10 Monster Movies No One Was Ready For

6. Bird Box

These days it's not uncommon to see streaming giants like Prime, Disney+, Hulu, and, of course, Netflix producing genuinely brilliant original films. Hell, even without theatrical releases, some are finding themselves in and amongst the Academy Awards, but eight years ago this was unthinkable.

The first true blockbuster hit for Netflix came in 2018, before the likes of Extraction, Enola Holmes, or Red Notice. This was Bird Box, a monster movie that took the entire world by storm, incredibly without actually showing the monsters themselves.

Bird Box's story revolved around the people of the world having to avoid seeing such off-screen entities, lest they be seemingly compelled to end their own lives. It was a remarkably similar, sensory-based premise to that of A Quiet Place released eight months prior, but it connected with the entire world. Bird Box was huge, and nobody saw it coming.

Arguably the biggest draw for the story was the decision to keep the monsters hidden. This allowed audiences to decide for themselves what the monsters looked like, drawing them in more than would have been the case otherwise. Sometimes ignorance is bliss, and here not knowing only made for a creepier and far more engaging experience.