10 Terrifying Horror Monsters That Only Need A Second To Scar You

10. Clover -- Cloverfield (2008)

Matt Reeves and Drew Goddard’s found footage monster movie Cloverfield took everyone by surprise in the noughties. A found footage film that sidestepped the micro-budget approach that had been popularised in Blair Witch and Paranormal Activity, it delivers handheld-at-scale moviemaking with a $30 million budget and a great looming behemoth of a monster stalking its frames.

The film takes us onto the streets of NYC, where an alien has appeared and is tearing apart buildings in an all-out rampage. Nicknamed Clover by those attempting to flee it, the kaiju razes whole chunks of the city, with the US military playing catchup, and contemplating interventions that could harm their citizens as much as the monster. Yes, this is post-9/11 filmmaking at its most obvious.

But, despite the scale of the monster, we see precious little of it throughout the film. The human characters we follow – Rob (Michael Stahl-David), Beth (Odette Yustman), Hud (TJ Miller), Lily Ford (Jessica Lucas) – spend most of the film conducting ground-level recues and escapes, fighting for their lives in real time against Clover’s environmental effects. It’s not until the final act that we get a full clear look at the monster, from the skies, as it’s lit up by military stealth bombers. And the moment after we think it’s dead when it comes munching back up out of the smoke is enough for one lifetime.