We're living in an era of remakes and reboots, and the horror genre has seen a number of them too. Last fall saw the eleventh Halloween movie hit theaters, while a remake of the evil-clown miniseries It, based on the Stephen King novel, also scared the heck out of us again. (Part 2 is hitting theaters later this year.) This Friday brings a new adaptation of Pet Sematary, the 1983 King book, which features a pretty freaky undead cat. If that's your bag, you may also like these 11 horror movies about scary animals, that'll make you appreciate your loving pets more than you already do.
King's Pet Sematary novel, and the 1989 movie adaptation, tells the story of a family haunted by the presence of a pet cemetery in the woods behind their new home. But the horrors of the story stem more from the intense specter of death, how it influences humans to make questionable choices, and the horrifying results of those choices. That said, the family cat turns into something that'll haunt you, and the trailer for the new Pet Sematary features some creepy animal masks that are new to this particular version.
Some animals are threatening just because of their size or predatory nature, but even the sweetest fur balls can be terrifying under the right circumstances. These movies prove it.
1. Jaws
The ultimate scary shark movie, Stephen Spielberg's Jaws made everyone afraid to go into the water. A number of sequels followed, and there were numerous copycats, but non hold a candle to the original tale of a Great White shark terrorizing a New England beach town.
Streaming on Netflix, Amazon, Vudu, and iTunes.
2. Cujo
When the beloved family dog, a giant St. Bernard named Cujo, gets bitten by a rabid bat, he transforms from a lovable pet to a total monster. It's an adaptation of another horrifying Stephen King novel and might make you a tad wary of your adorable pup.
Streaming on Amazon, Vudu, and iTunes.
3. Lake Placid
The Lake Placid series of horror-action thrillers has the added benefit of also including a lot of comic moments, but the first movie, from 1999, is still seriously scary. Bill Pullman, Bridget Fonda, Oliver Platt, Brendan Gleeson, Betty White, and Mariska Hargitay star in this movie about group of crocodile hunters out to kill a huge, 30-foot croc that's terrorizing a lake town in Maine.
Streaming on Netflix and Vudu.
4. Anaconda
You'll find some of today's biggest movie stars in B-horror movies of the '90s. This one stars Jennifer Lopez, Ice Cube, Eric Stoltz, and Owen Wilson as a documentary film crew who are taken hostage by a snake hunter (Jon Voight) who is going after a giant anaconda in the Amazon rainforest.
5. Arachnophobia
We've covered sharks, snakes, fluffy dogs, and crocs. Now, we're on to dreaded spiders. Directed by Frank Marshall and produced by Steven Spielberg, Arachnophobia stars Jeff Daniels and John Goodman as an entomologist and an exterminator, respectively, both trying to contain a deadly outbreak of killer spiders. Not for the easily queasy when it comes to bugs.
Streaming on Hulu, Cinemax, Vudu, and iTunes.
6. The Birds
So many of these animal horror films were obviously inspired by Alfred Hitchcock's 1963 classic, The Birds. The film stars Tippi Hedren as a woman caught in the middle of a series of violent bird attacks over the course of a few days in California. The film's sparse musical score and emphasis on the flapping, pecking, and cawing sound effects make the whole experience extra creepy.
Streaming on Amazon, Vudu, and iTunes.
7. Willard
Crispin Glover stars as Willard Stiles in this eerie tale about a man who trains rats to enact revenge on his tormentors. His main rat, a white one named Socrates, is pretty cute if you like rats, but also pretty deadly. The film is loosely based on the novel Ratman's Notebooks by Stephen Gilbert. Ratatouille this is not.
Streaming on Showtime, Vudu, and iTunes.
8. Snakes On A Plane
Whether you view Snakes on a Plane! as a comedy or a horror film depends on how afraid you are of snakes. But as funny as this movie can be, the premise is surely terrifying. Samuel L. Jackson stars as an FBI agent escorting a witness to testify, but those he's about to testify against have other plans, and stock the plane they're on with crates of deadly snakes.
Streaming on Vudu and iTunes.
9. The Grey
The direwolves in Game of Thrones might be protective of their humans, but the wolves of The Grey are wild killers. Liam Neeson stars in this survival thriller as a marksman who shoots wild wolves to protect an oil company. When his and his colleague's plane crashes in the Alaskan wilderness, the wolves decide it's time to prey on the humans.
Streaming on Starz, Amazon, Vudu, and iTunes.
10. Them!
An oldie but a goody, Them! is a 1954 black-and-white sci-fi horror about a nest of giant irradiated ants that appear in the New Mexico desert. It's one of the first nuclear monster movies that stemmed out of the post-WWII era, when nuclear war fears were increasing.
Streaming on Vudu and iTunes.
11. The Ghost And The Darkness
Val Kilmer and Michael Douglas star in this 1996 thriller based on the true story of the Tsavo Man-Eaters. As the legend goes, two Tsavo lions in Kenya who were responsible for about 135 human deaths during the construction of the Kenya-Uganda Railway in the late 19th century. One was known to crouch and hide before attacking, while the other stood and lured, giving them the nicknames "The Ghost" and "The Darkness."
Streaming on Amazon Prime, Vudu, and iTunes.
The fact that many of these dangerous animals aren't even supernatural (like Pet Sematary's zombie cat) makes them even more frightening.
