8 Hidden Movie Monsters (And What They Really Look Like)

Movie monsters thrive on being as terrifying as possible. Whether that's through giant, tentacle-faced beasts from beyond our plane of existence or that pale, long-limbed freak that continually pops up in every horror movie ever, making the strangest and scariest monsters has become something of a fine art.

And whilst we all love seeing quite just how messed up the genre's imagination can get, really, it's the stuff we don't see that often serves as the most horrifying of all. There's something about the unknown that makes it that much more eerie, with only subtle hints given as to what monstrous reality lurks at the edges of the screen.

So what do we do with all that wonderful mysticism and curiosity born from intelligent, invisible storytelling? Why, smash it all to pieces of course. Search long and hard enough and you can find the true forms of movie monsters beneath all their secretive flourishes, with everything from Lovecraftian lore to holiday horrors hiding behind the cinema curtains. Not knowing might have seemed like the scariest tactic a film can employ, but that's easy to say when you haven't seen what's really hiding underneath.

Sometimes, ignorance really is bliss...

Full of creepy crawlies and trans-dimensional space beings, there's all sorts dwelling in the The Mist that we never really get a good look at. Half the magic of having a world covered in a thick layer of cloudy white comes from not really knowing what's in it, and director Frank Darabont plays into that admirably with creations like the Tentacle From Plant X and The Behemoth - but it's the Arachni-Lobster that stands out as truly unknowable.

Appearing only in silhouette to slice Ollie in half, we never get a good look at what's behind the pincers. Stephen King's source novella gives a better indication in the following passage:

"It appeared to be red, the angry color of a cooked lobster. It had claws... I caught a nightmare glimpse of huge black lusterless eyes, the size of giant handfuls of sea grapes, and then the thing lurched back into the mist with what remained of Ollie Weeks in its grip. A long, multisegmented scorpion's body dragged harshly on the paving."

Even better is the concept art, where you can really get a feel for this thing's deadly set of weapons - mostly a mouth full of hellish teeth you'd have never guessed were there from the screened clips alone.