The threat in horror movies can come from many places, but there's something about the natural world that is particularly frightening. Sure, there are many highly effective zombie, ghost, vampire, and werewolf movies. But it's easy to take comfort in the fact these are all supernatural creatures, and we're not likely to meet them in real life.
But this isn't the case with animal attack movies, and for decades, filmmakers have used familiar animals to evoke fear in audiences. Sometimes these creatures are dangerous predators that we'd normally steer clear of at all costs, such as sharks, tigers, and bears. Other times, they are seemingly "innocent" animals that we see every day--dogs, cats, and birds--that for some reason want to kill us. Sure, these beasts might be rabid, genetically mutated, or interbred (these are horror movies after all), but ultimately they're all animals that very much exist in the real world.
The two granddaddies of animal attack movies are, of course, Alfred Hitchcock's The Birds and Steven Spielberg's Jaws. These classics were made 12 years apart (in 1963 and 1975) and it's hardly an exaggeration to say that every film about a killer animal that has been made since was influenced by them in some way. But there are plenty of other great examples, and many of them can be watched right now on streaming services such as Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, and Shudder. So here's GameSpot's guide to the best and scariest animal attack movies to stream--and after you've checked these out, we've also got guides to the best body horror, monster, alien, and cosmic horror movies to stream right now.
And speaking of things you should be watching, consider listening to GameSpot's weekly TV series and movies-focused podcast, You Should Be Watching. With new episodes premiering every Wednesday, you can watch a video version of the podcast over on GameSpot Universe or listen to audio versions on Spotify, Stitcher, Google Play, and Apple Podcasts.
15. Shark Night 3D (2011)
Streaming: Netflix
Made during the 3D boom of the early 2010s, this aquatic horror wins points for using animatronic sharks rather than the CG that most modern filmmakers opt for. It's a tale of seven partying college pals who get themselves in toothy trouble when they go on a vacation to a lake house--it's basic stuff, but fans of shark horror will enjoy it. Amusingly, director David Ellis (who previously made another animal horror favorite, Snakes on a Plane), hated the title Shark Night, and wanted to release it internationally as "Untitled 3D Shark Thriller." Spoiler: he wasn't allowed.
14. Grizzly (1976)
Streaming: Tubi
The success of Jaws didn't just inspire water-based animal attack movies--anything big and toothy was fair game. Grizzly basically relocates the entire plot of Spieberg's classic to a National Forest: a rampaging 18-foot-tall bear starts picking off hikers and campers, while the chief ranger argues with the park's supervisors about closing it down. Oh, and there's also a gang of drunken opportunistic hunters who attempt to kill the grizzly (spoiler: it eats them). Grizzly has all the cinematic style of a mediocre TV movie and the acting is extremely variable, but as '70s B-movie rip-offs go, it's actually a lot of fun.
13. Boar (2017)
Streaming: Shudder
The killer boar movie Razorback is one of the great Australian horror movies of the 1980s, and this recent Shudder Exclusive was clearly influenced by it. A giant wild pig is on the rampage in the Australian Bush, and decides to target a family who chose the wrong weekend to visit their uncle. The cast includes genre favorites Bill Moseley (The Devil's Rejects) and John Jarrett (Wolf Creek), while the boar itself is huge and scary. For the most part, it's impressively created through practical effects, although some less convincing CGI does let it down a bit towards the end.
12. Slugs (1988)
Streaming: Prime Video
Spanish director Juan Piquer Simón made one of the great bad movies of the '80s--the amazing 1982 slasher Pieces--and while Slugs doesn't quite hit those, erm, heights, it's still a great piece of shlock. Based on the Shaun Hutson novel, the slugs of the title are a particularly nasty type that have been created by toxic waste and start causing mayhem in a small town. The acting, filmmaking, and general levels of cinematic competence fall short, but with so many disgusting, oozing, gruesome slug attacks, it really doesn't matter.
11. 47 Meters Down (2016)
Streaming: Netflix
This low budget shark thriller was about to be dumped to home release in the summer of 2016, but a studio switch and a theatrical release led to it becoming one of the year's surprise hits. It's one of those "trapped in a single location" movies--in this case two sisters on a diving holiday find themselves stranded in a cage on the ocean floor while increasingly hungry sharks circle them. Director Johannes Roberts ensures that tension and claustrophobia levels are kept high by never cutting to the surface once the unlucky ladies realise their predicament.
10. Burning Bright (2010)
Streaming: Tubi
Burning Bright puts a unique spin on the home invasion movie, in that the unwanted intruder is a hungry Bengal tiger. The big cat is bought by a man looking to open a private safari park, but through a series of plot contrivances, it ends up terrorising his step-kids in their home during a hurricane. Ok, the set-up is ridiculous, but the execution is terrific, with director Carlos Brooks ensuring that the tiger is a truly terrifying menace throughout. This is one to watch after you've finished Tiger King on Netflix.
9. Cujo (1983)
Streaming: Starz
Stephen King's novel Cujo was written during the author's white-hot streak of the early '80s, and adapted into a movie in 1983. It's actually one of the better King movies of the era, successfully translating the book's claustrophobic terror, as ET's Dee Wallace is trapped in her car with a rabid St. Bernard snarling and slobbering outside. The movie wasn't that well received critically at the time, but has since picked up a cult reputation, and in 2014 King himself listed it as one of his favorite adaptations.
8. Anaconda (1997)
Streaming: Showtime
This late-'90s B-movie favorite had one of the most eccentric casts of the era, plus a gigantic flesh-eating, bone crushing snake. Owen Wilson, Jennifer Lopez, and Ice Cube play a documentary team who head into the Amazon to track down a legendary serpent with the help of Jon Voight's veteran hunter. Anaconda doesn't know if it wants to be a gripping horror thriller or ludicrous genre pastiche, and ends up as a bit of both. But it definitely delivers the giant snake action and inspired four mostly-terrible straight-to-DVD sequels, as well as this potential remake.
7. The Reef (2010)
Streaming: Shudder
Australian director Andrew Traucki followed his excellent outback crocodile thriller Black Water with another aquatic animal attack movie. This time a group of friends are stalked by a Great White shark as they attempt to reach an island after capsizing while sailing to Indonesia. The Reef proves that with the right script and director, even generic material can deliver the scary gods. Traucki keeps things very realistic--no exploding sharks here--and strong performances ensure that we really worry about what happens to the film's unlucky pals.
6. Crawl (2019)
Streaming: VoD rental
Alligators are the perfect scary movie animal--not only are they terrifying predators, there's an estimated 5 million of them living wild in the US. Crawl has a simple plot--a father and daughter (and their dog) must survive the night in their flooded house during a major hurricane, with a load of hungry gators for company in the basement. Director Alexandre Aja is a veteran of intense horror cinema, and he ensures that Crawl is a relentless and nerve-shredding experience.
5. Arachnophobia (1992)
Streaming: Prime Video
Spiders have long been used by filmmakers to scare audiences--sometimes they're giant monsters, other times of the smaller, more common variety. The Spielberg-produced Arachnophobia opts for the latter. Like so many films on this list, a small town is besieged by the killer creature--this time it's a deadly Venezuelan spider that has mated with a domestic house spider to create thousands of venomous offspring. The movie was the directing debut of Spielberg's long-time producer Frank Marshall, but Spielberg's hands are all over it--it's a funny, scary, and entertaining film, despite protests from zoologists that it "gives spiders a bad name."
4. White God (2014)
Streaming: Shudder
This stunning award-winning Hungarian film is the one movie on this list where the animals are the heroes. It follows a mixed breed dog named Hagen, who is taken in by a lonely 13-year-old girl. But when she is forced by her father to get rid of him, Hagen ends up in the clutches of an underground dog fighting gang, where he is trained to kill. But Hagen has other plans, and starts a canine revolution that culminates in some astonishing scenes as hundreds of dogs run rampant throughout the city. White God is a gripping movie, but be warned, there are scenes that will be a difficult watch for some dog lovers.
3. Piranha (1978)
Streaming: HBO Now
Without doubt the best post-Jaws killer fish movie, Piranha came with a lot of talent attached. It was directed by Joe Dante (Gremlins, The Howling), produced by the legendary Roger Corman, and written by John Sayles, who went on to become one of the key indie filmmakers of the '80s and '90s. It focuses on a school of genetically mutated piranha fish which terrorizes local residents and tourists at a summer lake resort. Sayles's clever, witty script and Dante's skilful direction strike a perfect balance between scares and laughs. Universal, who produced Jaws, initially tried to stop Piranha being released the same summer as Jaws 2. But the injunction was dropped when Spielberg himself announced how much he liked the movie, subsequently hiring Dante to direct Gremlins.
2. The Birds (1963)
Streaming: Starz
One of the scariest things about Alfred Hitchcock's masterful thriller The Birds is the inexplicable nature of the movie's winged threat. Hitchcock never provides any explanation for the series of harrowing bird attacks that take place over the course of several days, but the ever-present threat of death swooping from above keeps the film relentlessly tense. Hitchcock's thrillers usually dealt with human madness, but The Birds proved he was just as skilled at avian insanity.
1. Jaws (1975)
Streaming: Max Go (Cinemax)
The influence of Jaws is hard to overstate, both in terms of killer animal movies and on blockbuster cinema in general. Famously, the technical problems that Spielberg and his crew had with their mechanical shark (nicknamed Bruce) meant that a decision was made to show as little of the prop as possible. This turned out to be a great move--just the sight of the shark's fin, combined with John William's iconic music, was enough to terrorise an entire generation of moviegoers.
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