Animal Horror Movies, sometimes called eco-horror films, immerse us in a primal fear of nature taking revenge on us for how we have changed it and adapted it to our needs. As humans, we are used to being at the top of the food chain; however, deep down, we understand that this is a fragile ecological dynamic and that all these creatures have tremendous power that can scare us and kill us.
Pet Cemetery (2019)
Animal: Cat, zombie cat...
Background:Having moved to a small town, the Creed family - Louie, Rachel and their two children Ellie and Gage - are just beginning to adjust to their new neighborhood. But a terrible chain of events is set in motion when Church, the family cat, is killed by a truck on Thanksgiving.
A sympathetic neighbor leads Louis to an ancient burial ground that supposedly brings back the dead. The next morning, Louis witnesses a miracle: The cat has come back to life! But he is… completely different.
Shallow (2016)
"Shallow" is one of the best new shark horror movies.
Animal: Sharks…
Background: in while shark movies are a dime a dozen,"Shallow" is one of the best new approaches to this sub-genre that is sure to make viewers anxious.
A surfer (Blake Lively) stranded on a rock just 200 yards from shore must use her strength, will and wits to survive being bitten by a great white shark.
Witch (2015)
Animal: Goat.
Background:Starring Anya Taylor-Joy, this folk horror film takes the term "scapegoat" to a whole new level. In 17th century New England, a Puritan family is uprooted from their community and takes up residence near a dark forest. While Thomasin, the eldest daughter, is playing hide-and-seek with the baby Samuel at the edge of the trees, the baby goes missing, kidnapped and killed by a witch in the forest.
But the tragic and frightening events continue (the mother sees terrible visions, the twins seem to be talking to Black Philip, the black goat of the family ... who is possessed by something or someone), and soon they began to suspect Thomasin of their troubles.
Black Sheep (2006)
Animal: sheep, mutant lambs...
Background: Another underrated horror comedy is New Zealand's Black Sheep». The main character, Henry, returns to his childhood farm to sell his piece of land to his brother Angus. We soon discover that Angus is conducting secret, unorthodox experiments on sheep, and their bite can turn a person into an aggressive half-ram creature. Two environmentalists accidentally released a mutant lamb, and the infection began.
Spider Attack (2002)
Animal: spiders, very large spiders.
The plot is very simple: spiders are exposed to toxic chemicals, transform into giant monsters, and attack a small town in Arizona.
Lake Placid: Lake of Fear (1999)
Animal: Crocodylus, that's a crocodile...from Maine...
Background: A 30-foot saltwater crocodile somehow survives in the fresh water of Black Lake, Maine. He terrorizes the locals, who band together to hunt down and subdue the prehistoric beast.
Pincers (1993)
Animal: arachnids, mites…
Background: In a sense, ticks are the most feared animal. Unlike a bear or a snake, the wickedness of a tick lies in how small they are (nearly invisible) and also in the fact that they can easily paralyze you and ruin your life. However, in this ridiculous '90s movie, we see ticks take on a nasty, slimy, and giant form as they terrorize a group of troubled teenagers in the California desert.
Something (1982)
Animal: A dog, but an alien dog...
background: At an American Antarctic research station awakened by explosions. Outside, a Norwegian helicopter relentlessly pursues the dog until their attacks backfire and kill all pursuers.
The dog is placed in a kennel, where it turns into a fearsome three-headed creature that begins to assimilate other dogs. When the team manages to kill him with fire, it's too late: they realize that the Thing has already infected one of them and has taken on their appearance.
Fly (1986)
Animal: insects, especially flies.
Background: Although horror films usually use scary animals with many teeth and claws, all terrible events"Flies" are due to a single, common insect.
After a fly entered his teleportation pod while he was experimenting on himself, Goldblum's character Seth Brundle, an eccentric scientist, begins to exhibit strange side effects.
Dogs (1976)
Animal: man's best friend, dogs...
Background: The 70s were a great time for animal attack movies, and "Dogs" – another mannered classic. A group of rogue dogs decide to start killing college students at random, and a professor (David McCallum) must figure out what drives them before they kill everyone in town.
Grizzly (1976)
Animal: Bears, especially the grizzly bear...
Background: This film is sometimes referred to as "claws", because it was directed by William Girdler immediately after the success "Jaws". Instead of scaring people away from the waters of Cape Cod, this has made people extremely wary of national parks, as the star of this scary animal movie is an 18-foot grizzly bear that weighs over 2,000 pounds and terrorizes park rangers and campers. The film gained a cult following and was also an instant box office success as an excellent horror adventure film.
Worms (1976)
Animal: Worms…
Background: the fictional town of Fly Creek, Georgia becomes Ground Zero due to an infestation of carnivorous worms after electricity from a power line during a storm destroyed the soil and spawned legions of mutant annelids. Half of the thousand worms used in filming were made of rubber; others were giant gerbils from Maine.
Jaws (1975)
Animal: Great white sharks…
Background: Of course, before sharks were not considered friendly animals; but after this bloody massacre on the beach, they turned into evil creatures. The terrifying monster does not appear for the first 81 minutes of the film, largely because Spielberg found the US$250,000 mechanical sharks to be poorly made and unconvincing. But the invisible danger that lurks under the water is what gave the film its thrill and contributed so much to its success.
Night of the Hare (1972)
Animal: rabbits, or rabbits, or really big rabbits...
Background: the word "lepus" is Latin for "hare", but the film's producers decided that including the word "rabbits" in the film's title wasn't scary enough, even though they greenlit the film's plot involving a killer. habits that terrorize the far reaches of the American West. Vmain the role of Janet Leigh, known asPsycho, plays a woman who is constantly targeted by killer bunnies.
Frogs (1972)
Animal: frogs, but also birds, lizards, snakes, spiders and even a butterfly...
Background: Ignore the fact that despite the movie poster of a human hand disappearing into the mouth of a giant frog, there are no killer frogs in this movie. There are plenty of other killer animals that can take the slack, and they seem to be outraged that a wealthy southern plantation owner has been overusing pesticides to kill wildlife.
Deadly Bees (1966)
Animal: bees.
Background: this movie is based on the 1941 novel"A Taste for Honey" and scripted by Robert Bloch, author of the novel "Psycho". This film tells the story of a weary pop singer who comes to an exotic island to recuperate, only to realize that the farm owner has bred a strain of aggressively deadly bees.
Birds (1963)
Animal: Crows and seagulls.
Background: This classic Hitchcock thriller is a seminal feature film or eco-horror. Hitchcock spared no expense to create his avian masterpiece: about $200,000 was spent on mechanical birds, and animal trainer Ray Berwick captured and trained hundreds of crows, gulls, ravens and sparrows.
With the exception of the environmental theme (the short story by Daphne Du Maurier, on which the film is based, implies that birds act in this way due to climate change), all that is left in"Birds" is a tense, threatening atmosphere and inexplicable attacks by flocks of angry birds.
King Kong (1933)
Animal: Gorilla.
Background: this is the godfather of all eco-horror films, which has been remade many times. A film producer visits a remote island inhabited by a giant ape. He captures him and sends him to New York, expecting wealth and glory, not horror and destruction. The scenes where the giant ape fights the brontosaurus and tyrannosaurus used special effects that were way ahead of their time. The film immediately made a splash.
More horror movies about animals!
- Island of Lost Souls (1932) - the first film version of the H. G. Wells film " Dr. Moreau's Islandwhere nature fights back.
- "Devil Bat" (1940) - some early 1940s film about a demon-possessed and evil bat.
- Their!(1954), perhaps the first of the endless "nuclear monster" films of the 1950s, features an attack by giant irradiated ants in the New Mexico desert.
- naked jungle (1954) Looking for a horror film about an army of ants? You just found it.
- bride of the monster (1956) in one of the last appearances of Bela Lugosi's film, a giant octopus terrorizes all of Lugosi's enemies.
- "Beginning of the End" (1957) is one of director Bert E. Gordon's many forays into the "nuclear monster" genre during the 1950s. In this movie, giant grasshoppers are terrorizing Chicago.
- Day of the Triffids (1962) - an army of tall, smart, walking plants - right, plants – Stings people to death and feasts on their corpses in this classic British movie.
- Willard (1971), a lonely young man befriends a group of rats and allows them to breed to the point where they become a vicious army that takes revenge on all of his bullies.
- Orca (1977), created almost entirely to capitalize on the huge success of " Jaws", shows a hunter fighting a killer whale seeking revenge for the murder of his mate.
- Piranha (1977) - another film about a killer fish, shot after " Jaws." In him tells about a flock of bloodthirsty piranhas, designed by the military and accidentally released to the public.
- long weekend (1979) Australian horror film about a disrespectful couple who go on a camping trip and, given their misbehavior, all sorts of animals fight back. You can stream it on Amazon Prime for free.
- elephant man (1980) tells the true story faced by John Merrick, a man who was being put up as an elephant in a freak show.
- Swamp Thing (1982) Deep in the Florida Everglades, a scientist makes a terrible mistake by turning him into a half swamp/half human creature. It may not technically be an animal horror movie, but it's definitely a creature movie, and humans are scary animals too.
- Cujo (1983) is perhaps one of the most famous animal horror films about a sick dog, directed by horror master Stephen King himself.
- Arachnophobia (1990) - a horror film about spiders in which a "web of chaos" appears.
- wolf (1994) Wolves are pretty scary, but in this rom-com drama movie Jack Nicholson plays a werewolf and things get weird.
- Scientist "The Island of Doctor Moreau" (1996) creates a strange human-animal hybrid in this mid-90s film.
- Mimic (1997) - a group of underground super-cockroaches, created by methods genetically engineered, capable of mimicking its human prey.
- Anaconda (1997) movie about a big snake that is going to confuse you, late 90s.
- "The bats" (1999), perhaps you could call this B-movie about a Texas town taken over by bats a campy classic.
- snakes on the plane (2006), enough, enough! Samuel Jackson has all these snakes on the plane, and that's what this monster comedy is all about.
- Prey (2007) - a nonsensical Hollywood film about the cruelty of big cats; In this episode, lions attack in South Africa.
- moby dick (2010) Ethan Hawke stars in this classic retelling of Herman Melville's whaling tale. There is another theatrical version of this 1956 film starring Gregory Peck.
- "Infection" (2011), although at first glance this is a film about viruses, this film is also fundamentally about nature and the destruction that one animal can cause to society.
- Meg (2018) ludicrous though funny movie about sharks, based in part on Steve Alten's book " Meg: A Novel of Deep Horror" 1997.
