Top 20 Most Iconic Monster Types of All Time

i am dracula welcome to watch mojo and today we're counting down our picks for the top 20 monster types of all time when there's no more room in hell the dead will walk here for this list we'll be looking only at recurring monster species that have burrowed their way into our collective subconscious no one-offs like the invisible man and since we're talking about fictional monsters things that have really existed like dinosaurs or human slashers are off the table what's lurking under your bed is it as scary as the nightmares on our list let us know what makes your skin crawl in the comments number 20. cosmic horrors how do you deal with a monster you can't even comprehend cosmic horrors can be tentacular squid beasts from the depths of space with geometries so alien you'll go insane just looking at them even living plagues that seep into our world and twist other life into their own dread likeness the really awful ones come from somewhere outside the universe as we know it and have plans and desires that humans can't grasp with cosmic horrors the threat isn't just getting eaten or [Music] killed it's discovering a reality that's so dark and heinous that it wipes out everything you once believed they're popular in horror novels but don't show up in that many movies guess mind-bending madness is a bit intense for the matinee audience number 19 worms slimy creeping embodiments of rot what could be worse than worms well what if they were huge yeah that's worse all right it's a giant worm they're sinking cities with a giant worm worms can fill every niche from the slow horror of parasitic invasion to the classic burrowing predator to the simple fear of having your living flesh devoured right off your bones they are nothing if not versatile but because they're so gross they tend to show up either in cult classics or the most hardcore horror stories still in a standard adventure yarn there's still a great way to raise the stakes and let the audience know exactly how gruesome the stakes can get number 18 skeletons you know one thing people hate being reminded of their own mortality since you never really get a good look at someone's bones unless they are in fact dead that's exactly what a skeleton is a reminder that one day that's going to be you now imagine that reminder can get up and walk around and it has some pretty strong opinions on how soon you should get around to joining its band playing the bone tone xylophone guess what it's today [Music] when you put it that way it sort of makes sense that skeletons are the go-to level one monster for both fantasy games and halloween parties number 17 fairies fairies seriously the little ladies with the gossamer wings who's afraid of tinkerbell okay maybe you've got a point fairies are more than just pixies and godmothers they comprise dozens of different creatures from european especially celtic folklore and they are not necessarily friendly the folktales fairies originate from see them kidnapping babies trapping strangers in their palaces and making sinister faustian bargains with cruel ironic consequences the princess shall indeed grow in grace and beauty they come from their own world with different rules of time and space than earth where humans can get lost forever that's a pretty far cry from making children fly and god mothering puppets number 16 chimeras what do you get when you glue a lion a dragon and a goat together well a sticky dragon because it's gonna eat the lion and the goat pretty quick but if you combine all their dna into a monster you get a chimera that's an ancient greek recipe anyway although some interpretations substitute the dragon with a snake chimeras are often associated with monsters composed of spare parts from real life animals stick an eagle to a lion griffin blend a human and a horse centaur alchemically combine a little girl with her beloved dog and what do you get that's right sado [Music] mischievous mini monsters with a mania for mayhem these nasty little critters show up in every fairy tale and fantasy from labyrinth to lord of the rings they show up in more modern monster movies too but they tend to go by names like gremlins or well critters it's not clear why horror writers suddenly got too embarrassed to call goblins what they are goblins are still going strong singing songs to capture dwarves singing a different song to a captured baby singing mocking christmas carols to torture a mean old lady wow these guys really seem to sing a lot huh are we sure they're really monsters and not just short ugly musical theater students number 14 giant ape-like creatures you're walking in the woods when suddenly you see it a flash of fur among the trees a vaguely human form loping away a hideous stench that's right it's the florida skunk ape what you've never heard of the skunk ape well how about yowies yetis sasquatch bigfoot maybe even king kong people around the world tell stories of giant ape-like cryptids skulking around in the wilderness almost enough to make you wonder if they don't belong on a list of fictional monsters alas nobody has managed to snap a decent photo of one yet despite multiple tv shows dedicated to tracking them down still as long as there's wilderness to disappear into people are going to wonder what else might be out there number 13 killer robots has science gone too far well whenever your creation starts lurching around shooting death rays at people that is officially over the line just ask john connor get down heck ask anybody from a 1950s b-movie unless someone knows something about goblins we don't killer robots might be the most likely monster on this list to become a problem in the real world no less of mine than the late stephen hawking warned about the very real danger of developing an ai smart enough to get ideas about taking over oh hell no look we're not saying you should start to worry about every drone in roomba right now but uh it wouldn't hurt to know where the off switch is just in case [Music] number 12 giant slash ogres slash trolls it's tough being the little guy when was the last time you felt bad for an ant well maybe you'd change your tune if you were the one worried about getting stepped on colossal monsters like giants and trolls give us the opportunity to think about what it would be like if we were the ones underfoot bad it turns out it would be bad can we cook him we can try [Music] a monster that size wouldn't have to think twice about squishing you tossing you or biting you in half turns out most people have a fear of being scooped up and devoured by a much larger predator which actually seems like a good instinct yeah number 11 bugs listen we know bugs are an important part of the ecosystem bees and wasps pollinate all the plants we depend on to live mosquitoes feed everything from frogs to birds it doesn't mean we have to like it and the bigger a bug gets the harder it is to remember any of the reasons we shouldn't god kill it get a flamethrower when they get big enough to start reaching into monster territory it's almost good news now instead of acting brave you've got a good excuse to squeal like a squeamish six-year-old it's something with more legs than you're entirely comfortable seeing on one animal and then they start laying eggs [Applause] number 10 dragons because dungeons and dachshunds just didn't have the same ring to it no if there's one name that comes to mind when you think of fantastic beasts it's the dragon they're kind of the perfect monster in a lot of ways teeth like swords check wings like a hurricane check the worst imaginable case of deadly bad breath that's a big old check frankly the only reason they aren't higher up on this list is because they're so darn cool people start to forget they're you even monsters will keep you alive no no indeed gone are the days when we only thought of the dragon as something a knight faced down with his noble steed and lance in fact these days dragons are just as likely to be the steed themselves number nine demons this is it the worst it can get the absolute maximum amount of evil theoretically possible except for hellboy he's cool red you need to hear the rest of the information nah he's taken care of the rest of these guys though they're pretty rough fallen angels are the natural-born denisons of pandemonium they've dedicated themselves to making sure you join them in hell or robot hell as the case may be you know you've got it made as an icon of evil when there's one of you standing on every cartoon character's shoulder as the literal embodiment of their darkest desires i'm gonna lead you down the path that rocks you probably shouldn't trust anyone with red horns in a pitchfork again except for hellboy he's cool but just to be safe also don't sign any contracts where the ink is your own blood we'll never understand the power inside you i'll just have to find a way to live with that number eight sea monsters ever swim out into deep water and had that sudden sinking sense of dread about what might be lurking below the ocean covers more than two-thirds of the earth to an average depth of almost three kilometers that's a lot of room underneath you for something big and hungry [Music] in fiction there's the loch ness monster dozens of sea serpents the kraken the kraken again [Music] man these movies really love the kraken huh it's not just about the fictional sea monsters either from mercifully extinct giant toothed lizard whales to the very much alive colossal squid a lot of our scariest sea monsters are either real or they used to be so show of hands who wants to go for a swim number seven mummies you disturbed a five thousand year old tomb plundered its treasures and opened all the sarcophagi what did you think you were gonna get a prize a pat on the back no you get the mummy's curse [Applause] and frankly you should have known better maybe a horror movie archaeologist wasn't the best career path western culture has been telling stories about vengeful mummies rising from their tombs since they started digging them out of their tombs for a while people were burning them to power trains and unwrapping them to entertain guests at parties then they started showing up in stories with plagues of beetles and sandstorms weird almost like people knew all that corpse desecration was wrong on some level number six kaiju you thought giants were bad kaiju aren't just manifestations of our fear of bigger predators their stand-ins for nuclear devastation climate change etc forces so big an individual human doesn't stand a chance of fighting back there's something special about kaiju though unlike a lot of the other monsters on this list godzilla didn't stay a bad guy these days he and other kaiju like gamera are also known for protecting us puny humans [Music] you just can't stay mad at a giant rocket turtle or a nuclear laser lizard who is willing to put it all on the line to defend humankind even if they do step on a lot of our cities in the process you got to admit kaiju kinda rule [Applause] number five aliens planets like earth are rare with all our freshwater mineral wealth and vast resources it's easy to see why an alien species would want what we have don't take our word for it though just check out any science fiction from the past century ever since h.g wells war of the worlds there's been one monster that's held a special grip on the modern human heart [Music] invaders from space with their flying saucers and death rays the scariest part of an alien threat is that we might not even be advanced enough to fight back number four zombies what's your zombie plan hold up in your local shopping center strike out into the wilderness to get away from the bigger hordes head down to the winchester have a pint and wait for the whole thing to blow over that last one might not work out so great but that's the fun of zombies they challenge us to figure out what we do to survive the end of the world clear simple goals and an obvious weakness the brain make zombies the perfect enemy to hone our inner armchair generals sure maybe they devoured everyone else in town but you're smarter right you'll be fine as long as you don't get bit when there's no more room in hell the dead will walk here number three ghost slash spirits whether they're inhabiting a haunted doll to stab you in the night or just floating around loose there's something about the intangibility of a spectre that really freaks us out if they can be invisible and walk through walls then they could be anywhere just a jump scare waiting to happen or maybe it's got more to do with what they say about death it's not exactly comforting to think that all our lives are going to end one day but ghosts invite a chilling question what if whatever comes next is worse ghosts tap into our guilt and grief about the past too if death isn't the end maybe we'll never be free of what we did to wrong people in this life friends of yours i tried them for murder gave them the chair number two werewolves the brains of a human the savage ferocity of a beast it doesn't take much to figure out what deep-seated fear werewolves trigger in the human mind we've been wondering since the iron age what the animal inside us might be capable of lots of snarling around forests at night and savagely attacking villagers in livestock it turns out werewolves also seem to spend a lot of time fighting vampires for some reason that's weird isn't it you never hear about a centuries-long war between mummies and sea monsters maybe it's because werewolves and vampires are both ancient representations of unrestrained desire there's a lot of room for comparison there and when you compare monsters it's just bad form not to have them fight [Applause] before we continue be sure to subscribe to our channel and ring the bell to get notified about our latest videos you have the option to be notified for occasional videos or all of them if you're on your phone make sure to go into your settings and switch on notifications number one vampires vampires nosferatu the terror that stalks the knight okay that last one might have been batman but still the definitive monster that latched on and sunk its teeth into our culture to drink up all our attention like some kind of uh well we can't think of a good analogy you get the picture excellent in recent years vampires have gone from creepy predatory nightmares to creepy predatory love interests i like my own personal brand of heroine but they still stand for what they always have the dark appetites inside us all which will take over every part of our lives if we let them take us over and suck the life out of everyone around us just to slake our thirsts i would take no refusal do you agree with our picks check out this other recent clip from watchmojo and be sure to subscribe and ring the bell to be notified about our latest videos you

Channel: WatchMojo.com

Views: 174,254

Keywords: top monster types of all time, greatest monsters in pop culture, greatest monsters of all time, greatest movie monsters, top movie monsters, top anime monsters, top video game monsters, scariest monsters, best monsters, aliens, dragons, killer robots, vampires, worms, werewolves, ghosts, zombies, bugs, skeletons, demons, kaiju, mummies, sea monsters, kraken, giants, ogres, Horror, watchmojo, watch mojo, top 10, list, mojo, mojo top 10, greatest monsters, monster species, classic movie monsters

Id: 1_A-1OIEESw

Length: 19min 30sec (1170 seconds)

Published: Sat Oct 31 2020