Creature Horror Movies 2021
Randell Magtoto
Some time between 2010 and 2016, I saw an announcement for a creature horror movie involving mermaids on German TV. The film was going to run a few days afterward, hence it was not entirely new at that time. However, from the visual quality of the film, I also don't think the film could have been much older than from the 2000s. (Quite certainly not among the 1980s horror movies occasionally shown on that channel.)
Also, I am pretty sure it was not an originally German movie. (The trailer being shown on a TV channel as an announcement of an upcoming film shown on said channel, this probably means the trailer I saw was not necessarily an "official" trailer for the film, but might just as well have been a trailer assembled by the TV station to advertise the show.)
It is quite likely the channel I saw this announcement on was Tele 5, a channel that has somewhat specialized on showing "B movies"/direct-to-DVD productions/somehwat older and/or cheapish movies, in particular, regularly creature horror movies that fall into one of those aforementioned categories.
The one scene that stayed in my memory was the closing scene of the trailer: The scene starts with a camera pan (I think downwards into some kind of a vertical chute, but I may be mistaken about the exact presentation), at the bottom of which there is a mermaid. The background music rises gradually in pitch in such a way that it introduces a scream of the mermaid. Said scream beings sounding like a woman's voice (in pain/anguish?), but then transforms into a very unhuman-sounding voice1.
As far as I remember, the mermaid appeared to have at least a superficially human upper body in the trailer. That is, it looked more or less like a human woman (not sure about minor things like teeth or eyes), not like a remotely human-like monster. I cannot completely rule out the trailer gave a wrong impression in that regard, though.
It might be Nymph which aired on Tele 5 in 2016. In the official trailer I could not find the mentioned scene, but it is a creature horror / splatter movie that features a mermaid with a human upper half.
What scares you? Is it something ephemeral, like the concept of death or failure? Do sharks and slithery things give you nightmares, or is it Freddy Krueger and Michael Myers who keep you up at night? In the realm of terrifying monsters, it's hard to pick the absolute scariest one. Fear is, after all, purely subjective. Many things go bump in the night, but not all of them are created equal. Sure, some monsters will stick with you from childhood until you're old a grey, but others ... well, they lack a certain Je ne sais quois. Not these ones, though. No way.
The /Film horror team put their heads together to come up with an immense list of horror movie monsters that gave them the frights, and while desperately hoping the big shadow that just passed by didn't belong to something supernatural, they whittled that list down to 50 contenders. Here are your scariest horror movie monsters.
The story follows a disgraced children's puppeteer named Philip Connell (Sean Harris) who is forced to revisit his childhood home where his feeble uncle now resides. The only bag he brings on his journey is a leather duffel bag that houses a spider-like marionette called Possum that continually haunts Phillip throughout his visit. He tries to discard the puppet, but no matter what he does, Possum seems to make its way back to him. For most of the film, only the puppet's massive spider legs are visible, making the reveal of the spider's human face all the more horrific.
And unlike so many great movie monsters, Raatma is also darkly funny, with its followers creating some of the biggest laughs and most meme-able moments in recent horror history. Raatma is so nasty, so bleak, that the film's only course of action is transform its influence into the most shocking comedy imaginable. Hail, Raatma! (Jacob Hall)
As a resident of The Further, Red-dy Krueger "seeks to bring pain and chaos to the world of the living by possessing a human body." He's distilled hatred with a snarling face, designed like he's the dictionary definition of "Satan's Little Helper." The demon lures Dalton Lambert (Tyler Simpkins) into his lair, chains the boy down, and tortures him to his heart's ill content.
"Insidious" is crammed with tremendous scares, so many due to the demon's daunting stalks as even his blackened figure brings that added spike of anxiety. Once you see the red face, you'll never sleep again. (Matt Donato)
Okay, like much of Shyamalan's work, the real antagonist of "Old" essentially boils down to the disturbing lengths individuals and institutions will go to protect their own self-interests, but the setting of this largely one-location thriller truly manages to crawl underneath the skin. The beach's time-dilation effect is ultimately responsible for a rushed pregnancy gone horrifically wrong, an impromptu and gruesome surgery, and all sorts of traumatic deaths. But, most frightening of all, it forces the characters to grapple with the sick, existential feeling of watching precious moments of life slip away. If that's not a monster, I don't know what is. (Jeremy Mathai)
In the intricate lore of James Wan's Conjuring-verse, Valak is the closest thing paranormal investigators Ed and Lorraine Warren have to an overarching Big Bad. The demon gets his time in the spotlight in the "Nun" movies but has also made appearances in three other movies in the franchise to date. First summoned by a Romanian duke, the fallen angel soon gets cozy on Earth and begins possessing nuns at a secluded monastery.
Valak's fear factor depends on what face he's wearing. For example, in "The Nun," the demon masquerades as a nun, showing off his ability to infiltrate the most respected orders of the religion that rebukes him. Valak's nun form is decidedly freaky, but he can be even scarier when he's less obvious.
Despite being able to take over human bodies, Valak seems compelled to taunt his prey. He spells his name in blocks behind Lorraine Warren's head while she sleeps or appears in the back of one of Sister Charlotte's photographs without her noticing. His show of force is sometimes blatant, but other times he can be more sinister and creeping in his methods. No matter what form he takes, he's freaky as hell. (Valerie Ettenhofer)
American kaiju cinema isn't as popular as it should be, which is a shame because "Cloverfield" is such a phenomenal experiment in perspective and destruction. The title references Project Cloverfield, which the American government uses as a codename for the film's creature. An extraterrestrial beast crashes into the ocean and begins destroying New York City, which we witness through the found-footage perspective of partygoers now fleeing for their life.
David Bruckner's "The Ritual" is about a lot of things like toxic masculinity, the pain of growing apart from your friends, and the dangers of camping. But it also happens to feature one of the coolest original creature designs in recent memory.
After a group of friends played by Rafe Spall, Arsher Ali, Sam Troughton, Robert James-Collier, and Paul Reid go on a trek into the woods, they discover an ancient evil, a kind of Norse giant called a Jotunn. One of the friends completes a pagan ritual and manages to summon Moder, a Jotunn whose spirit is tied to that particular forest and happens to be the ill-gotten son of Loki, God of Mischief. That's when things get really interesting.
Moder is a horrifying creation. He's part stag and part human corpse, with a man's torso for a face and arms hanging down below his mouth like a warthog's tusks. He's also huge, towering high into the trees. "The Ritual" is a slow-burning nightmare, but once Moder shows up in his gory glory, it's well worth the wait. (Danielle Ryan)
Though South Korean filmmaker Bong Joon-ho is no stranger to the socially conscious thriller, his 2006 film "The Host" plays with a distinct twist in the sub-genre. After American-sanctioned negligence results in 400 bottles of formaldehyde being poured into Seoul's Han River, all the fish die while something terrifying begins to mutate and take shape. When a string of sightings crop up, all detailing a strange, amphibian creature roaming the riverbanks, a monster finally emerges from the murky depths, wreaking havoc on the city and its populace. In a frenzied panic, snack stall owner Park Gang-du (Song Kang-ho) even loses his young daughter, Hyun-seo (Go Ah-sung), to the monster's slimy clutches.
Dubbed the Gwoemul (Korean for "monster"), the creature resembles a cross of a fish and a salamander, with some horrifying new additions. It boasts a multi-pronged, gaping mouth and a prehensile tail. What makes the creature so eerie, though, is the fact that its backstory has real-world origins. In 2000, the U.S. really did dump all that formaldehyde into the Han River, causing actual mutations in the indigenous fish population. Theoretically, the Gwoemul could emerge from the river's waters at any moment, and America would be totally to blame. (Natalia Keogan)
The "Phantasm" series has its ups and downs, but the Tall Man remains a fixed point, an anchor that maintains our horrified fascinations. In a given moment, he looks just like a man. But in action, he's the conductor of universal horrors so extreme that they defy the imagination. His existence is our greatest nightmare. (Jacob Hall)
By the end of the outstanding 22-minute prologue of David Prior's slow-burn psychological horror film "The Empty Man," you'll already find yourself questioning what the Empty Man actually is. Is it the bizarre, not-quite-human skeleton found in a shrine in a buried cave in the Bhutan Valley? Is it the strange figure wrapped in rags that stands silently in the snow before charging towards the door of a lonely cabin, only to disappear when the door is closed on it? Is it some kind of demon that possesses one of the unfortunate hikers, causing her to kill two of her friends and then herself?
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