The dog isn't called "man's best friend" for nothing—canines and humans have been living together for some 30 000 years. Unsurprisingly, dogs feature in most ancient myths and religions, usually in a positive light, but sometimes as monsters, like Cerberus or Anubis, the jackal-headed god of the underworld. This also extends to horror movies, where dogs have appeared as threats since at least 1914 with the original German The Hound of the Baskervilles film.

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Since then, several iconic hounds have stalked the silver screen. They range from ordinary dogs with a mean streak to alien shape-shifters and literal hellhounds. These horror movies frighten audiences so much because they take an animal meant to be loyal and affectionate and transform it into a source of danger. In these films, it really is a dog-eat-dog world.

The Grim/Sirius Black — 'Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban' (2004)

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The third Harry Potter movie is much darker than the first two, with a lot more scary moments, including Harry's (Daniel Radcliffe) first encounter with the black dog known as the Grim. He sees it in the bushes while he waits for the Knight Bus, all raised hackles and bared teeth. We later learn that the dog is Sirius Black (Gary Oldman), Harry's godfather protector, but those few glimpses of the dog are creepy.

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In the movie, it is said that the Grim is one of the worst omens in the wizarding world. This is a riff on the real-world concept of the "black dog" as a metaphor for depression, a phrase that goes back centuries.

Intro Dog — 'Goosebumps' (1995-1998)

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The '90s were a golden era for kids' horror, largely thanks to the Goosebumps books by R.L. Stine and the subsequent anthology TV series. Some of these Goosebumps episodes are genuinely unsettling, especially The Haunted Mask and The Werewolf of Fever Swamp. However, the dog from the title sequence might be the scariest thing about them.

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Each episode begins with a shadow of the letter G floating over a neighborhood, corrupting whatever it touches. When it moves over a dog resting on a porch, the dog's eyes flash, and we hear a distant, frightening howl. For many '90s kids, the Goosebumps dog was pure nightmare fuel.

Fluffy — 'Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone' (2001)

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Saw what you will about JK Rowling, but she has a knack for taking monsters from mythology and reinventing them for a modern audience. One of the best examples of this is Fluffy, the giant three-headed dog that protects the Philosopher's Stone in the first movie. Fluffy is a clear homage to Cerberus from Greek mythology, the hound that guards the Underworld.

Fluffy is monstrous, with fangs like swords and each head almost the size of a Ford Fiesta: it's easy to see why Hagrid was drawn to him. Harry, Ron (Rupert Grint), and Hermione (Emma Watson) come face-to-face with Fluffy and almost meet their doom. Fortunately for them, Fluffy's weakness is music, which lulls him into a deep slumber, allowing them to sneak past.

Zowie — 'Pet Sematary II' (1992)

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Pet Sematary is one of Stephen King's best novels, and it translated into a solid 1989 film adaptation. The sequel isn't as good as the original, but it does serve up a suitably frightening hound named Zowie. He starts as a regular dog, but after the local sheriff shoots him dead in anger, two boys bury Zowie in a local burial ground.

The rumors that the burial ground can resurrect the dead prove true. Zowie shows up at the house the next day, but he is fiercer and more vicious, with an odd look in his eyes. He also has no heartbeat. There's one especially creepy scene where Zowie sits on a rocking chair, staring at one of the characters. Zowie's aggression escalates from there until he begins attacking people.

The Pack — 'The Pack' (1977)

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The Pack takes place on a vacation spot called Seal Island, where a pack of feral dogs begins terrorizing people. It's more realistic than many other horror movies about dogs. Here, the hounds have no special powers or demonic connections. Instead, they're just a pack of lonely, hungry animals that have been pushed to the point of attacking humans.

The dogs in The Pack are scary because they are believable. They look like stray dogs one might come across in a bad part of town. They might not have super-strength or magic powers, but their strength in numbers makes them a force to be reckoned with.

White Dog — 'White Dog' (1982)

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White Dog centers on a vicious dog that's been trained to attack Black people and a Black dog trainer (Paul Winfield) trying to rehabilitate it. On the one hand, it has some straightforward horror moments, with many shots of the hound snapping and snarling. But it's also a parable of racism in America: Cujo meets Get Out.

Paramount Pictures was concerned that viewers would find the film to be in bad taste, so they practically buried it for decades. However, Criterion re-released White Dog in 2008, finally bringing it to an audience that could appreciate it.

Dog Man - 'Invasion of the Body Snatchers' (1978)

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Invasion of the Body Snatchers is a classic sci-fi about alien pods that land in San Francisco, where they morph into clones of the city's inhabitants. Slowly, these imposters replace the originals. Two scientists, Elizabeth (Brooke Adams) and Matthew (Donald Sutherland), race to decipher the mystery of the pods before the entire city is replaced.

One of the movie's creepiest moments comes when a pod ends up next to a homeless man and his dog. The pod malfunctions and creates an amalgam of the man and the canine. The result is a dog with a human face. This was achieved with practical effects and has held up surprisingly well all these years alter.

Jed — 'The Thing (1982)

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John Carpenter's The Thing follows a group of Antarctic researchers who are attacked by a shape-shifting alien. It assumes the form of members of the team, sowing suspicion and paranoia and turning the characters against each other. But before it becomes a copy of the humans, the alien assumes the form of a sled dog.

There's an incredibly bloody scene where the dog-alien morphs into its real form, all tentacles and multiple mouths. It looks like Lassie mixed with the Demogorgon from Stranger Things. The effects are superb, thanks to the inventive creature design by Rob Bottin, who also worked on The Howling, Se7en, and, most recently, Game of Thrones.

Zoltan — 'Zoltan: Hound of Dracula' (1977)

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Zoltan: Hound of Dracula (aka Dracula's Dog) begins with the Romanian army accidentally excavating a crypt. One of the soldiers opens a coffin containing a dog with a stake through its heart. He removes the stake, and the dog returns to (un)life. It turns out to be Zoltan, the vampiric hound of Count Dracula. Zoltan releases a half-vampire in one of the coffins, and the pair of them set out to find the last living descendant of Dracula, to whom they are still loyal.

From there, Zoltan descends into fairly standard, gory exploitation fare. However, it deserves praise for the simple yet effective way it makes Zoltan look genuinely scary—the light effect on his eyes is particularly well done. Never has a Doberman Pinscher looked so demonic.

Cujo — 'Cujo' (1983)

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Young mother Donna (Dee Wallace) and son Tad (Danny Pintauro) drive out to a mechanic's property for car repairs. There, their alternator dies, and they are left stranded. Next, the mechanic's enormous Saint Bernard appears, drool dripping from his mouth, eyes glinting madly. He has rabies and sees the mother and son as his next meal. They are trapped in the car without food or water while Cujo sits outside, waiting.

The Cujo film isn't as good as Stephen King's novel, but it's still a tense, claustrophobic horror movie that'll make you want to get a cat. As with many of King's best works, it manages to craft a nightmare out of something seemingly harmless, in this case, a canine companion. To portray the rabid animal, the filmmakers used four Saint Bernards, a few mechanical dogs, and, for some shots, even a human in a dog costume. While not well-received on release, Cujo has since become a cult film, largely thanks to the lumbering, frightening dog at its center.

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