Monster movies have been a major part of cinema for over 100 years. Universal really got it all started with the lieks of Dracula, The Invisible Man, and Frankenstein and ever since the subgenre has been going strong. And now, Ryan Coogler’s vampiric Sinners is not only a critical darling, it’s a box office smash to boot. What follows are ten really fun monster flicks that are well worth your time. They’re not all about vampires or werewolves, but any of the many takes on that lore were subject to inclusion. However, extraterrestrial movies were excluded, as they could be their own, separate list. This means no The Thing, The Predator, or, of course, Alien. “When Animals Attack” movies were also excluded for the same reason, so don’t expect to see Jaws, Anaconda, Alligator, or Piranha here. Even Jurassic Park missed out because, while the animals were resurrected by humans, the dinosaurs were animals nonetheless.
We even wanted to include a few monster movies that aren’t perfect, but deserve to have their fanbase increased. With those parameters in mind, here are 10 monster movies you should check out if you haven’t done so already.
Abigail
If you’re still in the mood for bloodsuckers after your Sinners screening, you could do a heck of a lot worse than Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett’s Abigail. The narrative follows a group of kidnappers (some professional, some not so much) who enter a mansion and hold a little girl for ransom. Unfortunately, that little girl is a vampire.
Like the directors’ two Scream movies, Abigail is a ton of fun and a seamless merger of self-awareness and bloodletting. The film’s ace in the hole comes down to casting, with Melissa Barrera delivering the best work of her career and Alisha Weir excelling as the title character.
Stream Abigail on Prime Video.
An American Werewolf in London
John Landis’ An American Werewolf in London is billed as a comedy horror film, and it functions very well on both levels, but it’s really a horror flick first and foremost. Not to mention, it comes equipped with one of horror cinema’s all-time great openings.
David and Jack are taking a trek across the North York Moors of Yorkshire, England. They stop at a pub but irritate the other patrons. After leaving, they start to feel they’re not alone out in the dark, and they’re right. Jack is killed and David survives, but now he carries a lupine curse. As great as the opening is in terms of building tension, it’s not the film’s greatest asset. That would be the practical effects by Rick Baker, especially when it comes to the iconic transformation sequence, which is cinema history’s most famous for good reason.
Stream An American Werewolf in London on Tubi and Pluto TV.
The Blob (1988)
One year after he directed the best Freddy Krueger sequel, A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors, Chuck Russell helmed The Blob, which is right up there with The Thing as one of the best remakes of all time and one of the few to improve upon the original. It’s a film that introduces a slew of likable characters and has no issue allowing the audience to grow fond of them and then kill them off in the goriest ways it can imagine.
This may actually be the film’s greatest strength (even over the practical effects and note-perfect performances). It builds such a convincing small town that the viewer feels like they’re a part of it. The people in the town are fleshed out, especially for a monster flick. So, when one of them gets sucked down a drain or is disintegrated from the inside by this organism, the viewer really feels it. And much to the film’s credit, The Blob is a movie where absolutely no one is safe, from chipper waitresses and seeming protagonists to, well, kids.
Stream The Blob on Pluto TV.
Creature from the Black Lagoon
Many point towards Dracula or The Bride of Frankenstein as being the apex of the Universal Monsters franchise. And they’re not wrong. But Creature from the Black Lagoon is a lot of fun, too, and it’s entirely original.
It came towards the tail end of Universal’s run of spooky monster flicks and, like most of them, it has a short runtime, a fast pace, and a somewhat abrupt ending. It doesn’t require much of an investment of time on movie night, and as far as starter monster movies go for kids (that are still fully entertaining for adults), there’s really no beating it.
The Fly
As was mentioned in The Blob‘s entry, The Thing is essentially the gold standard of sci-fi horror remakes, but it’s not alone in being a top-notch improvement over the original. For instance, David Cronenberg’s The Fly, a masterpiece that builds a believable relationship between two characters and then has one of them literally deteriorate under the weight of his ambition.
The Fly is a movie that coasts on Cronenberg’s particular body horror stylings and the chemistry between Jeff Goldblum and Geena Davis. But, more than all else, this is the definitive movie for showing a human slowly become something else, and it relishes showing every step of that transformation in full detail.
Gremlins
Piranha and The Howling director Joe Dante was always great for a monster movie in his ’80s heyday. And, alongside producer Steven Spielberg, he created what was by far his most successful film in Gremlins.
It’s a product that could only come from those two particular minds working together (and only in the ’80s), and that’s part of what makes it so special. There are also the brilliant rules that surround the Mogwai/Gremlins, the design of both forms of the little buggers, and the Christmas setting. If there are flaws in Gremlins, it’s hard to see what they are.
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Mothra vs. Godzilla
There are several entries in the Godzilla franchise that are well worth checking out. Ones that have a certain appeal even for non-fans. The original film is a grim, moving classic, Godzilla Minus One is much the same, and Ghidorah, the Three-Headed Monster is a phenomenal bit of goofball fun with a real heart at the core.
Then there’s Mothra vs. Godzilla, which is every bit the classic those other films are but arguably finds the best balance of silly and serious the long-running IP ever has. Godzilla’s design is perfect, the pace never loses the viewer, there’s a great attention to character development, and its indictment of greed is poignant.
Stream Mothra vs. Godzilla on MAX and Criterion Channel.
Pumpkinhead
This and the entry that follow are the two aforementioned monster movies that aren’t perfect, are even far from it, but still possess merit. The late Stan Winston was known as one of the great make-up effects artists of Hollywood history. He worked on sci-fi films like The Terminator, The Thing, Aliens, and The Predator as well as creature features like Jurassic Park, Congo, and The Island of Dr. Moreau. Yet he only directed two films, and, without a doubt, Pumpkinhead is the better of the two.
The story follows a grieving father who summons a demon to exact revenge on the careless bikers who ran over his son. But, as the demon carries out the task, the father finds himself becoming one with the bloodthirsty thing. There are a few key highlights in Pumpkinhead. One is the core concept, which allows it to function as a slasher as well as a character study. Another is the lead performance by Lance Henriksen, who has rarely headlined a film and makes the absolute most of it. Then, of course, there’s the design of the title character, which looks much better than one would expect from the film’s slim budget.
Stream Pumpkinhead on Tubi and Pluto TV.
The Relic
The Relic may be a sometimes-middling monster movie, but at least it’s a monster movie that gives its monster what amounts to a full, twisty character arc. The story takes place in the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago (a novel setting for a monster movie) and follows a detective and biologist who team up to stop the lizard monster that is storming the latter’s workplace.
Penelope Ann Miller makes for a great lead in the film, and the late Tom Sizemore does fairly well, but the main appeal of The Relic is the monster. Called Kothoga, it’s a ferocious beast that, even nearly 20 years later, is fairly convincing thanks to the work of Stan Winston Studios.
Tremors
One of the best genre blenders ever made, Ron Underwood’s Tremors is a success as a horror film, a comedy, a buddy movie, and a monster movie. Sublimely paced and graced with terrific chemistry between leads Kevin Bacon and the late Fred Ward, there’s an argument to be made it’s one of the very best movies of 1990.
Furthermore, when it comes to creature designs in monster movies, Tremors may very well take the cake. Admittedly, the Graboids got a little silly in the sequels, but in the original film they’re a formidable presence even when they’re utterly unseen. Now that the original film’s writers have won back the script rights, here’s hoping we can finally get the Bacon-fronted legacy sequel we deserve.
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