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

6. Mutant Bear -- Annihilation (2018)

Alex Garland has always been a wave-maker on the international movie scene, turning in scripts for blockbusters like 28 Years Later, while simultaneously putting out smaller, more contemplative efforts like Ex Machina. Annihilation is somewhere in between the two, with the Hollywood power that Natalie Portman and a $55 million budget can bring, but the story elements and directorial style of a man who would rather court philosophers than popcorn-munching matinee audiences.

Cellular biologist and former US soldier Lena (Portman) takes us into the Shimmer, a mysterious and expanding alien biodome that causes everything in it to go kind of weird. Accompanied by a multi-skilled squad of scientists, she seeks the answer for why her soldier husband came back a babbling mess. Inside the Shimmer, they discover a place where flora and fauna have merged, where cellular boundaries are fluid, and where any horror imaginable can manifest. Enter the mutant bear.

Built, some may feel, in the mould of Alien’s Newborn – with a skull face and several uncanny human traits – the creature nonetheless has the edge on its cinematic forebear (pun intended?) by literally having the voices of the women trying to avoid it. This nightmare monster cries for help in the voices of the dead, and paws its way into the midst of the living, leaving blood, bones and deep emotional trauma in its wake.