If you watch your fair share of sci-fi/horror movies, you’re bound to come across more than a few monsters. Interesting and frightening creatures aren’t exclusive to these two genres specifically, by any means, because you could argue Jaws is a monster movie, yet there aren’t any sci-fi elements there (it’s more a combination of the adventure, horror, and thriller genres).
And plenty of sci-fi/horror movies don’t have a focus on monsters and still prove frightening in other ways, as the likes of Altered States and The Long Walk demonstrate. The following movies, though, are monster-related, and all slot into the horror and science fiction genres. There’s also an emphasis here on single monsters, so you won’t really see any zombie movies mentioned, since the threat there is more than one monster that can be singled out (if you’re willing to call zombies monsters in the first place, too).
10
Biollante
‘Godzilla vs. Biollante’ (1989)
This whole ranking could be populated by Godzilla monsters, were you willing enough to stretch the definition of what a horror movie is. Instead, there’s going to be something of a restriction to those monsters that show up in Godzilla movies that lean a little further into the horror genre than most… and it’s kind of strange to suggest that plenty of Godzilla movies aren’t hugely scary, given the original film is horror-heavy, but such is the nature – and variety – of the long-running and expansive series.
Anyway, here’s Godzilla vs. Biollante, which is one of the more emotional, spectacular, and harrowing Godzilla movies, largely thanks to how impressively designed Biollante is, and how tragic the creature’s backstory proves to be. This film leans heavily into tropes popularized by a certain iconic story/book/film series that begins with “F” and ends with “rankenstein,” but done on a kaiju-sized scale, so it ends up being pretty neatly definable as both a science fiction and horror movie.
9
Gwoemul
‘The Host’ (2006)
Thankfully, The Host is not obscure enough to be considered forgotten, by any means, but it’s perhaps a little underrated overall, as far as monster movies go, because it really is one of the best ever. People do sometimes complain about human characters in movies like this being forgettable or hard to care about (it’s valid, regarding some monster flicks), but The Host is unlikely to be a problem for anyone in that regard.
There’s a family here of a dysfunctional variety, and they have to band together when a mysterious monster kidnaps a young girl who belongs to said family. The drama here is easy to care about, and The Host ends up being emotional alongside feeling exciting, tense, and surprising. The size of the monster here, as well as its design, helps in this regard, since it’s not overwhelmingly large, and so the damage it does, and the threat it poses, feel more intimate/personal.
8
Jean Jacket
‘Nope’ (2022)
Nope is here because of the giant alien it eventually depicts, which is nick-named Jean Jacket, but it’s worth giving an honorable mention to the more mundane horror concerning a chimpanzee attack. It’s not accurate to call the chimpanzee a monster, and nor is it a threat of a science fiction-related nature, but the stuff concerning the chimp attack (depicted in a series of flashbacks) is also terrifying.
Jean Jacket is hard to describe, really. Few aliens in the history of film look much like it.
As for Jean Jacket itself, it’s an unseen threat for a while, and then the final act shows the alien in all its bizarre glory, and it’s hard to describe, really. Few aliens in the history of film look much like it, and probably the closest point of comparison, in terms of how eerie, massive, and unnervingly off it is would be some of the Angels from Neon Genesis Evangelion. That’s probably not an unfair or wild comparison to make, since Jordan Peele does reference the famed Akira slide at one point in Nope, suggesting he’s well-versed in anime.
7
The Predator
‘Predator’ (1987)
For as great as it would be to go into Predator blind, it’s just too iconic a series now to be entirely surprising. This original film does hold off in showing its titular foe in full until near the end, but still, you know you’re in sci-fi territory early on, and then after the first big action sequence, the main characters become prey, and the movie plays out the way it… well, you know how it plays out. You’ve surely seen this one by now, right?
There’s more mythology about the alien species that first appears in Predator (1987), thanks to the film spawning a franchise, so calling it a Yautja might be more lore-accurate, but for Predator, it’s a Predator. The alien here does eventually get bested, and that’s how it usually goes in the Predator movies, but still, they’re incredibly cool in terms of how they’re designed, what they can do, and how they sound, so you’ve got to give the OG Predator props (though if you’re talking chronologically, the Yautja had hunted humans before this whole jungle episode; see Prey and Predator: Killer of Killers).
6
Destoroyah
‘Godzilla vs. Destoroyah’ (1995)
A little like Godzilla vs. Biollante, Godzilla vs. Destoroyah stands as one of the scarier and more intense Godzilla movies, wrapping up one particular era of Godzilla (the Heisei one) in a brutally effective manner. Godzilla himself is a threat here, since he’s melting down and there are fears about him essentially exploding like an atomic bomb, but then there’s also Destoroyah making things worse. It’s a chaotic movie.
Destoroyah is born from the Oxygen Destroyer that defeated Godzilla in the original 1954 film, which adds to the sense of Godzilla vs. Destoroyah feeling like a pretty huge finale (not an ending to Godzilla overall, but still an ending of sorts). Destoroyah is notably powerful, even by the standards of Godzilla foes, and like a few other monsters being mentioned here, memorably evolves throughout the film, getting continually more imposing and dangerous.
5
The Monster
‘Frankenstein’ (1931)
There’s a more recent Frankenstein movie that’s naturally getting a bit more attention lately, but it doesn’t feel likely that one will feel as timeless as the 1931 film adaptation. This nearly 100-year-old movie isn’t quite as faithful to the source material, sure, but it gets a lot of the basics right, and some of the shake-ups feel as though they make sense for a movie made at this time, and for a movie that doesn’t want to clock in at more than 70 minutes in length.
Otherwise, it’s the Monster. Or it’s Frankenstein’s Monster. Or it’s the Creature. Whatever you want to call it (or him?), the Monster is about as iconic as monsters from sci-fi/horror movies get, and if you’re talking about the very old/established classics, there’s only one real competitor…
4
The Monster’s Mate
‘Bride of Frankenstein’ (1935)
…And that competitor is the Monster’s Mate, who appears in Bride of Frankenstein for not as much time as you might expect, but that doesn’t matter when the screen time is used so effectively. Bride of Frankenstein also stands as superior to Frankenstein (1931), which might be a factor in the new monster introduced here being ranked a little higher than the monster introduced in that 1931 film.
They’re hard to compare, though, and they’re also hard to put side by side in the movie itself, seeing as the Monster’s Mate is that in name only, and rejects the Monster, which leads to inevitable woe and destruction and death. The Monster is also made more interesting and compelling in Bride of Frankenstein, thanks to it being such a great sequel, but you can’t really have one without the other (they make for an unsurprisingly great double feature, and you can move through both in less than two and a half hours, all up).
3
Godzilla
The Whole Series, But Especially ‘Shin Godzilla’ (2016)
Of course, you can’t go past Godzilla for a ranking like this, especially after already mentioning a couple of his more horrific foes (yes, yes, there were omissions… maybe Ghidorah should’ve slotted in here somewhere, even if the movies he’s featured in aren’t necessarily too heavy on horror). If you want to be specific about horror in the Godzilla series, though, maybe it’s the iteration that appears in Shin Godzilla that’s the most terrifying.
This Godzilla is definitely the strangest-looking, especially early on, before he evolves into his final form. That final form is still pretty twisted, though, and memorably/infamously looks as though he’s in pain pretty much all the time. There have been more malicious versions of Godzilla, sure (see Godzilla Minus One and Godzilla, Mothra and King Ghidorah: Giant Monsters All-Out Attack), but there’s something extra horrific about how fiercely Shin Godzilla commits to the idea of Godzilla being like a natural disaster on legs. So, Godzilla occupies this spot generally, but also, if you want to single out one as the freakiest, it’s probably the version found in this 2016 movie.
2
The Thing
‘The Thing’ (1982)
It’s always hard to highlight even a handful of movies as ranking among the scariest of all time, but whether you’re doing a top 100, top 20, or maybe even a top 10, The Thing should probably be in conversation. The premise here is simple, since it’s about a group of researchers stuck in an isolated location, and they’re being hunted by an alien organism that can mimic, eerily well, the life forms it’s already taken down.
The level of dread throughout The Thing is high, and even until the end, it never really lets up (lots of the horror lingers after the movie’s over, too). The thing from The Thing also has to rank high here because of how well it’s brought to life on screen. The special effects are – sorry in advance – out of this world good, and it’s wild how effectively gooey, disgusting, and intimidating the alien here remains more than four decades later.
1
The Xenomorph
‘Alien’ (1979)
It’s bold to just call a movie “Alien,” in effect promising, with a single word, that the alien eventually featured in one way or another will warrant such a broad and all-encompassing title. The alien in Alien really does do just that, though, and deserves to be considered the defining alien of all alien movies. If it were only possible to preserve the existence of one cinematic alien for whatever reason, then it should be Alien’s alien.
Okay, like Predator, there’s a fancier name you can give it: the Xenomorph, which sounds cooler. There are many of them in later movies, but the one in Alien (1979) is the most terrifying, since it stalks and hunts an under-prepared crew in a claustrophobic setting, and there’s a real escalating horror here, the first time around, seeing it grow so rapidly and prove frightening no matter its size. Speaking of size, a very honorable mention has to go out to the queen featured in Aliens (1986), which is the more impressive monster on a technical front, but the original one’s being honored here, regardless (sorry, Aliens fans).
Alien
- Release Date
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June 22, 1979
- Runtime
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117 Minutes
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