Maybe it’s just us, but this season gets us to thinking about monsters — from the terrifying to the cute to the just plain weird. We’ve already taken a look at regional American monsters, but lucky for anyone who loves a good horror flick, there are even stranger creatures to be found on the big screen. We’ve grown accustomed to monsters like werewolves, vampires, and zombies, but as we’ve learned, there are so many more possibilities out there. Some of these monsters make no sense, as if they’re just a bunch of parts slapped together to be as intimidating as possible, and some of them are just bizarre from concept to execution, but all of them are completely weird. As you probably know, there are tons of bizarre movie monsters out there, so click through to read our list and then let us know your own favorites in the comments!
The creature from The Host
At first, the floppy, amphibious mutant in this South Korean New Wave film is kind of hilarious — ostensibly a product of hundreds of bottles of formaldehyde being dumped into the Han River, it clearly was not meant to have all the appendages it does, and it moves like a deranged gymnast. You stop laughing when it starts regurgitating the bones of all the people it’s eaten, but the monster is still unlike any we’ve ever seen before.
Ro-Man Extension XJ-9, Robot Monster
He’s half robot! He’s half gorrilla! He killed all but eight humans on Earth with his calcinator death ray! Sigh.
The Frankenstein plant from The Revenge of Doctor X
So, this monster is what happens when a scientist decides that humans descended from plants, and that he’ll definitely figure out our earliest ancestor by crossing a typical Venus flytrap with another carnivorous aquatic plant. Well, he basically gets Plant Man, with a head, arms ending in Venus flytrap hands (perfect for eating puppies), and two feet planted in the soil. Count us perplexed.
Audrey II, Little Shop of Horrors
Speaking of man-eating plants, Audrey II is just as weird as our Venus flytrap Frankenstein, but in his very own way. An alien rather than a creation, Audrey II is a talking, singing plant who thrives on blood and is bent on world domination. But for us, by far the weirdest part was that deep, sexy soul singer voice. Just saying.
The Manster, The Manster
We don’t know about you, but we don’t see ‘half man, half monster’ here. We see a man with a monster growing out of his neck. He just happens to be a huge jerk.
Gigan, Godzilla vs. Gigan
After Godzilla became an international hit, the Japanese had to start coming up with crazier and crazier monsters for him to fight. Gigan is one of the weirdest — a dino with hooks for hands and feet, and a huge buzz saw coming out of his stomach. Later, his arms get replaced by chainsaws. None of this seems very practical.
Guiron, Gamera vs. Guiron
Another Japanese monster in the Godzilla universe, Guiron is basically a dinosaur with an enormous knife for a head. Despite that, we think he’s kind of adorable. In Gamera vs. Guiron, he fights and almost destroys the famous giant turtle (who is also super weird, by the by).
The Crawling Eye, The Trollenberg Terror
You’d think that a plain eye wouldn’t be that terrifying. Gross, maybe, or scary because of what might have happened to the person that lost it, but not likely to come after you. But you’d think wrong. These eyes can climb.
The Killer Tomatoes, Attack of the Killer Tomatoes
Now this just seems silly. Granted, the film is meant as a spoof of horror B-movies, but still — tomatoes becoming sentient and attacking humanity? How deliciously bizarre.
The Pale Man, Pan’s Labyrinth
The pale man haunted many of our dreams after we first saw this film, and even the thought of him makes us shudder. The drooping skin, the Voldemort-like face, the eyes in his palms are all unlike anything we’d seen before — he’s one of the few on this list that we find completely terrifying as well as incredibly weird.