The Best Horror-Movie Monsters

Jiggyfly

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Happy ‘Halloween’: The Best Horror-Movie Monsters

ELIAS STEIN
MOVIES
OCTOBER 29, 2015
by SHEA SERRANO AND JASON CONCEPCION
http://grantland.com/hollywood-prospectus/happy-halloween-the-best-horror-movie-monsters/

10. Ganush, Drag Me to Hell



Shea: You know what? I feel like maybe I got this one wrong, but maybe I didn’t. Here’s the thing, Jason: Whenever you and I work on one of these things, I always end up having to watch a few movies I missed from the past. Drag Me to Hell was like that. I didn’t see it when it came out, and were it not for researching this article, I likely never would’ve seen it. But I watched it. And I loved it. It’s such a good scary movie, in that it’s scary and gross and occasionally unsettling but also fun and enjoyable and with parts you never even thought you wanted to see. To wit, there’s a YouTube video called “To Hell (2009) – Mouth Moments (Funny),” and it’s just all the parts of the movie when something crazy happens that involves a mouth, one of which is Ganush vomiting bugs into the mouth of the woman she’s haunting.

Some monsters that I expected to make this list didn’t. There’s no Pinhead, there’s no Sil from Species, there’s no Seth Brundle from The Fly, there are no super earthworms from Tremors, there’s no fish monster from The Host, there are no cave dwellers from The Descent (one of my favorite scary movies of the last 10 years), there’s no Creeper from Jeepers Creepers (another of my favorites, and a wildly underrated franchise), there’s no Pennywise from It (WHAT????), there’s no Slither, there’s no It Follows, there’s no Chucky from Child’s Play, THERE’S NO CANDYMAN (FOH HOW DID CANDYMAN NOT MAKE IT??????). But Ganush makes it. I don’t know how, but she makes it. And I couldn’t be happier about it.

9. Samara, The Ring




Jason: If someone gives you a cursed videotape, don’t watch the tape. After you don’t watch the tape, continue to not watch the tape and repeat not watching the tape for the rest of your life. If you should happen, somehow, to watch the tape, then, within seven days, copy the tape and give the copy to someone you don’t like, making sure not to mention it’s cursed.

Shea: I would give TF outta this tape to people. There’s no way I’m dying if the only thing I have to do not to die is have someone else die. That’s a little thing called Darwinism, my friend. Same thing if I’m running from a killer. I love you, Jason, but if it’s me and you and we’re running from someone who’s trying to kill us both, I am 100 percent kicking you as hard as I can in the knee so you’re hobbled so the killer can catch you and I can escape. That’s just how it’s going to happen. I’m sorry.

8. Michael Myers, Halloween Series




Shea: He’s always seemed like the coldest, most ruthless, most black-eyed killer of all the movie monsters. I think it’s because he never talks (same as Jason Voorhees) and also because he wears a mask even though it’s not necessary, which I’m sure says something about his general psychosis (Jason’s mask was functional, in that by the end of the series it was very clear he was not a human anymore).

He’s second in total kills (Jason is the leader with more than 300 confirmed kills; Myers has 111; Lubin from The Leprechaun has 45; Freddy Krueger has 42; Pinhead has 35) and first in consistency (nobody is more on-brand). He’s my favorite horror-movie killer, so I’d have liked to have seen him land closer to the second or third spot, but eighth feels right, him hiding back here in the bushes waiting to drive that butcher knife into your sternum.

7. The Babadook, The Babadook




Jason: [THIS ONE CONTAINS SPOILERS.] If you find a strange and mysterious children’s book in your home, think twice before reading it to your child. If, after reading said strange and mysterious book to your child, you find yourself experiencing unexplained events and weird dreams, leading you to destroy the book, only to find that the book has reassembled itself and is waiting for you on your stoop, then seriously consider whether you may have, in fact, written the mysterious book yourself and are repressing the memory of doing so.

Shea: I just watched this movie. As soon as it was over I was like, “Well, I guess I’m never reading another book to one of my kids again.” Also, “Babadook” is just a great fucking name for something that’s supposed to be scary.

6. Leatherface, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre Series




Shea: I still remember watching the remake at the movie theater in 2003. I was in college. And I was really feeling like it was a good idea to take the girl I was dating. But it was not a good idea. It was a super-bad idea. There was that one part when Leatherface hangs the guy on the meat hook and the girl tries to get him off it but she can’t and so she’s trying to slide him off and he keeps dropping back down on it. That remains the closest I’ve ever come to throwing up in a theater. AND THAT WAS JUST THE REMAKE OF THE SCENE, which is inferior to the original version, in which Leatherface hangs a girl on a meat hook and then carves up a guy with a chain saw in front of her as she dangles and screams and dangles.

I went on this haunted hayride thing one time in San Antonio. It was real cool. You paid $10 or so, then you just sat on this platform that was pulled by a tractor through the woods and all of these scary things would happen along the way. Michael Myers was there. Jason was there. Freddy was there. But nobody inspired the same sort of fear that Leatherface did when he came running out from the brush with his chain saw just BRRRRRRRARAAARRRRRing. People were literally jumping off the ride to run away. I’ve never forgotten that. (I didn’t run away, because I’m not a coward. I just closed my eyes real tight and grabbed hold of whomever it was that was sitting next to me because actually, yes, I am a coward.) I think maybe it’s because he’s the one guy out of all of these movies who could actually exist in real life. Or maybe it’s the sound of that chain saw starting up. Or maybe it’s his mask made of human skin. It’s probably some combination of all of those things (but mostly him possibly being real). Either way, he deserves to be on here. He probably deserves to be higher, truthfully.

5. Sex Parasite, Shivers




Jason: In Shivers, a bioengineered parasite runs rampant through an upscale Montreal apartment complex, transforming the building’s bourgeoisie inhabitants into an orgiastic horde of zombies who hunger for fresh flesh to infect. After the last holdout is organized into submission, the DTF-infected surge into the streets to turn out Montreal proper and, one expects, the world.

4. Freddy Krueger, Nightmare on Elm Street Series

Shea: As far as iconography goes, Freddy is either at the very top or he loses out only to Jason Voorhees. I mean, he had a fucking song with Will Smith, that’s how popular he was in the ’80s.




(The best thing about this song is the disbelief Will expresses about Freddy wearing a sweater even when it’s hot outside. I suppose this is a valid concern.)

One of the things I’ve always liked about Freddy is his sense of self-awareness. He’s a showy guy, and he’s not above hamming things up when need be. I think that’s important, at least some of the time. And yet, still, he’s a master killer, and he for sure is inescapable (he’ll either kill you in your sleep, or you’ll go crazy and die from not getting any sleep, which is a real thing I didn’t know could happen). He’s got that great face, that great glove, that great voice, that great attitude, that great everything. It feels wrong having him fourth. It just feels wrong.

3. The Thing, The Thing




Jason: You’re not paranoid if everyone around you really is an alien in disguise that’s out to kill you. The alien monster in The Thing could be anything: your wife, your husband, your dog, your best dude, pre-diebeetus Wilford Brimley, anyone.

Shea: Very surprised the Thing managed to sneak this far up the list.

2. Jason Voorhees, Friday the 13th Series

Shea: He. Is. A. Relentless. And. Perfect. Killing. Factory.

He has the greatest horror-movie kill of all time (when he snatched that girl up while she was in her sleeping bag and slammed it against the tree), he has great accessories (his mask, of course, but also his machete), he has a very strong backstory (died as a kid, returned to kill a bunch of people because he was mad about that and also about his mom getting killed), he quietly had a sense of humor, or if not that then a sense of irony (remember when that one boxer tried to fistfight Jason and so he just stood there and let the guy punch himself out and then hit him with a left cross that literally knocked his head off his shoulders? Or the time he was on Arsenio Hall?), and he was essentially unkillable. I will argue forever that he should’ve finished first. He’s the obvious winner, Jason.

Alas …

1. The Alien, Alien Series



Jason: The alien Xenomorph MOUNTS YOUR FACE, FORCES ITS EGG DEPOSITOR INTO YOUR MOUTH AND DOWN INTO YOUR STOMACH, AND LAYS ITS EGG INSIDE OF YOU, WHERE IT GROWS UNTIL IT BURSTS OUT OF YOUR CHEST, BEGINNING THE CYCLE ANEW. THIS IS THE BEST MONSTER IN MOVIES.

Shea: Oh snap. I forgot about that part. Out of all the ways we’ve seen someone die in this column, having an alien deposit an egg in your stomach via your mouth (GROSS!) and then having that alien explode out of your chest (GAH!) is probably the least desirable way to go. Please continue.

Jason: Right. And to make things even scarier, the alien’s fictional life cycle and biology is actually mirrored in real-life science. The dementor wasp injects its prey with a venom that turns it into a zombie, allowing it to be devoured alive. And a newly discovered wasp species lays its eggs inside a stink bug, where the juveniles eat the bug from the inside out.

Shea: Fucking science, man.
 

Carp

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This list is horrid.

I mean Frankenstein and Dracula need to be somewhere.

The fucking Babadook? Horrid. The Babadook was ok, nothing special.

Bughul from Sinister was awesome.

Freddy should be #1 IMO. Mike Myers should be right there too...not behind Sex Parasites. WTF
 

Jiggyfly

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This list is horrid.

I mean Frankenstein and Dracula need to be somewhere.

The fucking Babadook? Horrid. The Babadook was ok, nothing special.

Bughul from Sinister was awesome.

Freddy should be #1 IMO. Mike Myers should be right there too...not behind Sex Parasites. WTF
They adress the classic movie monsters in the article I did not post it all because most of it was stupid.
 

Genghis Khan

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This list is horrid.

I mean Frankenstein and Dracula need to be somewhere.

The fucking Babadook? Horrid. The Babadook was ok, nothing special.

Bughul from Sinister was awesome.

Freddy should be #1 IMO. Mike Myers should be right there too...not behind Sex Parasites. WTF
Agree all around.
 

Kbrown

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Specifically, the Freddy of NOES 3: Dream Warriors may be the best. That was him at his funniest and scariest, just before he became a pop culture icon. That marionette scene with the kid's tendons may be my favorite slasher movie moment ever.

Not necessarily the greatest, but some of my other favorites: Predator, Sam from Trick 'r Treat, Pumpkinhead, the deadites from Evil Dead and Evil Dead 2, the Shark from Jaws, the cave creatures from The Descent, The Thing from John Carpenter's version, Maniac Cop
 

Cotton

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Haven't read the full article, but the clown from It has to get a mention
 

Carp

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Specifically, the Freddy of NOES 3: Dream Warriors may be the best. That was him at his funniest and scariest, just before he became a pop culture icon. That marionette scene with the kid's tendons may be my favorite slasher movie moment ever.

Not necessarily the greatest, but some of my other favorites: Predator, Sam from Trick 'r Treat, Pumpkinhead, the deadites from Evil Dead and Evil Dead 2, the Shark from Jaws, the cave creatures from The Descent, The Thing from John Carpenter's version, Maniac Cop
I think that Freddy was real scary in New Nightmare...they reinvented him.

Also, the monster from Jeepers Keepers was great too.
 

Carp

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In the original Halloween, when Michael is killing the guy in the kitchen, the kid moves his mask off his face and he looks retarded disfigured...that was scary.
 

Carp

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Candyman, Lecter, the original Tooth Fairy from Manhunter, and Pinhead deserve credit.

Also...watch Midnight Meat Train if you get a chance...Mahogany was good.
 

Kbrown

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Candyman, Lecter, the original Tooth Fairy from Manhunter, and Pinhead deserve credit.

Also...watch Midnight Meat Train if you get a chance...Mahogany was good.
Props for Manhunter. All-time underrated movie.

If you re-watch Hellraiser, Pinhead does surprisingly little, but his presence just makes him great. I still remember being scared and intrigued by the posters for the sequels in the video rental store when I was little.

If we are counting completely human killers, I won't spoil it for anyone hasn't heard about it, but the ending to Sleepaway Camp is a huge "holy shit" moment.
 

Texas Ace

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Also...watch Midnight Meat Train if you get a chance...Mahogany was good.
Never saw the movie, but the book is great.

That's based on the Clive Barker book, right?
 
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