The most terrifying movie monsters

Yes, there are a lot of films in which Godzilla is the “good guy.” He’s still terrifying, though. Godzilla is a giant, fire-breathing lizard. Plus, he has been the villain in some films. There’s a reason Wikipedia has him listened in the category “fictional mass murderers.”

Part of what makes the Predator — which we find out eventually is an entire alien race —scary is that they are also smart in addition to being animalistic. Godzilla may stomp you, but you’re like a bug to him. The Predator hunts you down for sport. That’s even more bone-chilling. Also, thanks to the prequel "Prey," we know Predators have been at it for centuries.

He may be a gay icon now, but don’t let his dapper attire fool you. The Babadook is a monster, and a frightening one at that. Once you conjure him into your world, things will get freaky, especially if you’re a struggling single mom.

When xenomorphs are to be born, a face hugger grabs onto you and deposits the growing baby into your body, and it proceeds to burst out of your chest. And they get more terrifying from there. Even their blood is acid. If you aren’t as tough as Ripley, you don’t have a chance.

There have been many werewolves in film over the years. Almost all of them are scary. Even the werewolves in “What We Do in the Shadows” turn out to be vicious killers when the moon is full. That’s what makes all these lycanthropes so alarming. One moment they are normal people, and the next they are blood-hungry monsters that only a silver bullet can stop.

The Blob managed to scare Steve McQueen, so you know it’s terrifying. What are you supposed to do about the Blob? It just grows and expands. It consumes, and the more it consumes, the more it grows. Eventually he Blob was stopped, but not until it had already destroyed everything in its path. Not too shabby for a purple goo.

Known colloquially as “Clover,” this monster is one of many kaiju we’ve seen over the years. Most of those monsters fight Godzilla, though, and we didn’t want to get too Godzilla heavy. No disrespect meant to King Ghidorah. Clover is as destructive as any of them, though, and you're only seeing the monster through the eyes of a shaky camera.

As the years went on and they kept making more and more “Tremors” movies, the graboids started to get weird powers and stuff. Let’s just focus on the graboids of the original, Kevin Bacon-starring film. Even in that one, they are giant, gross worm creatures that feel your vibrations on the ground and then snatch you up as food. They are also super tough to kill.

When Ray chose the form of the destructor in “Ghostbusters,” he tried to think of the most innocent thing possible — namely, the logo for Stay Puft marshmallows. It didn’t work out. Sure, he’s a giant marshmallow man in a sailor suit. He’s also destroying New York with ease, and that’s before he’s on fire and angry. If not for risking crossing the stream, the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man would have destroyed the city, and perhaps the world.

Much as with werewolves, zombies have been in a ton of movies. We’re going to single out the zombies from “28 Days Later” though. They aren’t just undead, brains-hungry monsters, but those zombies also are fast, making them even more terrifying.

The Bug spends most of “Men in Black” wearing Vincent D’Onofrio as a skin suit. When we see him, though, he’s a giant, cockroach-like beast, and he’s hungry for death and destruction. The Bug is kind of like the Predator but with no sense of sportsmanship. All he wants is death because it means more food for his family.

Yeah, King Kong has an eye for the occasional blonde woman. He’s also a giant ape that is more than happy to kill you if you get in his way. An entire island of people worshipped him as a god. He climbed the Empire State Building with ease. Unless you’re Fay Wray or Naomi Watts, you’d better run if you see King Kong. Notably, on a couple occasions Kong and another baddie from this list, Godzilla, have squared off.

Ants aren’t scary. Well, some of them bite, and if they get in your kitchen they are a hassle. Now imagine a bunch of giant ants, like in the movie “Them!” Giant-insect movies were quite popular in the age of nuclear fear. We’ll take the ants of “Them!” over the grasshoppers of “Beginning of the End,” although those grasshoppers are quite annoying with all their chirping.

There’s many a monster in the world of "Lord of the Rings." Smaug is arguably a monster, but it’s hard to count him when he talks like Benedict Cumberbatch. He feels too “human” in a weird way. Shelob, though, is a spider demon woman, and she’s totally terrifying. Of all the freaky stuff Frodo and Co. come across in their journey, Shelob is definitely the most frightening.

“Star Wars” also has a lot of monsters. Some of them just kill in the Mos Eisley cantina. Not the Rancor, though. All the Rancor does is try and kill whatever person, or alien, Jabba the Hutt tosses his way. If Luke Skywalker wasn’t such a powerful Jedi, he would have been a dead man.

Dinosaurs were animals once, but they died out 65 million years ago. Now they only exist in the land of movie monsters. The T-Rex in “Jurassic Park” is the most physically imposing, but the raptors are the true villains (other than man’s hubris) in the movie. They are vicious killers, and they are smart too. In “Jurassic World” a whole new scary dino was invented, but we’re sticking with the classic raptors here.

Is the shark from “Jaws” a true monster? We didn’t want to really include animals, but we had to include Jaws. He’s the monster that made people afraid to go in the water. He’s not a normal shark; he is a straight killer. He even got his own ride at Universal Studios for a while.

The gremlins are fun and funny to watch, especially in “Gremlins 2: The New Batch.” Having to actually deal with them, though, would be terrifying. They can multiply with ease, and they love violent mischief. They’ll kill you for a gag and laugh all the way. Just pray for bright light. It’s the only thing that can save you.

This is a pretty new addition to the list, but we have to include these aliens. Their hypersensitive ears means that they hear just about anything. You can’t even talk because if you do, they’ll come kill you. You’d better pray you don’t have a sneeze attack.

Here’s what makes the titular Thing, a parasitic alien, so terrifying: It could be anything. The Thing can imitate other living organisms. It could be the friend next to you, and in the next moment, you’re being devoured by a horrifying creature. The paranoia is what really gets you. Well, that and being eaten.