Before the monsters of Hollywood were reimagined as very real human beings with wandering hands or horrifying sexual sociopathy, they were all-together more fun: vampires, ghouls or mutants, played to chilling perfection by actors and stuntmen, or built from the minds of Ray Harryhausen or Stan Winston. They slithered out of toilets or lurked beneath storm grates, representatives of the cinematic grotesque and instigator of decades of bedtime nightmares.
Crawl, a new horror movie about giant alligators terrorising Effie from Skins, is the latest thrill ride of a B-movie to pit humans against the not-quite-as-human. Unfortunately, the alligators that wash up in Kaya Scodelario’s basement are also, like the shark from Jaws or the birds from The Birds, just too damn real for this rundown of the greatest monsters to have hit the silver screen. And the creature’s from new chiller Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark just pale in comparison to others created by its producer, Guillermo del Toro.
But if you were ever curious about the best of Hollywood’s more outlandish beasts and critters, ones that you won’t be able to find in less bloodthirsty capacities at your local zoo, we’ve got you covered.
Scroll through the below gallery to see what made the list – be warned: some images are not for the faint-hearted.
