Horror movies - let's talk creature features!
Good morning, afternoon, and evening everyone! I hope everyone's doing well, or at least hanging in there this weekend. Now let's talk about horror movies that feature monsters or animals killing people in various fashions!
Are you a fan of monsters from outer space, or a more grounded flick about an alligator terrorizing the sewers of 1980s NYC? What about man-made horrors beyond our comprehension? A dog that was having a bad day after being bitten by a rabid bat? Let your voice be heard in the comments below!
I'll start with a movie the Sci-fi channel used to show every now and then (though it originally aired as a mini-series on ABC): The Beast, based off of Peter Benchley's novel of the same name. If the author sounds familiar, he wrote a book you may have heard of: Jaws.
Featuring a giant squid terrorizing yet another idyllic New England town, The Beast isn't a very good movie when you get down to it, but it's an enjoyable watch nonetheless. It's essentially a 90s remake of Jaws with a giant squid instead of a shark, but it has a certain coziness and warmth to it that I enjoy. It's not even close to my favorite creature feature, but it was on my mind so I figured I'd let someone else talk about how awesome Lake Placid is. And this movie has Gil Grissom from CSI going up against a giant squid, so that's pretty neat.
Anyway, it's the weekend, let's watch some horror movies!
No creature feature is complete without mentioning Tremors (1990). An absolute gem.
Tremors 2 and 4 are also pretty great. The later sequels, less so.
"You broke into the wrong god-damn rec room!"
Tremors is just the best kind of comfort movie, wife and I absolutely love it.
That camera pan over to their giant gun rack makes me laugh every time.
The Thing is probably my favorite creature feature. Hardly a controversial choice, I know, but it captures the isolation of not knowing. Not knowing who the monster is, not knowing who you can trust, not even knowing if you can even trust yourself.
If anyone hasn’t seen Pumpkinhead, that’s also a fantastic creature movie with some great effects.
I’ll also mention that there’s a ton of great, classic Universal monsters waiting to be rediscovered. Not just the classic original, but the sequels too. There’s some real gems in the later 30s-40s era (and some stinkers too).
Troll Hunter (2010) was quite neat. I really liked how it took a batshit insane concept and played it entirely straght. Or reasonably straight, at least. What I mean is that it would be so easy to to let it be just a comedy.
There is also The Host (2006) a South Korean movie filled with symbolism, political commentary, tragedy, dark humor and believeable characters. It's one of the few creature features which feel authentic and personal.
Honerable mentions to Demonic Toys and Killer Klowns from Outer Space and Reptilicus.
Not exactly horror, but I recent watched The Europa Report and thought it was pretty fun for a low budget film.
Monsters from outer space when it comes to creatures. Xenomorph, hands down. An organism born specifically to hunt prey like you.
By horrors beyond comprehension, you mean like Annihilation's mutants? The Thing? Not sure how to classify that.
I can't handle animals as we're too OP, and they get comical buffs most of the time. At which point I'd rather have something too alien to be incorrect. It's a bit like uncanny valley.
Using Annihilation as a jumping off point, could it be argued that The Mothman Prophecies is a sort of creature feature?
I've never seen it, but I don't see why not. I understand the Mothman never physically interacts with anyone, though?
Sort of? He interacts with characters, but it's always a story they are telling, or they are on the phone with a main character saying "He's here right now", or something. He's some sort of mysterious nonhuman entity.
It's not the best regarded film, for for me personally, it creeps my shit, and it's the film that spurred my love for cosmic horror.
I recently heard they're remaking Jeepers Creepers which I found odd because the creature from that was so obviously some person in a rubber suit that it destroyed my immersion in the film. And for some reason my brain insists that the star of Jeepers Creepers is not Justin Long (who must be much older than I think he is) but was Freddy Printz Jr.
I watched Meg 2: The Trench in the cinema and it's fun nonsense, but they're clearly trying to create a universe and a franchise and I wish film makers would just really lean into doing one great film and moving on to something new. Each new film will be more and more incomprehensible to people who are outside the universe. It ends up with characters giving whole reams of stuff that makes sense in-universe, but which is equivalent to tech the tech to the warpdrive and it's just not something I find fun. And because they need to keep upping the stakes they have to modify the creature - now there's not just one meg, there are three! There's not just one Alien ripping its way through the crew, there's hordes, or the Alien is the same but we're all space monk prisoners, or the Alien is a genetic mutant. It feels like incoherent monster-character progression.
Before that I saw Underwater which is much better than the low scores and bad reviews would have you believe. Suspension of disbelief was easier for this than the Meg. The reveal is pretty gradual, and Kristen Stewart is ace in this.
My favourite is Tremors, which is obviously great and it's a shame they keep dragging it out for another go, because they can't recapture that magic. The reboot was good, but still.
Another film I really enjoyed was the Australian Bait. I think it hits the right spots of horror, fun, and not taking itself too seriously for me.
I can't see there being many more (if any) Tremors films after Michael Gross asked them to kill his character off because he was tired of being in them. He was really the draw for those films after the second one.
I'll try to avoid the easy picks. I love horror movies and creature features.
Splinter - (2008): Solid low-budget creature movie where a couple on a camping trip get tangled up with two criminals who try to carjack them, before the group encounters a bizarre creature that repurposes living tissue into other forms.
Prophecy - (1979): A bunch of environmentalist scientists get stuck in the wilderness fighting a giant mutant bear.
Orca - (1977): One of the better Jaws ripoffs. Kind of a mash-up of Jaws and Moby Dick.
I havent seen splinter mentioned in so many years. It's always been on of those movies that made a deep impact on me but it seems like no one else has ever seen or heard of. I found it randomly while browsing forums as a teenager and I can definitely credit watching the terrible, low res version I found online for helping develop my love of horror movies.
I hadn't seen it until about a month or so ago, but I was surprised at how well-made it is despite the obviously low budget. It's a must-watch for people who hate horror movies where the characters always seem to make the worst/dumbest decisions at the worst possible time.
Prophecy definitely scared me as a kid. I like Orca.
Just remembered another one Deepstar Six (1989). Similar to The Abyss. Low budget but still entertaining enough.
It's a great double-bill with Leviathan which came out the same year.
Split Second (1992) is worth a mention here. Its campy-horror-entertainment. But seriously, the movie had a good backdrop, story and creature. It could have been class A movie if someone like the types of Guillermo del toro would have helmed it. That's reminds me of another one Mimic (1997).
If you're looking for something scary I recommend The Tunnel (2011) without giving too much away its a combination of a monster horror in the format of a found footage style documentary.