Monster movies and creature features are among the best horror sub-genres, boasting some incredibly iconic films. Movies like Jaws, Tremors, and Nope have shown stories centered around monsters to be incredibly versatile and entertaining. However, the genre is also incredibly vulnerable to absurd films that end up being so terrible that they become sources of memes and mockery among fans.
Many fans of the genre enjoy the more ridiculous monster movies, and they’re often a source of unwitting comedy for audiences. Whether it’s hammed up, awful acting, silly-looking practical effects, or a mismatch between themes in the movie, some have developed cult statuses for being so terrible they’re great. Much like movies like The Room, these films gained new life from audiences loving their low-quality nonsense.
10 Lake Placid
Lake Placid is still arguably the best crocodile movie, even if that reputation stems from its comedic meme status more than high-quality storytelling. The film follows a Fish and Game officer who enlists the help of a scientist to stop a killer crocodile from wreaking havoc on a small town.
Lake Placid is full of silly moments and terrible effects, but the part that stands out most and solidifies the movie’s absurdity is that of Betty White effectively treating the monster like a pet. The scene embodies everything wrong with the movie that many of its fans have come to love.
9 Lavalantula
Lavalantula, along with its sequel, follows the emergence of giant, lava-spewing tarantulas as they wreak havoc on the world. The movie is something of a self-aware joke, with Guttenberg playing a washed-up comedy actor who sets out to save the world from the monsters – despite people wanting to discuss his acting career instead.
Lavalantula, like many monster movies, gets all of its charm from its leading actor, Police Academy’s Steve Guttenberg. However, few would defend the film’s logic, plot, or effects – and for good reason. As each new character is introduced, things feel all the more ridiculous. The movie is as classic a B movie as it gets, and it knows it.
8 Critters
The Critters franchise offered a similar type of film to Gremlins, but with more of a sci-fi twist compared to Gremlins’ fantasy/magic. The movies follow the arrival of the Crites, a terrifying species of alien monsters who infiltrate a household and set about attacking the family residents.
Critters didn’t capture the same iconic status as Gremlins, but it was every bit as fun. The inclusion of intergalactic bounty hunters, a more horror twist, and even a movie set in space made the franchise seem more ridiculous. As bad as the movies may have been, they’re worth a watch, even if just for Ug.
7 Night Of The Lepus
Night of the Lepus, like many creature features of its day, followed the horror of giant animals. However, rather than use innately scary creatures like insects or sharks, the movie focused on the threat of giant killer rabbits. The combination of horror and rabbits produced a silly juxtaposition that resembled Monty Python’s Holy Grail killer rabbit scene.
Much of Night of the Lepus’ killer rabbit screen time is spent simply showing regular rabbits, made to look big, hopping around innocently. The absurdity of the animals used as killers, combined with bad acting and terrible effects, makes the film entertaining to its small but dedicated fan base.
6 Piranha 3DD
Piranha 3DD returned to the classic ’70s creature feature with a modern setting. Along with its 2010 predecessor, the 2012 horror flick revisited the school of killer prehistoric piranhas as they move away from the plausible setting of a lake towards a water park.
Piranha 3DD was practically a meme from its title alone, and it didn’t shy away from it, either. The film can best be described as gratuitous at almost every level. As bad as the acting may have been, the mere concept of killer piranhas terrorizing a water park was the franchise’s “jump the shark” moment – and it’s oddly entertaining.
5 The Meg
The Meg took the basic idea behind films like Jaws and decided to take it further, focusing on the ancient Megalodon as the film’s threat. The movie followed the crew of a ship that set out to hunt the giant shark after it emerged from the Marianas Trench and attacked people and ships at sea.
The Meg represents the peak of the shark horror craze that began with Jaws, worked through Deep Blue Sea, and culminated in a giant, prehistoric shark wreaking havoc. The movie almost felt like it was made to simply cash in on shark fan love for the prehistoric shark, and no real effort went into an original plot.
4 Deep Rising
Deep Rising is a lesser-remembered ’90s horror/action movie that followed a band of hijackers aboard an abandoned cruise liner. While exploring the ship, the group realized that the ship was under threat from a horrifying sea monster, which soon began picking off the hijackers.
Deep Rising’s terrible CGI (even for its time) and cheesy script have helped the film develop a cult status among fans of sea monster horror. From absurd ’90s-themed machine guns and an overly macho cast to an epic jet ski escape and ’80s-style one-liners, the movie shouldn’t be taken even remotely seriously.
3 Boar
Set in the Australian countryside, Boar follows a group of hikers, along with some locals, who come face-to-face with an enormous, killer boar. The image of an unstoppable giant boar effortlessly flipping over cars and eating people – with no compelling explanation for its origin – offers more slapstick comedy than jump scares.
Boar’s violent attack scenes were so excessive that they became funny, and the movie feels far more like a deadpan monster movie parody than a genuine horror. Even the music tends to be overly dramatic, and the subplot of two drunk hunters trying to help added some comedic banter.
2 Monster Man
Monster Man combines the themes of films like Jeepers Creepers, Joy Ride, and Texas Chainsaw Massacre in a low-budget horror/comedy road trip movie. It follows two best friends on a journey where one plans to stop the wedding of his ex-girlfriend when a terrifying monster truck driver attacks them.
Monster Man is, by all accounts, completely absurd, and its shoestring budget shows. The horror elements are all over the top, and the characters are hard to take seriously (even the villains). However, the film has an undeniable charm, and is salvaged by its terrible yet hilarious dialogue.
1 Anaconda
Arguably the king of movies so bad they’re good, Anaconda takes viewers into the heart of the Amazon rainforest, where a giant snake lurks in wait for unsuspecting people. Anaconda follows a National Geographic film crew as they venture into the rainforest, encountering a crazed hunter intent on catching the monstrous and giant snake.
With an all-star cast of Jennifer Lopez, Ice Cube, and Jon Voight, the movie is a great watch, despite its many flaws. The terrible acting and odd anthropomorphism of the anaconda, attributing human motivations to it, made for an accidentally funny movie.