fishmen " a piscine take on "The Island of Dr. Moreau," complete with a benevolent but bonkers scientist experimenting on humans to "improve" on evolution. The doctor in question is American actor Joseph Cotten, whose "Citizen Kane"-to-"Fishmen" career has to rank among the all-time great career breadths. He plays a biologist who transforms unwilling subjects into stiff man-fish creatures, in the hopes of reducing overpopulation by allowing us to live underwater.

Claudio Cassinelli is the shipwreck survivor who washes ashore on Cotton's island, while Richard Johnson ("The Haunting") is the bad guy who wants to use the fishmen to raid the city of Atlantis, located conveniently offshore. Bond girl and Beatle spouse Barbara Bach is on hand for menacing purposes by both Johnson and the fishmen.

Directed by prolific Italian genre director Sergio Martino , "Fishmen" is an amusing period adventure with impressive scenes filmed inside Neptune's Grotto, a stalactite cave on the island of Sardinia. U.S. viewers got to see "Fishmen" trimmed of 30 minutes and released not once, but twice : first as "Something Waits in the Dark," with new footage shot at Bronson Caverns in Los Angeles and built around American actors Cameron Mitchell and Mel Ferrer. When that version failed to score at the box office, a second version, titled "Screamers," was released to theaters, this time promising footage that showed a man turned inside out while alive. The problem: said scene existed only in the trailer for "Screamers," and had to be edited into the film after audiences complained.

The Crocodile's favorite cuisine is Thai

The crocodile — both freshwater and saltwater variations — enjoys a degree of stardom as a movie monster that ranks slightly below sharks and sea serpents. Huge, hungry crocs have been top-billed in numerous movies ranging from the American "Lake Placid" franchise (currently numbering six films) and "Primeval" to Australia's "Rogue" and "Black Water," Italy's "Killer Crocodile," and Tobe Hooper's "Crocodile." Lurking at the bottom of this list is 1979's " Crocodile ," an Asian horror film about a giant croc unleashed by a tsunami caused by an atomic explosion(!).

Said croc — whose dimensions shift throughout the film from roughly man-sized to airliner length — chews up literally everything in its path, from adults and children to various animals (including a real monkey and water buffalo) before the film's hero takes matters into his own hands after his wife and daughter are gobbled up. The croc is mostly portrayed by a large, stiff model head in which various victims kick and scream.

Sources vary as to the origin of "Crocodile"; various prints list Thai, Korean, American, and Chinese production companies , each of which issued different versions of the film. What is known is that the man behind the camera is notorious Thai director Sompote Sands , who ran afoul of Tsuburaya Productions for claiming that he had the right to create " Ultraman " films and TV shows. Sands' long c.v. features some truly off-the-wall projects, including "Magic Lizard," which features a man in a frilled lizard costume whose stream-of-consciousness adventures include an encounter with the oversized prop from "Crocodile."

The Loch Ness Horror features one angry Nessie

Texas-based filmmaker Larry Buchanan , whose list of credits includes numerous poverty-strapped horror and science fiction titles (see: "Mars Needs Women"), took a swing at water monsters with 1982's " The Loch Ness Horror ." Buchanan's Nessie isn't the amiable, semi-bovine monster seen in family-friendly films like "The Water Horse: Legend of the Deep" and "Nessie & Me." His beast is instead a ceaselessly shrieking man-eater that chews up anyone who disturbs it or its nest of eggs.

While that may sound like a guaranteed good time for monster movie devotees, it's important to note a few things. Buchanan's Nessie is mostly portrayed by a stiff rod puppet that requires victims to shove their heads into its mouth in order to depict being eaten alive, while the terrain and people of Scotland are represented by Lake Tahoe, with American actors spewing forth atrocious Scottish accents.

"Horror" is also bogged down by numerous unnecessary subplots, including the discovery of a WWII German bomber in the loch (!) and a romance between American researcher Brad Buchanan (one of several Buchanan family members, collectively labeled in the credits as the "Buchanan clan," who worked on the film) and the granddaughter (Miki McKenzie) of the crank who first photographed the monster. These loose elements thread together in the film's conclusion (sort of), which leaves the door open for a sequel that absolutely no one wanted.

A stiff Sea Serpent spreads laughter by the Spanish seaside

Director Amando de Ossorio , who helmed some of the best Spanish horror movies of the 1970s, including the memorable " Blind Dead " quadrilogy, capped his career with 1985's woeful marine monster movie " The Sea Serpent ." American actor Timothy Bottoms, a popular star in the '70s who later played George W. Bush on several occasions, stars as a fisherman who teams with a cranky biologist (fellow ex-pat Ray Milland, in his last screen role) to battle the titular creature, a snaky sea monster brought to life when an American bomber accidentally drops its nuclear payload into the waters off the Spanish coast.

The sea serpent turns out to be a stiff, puppet-like creature outfitted with googly eyes and an incessant, high-pitched howl. Two versions appear in the film: a smaller serpent that wreaks havoc on numerous miniature sets, and a larger, even more immobile incarnation with a rigid maw just wide enough for actors to enter and thrash about in while pretending to be devoured alive a la "The Loch Ness Horror" and "Crocodile." After consuming most of the supporting cast, the beast is dispatched with explosives and is described as heading for Africa — a fact regarded with "not in my backyard" dismissal by the surviving characters.

More Spanish sea creatures star in The Rift

Produced at the tail end of the late '80s-era mini-boom of underwater monster movies spawned by " The Abyss " (see "Leviathan," "Deep Star Six"), the U.S./Spanish feature " The Rift " (a.k.a. "Endless Descent") can't compete with studio-funded special effects for its story of a submarine crew encountering aquatic mutations in a deep-sea ravine. It instead settles for an abundance of slime-covered monsters, rendered through practical effects (suitmation, miniatures, and puppetry), and gallons of gore spilled by the Spanish and Stateside cast, which includes R. Lee Ermey and Ray Wise.

Taken at face value — meaning that "The Rift" is mostly an amalgam of tropes swiped from "Alien" — the film isn't a total mess. Ermey and Wise are always fun to watch (the less said about leaden ostensible lead Jack Scalia, the better), and director Juan Piquer Simon  — whose horror credits includes the supremely icky "Slugs" and "Pieces" — makes the most of his modest budget by laying on the explosions and splattery deaths with a trowel. The monster designs, too, have the right mix of ludicrous and inventive, with the giant, carnivorous starfish that faces off against the crew in the finale the sort-of highlight. It's no Starro the Conqueror , but it does put up a decent fight.

A giant shark attacks between Bollywood numbers in Aatank

Pity young Jesu (played by beefy Bollywood star Dharmendra ) in " Aatank ." His problems are many: he's lost his mother, his tiny fishing village is under the control of gangster Alphonso (Amjad Khan), and the promise of money in the discovery of valuable pearls is upended by the appearance of a colossal shark. 

Said creature — which issues something like a human scream and appears to measure somewhere between "The Meg" and the state of Rhode Island — further complicates matters by devouring both his adopted brother Peter (Vinod Mehra) and the brother's wife, a pair of kids on a raft, various minor characters, and in the film's most bonkers sequence, a helicopter in mid-flight.

This 1996 Indian adventure thriller reportedly began production in the mid-1980s, but wasn't completed until nearly a decade later; fans of monster sharks should know that the creature doesn't actually appear until an hour into the movie, which up until that point, plays like a gangster film crossed with a coming-of-age drama. Once the shark does make its appearance, it's non-stop mayhem: even the pre-requisite Bollywood musical numbers can't rein in its rubbery rage, as evidenced by the sequence in which actress Nafisa Ali croons a tune while taking a dip in the ocean before the beast gobbles her up, mid-note.

Watch out — It's the WAWA

The "WAWA" referred to in the title of the 2007 American indie " Birth of a Legend: The Story of the WAWA " is not the convenience store so beloved to residents in the Mid-Atlantic states, but rather a swamp monster that plagues the sleepy (and fictitious) town of Sweet Tee, Alabama. The creature — the product of a misguided scientific experiment which merged catfish DNA and "radiated plastic fishing worms" — makes a habit of dining on the town's residents, which earns it the moniker WAWA, or West Alabama Whoop A**.

The WAWA's origin story gives a good indication of the film's tone, which offers a comic take on '50s-era monster movies and Southern stereotypes in proudly broad and un-PC terms with a cast of local theater and non-professional actors. In an interview , producer Sheri Wiggins said that she and her husband, director Steve Wiggins, originally envisioned the WAWA as a mutant catfish — a subject covered in the bewildering 1971 Florida-lensed creature feature "Zaat"— but opted instead for an enormous, irradiated worm.

The Sea Beast has a sneaky super power

The 2008 feature " Sea Beast " offers what might be considered a novel wrinkle on the monster-from-the-ocean-depths premise: its B-minus-grade CGI fishmen, which prey upon the residents of a small coastal town, are equipped with a variety of special abilities, including a long tongue they uses as a weapon, a toxic slime that causes grievous wounds on contact, and the ability to disappear (more or less) a la " Predator ." They are also remarkably fecund, producing small armies of little sea beasts with the same appetites as their parents.

Standing in opposition to this aquatic menace is a uniformly doltish crew of locals, including a faux Quint (Brent Stait), a dim sheriff (Gary Hudson), and a scientist (Camille Sullivan) whose revelation that the creatures are related (sort of) to angler fish helps in no way to reduce the film's body count. It's up to SyFy vet (and onetime Parker Lewis ) Corin Nemec to construct a hopelessly complicated trap for the monsters. Spoiler alert: it works.

You'll get more than a burned foot from stepping on The Sand

In 2015's " The Sand ," a gaggle of college kids recover from a night of partying on the beach to find themselves in a unique situation: the evening's revelry has separated them into small groups deposited at various locations — a lifeguard station, a car, and worst of all, a trash barrel — that they dare not leave. It seems something in the sand has consumed their fellow partygoers, and anyone foolish enough to set foot on the ground faces a very messy death.

Directed by veteran set dresser Isaac Gabaeff and written by frequent WWE scribe Alex Greenfield and Ben Powell (who penned two episodes of the "V/H/S" series on Snapchat), "The Sand" hinges on a fairly silly premise — like the 1980 film "Blood Beach," which featured a monster under the beach, the villain here is an unremarkable burrowing jellyfish creature, depicted as a sort of low-wattage mass of bioluminescent CGI tentacles. The computer effects also undo the gruesome intentions of several death scenes.

Having said that, "The Sand" is also fairly well-acted by its largely unknown cast (save for ex-" Hannah Montana " star Mitchel Musso), and Gabaeff delivers several suspenseful moments that hinge on the survivors' attempts to escape their unpleasant fate. Some work, and some don't, which lends a satisfying element of unpredictability to the proceedings. Heck, any movie that trots out  Jamie Kennedy as a dull-witted park ranger whose sole purpose is to meet an ugly death can't be all bad.

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James Wan is Giving Creature From the Black Lagoon a Much-Needed Reboot

The creature is back.

Of all the classic Universal monsters — from the Mummy to Dracula to Frankenstein and the Wolf-Man — the most unique and affecting one is easily the Gill-man, better known as the eponymous, amphibious Creature from the Black Lagoon . In 1954, this brilliant, nuanced film did what the original King Kong did in 1933, elevate the genre of monster movies to a level of true art. The first Creature film is way better than it has any right to be, or to put it another way is uniquely excellent in contrast to less-than-great films of the same era like 1948’s Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man . If you zoom in on only 1950s American monster movies, the first Creature flick is the only one that comes even remotely close to the artistry and thoughtfulness of the original 1954 Japanese Godzilla . And now this brilliant franchise is coming back.

According to The Hollywood Reporter , horror auteur James Wan ( Saw ) is “developing a new take on the classic Universal monster property and is in early talks to direct the feature project.” Wan’s last movie, Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom , was also water-themed, but THR suggests that he’s been itching to “get back to his horror roots in some way.” As of this writing, Wan is a producer on the new Creature , though it’s not clear if he will actually direct it.

However, we should hope that he does. While the original Creature from the Black Lagoon is smarty written, and excellently paced, one could argue that the overall visage of the Gill-man isn’t quite as convincing as it was 70 years ago. The classic film had two sequels — Revenge of the Creature (1955) and The Creature Walks Among Us (1956) — but neither contain the elegance and simplicity of the original. And, unlike other very familiar black-and-white monsters, The Creature from the Black Lagoon has never been outright remade or rebooted. Over the years there have been many attempts to reboot the Creature , from Guillermo del Toro (who ended up making his own spin on Creature with his Oscar-winning The Shape of Water ), to John Landis, to a proposed version in Universals’ “Dark Universe.” But the James Wan version feels like the first project in years that might actually happen.

It looks corny, but the nuance of this movie is astounding.

Focusing on an expedition to discover a strange evolutionary missing link between sea-dwelling creatures and humanoids who walk on land, the original film is structured like a familiar monster/slasher movie. The Gill-man (Ricou Browning underwater, Ben Chapman on land) starts picking off crewmembers one by one, but is particularly fascinated with Kay (Julia Adams). As the Creature grows more aggressive, the movie smartly divides the sympathies between the men and the beast. There’s a wonderful disagreement between level-headed David (Richard Carlson), and bloodthirsty Mark (Richard Denning) which basically boils down to Mark being a giant a**hole and David being cool. Kay is caught in the middle of all of this, but the ultimate victim, in the end, is the Gill-man.

Unlike King Kong , in which the theme of Beauty and the Beast is literally between Ann Darrow (Fay Wray) and a massive ape, Creature from the Black Lagoon uses this trope much more subtly and smartly. The Gill-man isn’t a mindless beast like Kong, nor he is he a chest-thumbing bro like the movie’s true villain, Mark. Instead, throughout the film, as the horror increases, the Creature almost acts like a metaphor for the conflict between the men, which results in a movie that lets nobody off the hook. The Creature from the Black Lagoon was one of the first major movies filmed in 3D, which aesthetically is interesting, but analogously is accidentally appropriate since the Gill-man has more dimension than many monsters of the same era.

If James Wan is able to retain even a fraction of the pathos and intelligence of the original film (directed by Jack Arnold) he could have a contemporary classic on his hands. The story of the creature is terrifying and exciting, but crucially, it also goes deep.

You can rent the original Creature from the Black Lagoon on Prime Video and elsewhere.

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The 35 greatest monster movies

Vampires, blobs, and creatures from the deep feature in the greatest monster flicks ever

Human beings have told stories featuring monsters since the dawn of time. With the advent of movies, we still maintain that tradition with countless monster movies to pick from. But which of them are actually the greatest of all time?

Starting with the 1915 German silent film The Golem, co-directed by Paul Wegener and Henrik Galeen, monster movies have been a popular attraction and subgenre of horror and adventure. While monster movies artistically explore ancient evils, they sometimes also represent the cutting edge of technology, with all kinds of movie monsters demanding different kinds of technical sophistication in order to come to life. (Other times, it’s a guy in a costume, and that can still be scary when done right.)

With the ongoing success of monster movies at the box office, we rank some of the greatest monster movies of all time, from the horrific to the hilarious to everything in between.

35. The Last Voyage of the Demeter (2023)

Quite literally taking a page from Bram Stoker’s Dracula, André Øvredal’s 2023 film The Last Voyage of the Demeter adapts the chapter “The Captain’s Log,” in which the captain of the doomed ship Demeter recounts in horrifying detail the awakening of Dracula in their cargo. A muscular creature feature set on the high seas that makes ample use of dark and dim lighting, The Last Voyage of the Demeter is a worthwhile installment in the vast canon of vampire movies that features an especially monstrous twist on the granddaddy of all vampires.  

34. The Blob (1958)

B-movie horror is in fine, gooey form in Irvin Yeaworth’s campy monster flick The Blob. Starring a young Steve McQueen early in his movie career, The Blob tells of an evil alien substance that slowly grows in size and overtakes a small town in Pennsylvania. While The Blob is too campy to raise any real scares out of all-consuming gelatin, The Blob is still a can’t-miss piece of archetypal sci-fi horror that wholly represents the kind of cheap movies that teenagers flocked to in the ‘50s.

33. A Monster Calls (2016)

In director J.A. Bayona’s elaborate metaphor for familial grief, a young English boy (Lewis MacDougall) prepares for the death of his terminally ill mother (Felicity Jones). He befriends a giant, talking tree (voiced and performed in motion-capture by Liam Neeson) who tells him instructive stories that contain lessons the boy will soon need. Majestic and moving, A Monster Calls shows that the things that actually scare us aren’t monsters but the things we’d rather not acknowledge. 

32. Creature From the Black Lagoon (1954)

In the twilight of the Universal Monsters series came Jack Arnold’s classic swamp horror Creature From the Black Lagoon. Set in the Amazon, a team of scientists - including the beautiful Kay, played by Julia Adams - investigate the origins of a strange skeleton. What they soon find is a face-to-face confrontation with a humanoid fish creature intent on killing them for trespassing. A seminal monster movie that has been remade, homaged, and lampooned endlessly since its release, Creature From the Black Lagoon still keeps a tight grip with timeless artistic designs.

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31. Tremors (1990)

In this loving homage to bygone creature features, Tremors masterfully balances horror and humor, with Kevin Bacon in the lead role as a Nevada handyman trying to outrun ancient, worm-like monsters. The movie originates from writers S.S Wilson and Brent Maddock, who once worked for the U.S. Navy making safety videos. One day while working in the desert, they started imagining a monster rising from out of the land. National Geographic documentarian Ron Underwood provided some assistance to fine-tune their creature into something that could actually exist in real life; Underwood later joined the project as the movie’s director.

30. Gremlins (1984)

One of the few horror movies that works on both Halloween and Christmas, Joe Dante’s Gremlins tells of angry, feral creatures who spawn in great numbers and unleash chaos on Christmas Eve. Combining both Chinese folklore (the creatures are named mogwai , Cantonese for evil demons) and British urban legend (“gremlins” were creatures said to cause malfunctions for Royal Air Force fighters in the skies), Gremlins is classic Amblin-era movie mayhem that is both horrific and hysterical. 

29. The Fly (1986)

One of David Cronenberg’s most buzz-worthy movies, The Fly stars Jeff Goldblum as a scientist who slowly turns into a half-human, half-fly creature after an experiment goes awry. A magnificently creepy that demonstrates Cronenberg’s grotesque body horror sensibilities and makeup effects worthy of an Oscar (the film won an Academy Award for Best Makeup at the 59th ceremony), The Fly is sensational as it is subterranean. 

28. Ringu (1998)

Influential on both sides of the Pacific Ocean, Hideo Nakata’s horror movie Ring (titled Ringu in the U.S.) is easily one of the most important movies of the late 20th century. The movie tells of a cursed video tape in which the viewer must pass it on or else they are doomed to die one week later at the hands of Sadako, a sinister ghost of a dead girl who crawls out of their nearest television screen. Ringu not only reinvigorated the popularity of horror in its native Japan, it also introduced the restrained stylings of J-horror to a rapturous western audience. In 2002, Gore Verbinski directed the Hollywood remake The Ring. While critics remain divided on its quality, The Ring was its own phenomenon, proving that some stories will always travel far.

27. It (2017)

Over 20 years after Stephen King’s 1986 horror epic It became a cult TV miniseries, it went even bigger on the silver screen under the helm of director Andy Muschietti. Featuring an ensemble cast of young actors including Sophia Lillis, Jack Dylan Grazer, and Finn Wolfhard - plus Bill Skarsgård as the monstrous Pennywise - the movie explores one-half of King’s novel, when the Losers’ Club are adolescents in their small town of Derry, Maine. While the middling sequel It: Chapter Two followed the characters as adults, the 2017 predecessor is a handsome work of blockbuster horror that shows big budgets can still send chills down the spine.

26. Pan’s Labyrinth (2006)

A dark fantasy classic from Guillermo del Toro, Pan’s Labyrinth is lyrical as it is political in its tale about a young girl named Ofelia (Ivana Baquero) living in Francoist Spain who finds a mythical world inhabited by incredible creatures. It notably features the mesmerizing Doug Jones, appearing in impeccable makeup and costuming as both the Faun and the eerie Pale Man. Pan’s Labyrinth is one of del Toro’s finest movies, brimming with allegory about the hellish ways authority stamps out innocence.

25. Tetsuo: The Iron Man (1989)

In this striking debut from director Shinya Tsukamoto, a Japanese salaryman wakes up to find himself slowly turning into a monster with metal hardware protruding out of his body. The only connection he develops is with a victim of a hit-and-run accident, who is also falling ill to the same strange ailment. An elaborate metaphor for intimacy in a distrusting world, Tetsuo: The Iron Man introduced Tsukamoto as a darling of underground cinema and an equal to luminaries like David Cronenberg and David Lynch.

24. King Kong (2005)

Hot off the heels of his groundbreaking, standard-bearing Lord of the Rings trilogy, Peter Jackson unleashed his maximalist sensibilities in his blockbuster remake of the 1933 classic. A technical marvel with an outrageous budget that ballooned to approximately $207 million, King Kong still wowed audiences to become one of the highest-grossing movies of 2005. While the rights to King Kong would return to Warner Bros. to help expand a shared universe with Godzilla, Jackson’s King Kong is a standalone wonder that still roars with ferocity after all these years.

23. Nope (2022)

The third horror feature from auteur Jordan Peele, Nope is a searing science fiction horror movie about an alien who hides in plain sight and feeds off the organic matter of all living things. While playing on familiar alien invasion conventions - think flying saucers stealing cows from farms - Peele’s Nope carries a razor-sharp bite in its condemnation of the traumatizing ways Hollywood swallows up and spits out people’s dreams. The reveal of the alien “Jean Jacket” and its final form is both frightening and awe-inspiring, echoing the indescribable shapes of heaven’s angels as told in the Bible.

22. Halloween (1978)

A seminal release that permanently set the standard for slasher films, John Carpenter’s mega-hit Halloween introduced the world to Michael Myers (Nick Castle) and destined Oscar-winner Jamie Lee Curtis as Laurie Strode, cinema’s first official “final girl.” On Halloween night, suburban teenager Laurie must survive the clutches of escaped killer Michael Myers, whose ghostly white mask (actually a repainted Captain Kirk mask) is never too far behind. 

21. Horror of Dracula (1958)

Although the 1931 feature Dracula released by Universal Studios is a towering classic that spawned the first real shared movie universe, Terence Fisher’s 1958 version - for British studio Hammer - is arguably even better. Starring Christopher Lee as a devilishly handsome Count Dracula and Peter Cushing as noble hunter Doctor Van Helsing, Horror of Dracula is simply British horror at its best, with more graphic imagery than its American predecessor to remind us all that Dracula is no cartoon mascot. 

20. I Kill Giants (2019)

From Anders Walter and written by Joe Kelly (who co-wrote the original graphic novel with Ken Niimura), I Kill Giants is a fantasy drama about a young girl named Barbara (Madison Wolfe in an unforgettable performance) who frequently escapes into her own imagination - a place where giants walk the Earth - as a coping mechanism from real-world traumas. While everyone around her tries to snap her out of her daydreams, Barbara prepares to make her final stand against the biggest giant she’s ever seen. A cross between Tim Burton’s Big Fish with the video game Shadow of the Colossus, I Kill Giants towers above the competition with moving sincerity.

19. Lamb (2021)

If any movie could feel like a condemnation against millennials infantilizing pets as “fur babies,” it would be Valdimar Jóhannsson’s 2021 feature Lamb. Noomi Rapace stars as a farmer (along with her husband, played by Hilmir Snær Guðnason) who are stunned to discover a half-human, half-sheep baby birthed by one of their animals. The farmers claim the child as their own, unaware that they’ll soon incur the wrath of its true father. Like Jaws, Lamb works so well because you never quite see the “monster” until you’re supposed to, at which point the sight of them becomes enough to turn every hair on your body stark white. 

18. Underwater (2020)

Recognized as the last movie released by 20th Century Fox before changing its name under new owners Disney , William Eubank’s sci-fi horror Underwater is a capable monster feature with a late-addition “twist.” Kirsten Stewart anchors an ensemble cast including Vincent Cassel, Jessica Henwick, and John Gallagher Jr., playing scientists and engineers at a deep sea facility in the Mariana Trench. Powerful earthquakes slowly destroy the facility, compelling the team to make a desperate escape. The end of the movie reveals that the earthquakes are not natural disasters caused by the Earth, but by the monster Cthulhu from H.P. Lovecraft’s mythos. While Underwater was not designed as a Cthulhu movie at first, Eubank chose to make his film based on Cthulhu, believing the entity boasts enough mysticism to inspire mystery.

17. Candyman (1992)

Say his name in the mirror five times - if you dare. Based on a short story by Clive Barker, Bernard Rose’s 1992 film Candyman tells of a spectral entity - an African-American man from the 19th century, killed over an interracial affair with a white woman - who is summoned by verbal chants of his name in front of a mirror. With a smoldering Tony Todd in the lead role, Candyman lives up to the legacy of horror as a way of using monsters to explore what really scares us; in this case, it’s the things from our past we dare not speak.

16. The Invisible Man (2020)

After the Dark Universe failed to take off, Blumhouse and Universal pursued a standalone remake of the 1933 classic The Invisible Man. From director Leigh Whannell and starring Elisabeth Moss, The Invisible Man reboots the story for the 21st century to follow a woman (Moss) who believes she’s being stalked by her deceased ex-lover (Oliver Jackson-Cohen), an affluent tech CEO. An unambiguous exploration of the ways abuse victims feel like they’re fighting a one-sided battle, and that no one else can “see” their victimization, The Invisible Man is a sublime example of how modern remakes can surpass even the most iconic predecessors. 

15. Colossal (2016)

From Nacho Vigalondo, Colossal shows how a monstrous alter-ego can be a source of strength. In Colossal, an unemployed, alcoholic writer (Anne Hathaway) moves back into her childhood home and reconnects with an old friend, Oscar (Jason Sudeikis). In a bizarre twist of fate, Hathaway finds herself psychically connected to a giant monster terrorizing South Korea. A story about female agency and how men can make women feel small, Colossal is simply so much more than its (admittedly appealing) elevator pitch of “Anne Hathaway becomes Godzilla.”

14. An American Werewolf in London (1981)

Put it this way: Without An American Werewolf in London, there would be no Michael Jackson’s “Thriller.” Written and directed by John Landis, An American Werewolf in London follows an American backpack traveler (along with a friend) is attacked by a hideous unidentified creature. Waking up in a hospital in London, the man learns from his friend’s ghost they were attacked by a werewolf - and that he is now one too. An influential film that impeccably balanced comedy and horror, An American Werewolf in London is also remembered for its stunning creature effects. It’s no wonder that Michael Jackson enlisted Landis to turn him into a zombie in what is still one of the greatest music videos of all time.

13. Ghostbusters (1984)

Who you gonna call? Thanks to Ghostbusters, we know what to dial when there’s something strange in the neighborhood. Conceived by comedian Dan Aykroyd based on his own family’s history with the paranormal, Ghostbusters made genre-hybrids popular, allowing audiences - and kids especially - to be excited and scared in equal measure. With memorable monsters like Gozer, the Terror Dogs, and the oversized Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man, Ghostbusters is a true monster flick disguised as a going-into-business comedy set in 1980s New York City.

12. The Shape of Water (2017)

Once upon a time, and a long time ago, a young Guillermo del Toro watched Creature From the Black Lagoon and thought the monster and the beautiful woman should actually be in love. Fast forward to 2017, and del Toro releases his tender fantasy romance The Shape of Water, in which a mute janitor at a government facility falls in love with a captive sea creature (played by Doug Jones). Released in a time when hatred was the default setting in national politics, The Shape of Water testifies that only love is the thing that can truly fill our lives. 

11. The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974)

An important release in the canon of horror and American independent cinema, Tobe Hooper’s The Texas Chain Saw Massacre famously introduced the crazed Leatherface (played by Gunnar Hansen) into the mainstream. While its story of lost teenagers targeted by cannibal hicks now feels quaint, Hooper’s vision is still striking after all these years. In a 2004 interview with Texas Monthly, Hooper said that he was inspired by a “lack of sentimentality and the brutality of things” in the news, and his belief that “man was the real monster, just wearing a different face, so I put a literal mask on the monster in my film.”

10. The Host (2006)

In his third feature as a director, Bong Joon-ho uses the conventions of monster movies to dive deep into both personal and political matters. When a strange aquatic creature rises to the surface and kidnaps a young girl, her underachieving father (Song Kang-ho) rises to the occasion to rescue her. While The Host, an acclaimed modern classic, is primarily a family drama, Bong Joon-ho lets his claws out to satirize the inefficiencies of governments and intrusive foreign imperialists.

9. Us (2019)

There’s nothing scarier than looking into one’s own eyes. From Jordan Peele is his sophomore horror film from 2019, Us, a chilling blockbuster that plays into the eerie myth of doppelgangers. When a family of four (anchored by lead Lupita Nyong’o as wife/mother Addy) vacation to Addy’s hometown of Santa Cruz, they find themselves targeted by their own evil doubles. While Us is somewhat convoluted in its worldbuilding, it is still a riveting work of art by Peele whose film proposes a most terrifying thought, that being any one of us might actually be a monster.

8. Gamera: Guardian of the Universe (1995)

Godzilla ain’t the only kaiju boss in town. Since his debut in the 1965 film Gamera, the Giant Monster, this prehistoric turtle monster has enjoyed his own legion of fans. In 1995, Godzilla’s producers Toho embarked on an ambitious modern reboot trilogy, beginning with the acclaimed film Gamera: Guardian of the Universe from director Shusuke Kaneko. While it has a pedestrian story, Guardian of the Universe has a more interesting as an accessible alternative to Godzilla, making it ideal for budding kaiju fans eager to try something different. Gamera: Guardian of the Universe is Heisei era tokusatsu at its finest, with palpable weight and gravity in the action scenes to make them practically quake with impact.

7. Wes Craven’s New Nightmare (1994)

Ten years after Wes Craven introduced the world to Freddy Kruger, his 1994 film New Nightmare eroded the barriers separating what’s real and what’s make-believe. Set in the “real world,” original Nightmare on Elm Street star Heather Langenkamp plays a version of herself in which she’s stalked by Freddy Kruger, a genuinely evil entity whose movies released by New Line were actually a way to keep him confined. While Craven’s first entry in the series is an undisputed classic, New Nightmare deserves recognition for its genius approach to spicing up the series that had since devolved into empty camp. New Nightmare is the first time in a long time where Freddy feels legitimately dangerous to the point it scares even Robert Englund, who also appears in New Nightmare as himself.

6. The Thing (1982)

Although John Carpenter’s 1982 classic The Thing bombed at the box office, it remains one of the most celebrated horror movies ever made. Set in a faraway research facility in Antarctica, a metamorphing alien parasite ravages a team of American scientists (led by Kurt Russell in an early leading role) who find themselves succumbing to their paranoia. In the end, it doesn’t matter who is human or not. What matters is that any one of us can become just as monstrous when we let fear take control of ourselves.

5. Godzilla Minus One (2023)

In the same era that Warner Bros. pumped out cinematic wrestling matches like Godzilla vs. Kong, Toho also released lean, mean movies like Godzilla Minus One. Maintaining franchise tradition for politically-minded and emotionally-driven stories, Godzilla Minus One is a stand-alone feature about a kamikaze pilot and Godzilla survivor who returns home and starts a “family” with strangers, all of whom lost their own family in the war. But when Godzilla surfaces over Japan - still in economic and psychological recovery from World War II - the pilot decides to follow through on his abandoned mission. This critically acclaimed blockbuster was a surprise success around the world, and even won the Oscar for Best Visual Effects.

4. Bride of Frankenstein (1935)

“We belong dead.” In James Whale’s heart-wrenching sequel to his own 1931 blockbuster Frankenstein, Boris Karloff and Colin Clive return as monster and Dr. Frankenstein, respectively, with the doctor forced to animate a “bride” for his monster. Elsa Lanchester plays the title character, who is also nicknamed Mary Shelley in homage to Frankenstein’s author. While the predecessor film is a monumental classic that did right by Shelley’s novel including its themes of unholy science, Bride of Frankenstein expands on the story, proposing deeper dimensions with regards to sexuality, societal norms, and even romantic rejection.

3. Nosferatu (1922)

All vampires bow to Dracula, but even Dracula knows of one to never cross. Although F.W. Murnau’s classic 1922 silent masterpiece Nosferatu is an unofficial adaptation of Bram Stoker’s Dracula novel - the Stoker estate even hit the filmmakers with a lawsuit - its fearsome monster Count Orlok is far different, and far more revolting, than Dracula. I mean, just look at him! Portrayed by actor Max Schreck, Count Orlok resembles an ill goblin that has never seen sunlight. Appearing in the silver screen years before Dracula even got his own official movie adaptation, Count Orlok struck fear into the hearts of millions, in a silent movie classic where the lack of noise only makes his gaunt appearance all the more uncanny.

2. Gojira (1954)

All hail the king of the monsters.  In the original Japanese classic by Ishirō Honda, Godzilla rises from the nuclear-poisoned ocean to remind humanity of its imminent annihilation should it continue with its atomic arsenal. Godzilla premiered just over a decade after Japan suffered the only nuclear attacks in history, ensuring that the kaiju and horror genres will always be rooted in political and socio-cultural allegory. Just because the costumes are rubber and the buildings are cardboard doesn’t mean that the truth contained in them aren’t real.

1. Jaws (1975)

The shark, which was nicknamed Bruce, kept breaking down. It was just one of many technical problems that plagued Steven Spielberg on the set of his second feature film Jaws. To circumvent problems, Spielberg decided to only show the shark puppet sparingly on camera. The result is one of the greatest decisions in movie history. With Jaws, there is an unavoidable air of suspense, as this bloodthirsty maneater swimming in the water probably, always, lurking close. In this towering summer horror classic, technical limitations inspired creative ingenuity, and a sense of dread that no one would have thought of if everything worked out so well. Of all the monsters ever in movie history, “the shark” in Jaws probably has the least amount of screentime. But it’s still one of the scariest and deadliest of them all.

Eric Francisco is a freelance entertainment journalist and graduate of Rutgers University. If a movie or TV show has superheroes, spaceships, kung fu, or John Cena, he's your guy to make sense of it. A former senior writer at Inverse, his byline has also appeared at Vulture, The Daily Beast, Observer, and The Mary Sue. You can find him screaming at Devils hockey games or dodging enemy fire in Call of Duty: Warzone.

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