There's nothing like a great monster movie to get your heart racing, a perfect blend of adrenaline-fueled thrills and stomach-churning scares that often feels like the cinematic equivalent of a death-defying rollercoaster ride. At the same time, monster movies have long been the proud home of allegorical storytelling; gorgeously designed stand-ins for the real-life fears that plague and control us, and in the film's below you'll see an especially interesting assemblage of both modern panic and technology-age terrors, born specifically out the era in which they were created, and more universal, primal fears, timeless reminders of the dark corners of the human mind. You'll also see some plain old downright fun monster mashes.

A bit of housekeeping notes here: I'm casting a pretty wide net as to what counts as a monster, however, I won't be including zombies, vampires, or werewolves for two reasons. One, they are such established subgenres in their own right, they really need their own lists (which you can find by clicking through the links.) Two, because they were so prolific and trendy at the start of the millennium (especially vampires and zombies), they would either dominate the lineup or force the list to become so big it would be unwieldy. I'm also being a bit of a tough cookie about the fact that having a great monster doesn't make something a monster movie, which means no Harry Potter, Pan's Labyrinth, or anything with the Hulk.

Honorable Mentions: The Monster, Brian Bertino's grim addiction allegory featuring a knockout performance by Zoe Kazan; Grabbers, a cheeky Irish creature feature with a comedic flourish; Shin Godzilla, Toho's reboot of the Godzilla franchise fuelled by a satirical spin on bureaucracy; Spring; Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead's Lovecraftian love story; and Slither, James Gunn's stomach-testing B-movie homage.

Godzilla, Mothra and King Ghidora: Giant Monsters All-Out Attack (2001)

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Image via Toho

One of the best Godzilla movies, if not the best, to come out of the Millennium era, Godzilla, Mothra, and King Ghidorah: Giant Monsters All-Out Attack (GMK) fully delivers on the promise of that epic title and then some. Directed by Gamera helmer Shusuke Kaneko, GMK features one of the cruelest spins on Godzilla in the character’s long history. The film follows the monster madness from two compelling points of view -- that of a journalist, Yuri (Chiharu Niiyama), and her father, Admiral Taizo Tachibana (Ryudo Uzaki), both of whom are embroiled up-close in the action. In a set-up that sounds much sillier than it plays, Godzilla is driven by the souls of those killed in World War II, who want to destroy Japan for forgetting the wartime atrocities. Like I said, it sounds silly, but the result is a vicious spin on the classic monster, who has a greater taste than usual for killing off innocent civilians in his deadly march of destruction. That’s where the other monsters come in, the three ancient Kaiju guardians tasked with saving the planet (but not necessarily us) from his wrath. That’s right! There are FOUR Kaiju at play in GMK, but my poor, sweet son Baragon didn’t rank as a title player despite offering some of the film’s standout moments.

GMK succeeds in all the critical ways a classic Kaiju movie needs to, compelling humans, enough smarts not to get bogged down in the human drama, and most importantly, fantastic monster action. The creatures are absolutely delightful, a smart blend of practical and digital effects, and Kaneko frames their action in a series of memorable shots that stand out from much of your standard Giant Monster fare. There’s an inventiveness and cleverness to the way he frames the battling beasts that elevates the battle-centric second half. Those looking for Godzilla-verse continuity will be disappointed by GMK, which essentially stand-alone despite a healthy dose of in-references, but those looking for a radioactive blast’s worth of monster mayhem will find a lot to love in one of the most plainly enjoyable Kaiju films of all time.

Bubba Ho-Tep (2002)

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Image via Vitagraph Films

You can always count on Don Coscarelli to subvert every rule in the book, and do it all with a contagious wink and a grin. In Bubba Ho-Tep, the director’s singular sensibilities are paired like a fine wine with the humorist stylings of Bruce Campbell and an unexpectedly uproarious turn from Ossie Davis. Based on a short story from prolific genre author Joe Landsdale, the film stars the unlikely duo as Sebastian Haff (Campbell), an elderly fella who fancies himself not only a ladies man, but The King Elvis Presley himself, and Jack (Davis), perhaps the only man who could top that delusion -- a wheelchair-bound fella who believes he’s the consciousness John F. Kennedy trapped in another man’s body. These are the heroes in Coscarelli’s gut-busting spin of the classic Mummy yarn.

The obvious assumption is that the duo is senile and Bubba Ho-Tep certainly flirts with that possibility, but it also indulges the alternative as the pair squares off against a soul-sucking ancient evil with surprising efficiency. The film veers closer to comedy than horror, but Coscarelli loves a good monster and he keeps his tongue firmly in cheek with this ancient evil, who is kind of a pathetic dick, sucking the souls from the sad, abandoned elderly on their death beds and carving hieroglyphics school ground insults in the bathroom walls. It’s a ridiculous and riotous comedy, the kind that can make you ugly laugh in a quiet room, but Coscarelli also knows his way around a good scare set-piece, and he lets the monster be just menacing enough to make you nervous in the heat of battle.

The Descent (2005)

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Image via Lionsgate Entertainment

Equal parts tense thriller and badass gorefest, The Descent, is a film about a group of tough spelunking women trapped in a cave full of ancient humanoid monsters. Following the grief-stricken Sarah (Shauna Macdonald) after the death of her husband and child, Neil Marshall‘s The Descent follows Sarah and her group of badass spelunking daredevil pals as they head into dark, underground adventures on a mission to pull Sarah out of her despair. Naturally, that all goes to shit. The exit path caves in and the women find themselves trapped in a monster-infested, off-the-map cave with no clue how to get out and no one on the outside who knows where they are.

Marshall has the good sense to refrain from jumping straight to the bloody action, and the movie is damn freaky long before the creatures show up. As the women search for an exit, we are given time to explore the intricacies of their relationships. The sense of claustrophobia and tension between the women increase in tandem, bringing the overall atmosphere to a peak of piano-wire tension. On top of the emotional tension, Marshall and cinematographer Sam McCurdy mess with our heads, playing on some of our most primal fears: the dark and entrapment. The women descend deeper and deeper into a shadow world lit only by headlamps, glow sticks, and camcorders; a palate of reds and greens. It’s a disorienting trick of color and light that ratchets up the sense of unease, creating a disquieting otherworldly realm. When the panic reaches its peak, Marshall drops the monster bomb and the pure carnal Darwinism begins. It’s a bloody, gruesome affair that layers the scares through a series of escalating frights to a crescendo of viscera-drenched, kinetic horror.

The Host (2006)

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More than a decade before he took home the Oscar for his genre-bending, history-making triumph Parasite, Bong Joon Ho gave us a wild, singular giant monster movie for the ages with The Host. A unique, bizarre but clever, and emotionally-driven creature feature that blends satire, melodrama, action, and horror with surprising success, The Host has all the hallmarks of Director Bong's best films - eviscerating class commentary, unforgettably effed-up characters, and one hell of a Song Kang Ho performance. In the film, a slippery, strange back-flipping creature emerges from the Han River to terrorize Seoul, South Korea, snatching up a young schoolgirl, Hyun-seo (Ko Ah-sung) while he tramples his way through the city. Devastated by the loss of Hyun-seo, her close-knit family -- led by the patriarch Park Hie-bong (Byun He Bong), sets out to recover the missing girl while the city around the falls to terror and panic.

Bong plays tonal gymnastics with his creature feature, spinning about as adroitly as his monstrous menace, indulging in moments of slapstick before rotating on a dime into horror or pathos as the family comes up against obstacle after obstacle in their pursuit to save Hyun-seo. It shouldn't work, but it does, just as the monster's strange, amphibian taxonomy is somehow silly and scary at the same time -- a toothy tadpole with slimy green flesh and a super-strong tail. The Host is a moving family drama, a hilarious social satire, and occasionally, a genuinely scary and deeply moving monster pic that defies expectations you don't even know you have, creating a completely individual take on the monster movie.

The Mist (2007)

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Image via Dimension

I've made no secret of my love for The Mist here on Collider over the years, ranking it as one of the Best Sci-Fi Movies and Best Horror Movies of the 2000s, extolling its virtues as one of the ballsiest contemporary horror movies, and saving a spot on the list of Best Villains for Mrs. Carmody. But while it is all of those things, above all, it is an absolutely fantastic monster movie.

The Shawshank Redemption and The Green Mile director Frank Darabont proves his grasp of Stephen King's sensibilities once again, soaking up all the drive-in, B-movie ambiance of King's novella and transposing it to the screen with a prestige drama sheen and gut-punch ending for the ages. It's a brutally angry, borderline misanthropic film that ends with the most utterly hopeless reminder to never give up hope you've ever seen. But that's not why we're here, we're here for the monsters. Designed by the inimitable Berni Wright, The Mist's creature creations run the gamut of insectoid and biological terrors, from tentacled beasties to the Impossibly Tall Monster, there's a Harryhausen-era flair to the extradimensional creepy-crawlies that helps them endure, even if the low-budget hampered the digital effects a bit. And as for the men who prove themselves to be monsters in the end, well, that character drama is fantastically satisfying as well.

Trick 'r Treat (2007)

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Image via Warner Bros.

Michael Dougherty's love letter to Halloween is jam packed with monsters, creatures, killers and the elusive spirits of All Hallow's Eve that make it such a magical, mystical night. There are werewolves, undead ghouls, and would-be vampires stalking the night throughout the interconnected segments of Dougherty's meticulously arranged anthology film, but Trick ‘r Treat‘s greatest strength is Dougherty’s obvious love and expert knowledge of the holiday’s lore, tradition, and superstition, which saturates every moment of the film. In turn, the film's greatest monster is an original creation --the impish menace, Sam, a pint-size terror with a burlap sack mask and a deadly sharp loli who embodies the Halloween spirit and pops up throughout the film’s segments, exacting punishment on those who fail to honor the rules of his holiday. He's as vicious as he is adorable, a fantastically unique creature creation that stands out among his peers both for his diminutive stature and cheeky personality, which he unveils through his bloody misdeeds. With an iconography so instantly accessible and so rooted in the spirit of Halloween, you feel as though you grew up with the legend of Sam, even though he's a modern invention.

Splinter (2008)

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Image via Magnolia Pictures

The Thing by way of roadside terrors and gas-station siege, Splinter is a proud descendant of John Carpenter’s paranoid creature feature - stripped down to the bare essentials. The low-budget directorial debut from Toby Wilkins has a visual edge thanks to the filmmakers’ background in visual effects and a scene-stealing performance from Shea Whigham, who always elevates his material. Set almost entirely in a gas station, Splinter follows a believably worn-in-but-still-in-love couple Polly and Seth (Jill Wagner and Paulo Costanzo) who are taken hostage by a pair of deadly fugitives (Whigham and Rachel Kerbs). When they stop at a gas station, the group is besieged by an amorphous, infectious organism that inhabits and reconfigures the bodies of its victims into grotesque malformations.

The plot is lean but the ambiance is thick, and the film’s greatest strength -- aside from the budget-defying creature effects -- is the faith it has in its characters, who are given the opportunity to defy expectation and rise above cliches. Splinter gleefully plays against gender tropes, introducing Polly as the tough, outdoorsy type in contrast to Seth’s reticent intellectualism, and celebrates the individual strengths that come with those traits. Meanwhile, Whigham’s Dennis Farrell, who is introduced as a violent antagonist, ultimately becomes the film’s standout character. It’s the type of movie that regularly turns up on a lot of “Best Movies You Haven’t Seen” lists and the kind of directorial debut that makes you sad Wilkins hasn’t turned out another original film since.

Cloverfield (2008)

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Image via Paramount Pictures

While the found footage schtick soured some to Cloverfield’s charms upon release, time has favored the film and revealed the homegrown American Kaiju thriller as a keen, cleverly executed genre piece with a surprisingly enduring 9/11 allegory. As Godzilla was born from the ashes of Japan’s grief and anxiety over World War II, Cloverfield was a monster metaphor for the panic and terror that flooded America after the 9/11 attacks.Director Matt Reeves, working from a script by Drew Goddard, pulls no punches with the allusions; bloodied NYC citizens stumble through the streets after Clover attacks, coated in the ashes and rubble of the destroyed city, a group of friends unite to save a friend trapped in a crumbling skyscraper, even the shaky-cam aesthetic evokes memories of the ground-level videos that flooded the internet in the aftermath of the attacks. Fortunately, Reeves is also very clever with his monster action and he knows exactly the bring the escapist, fantastical thrills to the forefront instead of conjuring the trauma of that terrorist assault too directly.

As for the found-footage approach, I honestly dig it. A found footage Kaiju film is a great idea and it personalizes the on-the-ground perspective in a way traditionally framed images just can’t. When our team of heroes stumbles into the thick of combat, soldiers unleash heavy fire all around them, and you feel like you need to take cover alongside them. That panic surfaces again when they’re being chased down by the horrifying monster-bugs that hitched a ride on Clover’s back, and even more so when we experience the breathless real-time fallout from one of their bites. Heck, we even get the voyeuristic experience of being eaten alive. Cloverfield’s found-footage works because it’s not just a gimmick or a flashy show of technique, it's the format that's best suited to the story's subtext of lived national trauma, and one that makes for a refreshing spin on the giant monster subgenre.

Hellboy II: The Golden Army (2008)

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Image via Universal Pictures

Nobody loves monsters more than Guillermo Del Toro and he never wears his heart on his sleeve more proudly than in his Hellboy movies, loosely adapted from Mike Mignola’s beloved comic book series. Here, his monster-hunting heroes are a band of monsters, mutants and misfits themselves, united by their outsider status as a family of so-called freaks fighting the good fight to save humanity. Del Toro fav Ron Perlman is impeccably cast in the roll of the titular antihero, his booming voice all gravel and grit and his god-gifted structural face playing perfect host to Hellboy’s prosthetics. Most importantly though, he nails the bluster and machismo that Del Toro undercuts at every turn, emphasizing the inherent dangers of the lone-wolf mentality and the strength of a team that truly works together.

With his sequel, Del Toro improves on all the strongest qualities of the first film -- the ambient charm and winning characters top among them, but when it comes to the creatures, The Golden Army serves up a veritable parade of extraordinary creations that are, excepting the stunning animated prologue, rendered practically on the screen in works of tremendous craftsmanship. Del Toro has always been a practical, set-oriented director determined to immerse his performers in the world they’re inhabiting, and in Hellboy II, that manifests in a series of fantastically inventive monsters and otherworldly beings that stand proud as some of the most gorgeous and expertly wrought cinematic creatures of all time.

Trollhunter (2010)

Few films have managed to strike the balance between wit, terror, wonder, and mythology with the freewheeling intensity of André Øvredal's Trollhunter. A Verite style mockumentary, the film follows a group of film students who venture to the Norwegian countryside to investigate a series of livestock maulings blamed on the bears. There they meet a local hunter, and soon they discover the truth of the matter. It's not the bears they need to worry about, it's giant, hairy, grotesque trolls with a thirst for Christian blood, and their hunter friend is the man capable of tracking down and killing them.

Rich with folklore and packed with stunning imagery, Trollhunter gains a lot of strength from its cultural specificity, delivering a distinct spin on the monster genre through the lens of a fresh mythology, unknown to most of the world and certainly not overplayed in film. The trolls themselves are impressively rendered though somewhat scarce; hideous, nasty creatures eager to snack on the godly and Trollhunter treats them with a completely straight-faced seriousness (though the film has plenty of twisted laughs). The humor is dry and often quite dark, the handheld style does little to distract from the majestic setting of the Norwegian countryside, and the monsters themselves are impressive and loathsome creatures given to entertaining action beats and droll tongue-in-cheek gags that make Trollhunter one of the most imaginative monster movies in recent memory.

Cabin in the Woods (2011)

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Image via Lionsgate

For much of Joss Whedon and Drew Goddard's upending post-modern meta-horror, Cabin in the Woods, the film is not quite a monster movie. It's a zombie movie, kind of, but mostly it's an irreverent horror-comedy that slaughters more horror tropes than Freddy Kruger's and Jason Voorhees' death counts combined. But at the turn of the third act, the film makes a truly delicious and devious diversion, eviscerating the accepted rules of the standard horror finale formula in favor of unleashing pure carnage and chaos in the form of the ultimate monster mash, attended by every kind of ghoul, beast, and spooky creature you could conjure up in your mind. For horror geeks, it's a veritable who's who masquerade of genre homages and newfound creature creations, including an impressively rewarding payoff on a running merman gag. However, Whedon and Goddard delight in pulling the rug out from their audience time and again throughout the film, and the third act is no different. Once you think you have a handle on the monstrous massacre, the rules shift again and the true extent of the threat facing our heroes is revealed to be a much more grandiose and undefeatable foe than you could have ever first imagined when the Buckners, aka Zombie Redneck Torture Family, first came shambling out of their graves. It's a fantastic thrill ride from start to finish that changes the rules of the game with each new beat, celebrating monsters and monster movies with a knowing nudge and one-of-a-kind zeal.

Attack the Block (2011)

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Image via Sony Pictures Releasing

The directorial debut from Joe Cornish is a ballistic B-movie creature feature that's as vibrant and energetic as it gets. Set in a dodgy South London neighborhood, Attack the Block pits a team of teenage criminals in the making against “big alien gorilla wolf motherfuckers,” and follows their adrenaline-fueled fight for survival that follows.

Moses (John Boyega) and his gang are in the middle of mugging a young woman (Jodie Whittaker) when big, furry, neon-toothed aliens start crashing down around them, spreading across their neighborhood like feral, frenzied and absolutely deadly ink stains that disappear into the darkness until they open their glowing maws to rip your throat out. Moses takes it upon himself to become the protector of their neighborhood, picking a fight with the beasts without fully understanding the implications and struggling to discover the heroism in himself when he realizes how thoroughly he's in over his head. The Edgar Wright-produced flick is a pure kinetic rush from beginning to end, Boyega is the find of a decade, and while the phrase “Amblin-esque” gets thrown around a lot, Cornish manages to capture that slippery magic and modernize it with a profane, hard-R adventure that never loses that youthful, awed zeal.

Pacific Rim (2013)

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Image via Warner Bros.

Guillermo Del Toro’s proves himself a master of monsters once again with his epic Kaiju vs. Mecha spectacle, Pacific Rim. I am a diehard Pacific Rim defender. You can tell me that Raleigh Beckett is boring until the end of days, but no amount of subpar human drama could undermine the pure joy of watching Del Toro gleefully play with his cinematic toys. Big fucking monsters and big fucking robots battling it out across the world, and all of it done with Del Toro’s signature flourish of human resilience and emotional earnestness.

Set during a war between mankind and a monstrous race from another dimension, Pacific Rim takes place in a ravaged world. After a foolishly constructed wall entirely fails to keep the monstrous threat at bay, the humans turn to obsolete Jaeger technology as the last line of defense. In addition to Guillermo’s infectious love for the material and the gorgeous battle set-pieces, Pacific Rim has a few other key factors that make it a delightful and endlessly rewatchable film. The Kaiju and Jaeger designs are outstanding, and each has a presence and personality of its own. They’re all so well-considered on an individual basis, each with their own advantages and weaknesses, given trading card names like Knifehead and Leatherback, Gipsy Danger and Striker Eureka. There are the colorful side characters, Charlie Day and GDT regular Ron Perlman, in particular. And finally, there’s Ramin Djawadi’s epic, thrilling score, which makes you feel like you’re front and center at the championship game and you just gotta get! up! and! cheer! That feeling, that moment on the bleachers right when you shoot out of your seat and root, root, root for the home team -- that’s what it feels like to watch Pacific Rim as a die-hard giant monster dork.

Godzilla (2014)

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Image via Warner Bros.

Straight up, Gareth Edwards’ English-language studio spin on Godzilla has a lot of flaws, but the monster action ain’t one of them. It’s unfortunate that the human element of the story is such a total slog -- Edwards either kills or sidelines his interesting characters in the first act, making Aaron Taylor-Johnson’s Ford Brody, who’s essentially a walking vanilla custard, the center of the film. Brody may be bland as clear broth, but he functions well enough as a cipher of heroism, and really, we’re only following him because he leads us straight into the monster assault.

This is where Godzilla earns its glowing stripes and a spot on this list. Edwards plays it coy with his monsters -- Godzilla and the fabulously designed MUTOs, who awake him from his ancient slumber. He teases glimpses of the creatures, making wonderful work of perspective with some of the most inventive and effective set-pieces ever used in a monster film, and in doing so he inspires what’s too often missing from crasser Kaiju films -- pure awe. Godzilla has never seemed bigger, or perhaps, we’ve never seemed so small and utterly outmatched. Godzilla himself has a unique design, and while his stocky, more biological appearance was off-putting to some purist fans, Edwards and his VFX team calibrated his movements for that classic man-in-suit feel while the digital approach allowed him to be more expressive than ever. This Godzilla is weary, like a grizzled old guard dog tired but dutifully protecting an owner that can’t seem to stay out of trouble, and there's not a chance you won't be rooting for him by the time he finally unleashes his nuclear breath in one of the best "Fuck Yeah" moments in Godzilla history.

It Follows (2014)

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Image via RADiUS

I struggled with whether or not to classify this one as a monster movie since the deadly force at work is both tantalizingly mysterious and functions more in the tradition of stalker slashers, but David Robert Mitchell’s wildfire horror hit skirts just enough genre conventions to make the cut. We don’t really know what It is. A specter, a spirit, a monster, a pathology… It is unknowable and therein lies much of the terror. That and the fact that it’s an unceasing march to your demise; an unrelenting, unforgiving pursuant that can’t be reasoned with or diverted, despite its many human guises.

The film stars Maika Monroe as Jay, a teenage girl who contracts a malevolent force after a sexual encounter, and soon finds she’s at the top of a particularly awful list to be on. It’s a sexually transmitted death sentence, but Jay hasn’t caught an STD, she’s got something much worse; a ghoulish apparition that stalks her wherever she goes, ever close behind. It Follows. When “it” reaches her, she will die…horribly. She can give it to someone else by sleeping with them, but if it kills them, it will move back to her, and so on, right up the list of everyone who’s ever caught it. It’s an ingenious concept and Mitchell films it gorgeously with the help of his DP Mike Gioulakis, creating the sense of a world out of time or place where every figure in the frame might be a deadly threat just a few steps behind.

The Babadook (2014)

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Image via IFC

Before he was a real thicc bih, The Babadook was terrorizing audiences and earning heaps of critical acclaim in Jennifer Kent's 2014 depression drama via monster movie. A stunning directorial debut from Kent, the film stars Essie Davis as Amelia, a single mother trapped in gloomy grief after the death of her husband and struggling with her maternal instinct towards her challenging son, Daniel (Noah Wiseman). When they receive a mysterious, disturbing book on their doorstep, Daniel claims they’re being stalked by a monster and while Amelia is initially reluctant to believe it, she soon begins to recognize the evil that’s infected their home.

As a monster, The Babadook is a horrifying, lingering threat that sticks with you after the film (and not just because you can’t stop screaming Babadook -- Dook -- DOOK in your most gravelly voice) and his iconography is on point. The creature design and sound editing are absolutely chilling, and Kent works with DP Radek Ladczuk to lean in on the terrifying style, creating a desaturated landscape of visual nightmares. Ultimately, The Babadook is an allegory for Amelia’s suppressed anguish and anger, an undefeatable foe that can never be fully exercised, and Davis’ performance grounds that thematic throughline with a staggering piece of work from the actress that proves genre performances will never get the credit they deserve. A psychologically-bent horror fantasy, The Babadook delivers a monster for the ages, but the most resonant terrors come in the very real and rarely discussed dark places hidden away in the minds of parents, where the laws of nature and parental instinct clash with the selfishness inherent in mankind.

Colossal (2016)

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Image via Neon

In retrospect, Kaiju make such a perfect metaphor for the sloppy, shambling destructiveness of addiction, it's almost shocking that no one came up with the concept before Nacho Vigalondo. Which is not to undercut the boisterous and fearlessly goofy creativity Vigolando showed with Colossal. We're all clever in hindsight, but with his Kaiju comedy, Vigalondo made a personal, passionate film that repurposes Kaiju cinema in a way no one had before, and in doing so, turns it into something much more intimately terrifying.

The film follows Gloria, an alcoholic woman (Anne Hathaway) who discovers she shares a telepathic connection with the Kaiju tormenting Seoul, Korea after she reconnects with a childhood friend (Jason Sudeikis). Having already figuratively trampled all over her own life, Gloria realizes she's very literally culpable for all the recent death and destruction in South Korea and finally begins to take control of her life. That's when Colossal pulls its second magic trick, diving even deeper into issues of malfunction and dependence with a surprising spin on "nice guy" entitlement and toxic masculinity. And all the while there are irreverent, laugh-out-loud hysterical moments of Kaiju action unlike any you've ever seen, mixed in with moments of genuine dread when faced with the destructive potential locked away in all of us.

A Quiet Place (2018)

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Image via Paramount Pictures

John Krasinski sure pulled off a heck of a surprise with his third directorial effort, A Quiet Place. A self-confessed non horror fan, Krasinski channeled an intensely emotional tale of family survival through the creature feature genre and came up with one of the tightest, most compelling monster movies in recent memory. Running a trim 90 minutes, A Quiet Place follows the Abbott family through a post-apocalyptic earth where armored monsters hunt by sound. That means no talking, no sudden movements, and an entirely new way of living where the threat of sudden death looms over every moment. Krasinksi makes the most of the brilliant concept, creating a soundscape of silence that grabs the audience and drags them into the action, demanding silent stillness and gluing you to your seat.

A crowd-pleaser to boot, A Quiet Place channels a Spielbergian approach to monster horror, delivering a steady stream of thrilling action-packed set-pieces amongst the character drama, but the touching beats between the famliy are what really drive it home. All the performances are on point, including some impressive work from the young actors, but Emily Blunt is extraordinary as the mother, conjuring up the ultimate image of survival in a prolonged second act set-piece that will have you sweating buckets. Krasinksi roots his horror in the terrors of parenting and the primal anxiety to protect what you love, ensuring that you always root for the family, mourn for their losses, and you share in their fears through every piano-wire tight moment of tension.

The Invisible Man (2020)

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Image via Universal

It took three attempts with 2010's The Wolf Man, 2014's Dracula Untold, and the short life and long death of the Dark Universe (which began and ended with 2017's The Mummy), but Universal finally found a modern take on their classic monsters that actually worked thanks to Leigh Whannell and the folks at Blumhouse. The co-creator of Saw and Insidious, Whannell already has more than your average share of bragging rights in the horror history books, but starting with his second directorial feature Upgrade, he fully stepped into his own aesthetic and introduced audiences to a new tech-fueled niche in his crowd-pleasing brand of frights. With his followup The Invisible Man, Whannell doubles down on all the technical precision and impeccable timing that made Upgrade such a rip-roaring success, and in doing so, breathes new life into one of Hollywood's great horror franchises.

Elisabeth Moss stars as Cecilia Kass, a woman who escapes from a horrific abusive relationship and soon after, discovers her tech-genius billionaire ex committed suicide after she left. That's when a new form of torment begins. Cleverly following the trajectory of so many real-life abuse stories, first, it starts small; subtle acts of aggression and manipulation that make Cecilia question her own reality, isolate her from her support base, and ultimately, escalate to violent control. And the entire time, she begs the world to believe she's being harassed by an invisible monster no one else can see. Whannell's take on the material is powerful because it's timely and rooted in real-world horrors (though it doesn't always hit the mark), but it's also impeccably shot, weaponizing stillness and dead space to keep the audiences absolutely wrecked with tension and unease. Moss, of course, delivers an extraordinary performance and, for my money, The Invisible Man boasts some of the best horror set-pieces in the entire Universal Monsters canon.