Just when you thought it was safe to go back in the water, it’s almost time for Meg 2: The Trench, the long-awaited sequel to the blockbuster in which Jason Statham faces off against two massive prehistoric sharks—and prevails. (I assume that’s just a regular Tuesday for Guy Ritchie’s shredded muse.) We at The Ringer love movie monsters (and monster movies), and that feeling is twofold when they share the same name as one of our colleagues who also happens to create arbitrary pop culture rankings. That’s right, Megan “The Meg” Schuster and I are back, and we’re ready for our greatest challenge yet: ranking movie monsters.
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Before we get started, here are some parameters: We decided not to include movies that incorporate existing animals as monsters. In other words, the shark from Jaws is excluded, but the Megs from The Meg are fair game because the species has been extinct for millions of years. We didn’t want to overwhelm the ranking by throwing in several monsters from one film—otherwise, Jurassic Park would’ve dominated the field—so every franchise is limited to one entry. Slasher villains (e.g., Michael Myers) and serial killers (e.g., Hannibal Lecter) have also been omitted—we believe these icons belong in categories of their own. That doesn’t mean, however, that our list won’t include human characters who displayed some truly monstrous behavior. Finally, not all the movie monsters in this ranking are bad news: Misunderstood creatures can also make a memorable impression, and we wanted to make sure they had some representation as well.
So, without further ado, let’s get ranking. —Miles Surrey
30. The Monster From Cloverfield, Cloverfield
Surrey: Love it or hate it, there’s no denying that Cloverfield is a unique cinematic experience: an American take on classic kaiju movies that captures the nation’s lingering anxieties after 9/11. All of the action unfolds from the perspective of a young couple’s camcorder, which adds to the chaotic nature of the proceedings: The severed head of the Statue of Liberty is chucked across New York like a bowling ball, the Brooklyn Bridge collapses, and Lizzy Caplan’s character is bitten by a spiderlike parasite before literally exploding. (I now avoid all spiders on principle.)
Then there’s the monster itself, which looks like a vampire bat on HGH. Unsurprisingly, it’s so strong that it easily brushes off the military’s attempts to destroy it. The only problem is that the audience barely gets a glimpse of the creature in Cloverfield, and when it does appear, the shaky-cam style is too discombobulating to let us savor all the gruesome details. Nevertheless, this is a terrifying, unrelenting force of otherworldly nature—the only saving grace of Cloverfield is that the monster had the decency to kill T.J. Miller amid all the carnage.
29. Dragon, Sleeping Beauty
Megan Schuster: First, some important context: Technically, this dragon is an extension of the villain Maleficent, a reptilian form she takes in order to prevent Prince Phillip from reaching Sleeping Beauty and waking her up with true love’s kiss. But in this ranking, we are purely looking at the dragon itself, not Maleficent (she’d be much higher). The dragon is a fairly intimidating beast, especially by 1959 cartoon standards—shouts to whoever spent the time approximating its dimensions on Monster Moviepedia:
But it’s ultimately defeated by three tiny fairies and a dopey prince, so its ceiling is only as high as no. 29.
28. Lord Farquaad, Shrek
Schuster: Speaking of dopey royalty: You may be wondering why this diminutive dude is on a list of monsters, and it’s a fair question. It’d be easy to say it’s because the Gingerbread Man calls him one, and who am I to disagree with someone who wears gumdrops as buttons? But really, Farquaad’s monstrous actions speak for themselves.
First, he forcibly evicts all fairy-tale creatures from Duloc, effectively turning them into refugees. Then, instead of fighting to rescue his future bride—a union he’s entering not for love, but as a requirement to become king—he holds a competition where his knights are supposed to kick the crap out of one another until there’s a “winner” (the prize being a chance to combat a fire-breathing dragon). Finally, when Fiona turns into an ogre in front of him at their wedding, he banishes her to a tower, claims the throne he still technically has no right to, and orders Shrek to be killed. His death at the fangs of the dragon was probably too kind.
27. The Asset, The Shape of Water
Schuster: The Shape of Water may have won Best Picture, but “the Asset,” as this amphibious humanoid is known in the film, certainly isn’t winning best monster. And that’s because it really isn’t one! Sure, many of the characters in the film view it that way: Michael Shannon’s Richard Strickland, the other military operatives who want to vivisect it and use its powers in the space race (yes, that was really part of the plot), and even Richard Jenkins’s Giles, who witnesses the Asset chowing down on his pet cat.
But in case you forgot, this is a love story, complete with a bathroom sex scene! The Asset does kill some people and pets along the way (RIP Pandora), but all is largely forgiven when he swipes his hands over Elisa’s neck scars and turns them into gills. (No, I’m not making any of this up—it was only six years ago!)
Surrey: I really enjoy The Shape of Water, but the fact that a romance about a sexy fishman won Best Picture over the likes of Dunkirk, Get Out, Lady Bird, and Phantom Thread is enough reason to start implementing random drug tests for members of the Academy.
26. The Blob, The Blob (1988)
Surrey: If you haven’t seen The Blob, I can understand why a sentient glob of goo doesn’t sound like nightmare fuel. While the original Blob from 1958 doesn’t hold up too well, the 1988 remake features some of the best (and nastiest) practical effects you’ll ever see in a film. Imagine an acidic bioweapon that digests anyone in its path like a Venus flytrap or, in one particularly harrowing scene that’s permanently etched into my brain, sucks someone in through a kitchen sink drain.
This is why I tried to get out of doing the dishes as a kid. (Spoiler: It didn’t work.)
25. Mutant Bear, Annihilation
Schuster: This one might be too low. I’ll admit it. I mean, look at this friggin’ thing. More important, listen to this friggin’ thing:
This once-normal bear was distorted by “the Shimmer,” the shiny, airy blanket that spreads across the Florida Panhandle and alters anything and everything within it. In this case, the bear fuses with whatever it eats (some of its teeth are human, and you can see part of a human skull on the side of its head), and it’s able to recreate its victims’ voices, like when it calls to Lena and Co. using the wails of Cass in the scene above. Not only is the bear a physical threat, but it’s also a mental one—listening to your loved ones cry out as you try not to get eaten is a special kind of torture. The mutant bear isn’t on screen a ton, which may be why it hasn’t loomed in our memories as much as the monsters further down this list. But nevertheless, this bear is certainly an achievement in monster creation.
24. The Crawlers, The Descent
Surrey: With The Descent, you essentially get two horror movies for the price of one. The first half of the film is an honest-to-god spelunking thriller, as six friends with a taste for adventure get lost in a sprawling underground cave system. (Unbeknownst to the rest of the group, one of the women willingly brought them to uncharted territory as the world’s worst bonding exercise.) If that wasn’t bad enough, it soon becomes apparent that the characters aren’t alone down there. The caves are filled with Crawlers: pale, humanoid creatures that have adapted to their pitch-black surroundings over thousands of years. Per writer-director Neil Marshall, the Crawlers evolved from cavemen—their similarity to humans makes their ruthless, animalistic nature even more unsettling. I wouldn’t want to encounter a Crawler in any context, much less when they’ve got home-field advantage.
Once the Crawlers are introduced, The Descent really kicks into high gear. There are many gory movies included in this ranking, but it’s hard to top the gnarly image of a character emerging from a pool of blood, reduced to the primal urge of surviving the unimaginable. (Is that pool the Crawler version of a spa day?) On a totally unrelated note, I plan to never, ever give spelunking a shot.
Schuster: I just assume that all caves have creatures like this at the bottom. I prefer to never find out for myself whether that’s actually the case.
23. Audrey II, Little Shop of Horrors
Schuster: I had a somewhat irrational fear of Venus flytraps growing up, and I can directly tie that to Audrey II. In real life, Venus flytraps are smallish plants designed to do exactly what they’re named for: trapping and consuming flies. Small, measly little flies. In Little Shop of Horrors, however, Audrey II grows to be mammoth, with a head that’s as big as a great white shark’s. And rather than eating bugs, it has a taste for human blood. Chill, right? Well, not for a child who was taken to see a high school production of this play!
Additionally, Audrey II possesses the power of speech and, importantly, manipulation. The way it gets food is by luring people into its trap or by convincing its caretaker—the poor, lonely, eventually anemic Seymour—to acquire food. Interestingly, the musical version of Little Shop and the movie version have different endings: Onstage, Seymour and the original Audrey (a human woman) are eaten by Audrey II before the plant multiplies and produces an army that eventually takes over Earth. In the 1986 film, though, Seymour destroys the plant and marries Audrey, and upon arriving at their home, the audience sees the bud of an Audrey II hiding in the flower beds. Not sure which one is creepier!
22. Sulley, Monsters, Inc.
Schuster: Not all monsters should be judged by the fear they evoke—in this one instance, a certain blue and purple fluff ball found happiness by making kids laugh. OK, maybe that’s sugarcoating it a bit.
At the start of Monsters Inc., Sulley definitely enjoys freaking kids out. He’s the best scarer on the scare floor, he’s a candidate to break the company’s scare record, and he works tirelessly on his craft—seriously, just watching the practice he does to scare kids in bunk beds wears me out. Alas, Sulley does change throughout the movie. He finds joy with Boo, and he and Mike figure out that instead of screams, there’s another way to power the monster world: through a child’s laughter (gag). If Sulley had really focused on his career, he could’ve been higher on this list. But I guess he didn’t want it enough.
21. Imhotep, The Mummy (1999)
Surrey: I have the utmost respect for the original 1932 version of The Mummy, which got a lot of mileage out of Boris Karloff’s creepy face as he played the infamous Imhotep. But keep in mind, I’m a millennial. (Please, bury all your avocado toast jokes under the Great Pyramid of Giza.) I was raised on the 1999 remake of The Mummy, which is basically an Indiana Jones knockoff with Brendan Fraser as the wise-cracking lead. In other words, it’s a perfect movie. As for Imhotep 2.0, played by Arnold Vosloo, the CGI for the villain is only marginally better than that of the abomination known as the Scorpion King from The Mummy Returns. Thankfully, Vosloo was on an absolute heater whenever his non-mummified face appeared on screen: The impish grin when Imhotep conjures a mighty sandstorm is downright infectious.
While the remake settles into a groove as a campy action-adventure flick, I can’t think of many deaths worse than having a mummy drain your life force to reanimate his body. I’ve never been more grateful to own a cat.
20. The Meg, The Meg
Schuster: In compiling this list, Miles and I steered clear of any monsters that could pop up in real life. So we excluded the shark from Jaws, the bear from The Revenant, and Pazuzu from The Exorcist (listen, I’m just saying, it could happen). Fortunately for the Meg, its namesake, the megalodon, has been extinct for at least 3.6 million years, so we felt comfortable including it.
Megalodons were inherently terrifying beasts: They measured up to 67 feet long and could weigh around 60 metric tons, and rather than needing to attack prey’s weak points like other sharks do, their jaws and teeth were strong enough to crack chest cavities. That all tracks, considering the movie Meg breaks through the glass of an ocean-based research facility in just one bite. The overall look of the Meg is too similar to that of normal-sized sharks for it to land too high in our ranking, but we are still obsessed with our extinct underwater overlords.
Surrey: You make some great points about the fearsome power of these prehistoric sharks, but I still gotta call out the Meg-on-Meg bias here for where it landed on a stacked list of movie monsters. This would be like if I argued that Miles Morales is the best Marvel superhero. (Even though he totally is.)
Schuster: Did I slightly juice these ratings to give my namesake some extra love? Perhaps. But now if I ever get stranded in the Mariana Trench, I assume I’ll be properly taken care of (sharks have Wi-Fi, right?).
19. The Pale Man, Pan’s Labyrinth
Surrey: When I was growing up, my parents were pretty strict about the types of movies I was allowed to watch, which makes it all the more hilarious that something as horrifying as Pan’s Labyrinth slipped through the cracks. Guillermo del Toro’s film is framed as a modern fairy tale, and nothing says “fun for the whole family” quite like the Pale Man: a child-eating monster with eyes in his palms, pointy fingers, and saggy skin. (You might have seen the Pale Man recently skulking around the nation’s capital.)
The Pale Man is a stunning feat of creature design—shout-out to Doug Jones for embodying the monster in all its uncanny glory—but it’s hard to focus on the craftsmanship when it comes after our young heroine, Ofelia (Ivana Baquero), for its next meal. The Pale Man shows up for only a few minutes of Pan’s Labyrinth, but the fact that it remains the defining image of the movie is a testament to its capacity to traumatize viewers—especially unsuspecting children.
18. Beast, Beauty and the Beast
Schuster: Honestly, Gaston may be more beastly than the Beast in this movie, but this is neither the time nor the place to get into that.
The Beast is your typical male fairy-tale idiot. He starts off as a prince who owns a castle, tons of land, and a bad attitude. When a woman arrives at his door begging for shelter from a storm, he turns her away and gets cursed in the process. She tells him he’ll eventually become a beast permanently if he doesn’t learn to love and be loved in return, but rather than, I don’t know, venturing out into the world or maybe getting on the apps and trying to find that special someone, he locks himself up in his house and seems content to just let it happen.
Then, when a nice young girl falls into his lap and decides to willingly imprison herself in his house in exchange for her father’s freedom, he nearly screws it all up by letting her go without confessing his feelings. Men would rather turn into literal beasts than go to therapy.
17. The Brundlefly, The Fly (1986)
Surrey: Another instance of a remake that surpasses the original, David Cronenberg’s version of The Fly finds Hollywood’s reigning king of body horror delivering what may well be the most iconic monstrosity of his career. It’s a tale as old as time: Cocky scientist Seth Brundle (Jeff Goldblum) tests out his homemade teleportation device and accidentally fuses his body with a fly in the process. The repulsive metamorphosis that follows is not for the fainthearted: Brundle begins losing his skin, starts vomiting digestive enzymes onto his food, and eventually looks like this:
To paraphrase another memorable Goldblum character: Seth Brundle was so preoccupied with whether or not he could teleport across a room that he didn’t stop to think whether he should.
16. The Kraken, Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest
Surrey: I will always go to bat for Gore Verbinski’s Pirates of the Caribbean series, which doesn’t get enough credit for being weird as all hell. This is a fantastical world in which pirate ships are captained by ghosts, vengeful sea goddesses create violent maelstroms, and flat-Earth theory essentially exists as an entryway to Davy Jones’s locker. (Speaking of Davy Jones: Our guy has a face that more closely resembles a squid.) But of all the WTF elements of the Pirates franchise, there’s nothing that captivates the imagination quite like the kraken: an unstoppable, tentacled sea monster that makes quick work of any ships in its path.
The kraken is imposing enough given the carnage it inflicts on screen, but what makes it a truly unforgettable creature is the accompanying Hans Zimmer theme. When the kraken’s music starts playing, I can’t decide whether I should fear every large body of water on the planet or travel back in time to experience Zimmer’s kick-ass Coachella set. In any case, Megan, I think we can both agree: If we were ranking movie monsters by their theme songs, the kraken would be in a league of its own.
Schuster: I used to listen to movie scores while studying in college, and Pirates was a frequent flier on my Spotify. But such violent images accompanied this song in particular that most of the time, I’d have to hit next on shuffle—truly epic.
15. Dolores Umbridge, Multiple Harry Potter Movies
Schuster: THIS BITCH. Dolores Umbridge is the Karen of the Harry Potter world. Not only does she sport a coif like this:
And outfits like this:
And a self-satisfied expression like this:
But she also straight-up tortures students with her blood quill, encourages kids to rat on one another for breaking her draconian rules, and eventually helps Voldemort run the Ministry of Magic, instituting policies that persecute Muggle-born witches and wizards. Getting captured by a horde of centaurs was just a taste of what this woman deserved. The Dementors in Azkaban probably recognized a kindred spirit when she arrived.
Surrey: And in the case of J.K. Rowling, you either die a hero or live long enough to see yourself become the real Dolores Umbridge.
14. Jabba the Hutt, Star Wars
Surrey: If we were consulting with Diego Luna on this ranking, it’s safe to assume Jabba the Hutt would be cracking the top five. (For the uninitiated: Luna has given several interviews that imply he’s fascinated with—and possibly aroused by—the space slug’s slimy texture. I pray their characters cross paths in the second season of Andor.) Personally, I don’t want to touch Jabba’s skin, but there are few creatures from the Star Wars universe that leave a more lasting impression—mainly because of how repulsive he looks. This is exactly how I feel after ordering half the Popeyes menu at the end of a very long day:
13. Amy Dunne, Gone Girl
Schuster: Truly one of the great movie monsters. Before diving into what sets Amy Dunne apart from other creatures on this list, here’s how she fits in:
- She claims multiple victims.
- She loves psychological torture.
- She plans her attacks in advance, nailing her prey when they least expect it.
- She strikes fear into the heart of anyone who crosses her.
- She gets away with it.
As if all of that weren’t enough, what brings Amy close to the top 10 is how detailed she is. She spent months writing fake diary entries, buying bachelor pad items in Nick’s name, and tricking Nick into upping her life insurance policy, and then she even spread her own blood throughout her and Nick’s kitchen, only to clean it up to frame him for her murder. All because Nick cheated on her. Then, when her plan goes to shit, she violently kills an ex-boyfriend, frames him for kidnapping her (and much worse), returns to Nick, and forces him to stay with her by impregnating herself with sperm Nick had at a fertility clinic. She’s a criminal mastermind and part of one of the best movie/book twists ever.
Surrey: I don’t disagree with anything you’ve laid out, but I’m still ready to risk it all. Amy Dunne … call me.
12. Gremlins, Gremlins
Surrey: There are three rules to follow when one comes into possession of a Mogwai, or Gremlin: Don’t expose them to light, don’t let them come into contact with water, and don’t feed them after midnight. Failure to do so will lead to devastating consequences. I always assumed that Gremlins were a work of fiction, but my friend has the exact same guidelines for taking care of her family’s temperamental Chihuahua.
11. Anton Chigurh, No Country for Old Men
Surrey: Do you know how terrifying a villain has to be to make a movie monster ranking when said character is (a) a human and (b) a human with a BOWL CUT?
Of course, for anyone who’s watched No Country for Old Men, the thought of coming into contact with Anton Chigurh (an Oscar-winning Javier Bardem) is the stuff of nightmares. He is so cold, unfeeling, and hostile that merely engaging in harmless small talk is liable to get you killed if you lose a coin toss. (I’ve rewatched that scene countless times, and it never fails to make me shit my pants.) There is perhaps no greater endorsement of Chigurh’s capacity to strike fear into the hearts of viewers than a forensic psychiatrist naming him the single most realistic portrayal of a psychopath in a film. So many monsters on this list, while unmistakably scary, don’t exist in the real world. What’s so chilling about Chigurh is the idea that someone like him could be hiding in plain sight—and with a less incriminating haircut, at that.
Schuster: I hope, pray, dream that there’s at least one person in the world who’s gone to the salon and asked for “the Anton Chigurh.”
10. Sandworms, Dune
Schuster: If anyone out there has better video editing skills than me, can you please compile the clips of Paul riding sandworms from the Dune: Part Two trailer and overlay them with Led Zeppelin’s “Immigrant Song”? My DMs are open.
The idea of sandworms has been around since at least 1965, when Frank Herbert’s Dune was first published. But they are still a relatively new concept as a movie monster, and in the first of Denis Villeneuve’s Dune films, they benefit from the Jaws treatment: They’re made all the more scary by the fact that we hardly see them; they lurk just below the surface.
In Dune: Part Two we’ll see Paul and the Fremen ride these worms, and we may even get a full glimpse at just how giant and impressive they are. But I don’t expect more exposure to dull their impact, especially under Villeneuve’s direction. If anything, they may seem even more shocking.
Surrey: While we’re on the subject, can someone overlay the sandworm trailer clips with Darude’s “Sandstorm”? My DMs are also open.
9. T. Rex, Jurassic Park
Schuster: Think of all the moments from monster movies when you hadn’t yet seen the beast, but you knew it was coming because of some visual or auditory tell. With Jaws, it’s the threatening “duh-dun-duh-dun” of John Williams’s score. In King Kong, the ground seems to move whenever he approaches. Even in Dune, the entire sandscape shakes with an incoming worm. But never was this trick done more effectively than when Steven Spielberg showed a simple glass of water on a car’s dashboard.
Before any Indominous rexes or manufactured dinos needed to up the ante, Jurassic Park’s original T. rex was enough to scare the bejesus out of moviegoers. We were all Jeff Goldblum the first time we saw this behemoth up close.
8. Predators, the Predator Franchise
Surrey: We don’t appreciate how bizarre the legacy of the first Predator film actually is. For starters, none other than Jean-Claude Van Damme nearly played the titular hunter in an ungainly costume that looked like a praying mantis exposed to radiation. (Shockingly, Van Damme was not a fan, he left the project, and the movie went in another direction with the creature.) Then there’s the fact that two stars of the movie—Arnold Schwarzenegger and Jesse Ventura—became governors, while another, Sonny Landham, ran for governor and senator in Kentucky. As for the movie itself, Predator blessed us with the most memed handshake in the world, which I unironically love. All of these random tidbits would’ve been enough to make Predator a historic blockbuster, but then it also introduced moviegoers to an undeniably badass alien species that spawned a multimillion-dollar franchise.
In short, Predators are intergalactic big-game hunters who treat our planet like one giant safari ground. They hunt humans for sport and collect our skulls and/or spinal columns as trophies—even the most hardened fighters in the world don’t stand a chance against them. But what’s most compelling about Predators is that they abide by a code of honor: If you’re pregnant or otherwise vulnerable, they won’t harm you because it wouldn’t be sporting. They’ll even become our allies when faced with a common enemy, who appears further down the list. All of these fascinating qualities make Predators the kind of movie monsters you can’t help but admire—despite being, to paraphrase the Governator, some ugly motherfuckers.
Schuster: A great movie to watch any time, but especially on Valentine’s Day.
7. Nosferatu, Nosferatu
Schuster: Full disclosure: I wasn’t entirely familiar with Nosferatu’s whole … thing until we started this project, but whooo boy is it a doozy. The CliffsNotes version: Nosferatu is a vampire living in an isolated castle in Transylvania. You have the whole visual already, don’t you?
People in the movie pretty much seem to know that he’s bad news and that they should steer clear—except newcomer Thomas Hutter. Long story short, Nosferatu (also known as Count Orlok) sees a picture of Hutter’s wife; he goes to Germany to try to suck her blood; people in that town start to die (doctors blame a plague); and Orlok eventually kills the wife but is in turn killed when the sun rises. Sort of your classic vampire tale, but a hugely influential film and creeptastic piece of art. Oh yeah, and now a meme. Because isn’t everything these days?
Surrey: The original Nosferatu may be over 100 years old—and still holds up in the creepiness department—but we’re about to get a remake from The Witch’s Robert Eggers with Bill Skarsgard, the creepiest of all the Skarsgards, in the title role. When that happens, our vamp might break into the top three.
Schuster: “The creepiest of all the Skarsgards.” Miles, I’d like to hear your full Skarsgard creepiness ranking offline, please.
Surrey: On second thought, Stellan Skarsgard takes the crown:
6. T-1000, Terminator 2: Judgment Day
Surrey: Arnold Schwarzenegger might have been a formidable killing machine in the original Terminator, but the character is best remembered as an unlikely (and genuinely endearing) protector in Terminator 2: Judgment Day, the rare blockbuster sequel that surpasses the original. It’s also in Judgment Day that the franchise unveiled its greatest villain: the T-1000 (Robert Patrick), a shape-shifting robot composed of liquid metal. The unassuming appearance of the T-1000—at least compared to a former Austrian bodybuilder—belies just how deadly it is, proving capable of withstanding just about any damage inflicted on it. James Cameron made an intentional choice to have such a sinister figure take the form of a cop: a conceit that still resonates today.
Just a heads-up, Megan, I will be using this GIF anytime you share a bad take on Slack:
5. King Kong, Various King Kong Movies (and Franchise Crossovers)
Surrey: I can’t stress this enough: The original King Kong from 1933 is a masterpiece of its time, and the work that went into its stop-motion sequences is astonishing in and of itself. However, my lasting memory of the giant ape is from Peter Jackson’s 2005 remake, which owes a great debt to Andy Serkis, who lent so much humanity to his portrayal of Kong. Serkis is Hollywood’s undisputed mo-cap GOAT for a reason, and Kong is some of the most affecting work of his career. I’m not ashamed to admit I bawled my eyes out watching Serkis’s Kong fall from the Empire State Building to his death—so much so that I’ve never done a full rewatch of the film. Even just thinking about Kong dying is making me tear up, so … Megan, quick, before I have an existential crisis about the plight of our fellow primates, what’s the next monster on our ranking?
4. Frankenstein’s Monster, Frankenstein
Schuster: You almost have to feel a little bad for Frankenstein’s monster. I mean, he didn’t ask for this. He didn’t beg a twisted scientist to piece him together from the body parts of recently deceased people. He didn’t ask for his head to accidentally be filled with the brain of a criminal. And he certainly didn’t beg to be tortured in a dungeon with no concept of where he was, or even who he was. I mean, once he was created against his will, what else was he going to do but fight to preserve that life?
So it’s tragic that he kills some people (especially sweet Maria, who was just trying to be his friend). And it’s a bummer that he attacks Elizabeth, who had no real role in his creation other than happening to be there, on her wedding day. But none of it is wholly unsurprising.
Surrey: That didn’t help. Now I’m crying.
3. The Thing, The Thing
Surrey: Let the record show that I had the Thing at the top of my personal ranking, and while third place is a solid consolation prize, I honestly don’t think it should’ve been a contest. Conceptually, the Thing is fucking terrifying: a parasitic alien life-form that can assume the likeness of its victims, which, for the isolated men on a research base in Antarctica, means they can’t trust one another. (The Thing originally entered their base in the form of a dog, so it’s not limited to imitating humans.) Yet the Thing is arguably even more frightening (and dangerous) in the midst of one of its transformations, which were masterfully conceived by the legendary special effects and creature designer Rob Bottin. Fun fact: Our Ringer colleague Kellen Becoats was quite dismayed when, while fact-checking my piece last year on The Thing and Blade Runner’s shared anniversary, he had to watch the scene where the Thing turned its host’s chest cavity into rows of jagged teeth that chomp off a man’s arms. Hey Kellen, do you mind making sure I linked to the right video?
Don’t get me wrong, this is a stacked list of iconic movie monsters. But the Thing isn’t just any creature: It could be one of us.
2. Xenomorphs, the Alien Franchise
Surrey: If I had to distill the Xenomorphs into one adjective, it would be nasty. Here’s what you’re dealing with: a highly aggressive alien species with acid for blood, a tongue that has its own mouth (?!), and the need to use our bodies to lay eggs via facehuggers. (The Xenomorph hatching process seems, uh, quite unpleasant.) It’s a testament to the unstoppable nature of Xenomorphs that the best Alien video game ever made requires the player to hide from them because they’re impossible to kill. Facing off against a Xenomorph should feel hopeless because, unless you happen to be Sigourney Weaver, it probably is.
Deadly attributes aside, the Xenomorph just looks intimidating: As conceived by the surrealist artist H.R. Giger, the aliens have a sleek, almost mechanical frame and imperceptible eyes. (The thought of not being able to look into the eyes of the monster trying to kill you, unsettling!) As the android Ash from the original Alien says of the Xenomorph: “I admire its purity.” I wouldn’t go so far as to say I admire Xenomorphs, but even in space, I’m willing to bet you could hear me scream if I saw one.
1. Godzilla, Godzilla
Schuster: This is now the second time Godzilla has come in at no. 1 in our rankings. The first was on a pop culture dinosaurs list (tied with Littlefoot from The Land Before Time, of course), and there I wrote, “The fearsome monster, who first appeared in 1954, has been portrayed in more than 30 movies, countless comic books and video games, and undoubtedly in many children’s nightmares. … Godzilla has set the standard for virtually every movie monster that has come since.” I stand by it.
Clips from that 1954 film may seem quaint in the age of CGI. But the fear and awe the monster inspired helped make Godzilla the longest-running film franchise in history, created an international household icon, and set the bar that all movie monsters would have to attempt to clear going forward. There is a reason people wanted to see Godzilla take on King Kong in 1962, then in 2021, and apparently people want to see them go at it again next year, too. Godzilla may outlast us all—and that’s why he tops this list.
