10 Best Horror Movie Creature Feature Movies Since 2010

1. The Shape Of Water

The Shallows
Fox Searchlight

In modern cinema, nobody has given audiences such a stunning variety of creatures and monsters as Guillermo del Toro. And when looking at the past decade, it's impossible to look past del Toro's Oscar-winning The Shape of Water when discussing great creature features.

Pulling clear inspiration from Gill-man - better known as the titular Creature of the classic Creature From the Black Lagoon series - The Shape of Water is a mesmerising film that rightly took home four gongs at the 2018 Academy Awards.

This isn't a creature feature where there's an imposing, intimidating, ruthless beast at its core, though. Instead, The Shape of Water is so much more than what is so often synonymous with this particular subgenre, with Sally Hawkins and Doug Jones steering the audience through an emotional, elegant, tormented tale of unexpected love.

With Jones' humanoid amphibian, The Shape of Water served up an all-time great creature. Likewise, Hawkins' turn as mute Elisa is a powerhouse performance that proved to be the perfect accompaniment to the visual, sensual delight that was the so-called Amphibian Man.

Some will loudly laud The Shape of Water as the very best movie of the past decade, period. While that in itself is open to debate, there's no question that del Toro's picture is easily the best creature feature of that time.

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Once described as the Swiss Army Knife of WhatCulture, Andrew can usually be found writing, editing, or presenting on a wide range of topics. As a lifelong wrestling fan, horror obsessive, and comic book nerd, he's been covering those topics professionally as far back as 2010. In addition to his current WhatCulture role of Senior Content Producer, Andrew previously spent nearly a decade as Online Editor and Lead Writer for the world's longest-running genre publication, Starburst Magazine, and his work has also been featured on BBC, TechRadar, Tom's Guide, WhatToWatch, Sportkskeeda, and various other outlets, in addition to being a Rotten Tomatoes-approved film critic. Between his main day job, his role as the lead panel host of Wales Comic Con, and his gig as a pre-match host for Wrexham AFC games, Andrew has also carried out a hugely varied amount of interviews, from the likes of Robert Englund, Kane Hodder, Adrienne Barbeau, Rob Zombie, Katharine Isabelle, Leigh Whannell, Bruce Campbell, and Tony Todd, to Kevin Smith, Ron Perlman, Elijah Wood, Giancarlo Esposito, Simon Pegg, Charlie Cox, the Russo Brothers, and Brian Blessed, to Kevin Conroy, Paul Dini, Tara Strong, Will Friedle, Burt Ward, Andrea Romano, Frank Miller, and Rob Liefeld, to Bret Hart, Sting, Mick Foley, Ricky Starks, Jamie Hayer, Britt Baker, Eric Bischoff, and William Regal, to Mickey Thomas, Joey Jones, Phil Parkinson, Brian Flynn, Denis Smith, Gary Bennett, Karl Connolly, and Bryan Robson - and that's just the tip of an ever-expanding iceberg. Where his beloved Wrexham AFC is concerned, Andrew is co-host of the Fearless in Devotion podcast, which won the Club Podcast of the Year gong at the 2024 FSA Awards.