With all due respect to famous slashers like Jason Voorhees and Michael Myers, the scariest movie monsters in the annals of filmmaking are undoubtedly sci-fi creatures from our favorite horror flicks. There is something more lasting, more primal about these sci-fi beasts that makes them stick in your craw far longer than any typical horror antagonist. Think about the Xenomorphs and Facehuggers from the Alien franchise, Calvin from Life, or the parasites from Cloverfield, and the goosebumps just appear on your skin.
Don't deny it. We hope you're ready for the stuff nightmares are made of, as we're running through the sci-fi movie monsters that make us want to cry for our mommies.
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- Alien
- 20th Century Fox
Where Do They Come From: Though Facehuggers are technically Xenomorphs, they warrant an inclusion here because they are just so harrowing. Facehuggers hatch out of Xenomorph eggs. And, if anything, they are even more terrifying than their adult counterparts.
How They Hunt: After hatching, they immediately seek the nearest life-form and, well, hug their face. Violently. It isn't really a "hug" so much as an "assault." They should be called "Faceassaulters," even if it doesn't quite roll off the tongue as nicely. It would be much more accurate!
Creepiest Feature: Everything about the Facehugger is creepy, but the most bone-chilling aspect has to be the finger-like tendrils that wrap around the target's head. If they are forcibly removed before the Facehugger has done its business of implanting an embryo in its victim, acid will excrete from said tendrils, and that is never good.
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Where Does It Come From: The original tagline of the film was "The ultimate in alien horror." So, you tell us where it comes from. Hint: It's from outer space.
How It Hunts: A shape-shifting parasite, the Thing tries to absorb and assimilate every living thing around it. Since it can realistically mimic each and every life-form it comes into contact with, the Thing can hide in plain sight, which makes it an extremely dangerous foe to come in contact with.
Creepiest Feature: Though it can mimic even the most minute detail of the being it assimilates, the process is very violent and disgusting. The special effects of this 1982 classic are a marvel of revolting imagery as a result. Have you ever seen a man's stomach grow massive teeth and chomp off the arms of another man? The Thing has you covered, if you're interested.
Xenomorphs From The 'Alien' Franchise
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- Alien: Covenant
- 20th Century Fox
Where Do They Come From: This is a little bit murky, as the Alien franchise's lore is pretty undefined and always shifting. Depending on the various films, comic books, and other media, Xenomorphs could come from the planet of Xenomorph Prime (which has never been in an Alien film), they could be solely created from the Engineers' weird, black liquid substance from Prometheus, or maybe they're just the result of experiments by Michael Fassbender's android David. It really is up in the air at this point!
How They Hunt: For creatures so large and disgusting, the Xenomorphs are experts of stealth. They may not have cloaking abilities like their pseudo-franchise counterparts the Yautja (AKA the species from the Predator series), but they are very good at keeping very quiet and sticking to the shadows while they hunt their prey.
Creepiest Feature: Though Xenomorphs have various disgusting features, including their abnormally long skulls and massive amounts of saliva, their grossest feature absolutely has to be their second mouth. This small mouth shoots out from inside the bigger mouth, and it is very upsetting.
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Where Does It Come From: It is unclear if Calvin actually originates from Mars, but the crew of the International Space Station discovers the alien species via a dormant cell aboard soil samples from a space probe returning from our planetary neighbor. What ends up being clear, though, is that Calvin wiped out all life on Mars, assuming there was ever life there in the first place.
How It Hunts: Quietly and aggressively, Calvin hunts each and every life-form aboard the International Space Station. It completely devours a lab rat, jumps down Ryan Reynolds's mouth and eats his insides, and secretly chomps on a paraplegic's leg for a while.
Creepiest Feature: The way it absorbs the organic tissue of other life forms. Calvin sort of acts like a cancer, devouring whatever is in its path to grow bigger and deadlier.
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Where Do They Come From: Like many a movie monster before them, the Death Angels come from outer space. No other explanation is needed.
How They Hunt: As the Death Angels have no eyes, they rely entirely on sound to hunt their prey. They can unfold the various armor platings on their head to expose the massive organ that allows for incredibly sensitive hearing.
Creepiest Feature: The way they run like alien gorillas is pretty terrifying to behold. Their front legs are longer than their back legs, causing them to strut around like skinny, alien apes. It is both memorable and hideous.
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Where Does It Come From: The terrifying mutant bear from 2018's Annihilation is a result of an alien being known only as "the Shimmer." Upon crash-landing on Earth, the Shimmer began to alter the DNA of everything in its immediate area. That included a bear that ended up being transformed into an utter nightmare.
How It Hunts: The Shimmer-bear hunts mostly like a bear if it were more intelligent and stealthy. Think of an intelligent animal with the strength of a bear. Most frighteningly, it's able to emit a cry for help in the voice of one of its earlier targets to trick the people it's hunting. Just imagine a human voice coming from a monster bear and you've got the idea.
Creepiest Feature: The smaller skull that is sticking out of its head by the left eye socket is quite unsettling. It doesn't serve any functional purpose... it's just the kind of imagery that causes you to have night terrors.
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Where Do They Come From: While "Clover," the giant kaiju from the Cloverfield franchise, is undoubtedly the star of the show, the parasites are what make you jump when watching the original film and subsequently haunt your dreams. These parasites came directly from Clover's body, which is creepy in and of itself, but watching these agile monsters work makes it even worse.
How They Hunt: They can climb on walls and ceilings as if they are giant spiders, and if that isn't enough to get your skin crawling, they can also leap great distances in a single bound. Clearly, these alien parasites are taking their cues from the original Superman comic books.
Creepiest Feature: It has to be their bite. Getting bitten by one of these things would be bad enough as it is, but that is just the beginning. Over time, the targets of the parasite's bite will eventually have their stomachs violently blow up, presumably ending them instantly. Is that worse than getting bitten by a zombie, knowing you'll eventually turn? You be the judge.
Where Does It Come From: The Octalus comes from the deepest depths of the ocean, bombarding various seafaring vessels throughout the history of humanity. Little is known outside of this basic information, though the production team behind Deep Rising quite obviously took inspiration from various H.P. Lovecraft monster designs.
How It Hunts: The Octalus uses its huge tentacles to hunt humans throughout Deep Rising's runtime, eventually sucking out all the bodily fluids of its targets and leaving empty husks behind. The tentacles sort of make the giant, Sarlacc Pit-esque mouth of the Octalus pretty redundant outside of its gross, memorable design.
Creepiest Feature: Each separate tentacle has its own mouth that can open and close, which is both very cool and very disgusting. Though the design of the Octalus is hampered by the visual effects standards of filmmaking in 1998, having a tentacle-based monster essentially covered in a bunch of mouths is quite unique.
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Where Do They Come From: The slugs from 2006's Slither are one of the physical forms of the alien known only as the "Long One." It came from outer space on a meteor. That's about all there is to go on.
How They Hunt: They're just larger-than-normal alien slugs who are constantly on the hunt for humans to jump into via swallowing. They are sort of like stealthier versions of the Facehuggers from the Alien franchise.
Creepiest Feature: They are surprisingly fast. Normal, earthbound slugs move pretty slowly; you'll be able to outrun a slug no sweat as soon as you spot it. In Slither, the alien slugs move much quicker than your average slug, which makes them much scarier to think about.
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Where Does It Come From: Thanks to the actionable negligence of an American military scientist and his assistant, a massive amount of formaldehyde was dumped into the Han River in South Korea. And, wouldn't you know it, all that formaldehyde mutated a creature in the river into a huge monster known as Gwoemul. To call it a "mutant carp" is kind of an insult to carp around the globe. If you're eating carp that looks like Gwoemul, you need to shop at a different market.
How It Hunts: Much smaller than other kaiju like Godzilla, Gwoemul is very agile and is comfortable hunting on land or in water. It's able to use its tail like a third leg at times and traps victims in its massive mouth before regurgitating them in a gross mucus.
Creepiest Feature: The weirdest thing about this monster is its lack of useful hind legs. Instead of having another set of legs that matches its front limbs, Gwoemul has these odd, small appendages that it doesn't really use. It's unsettling.
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- Species III
- Syfy
Where Do They Come From: H.R. Giger, famous for creating the look of the Xenomorphs, brought his A game yet again with his character design for Species. The result of an experiment of combining alien DNA with human DNA, these life-forms kind of look like what would happen if a Xenomorph mated with a human being.
How They Hunt: The females of the species shapeshift into extremely attractive female human forms to seduce men in order to reproduce. This way they can propagate their species and take over.
Creepiest Feature: We're gonna go with the "breast tentacles." They are exactly what you think they are.
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Where Does It Come From: Dren was the result of genetic experimentation by irresponsible scientists Clive Nicoli and Elsa Kast in the 2009 thriller Splice. It's like Jeff Goldblum's Ian Malcolm says in Jurassic Park, these "scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could that they didn't stop to think if they should." They really shouldn't have.
How It Hunts: Dren doesn't get around to too much hunting in Splice, but it clearly would've been an effective hunter with its wings and tail-like stinger.
Creepiest Feature: It has to be Dren's unsettlingly hand-like feet. It really just looks like someone took human hands, took away a finger, and turned them around to make its feet.
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Where Does It Come From: It's unclear where all the various monsters in The Cabin in the Woods come from, but we know they are housed in the Cube Prison of the nameless Facility. After being summoned by a specific item by one of the Facility's chosen ritual victims, each monster is released from the Cube to do its duty.
How It Hunts: Well, it's a merman... it's pretty self-explanatory. Think of Ariel from The Little Mermaid if she was disgusting and liked to eat humans.
Creepiest Feature: It has to be the dude's shank-toothed mouth. Unlike the majority of the monsters from the film that take obvious inspiration from famous movie creatures, the Merman is a wholly unique creation by the production team. As it crawls on the ground, slowly making its way towards Bradley Whitford, bearing those gross teeth, you can't help but praise the design of this disgusting freak.
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Where Does It Come From: Humanity! It comes from humanity! Because we are our own worst enemy! In all seriousness, genius inventor Eron Keen creates this implant that he calls STEM. He then convinces quadriplegic Grey Trace to install the implant on the back of his neck, allowing him to regain the use of his limbs again.
How It Hunts: STEM ends up taking full control of Grey's body by the end of the film after it convinces Grey to allow it to do so in order to get revenge for his wife's murder. So, it's less of a "hunt" and more of a "hostile takeover." Is there anything more frightening than being trapped in your own body by an artificial intelligence?
Creepiest Feature: Grey ends up living in a dream state in his own brain as STEM lives his life for him. Grey doesn't even know he is living a lie. That'll make the hair stand up on the back of your neck... where STEM would be installed!
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