Top 6 of the Scariest Animals in Horror Movies
2. Every Damn Spider in This Movie
Arachnophobia
This movie will give anyone with the mildest fear of spiders the extreme skeevies. All aboard the train to NOPEville with the spiders of Arachnophobia, pushing in at number deux. The movie centers on the accidental arrival of an extremely aggressive and venomous spider from the Amazon, who of course breeds with a domesticated female, which but of course, ends up spawning an army of eight-legged lethal monsters. Jeff Daniels and John Goodman to the rescue! I would just set that whole town on fire.
1. JAWS
Was there really anyone expecting anyone other than Bruce the shark to hit the top spot here? Bueller? Bueller? I thought not. No other animal of the sea, or land for that matter, scared us like the film Jaws did. This little movie from Spielberg not only furthered anyone’s fear of the water, but actually induced a phobia that had not existed prior to a viewing! How do I know this? Ugh. Okay… sadly, I was one of them. I had my first viewing of Jaws when I was fairly young, about 4 years old; and I’ll never forget it. We would regularly visit my family in New York up to about four times a year, and during the summer we, like many others, would hit the beach. Well, thanks to Bruce, the film scared my ass right off the beach to the point where I didn’t want my feet touching the sand. That’s right, folks. My father would have to carry me through the sand because I was having none of that shit.
Of course, I’ve grown way past that and the movie is now one of my favorites. You have to respect a film that has that kind of impact on someone, especially on a person like myself who was never scared so easily – even as a kid.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ku0idWkeo0
Bonus Lycanthrope Entry!
Reverend Lowe from Silver Bullet
I honestly couldn’t let this piece fly without an honorable mention to, in my opinion, the goddamn scariest half-human/half-animal to ever walk across a screen. Reverend Lester Lowe’s alter ego of the werewolf is severely underrated as one of the most terrifyingly compelling performances from any lycan in film. The reason this werewolf in particular stands above the rest is his agenda. In human form, the good reverend has accepted his fate as sort of a gift from God in the sense he believes it has a purpose, as he explains in his tense monologue with Marty on the bridge about one of his victims, a pregnant gal by the name of Stella: “Stella was going to commit suicide, and if she had done so, she’d be burning in Hell right now. I took her physical life, but I saved her life eternally! You see how all things work out in the will and mind of God?”
Pretty twisted when you think about it. Some fans seem to think the wolf costume was a bit silly; however, I think it looks a lot better than a CGI werewolf and pulls off the scare factor quite nicely. So cheers to horror’s scariest mythological beast!
Spoiler Warning! If you haven’t seen Silver Bullet, you may want to avoid this clip entirely.
