40 Rubbish Movie Monsters

The giant extraterrestrial bird

Why It's Rubbish: When the good guys first encounter this creature, it's travelling so fast they think it's a UFO. Unfortunately, when it slows down it’s revealed to be something closer to a zombie turkey with an embarrassing Jedward hairstyle.

The slug-like alien

Why It's Rubbish: Creeping, yes. Terrifying, no. When the costume design for a creature consists of a length of shag carpet with some actors hidden beneath it, the results are less frightening than a trip to Allied Carpets.

Mother nature

Why It's Rubbish: “Fucking trees, man, the plants,” blasted Mark Wahlberg recently while talking about M Night Shyamalan's The Happening , admitting it was “a bad movie”. Great concept, but when mankind's biggest threat can only be witnessed in the rustle of wind through the leaves, it's going to get real old, real fast.

The cat

Why It's Rubbish: If you were more scary when you were alive than when you're undead, then something has gone badly wrong. At least Dr Herbert West (Jeffrey Combs) pulls off an excellent comic dance with the stuffed replacement for the real creature.

The mutant sheep

Why It's Rubbish: Like a cross between a dead farm animal and Mr Snuffleupagus from Sesame Street , this beast is more likely to make you spit your popcorn in laughter than fear. The only thing more rubbish than the monster itself is the fact it takes almost an hour to show up as the film's many backstories and nonsensical plots play out.

The shrews

Why It's Rubbish: “Nothing out of the sky, or out of the sea or on the Earth could be more terrifying!” screams the tagline for this movie. The Advertising Association wasn't set up until two years later or we reckon they'd have been all over that statement, especially as cheese that's been in the fridge slightly too long is more terrifying than these dressed up dogs.

The human mosquito

Why It's Rubbish: Think The Fly and you're sort of on the right lines, except the excellent make-up and effects that turned Jeff Goldblum into a buzz kill are lacking from this TV movie.

Gorga

Why It's Rubbish: Not the first terrible monster flick to use the old man-in-an-ape suit ruse, this one stands out because the budget only seems to have stretched to the top half of that outfit. Why else is Gorga never shown below the waist, despite having a dust up with an equally low-budget creature that makes Barney The Dinosaur look realistic?

The jellyfish man

Why It's Rubbish: Everyone connected to this movie should ask themselves why they were involved with a film whose walking jellyfish monster is basically a man in a balloon. Four-year-olds making an outfit for a class project about the sea would do better.

The skeleton

Why It's Rubbish: You'll wish this particular skellie had remained lost. Brought back to life thanks to the Atmospereum from a fallen meteorite (and you thought Avatar 's Unobtanium was a rubbish name), the skeleton's psychic powers unfortunately don't stretch to willing the viewer to turn this garbage off and watch something – anything – better.

Tarantulas

Why It's Rubbish: Surely it takes more than ordinary spiders to take on The Shat? Apparently not, as a massive surge in the tarantula population leaves humans stuck inside trying to keep the enemy at bay in a style usually saved for zombie films. Our advice, try literally stamping them out.

The forest creatures

Why It's Rubbish: M Night Shyamalan’s work gets its second mention in this list thanks to his creation of a woodland enemy straight out of Jim Henson's workshop. Spoiler alert! That the creature isn't supposed to be real and has actually been built to look menacing to keep the kids from wandering into the woods is no excuse.

The leprechaun

Why It's Rubbish: Warwick Davis proves that finding a leprechaun doesn't always lead to gold as his troublesome trickster terrorises none other than Jennifer Aniston! We can almost (but not quite) forgive how rubbish this monster is for the fact the series has rumbled on to include such awesome entries as Leprechaun In Space and Leprechaun In The Hood .

The monkey

Why It's Rubbish: Having caused an horrific outbreak of an Ebola-type disease, it's a shame that the infected monkey is just too cute to make you worry about the widespread panic.

The ventriloquist's dummy

Why It's Rubbish: OK, so ventriloquist dummies can be creepy. But when the main villain in this tale from the writer and director of Saw asks “Who’s the dummy now?”, you might feel like it's you for sticking with this rubbish for so long.

The troll

Why It's Rubbish: A tiny turd of a bad guy, Troll suffers from the fact that he's even more rubbish than The Leprechaun . Harry Potter And The Philosopher's Stone tried (and failed) to create a really scary troll, leaving it to Lord Of The Rings: The Fellowship Of The Ring to finish the job.

The giant octopus

Why It's Rubbish: The charm of Ed Wood's films comes from their very low-fi nature, but even bearing that in mind an octopus attack that sees its victim wrestling with rubbery limbs is poor by any effects guru's standards.

The mutant eye

Why It's Rubbish: While the film's title is correct in that this massive mutated eye does kill, we'd have preferred it if it was 'killer' like the slang expression that means awesome. And since the eye beast goes on a rampage to try and mate with the female of the species, we can't help feeling they missed a trick by not calling it An Eye For The Ladies .

The birds

Why It's Rubbish: This awful take on The Birds is so knowingly poor that Hitchcock will thank the stars he chose to be cremated. Otherwise his body would be spinning so fast in his grave he'd probably have dug his way to the surface!

The blood freak

Why It's Rubbish: The answer to the question 'Has Big Bird ever done it with a human lady?' may have been answered if the blood freak's appearance is anything to go by. The chill factor is always going to be lessened when your monster looks like it's just walked out of a Mardi Gras parade.

Ro-man

Why It's Rubbish: Even in the bad old days of TV's Doctor Who , when baddies were created on such a tight budget they might be actors with ping pong balls in their mouths, this creature's design would have been passed over as too rubbish. As bizarre as it is terrible!

The possessed doll

Why It's Rubbish: If you think Chucky couldn’t cut it as a bad guy, best steer clear of this Child's Play clone that sees an evil Mayan spirit take on a new life in a doll factory in Mexico.

The hares

Why It's Rubbish: The common misconception is that the monsters in this film were rabbits made to appear massive onscreen. Knowing that they're hares may be a great bit of info to amaze your mates with, but it doesn't make them any more scary...

The iguana

Why It's Rubbish: Budget won't stretch to a CGI tyrannosaurus rex a la Jurassic Park ? You could always opt for an iguana, which makes an excellent stand in. And when we say excellent, we mean awful.

The demon

Why It's Rubbish: An investigator trying to expose a cult leader as a fraud finds himself under a real curse that will see him killed by supernatural forces. Tension builds impressively, until the demon appears and breaks the spell.

The alien

Why It's Rubbish: It may have unfairly been ruled to be a video nasty thanks to the sight of a full grown man being born from a pregnant woman, but it should really have been ruled nasty for its unconvincing alien baddie.

The beast

Why It's Rubbish: Radiation (that old chestnut) transforms a Russian defector – played by Swedish wrestler Tor Johnson - into a mindless killer. Although ‘transforms’ is probably the wrong word, given that he doesn’t look much different than before.

The gingerbread man

Why It's Rubbish: Top marks for a film title that sounds like it was devised at the end of a night in the pub, but you can't help think that the soul of a convicted killer would have preferred to wake up in a Chucky doll, rather than be reincarnated as a baked snack.

The bed

Why It's Rubbish: As inanimate objects go, a bed is not the most scary choice for a cold blooded killer. At least it's a four-poster.

Bruce the shark

Why It's Rubbish: A controversial choice, but Bruce is not a good monster. In fact, the film builds its tension so successfully because the animatronic shark refused to work as directed and the editing process had to make the most of his enforced absence.

The mutant baby

Why It's Rubbish: It travels around the city using the storm drains. It's being chased by a heavily armed posse of police officers. And it kills when it's afraid. Somebody better hit this nipper up with an Asbo asap.

The zombie hooker

Why It's Rubbish: “Wanna date?” screams this reanimated collection of prostitute body parts. No thanks love, we're off to see some zombie strippers.

The killer whipped cream

Why It's Rubbish: When even your pudding starts attacking you, there's no safe place left in the world. What next, murderous popcorn?

The mutant squirrel

Why It's Rubbish: We've seen too many episodes of Blackadder to find squirrels, with their long tails and their stupid twitchy noses, even the least bit scary.

The scarecrows

How To Make It Awesome: Bin the distracting heist-movie plot that kicks the film off and stick with the horror survival elements.

The slugs

How To Make It Awesome: If you're going to go down the road of calling them mutant slugs, lets have them do more than just develop teeth and an appetite for flesh. Beefing them up to the size of those creatures hanging around Spock's coffin in Star Trek III should do the trick.

The clothes press

Why It's Rubbish: Remember that Tobe Hooper movie that scared you senseless where the guy had a chainsaw? Well this isn't that one. It might be from the same director and based on a Stephen King short story, but trust us, a possessed laundry machine that folds people like clothes is a lot less impressive.

The beast creatures

Why It's Rubbish: Moving puppets on sticks and then throwing them at actors fails to create any sort of horror vibe.

Beelzebub

Why It's Rubbish: It's made of papier mâché. And its attack of choice is to throw starfish. Did we mention it was made of papier mâché?

The goblins

Why It's Rubbish: You'd be forgiven for thinking we already covered this one, but Troll 2 throws up an even bigger surprise by not even using trolls! Plus, the scare factor is significantly reduced when you find that all the baddies are vegetarian.