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6 Non-CG Movie Creatures That Will Give You Nightmares

Since the inception of CG into science fiction, fantasy, and horror films, movie creatures and creature design has taken a hit. That statement is not meant to disrespect any of the current slew of very talented CG artists out there today, but there is just something unnatural about shiny, CG monsters. They never have a real sense of physics to them. They always just ends up feeling like Roger Rabbit to me. Like someone carefully mixed animation and real acting to try to make one, fluid experience.

The Thing – The Thing

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I need someone to tell me how a movie like The Thing never really ages. All horror movies from that genre age. You tend to watch them now and they look awful. Thing is (see what I did there), this movie is another example of great acting mixed with great writing and great creature design to top it all off. But wait, Remy. How can you say the creature design for the Thing is amazing, when there is no set design to the creature? That seems a fair question, but it is one I am glad you asked.

The reality about it is, no matter what form the Thing takes in that movie, it is always like the above picture. It always looks like some sort of half-fetus meets half-face, crossed with insect legs and deafening, screeching noises (an unofficial theme of the list). In other words, no matter what form this “thing” takes, it is scary as fuck. Also, though some of the effects have shown their age, it doesn’t matter when you have scenes like this:

Now what I want you to do is, compare that to the sequel/remake from just a few years ago:

Now, I ask of thee, which one is better? I know that no one will say the second scene. As ambitious as it is, and as scary as it COULD have been, it looks like a cartoon. It looks like every CG scene in every horror movie from the last ten to fifteen years. But when we saw the first scene in 1982, it was like nothing we had EVER seen in horror before. Yes, it is all puppetry and practical effects, but it is a fucking head that spouts spider legs and scuttles away. That scene STILL fucks people up.

The reality is, CG just does not pack the same punch. The physics are always off, there is always a surreal shininess to the creations, and they move like cartoons. Yet, you watch every movie on this list, and you cannot help but be awed and scared by the movie creatures that are featured in them, even decades later.

So, maybe one day, CG will realize, it either needs to evolve further, or just hang around with Michael Bay and leave the horror genre alone. Because you don’t get better than the monsters on this list. You really don’t.

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