Ahh, Halloween! That time of year where people openly and eagerly subject themselves to ridiculous feats of fright. Whether it’s binge watching classic horror films or bumbling through the local haunted houses, everyone is looking for a good scare. Which leads to the ultimate question – what are the best monsters of all time?
Here are the 10 scariest/creepiest/most monstrous monster monstrosities of all time (in no particular order).
Chucky/Annabelle
Over the years, Chucky has lost some of his shocking allure, but when Child’s Play came out in 1988 people never looked at their childhood dolls the same way in fear that they might come to life and try to steal their souls. Fast forward about 25 years and audiences again learned to fear creepy dolls when The Conjuring hit theaters in 2013 and viewers were introduced to Annabelle.
Freddy Krueger
1,2 Freddy’s coming for you. 3, 4 better lock the door. 5,6 grab your crucifix …
You know the song – that creepy, chilling childhood jingle that tells of a man that tortures and kills you in your dreams, in turn killing you in real life. His burned face, knife fingers and green and red striped sweater will forever go down in history as one of the most iconic horror monsters of all time. He was rude, crude and funny in a demented “I’m going to kill” you kind of way.
Pinhead
As the main villain in the 1987’s Hellraiser, it’s no surprise that Pinhead makes this top monster list. He is the leader of the Cenobites, former humans now transformed into creatures that reside in an extradimensional realm traveling the earth through a puzzle box, the Lament Configuration, to harvest human souls. Not creepy at all … Pinhead is a quiet, articulate and intelligent soul seeker which makes him more than a mind-numbing slasher and all the more scary.
Jason Voorhees
Hockey mask (or burlap sack for early fans of the series), machete and unwavering determination to kill every teenager he comes into contact with, Jason helped create the slasher genre. But don’t make the mistake Drew Barrymore’s character, Casey Becker, did in Scream. Jason may be an undead predator out for revenge, but it was his mom that first dawned the killing spree in 1980.
Paranormal Activity
This one is tricky because while Paranormal Activity scared the daylights out of viewers when it hit theaters on a low budget back in 2009, you never really saw the killer. Audiences knew it was a demon, but that’s it. And that’s what made it so creepy. People couldn’t see it, and it could be anything, anywhere – like in their own home.
Leatherface
What gets creepier than a backwoods, hillbilly family full of cannibals? How about one of the family members wildly swinging around a giant chainsaw. Just hearing the first rev of that motor is enough to send shivers down anyone’s tingling spine.
Michael Myers
Who would have thought that William Shatner’s face spray painted white could lead to one of the most iconic masked monsters all time? The Boogeyman. Michael Myers and his trusty butcher knife has been hacking his way to the top of the monster list since 1979, and with Halloween 2018, which is bringing back scream queen Jamie Lee Curtis, set to release this month, it doesn’t appear that his status is in jeopardy any time soon.
Jack Torrance
“All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.” Stanley Kubrik’s 1980 creep fest, The Shining, is horror gold because it pits a family against nothing but a haunted hotel and total isolation. As cabin fever starts to get to Jack, he starts having visions and by the end he’s chasing his wife and son around with an axe. It doesn’t take an undead villain to make a monster. Sometimes, the people we trust the most, those who are supposed to love and protect us can make the scariest monsters.
Samara
There’s just something terrifying about little girls that are evil. Maybe it’s because everything in our brains tells us that they’re the least likely to be killers? But in the Case of 2002’s The Ring (named after the Japanese Ringu), Samara and her promise to kill anyone who watches her film within 7 days is enough to make you think twice about leaving your TV on a fuzzy screen for too long. That long black hair covering her face, the jolty movements as she lurks forward, the creepy circles that people keep seeing – yeah, monsters do come in all shapes, sizes and ages.
Hannibal Lecter
The classy serial killer who likes to eat his victims over a delectable meal of fava beans and a bottle of chianti. Hannibal Lecter and the 1980 classic, The Silence of the Lambs, gave everyone an inside track into the mind of a killer, literally. He was cunning, clever and clearly dangerous. What’s scarier than a killer who can outwit you at every turn. Not much. That’s the answer. Not much.
From undead predators and possessed dolls to next door neighbor serial killers and interdimensional antagonists, we’ve seen monsters of all kinds terrorize the big screen and our dreams. But with so many to choose from, we couldn’t just stop at 10. So, here’s a list of some runner-up monster candidates:
The Nun – The Nun (2018)
Ghost Face – Scream (1996)
Pennywise the Clown – IT (1990/2017)
Linda Blair/Pazuzu – The Exorcist (1973)
The Firefly family – House of 1,000 Corpses (2003)
The Candyman – The Candyman (1992)
Norman Bates – Psycho (1960)
The Thing – The Thing (1951/1982/2011)
Xenomorph – Alien (1979)
