What is a monster? The dictionary defines it generally as any creature combining the features and forms of various animals (including humans), and/or so ugly and deviating from the normal shape, behavior, or character of natural creatures as to cause fright. This seems at first glance like an adequate description. It certainly covers Frankenstein, Dracula, the Wolfman, and Rosie O'Donnell. But is that all? Isn't the Thing from outer space a monster, too? How about the Devil from The Exorcist?

Well, it turns out the dictionary gives itself an escape clause of sorts, by providing as a secondary definition "anything unnatural." In that sense, the Thing is a monster, since it doesn't belong to OUR natural world (although it is ultimately natural in the sense of being part of nature; i.e. a natural part of the universe), and Satan is one, too, inasmuch as he's SUPERnatural. Hence, the definition I'm using for this list includes both the primary and secondary definitions of "monster."

Well, if so, you will ask, why isn't The Exorcist in your list? Was it not good enough to make the Top 5? No, on the contrary, I'd put The Exorcist at the top of practically every horror movie list it qualifies for. I just don't think Satan ultimately qualifies as a monster, because even though the dictionary says "anything unnatural" is a monster, I don't think anything truly supernatural can count, since monsters, in my book, must still obey the rules of physics. That's one of their weaknesses, if you will. Hence, God and His Angels (of whom Satan is one, albeit fallen away from God) do not qualify as monsters. So, as much as I'd like to put The Exorcist at the top of every list in sight, I've got to exclude it from this one--and that leaves the following five as the absolute best, most horrifying, monster movies ever made:


5. Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1978)

While Body Snatchers is a very good movie, it might not merit this high an honor were it not for its ending. The final scene of this movie so brilliantly and effectively transcends the horror genre itself that it gives it a weight few other movies of any kind possess. There is no need to postulate conscious effort on the part of its authors in establishing such a universal metaphor: it is such a simple and natural one it could easily have been done unconsciously. But either way, intentional or not, the horrifying, riveting final moment of Body Snatchers is carried off so beautifully that it raises a very good, or even great, movie to the status of "classic" and "must see."

4. 30 Days of Night (2007)

30 Days is not what I'd call a great movie technically, but it is one of the most frightening I've ever seen, at least the first time around. This may be because A) I knew nothing about the comic book upon which it is based before I saw the movie, and B) I saw it on the big screen in a dark, somewhat empty theater. The premise is great: vampires invade a remote, snowed-in town where the sun won't come up for a month. It's like a vampire Mardi Gras, except less bloody. Well, not really. There's lots and lots of blood. These are vampires, after all, and not of the stone proper, pinkie-in-the-air variety. These are more like King John vampires, ripping off shanks of mutton and tearing at them greedily while the juice dribbles down their chins.

But oh, how great they are. There are two elements that combine to make this movie work: the vampires, and the absolute empathy one feels for the terror of their victims in hiding. If anything, rather than the viewer saying to him- or herself (as I often do), "Why don't they do something?" there are too many times in this movie where you want to yell at the actors, "Are you out of your mind? Don't go out there!" As a viewer, it actually occurs to you while watching this movie that there might be worse things than starving to death. Yes, the vampires are scary. Really scary. They're scary looking--being about nine parts Nosferatu to one part Barnabas Collins--and they're scary acting, in the vicious and barbaric way I've already alluded to. They also don't speak English, which to us Americans may be the scariest part of all. No, these are Russian immigrant vampires, and it's entirely doubtful whether they've ever bothered to apply for any stinkin' green cards.

In any case, my praise for this movie may lessen over time, but for now I consider it to be a much better movie than the mainstream critics do. Like I said, this one's not so much about the technical excellence as it is about the scary. In my opinion, it's way scary.

3. The Thing (1982)

What's this? Another trapped-in-a-remote-snowed-in-outpost-with-insatiable-evil-on-the-loose movie? Well, yep. That's what it is. But this one was first and it's still the best. The stars here are, well, the stars (a bunch of 'em, and not a bad performance in the bunch) and the location. Ah, the location. Rarely, if ever, has the remoteness and loneliness of a place been more effectively communicated than in this movie. The fact that The Thing is a horror movie no doubt contributes greatly to this, but there's ultimately a symbiotic relationship between the emotions we experience: we're scared for the victims because they're so isolated and alone, but we also feel their isolation all the more intensely because we're scared for them.

The performances are uniformly top-notch, with the finest one offered by Kurt Russell in what is in my opinion far and away the best performance he's ever given (I mean that as a compliment). He was simply born for the role of MacReady. Russell as MacReady results in one of those rare confluences in pictures where you honestly sit there and say to yourself, "Damn, I wish I was as cool as that guy." Anyway, MacReady's badassedness is essential to the success of the movie, because he's able to maintain the unity of the group in a situation where it would otherwise disintegrate and destroy the story. The Thing wouldn't work dramatically if everyone just retreated to their own little corner, set up a defensive barricade, and shot anything that came into view. So while, as I've said, every performance here is good, Russell's is the most essential, and all the better because it's most essential.

I won't go on about the special effects like most people do. Honestly, I wasn't that wowed by them, even at the time. Yes, they were technically impressive, but they had, and have even more now, that same obvious phoniness about them that science fiction movies of the '50's have. Yet they're serviceable enough to get the job done--which in the end is all that's needed since, contrary to what most people thought at the time and still think today, The Thing isn't about the gore and the effects. It's about the people, and the definitive proof to settle all arguments about that is in the ending. The Thing's ending, just like Body Snatchers', remains one of the most memorable, haunting, and in its own way beautiful, endings in all of filmdom. When MacReady and Childs, exhausted and defenseless, with nowhere left to run and each unsure of the other's intentions, sit down in the snow together with the last dregs of a bottle of whiskey to wait, it's another one of those great movie endings that will probably never be topped. Both you and they know they're both going to die, no matter what happens. I get chills just thinking about it.

2. Alien (1979)

A haunted house in space. That's how I used to think of Alien. I thought it was the modern version of the haunted house story, and I thought the brilliant thing about it, the thing that made it work, was that the Nostromo was a haunted house you couldn't just walk out of. But over time I've changed my opinion. Sure, it has much in common with haunted house stories, but there's one huge difference: haunted houses have, by definition, supernatural antagonists. The crew of the Nostromo's nemesis was entirely natural..and entirely lethal.

Alien's success is due to three factors: one, a brilliant script (can you believe this was originally conceived as a "B" movie?), two, just as in The Thing, brilliant performances from all involved, including near-perfect direction from Ridley Scott, and three, the most convincing treatment of an alien lifeform ever to grace the screen. Alien succeeds because, not only do you believe as a viewer that this could really happen, you believe while you're watching it that it is actually happening. Everything about the movie is so realistic, save for a couple of dated special effects shots, and so dramatic that in my opinion the movie was worthy of several Oscar nominations. But no, they could never award an Oscar to anything as low-brow as a science fiction slash horror movie; Oscars only go to movies that make you cry...never mind that there's more intelligence and fine acting in five minutes of Alien than there is in all of Kramer vs. Kramer. (When was the last time anyone watched Kramer vs. Kramer? How many people today have even heard of Kramer vs. Kramer?)

So that's about all I have to say about Alien. You've seen it. You know how great it is. I'll just add that, to me, it's THE greatest science fiction movie ever made, and that includes the pretentious-albeit-still-interesting 2001: A Space Odyssey. As a horror movie, it's almost as great, but not quite. The innovation was mostly on the sci-fi side. The horror was of the more mundane sort: still scary as all get-out, but basically using the tried-and-true haunted house techniques I mentioned before. (Except for the chest-burster. Now THAT was a first.)


1. Jaws (1975)

I struggled and struggled to decide who should get the Number One spot: Alien or Jaws. I finally settled upon Jaws because A) Alien's horror elements weren't as revolutionary, and B) in the end, something that actually exists and is scary is scarier when featured in a horror movie than an imaginary monster, no matter how believable said imaginary monster might be. Michael Myers is scarier than Freddy Krueger because insane people with knives exist, whereas people who attack you from within your dreams don't. Sharks exist; Giant, bipedal ants with nested jaws and a bony tail don't.

Jaws is probably the only movie I've ever seen that actually ruined my day. What I mean is, I saw Jaws in the theater during daylight hours. When I left the theater, I distinctly remember how disturbed I remained for some time afterward, even though it was still daytime and normal life was going on around me. I can't recall that ever happening before or since. Jaws was a supremely frightening movie for me.

On top of that, it contained one of the greatest monologues ever in the history of cinema--the USS Indianapolis speech--done by my favorite actor of all time and one of the most underrated: Robert Shaw (he also played Doyle Lonigan in The Sting and King Henry VIII in A Man for All Seasons, among many others). The story is rather more well-known (and exploited) now, which robs it of some of its sting, but for Pacific War aficionados who are familiar with the legend of the USS Indianapolis, Shaw's account of it was and is nothing short of spellbinding. All these years later, I can watch it over and over and be just as moved every time.

Likewise, I can watch the scene of Quint being munched in two over and over and be just as horrified every time. That was the scene I carried away with me that day I watched Jaws in the theater. It was the denouement of all the suggested horror that had come before: we'd seen swimmers being drug under the water screaming, and red clouds of blood spreading where their bodies used to be, but we hadn't seen any actual mayhem with our own two eyes. The Quint scene took care of that. Now we knew for sure just how big this shark was and just how nasty it was to get eaten by it. A brilliantly conceived  and executed scene from a brilliantly conceived and executed movie by a director I'm not otherwise disposed to think much of. With Jaws, Spielberg hit a home run.



In closing, you may have noticed that I haven't spent much time explaining the actual plot of these movies. That's because, with the possible exception of 30 Days of Night, the statistical probability that you're visiting this site and haven't seen them approaches zero. The chance that you haven't seen the movies nor have you heard what they're about is absolutely zero. And so.