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

7. Newborn -- Alien: Resurrection (1997)

Jean-Pierre Jeunet's Joss Whedon-penned offering for the Alien franchise may have followed David Fincher’s gloomy Alien Cubed, but it couldn’t be more different. Making full use of the busy and warm blooded-yet-worn aesthetic that Jeunet and his European contemporaries (including Danny Boyle) had already used to make their mark on the nineties, Resurrection has more of a fast-and-fun vibe than any of its predecessors, slingshotting us into the future of the future, two centuries after series protagonist Ellen Ripley's (Sigourney Weaver) untimely death.

A rag-tag squad of mercenaries, including Call and Johner (Winona Ryder and Ron Perlman), are our entry point to the madness that follows, when they wind up in a xenomorph escape situation on board the USM Auriga. Tasked with kabooming the ship before it can return to Earth and unleash its weaponised alien occupants on humanity, they team up with a clone of Ripley and come face to face with something we really aren’t expecting.

The Newborn is the big surprise of the film: a skull-face, twitchy-nose hybrid that calls Ripley mum. It arrives right at the end of the film, but its impact couldn’t be greater. Yes, its appearance burns your retinas more than any of the previous xenomorph variations ever could, but it’s its human traits that do the most damage, its mewls and apparent emotion making its kills and gruesome ending that much worse.