8 Horror Movie Monsters Scarier Than The Actual Villain

4. The Imps - Doom

Doom Movie BFG - The Rock
Universal Pictures

Dwayne Johnson is a lot of things, but he's not scary. I mean, he is in a 'oh God this bulging rock of a man could dismantle me with a thought if I got on the wrong side of him' way, but not in a way that'll keep you up at night.

So, when his character turns out to be the main villain of Doom, it signals the movie's shift from sci-fi horror to straight up sci-fi action. Playing the leader of a tough-as-nails futuristic military platoon sent to a Mars space station to stop an experimental serum that's turned the people there into Hell monsters (it kind of makes more sense in the actual movie), by the end he's become a bit mad, and taken the serum himself.

While this gives him a more demonic look, he's still not scary, which is such a shame because there are so many great monsters from the games the filmmakers could have used instead.

Take the eyeless imps (adapted from Doom 3) that make up most of the fodder enemies in the movie. These things are brought to life surprisingly well by the prop team, and deliver some solid scares in the horror-heavy first half.

Doom almost seems embarrassed by its source material, and as a result doesn't commit to a truly terrifying main villain. At least we got a proper Pinky demon though.

Contributor

Josh has over 11 years of experience as a published writer, having worked nine of those years as a full-time content producer at WhatCulture. In that period he has created hundreds of articles, videos and podcast episodes for multiple WhatCulture channels, specialising in gaming, horror and film & TV. He now primarily works as a senior content producer and presenter on WhatCulture Gaming where he co-hosts the WhatCulture Gaming Podcast, a top 3 UK most listened to gaming podcast that he co-created in 2018. Over the years he has reviewed several high-profile gaming releases, covered industry events with on-site reporting, opined on breaking news, and even kicked off his interviewing career by chatting to childhood hero, Tommy Wiseau.