Films with teeth: Hollywood’s best man vs. beast movies
As Cocaine Bear roars into theaters, The A.V. Club catalogs cinema's most memorable creature clashes
Film Features Films
In the new movie Cocaine Bear, a hearty collection of up-for-anything actors face one of Mother Nature’s most fearsome foes: a 500-pound black bear hopped up on sweet, sweet nose candy. And while Cocaine Bear may be one of the odder man-versus-beast cinematic showdowns, it’s hardly the first. Lions and tigers and bears (oh shit!) have chased, mauled, eaten, or otherwise dispatched Oscar winners and B-movie players alike. So with Cocaine Bear about to tear into the box office, now’s a good time to fill up your streaming queue with classics, cult favorites, and critically reviled duds where man faces off against all manner of animal and insect. Here, in chronological order, are 18 creature face-off films with real teeth—or tusks, beaks, claws, or paws.
80 Comments
The Grey should get way more love than it does. It is so much more than an action film about wolves terrorizing a bunch of guys. Its also a meditation on life, loss, and the memories we have of loved ones. I’ve watched the film often and it is a superb film. The score is excellent and everyone in the film gives a fantastic performance. It’s one of the best films in this category, period.
Er, Razorback is not a Hollywood film. By definition.Also, Lake Placid is not to be confused with The Rage In Placid Lake.Which I have not seen, but assume is awful, because Ben Lee.
The Wolves in Frozen (not that Frozen) are also great.I refused to go by part 9 of the slideshow because Bruce the Shark scared me to death as a child and even though I fucking love Sharks now, he is still the reason I can’t swim! BRUCE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Coincidentally, the other Frozen did include a wolf attack (I assume when you say “not that Frozen,” you mean the Disney movie).I wish this article had included the scenes they described, instead of just the trailers.
Oh wow, I never saw the Disney movie but that’s cool. Yeah the movie I’m talking about was in 2010 I think and about being stuck on a ski lift and it was fucking great.
The Birds?
Right? After Jaws, the most iconic of the Animals Attach genre!Also…Kari Wuhrer? Talk about a time capsule (not complaining).
Time capsule? She is timeless!
She still looks great, BTW.
Skrillex is a Skeksis?
Birds don’t have teeth!
Well not with that attitude!
That’s Suzanne Somers, she made it right before Three’s Company
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/It_Happened_at_Lakewood_ManorBrian Dennehy was in that!!!!
I can never hear his name without thinking about this bit
Bees (My Girl)
Damn
Wicker Man?
For Bear you have to go with the rug Leslie “Hotshot” Neilson wrestles in Day of the Animals or The Grizzly from (checks notes) Grizzly.https://cinematicdiversions.com/grizzly-1976-review/https://cinematicdiversions.com/day-of-the-animals-1977-review/
Yes and yes! Both should’ve been on the list – Nielson’s freak-out in ‘Animals’ is great.
Yes! unintentionally hilarious movie
R-rating —> R ratingand Day Of The Dead —> and the shitty 2008 remake of Day Of The Deadits supper—a cow —> its supper: a cowman-vs-beastie —> man vs. beastiemoments/scenes —> choose a word to use, because that’s literally a writer’s joba-ha moment —> aha momentthe Ghost and the Darkness—those are the lions’ names —> you just said that the lions were the title charactersman-vs-beast —> man vs. beastJennifer Lopez, Ice Cube, Kari Wuhrer, Eric Stoltz, Owen Wilson —> Jennifer Lopez, Ice Cube, Kari Wuhrer, Eric Stoltz, and Owen Wilsonvenom-mutilated Voight … who winks —> venom-mutilated Voight… who winksIt’s five solid minutes of bravura, batshit-crazy filmmaking —> bravura is not an adjectivepractical effects vs CG —> practical effects versus CG (“versus” can mean “as opposed to” while “vs.” specifically means a battle)Also, thanks for totally ruining every single one of these movies for people
“Bravura filmmaking” isn’t even an obscure turn of phrase, and how the hell is an AV Club slideshow going to ruin any film with ruining?
a-ha moment —> Take on Me
Bravura Definition & Meaning – Merriam-Websterbravura2 of 2adjective1: marked by a dazzling display of skilla bravura performance2: ORNATE, SHOWYbravura prose
Agree on the spoilers. This list reminded me that I’ve always wanted to see The Grey. I assumed I could trust this listicle to tell me how it’s good, without ruining the plot.Guess not.
How dare you overlook The White Buffalo? The best Buffalo/Bronson film ever.
I would include this one as well…
King Kong? Haha.
The White Buffalo (starring Charles Bronson)Scared the crap out of me when I was a kid. I refuse to watch it now to ruin the effect lol
Snakes On A Plane?
Where the hell is the alligator from Alligator? That motherfucker absolutely wrecks the wedding of the daughter of the man who is responsible for its giant size before killing him itself.
Also Jaws is the classic, but the sharks in Deep Blue Sea deserve a mention for how vindictive they are. For context, the shark bit this dude’s arm off before grabbing him as he was being helicoptered out and throwing him into the glass here.
It got a mention. You clearly didn’t click through all 20+ slides
I think they’ve added some slides since this story was first published last year. Someone upstream commented that The Birds hadn’t been included whereas it’s now slide two.
I know you’re joking, but I think this slideshow got repurposed. I vaguely remember being surprised at how short it was for how many creature features there are.
I almost missed the dates on these posts too – definitely updated. That said, thanks for this awesome clip from Alligator, which I was going to look up after reading the slideshow anyway. That’s gotta be the worst getaway driver in cinematic history. Didn’t even fucking start the car until after they’d finished watching James Caan get chomped.
Um. Why do they just stand there and watch with fascination as the glass slowly fractures?
That… was awesome
Jesus Christ when we anyone ever get this right? Survival Of The Fittest doesn’t mean strongest. It means… the creatures that fit in the best to their environment. FUCK!
Thats the thing about humans. We used our intelligence to survive in different environments, even if we weren’t the best fit for it
If you want to get really pedantic it is about contribution to the gene pool of the next generation. A creature that fits great into its environment but doesn’t reproduce (or helps organisms sharing its genes to reproduce as sterile worker ants and bees help their queen) still has a fitness of zero.
Overlooked, but list could have used The Shallows and Crawl
Reading through this list, I realize the animal attacks are my jam. So many movies I have watched multiple times: Jaws, obviously, but Lake Placid and Anaconda and Deep Blue Sea… even Arachnophobia, and I really forking hate spiders. (And the original Joe Dante Piranha, not listed.)
Anyone know if Alligator is available anywwhere?
Crawl is a good catch. It’s a ludicrous movie where they knew exactly what they were making.
Long Weekend from 1978 is worth a mention. It more of nature as a whole turning on a couple than one specific animal. Kingdom of the Spiders is worth a spot on the list too. Some fun movies on this list. My sister and I saw Alligator when we were too young & still talk about it. Pirhana 3D is great fun, hoping Cocaine Bear reached those heights.
I had to look up “The Long Weekend” because I thought “this person mixed up that Eliot Gould movie with Frogs” (Frogs is another “all of mother nature turns against a family over the course of a weekend film” with Ray Milland and Sam Eliot. My local creature feature station ran it every moth along with Squirm back in the 80s.
Frogs is another fun one. Young Sam Elliot & a nubile Joan Van Ark.
Jurassic Park, anyone?
The intelligent ants in Phase IV.
Potential pet owners note: not a single golden agouti gerbil on the list.
Not a gerbil, but my brother’s hamster kept escaping, and it scared the absolute shit out of my mom when she’d discovery it somewhere. She has a terrible fear of mice so I think her brain saw mouse-like creature and freaked out. My sister had a gerbil, but it didn’t escape. So, yes, I take your point.
First of all, good list, the only one I thought left off was The Edge. Alec Baldwin and Anthony Hopkins engaged in Shakespearean treachery but that taking a backseat to fighting off a pretty unstoppable grizzly? Pretty great actual creature feature.
The semi-serious one, Black Sheep a pretty classic animal horror movie but with sheep. Has good effects and great laughs. The main character referencing his diagnosed ovinophobia is a nice touch at a stressful moment.
Saturday afternoon UHF movies-Slugs, Ticks, Attack of the Killer Shrews, Orca, and Curse 2: The Bite where a guy gets bitten by a radioactive snake and then his hand turns into a big snake.
The Edge! Tony Hopkins, Alec Baldwin, Elle McPherson, WHACKING great bear. Is Hopkins not just the best? I could watch read a phone book. And pay money to see it.Also good drinking game is take a shot every time Baldwin yells “Charles!”
Yes, The Edge definitely belongs here
Man, I cannot describe how excited 5-year-old me was when I saw Alligator was going to be on network TV. I cut out the 1/4 page ad in TV Guide and pinned it on my bulletin board, and left it there for a couple years. I loved that movie.
“Bodega Bay”? I used to buy weed from Bodega Bay.
I really do love Deep Blue Sea… sad to say, I’ve seen it way more than Jaws. Lake Placid is good, too – there’s a host of mid-to-late 90s monster and sci-fi flicks that are bloody good fun, and I feel like we will never see their ilk again (see also: Deep Rising, The Relic, Species, Mimic).Also… no Night of the Lepus, or Orca The Killer Whale!?
I’m becoming a little obsessed with where the idea that Alligator takes place in Chicago comes from. It’s not in the movie. The movie is shot in LA, uses LA place names, and features LA maps. A couple details suggest that the movie was intended to be set in Missouri (the prologue, the police cars), but the filmmakers gave up on that halfway through. The posters, trailers, and VHS boxes for the movie all just say “the city.” I even checked vintage reviews to see if Chicago was in press notes or something, but Roger Ebert’s review says it’s set in New York City. Chicago doesn’t seem to enter the picture until decades after the movie was released, and now that it’s in Wikipedia everyone just repeats it.
I think the New York thing comes from the fact that this was such an urban legend in NYC in the 70s and 80s… parents buying baby alligators then flushing them into the sewers when they got too big. It just feels like it should have an urban setting, so finding out it’s LA is… jarring.
Jaws perfectly demonstrates how great Spielberg is because the novel is not that good.
Jaws perfectly demonstrates how great Spielberg is because the novel is not that good. What Carl Gottlieb did with the screenplay was strip down the story. The book has a lot of semi-symbolic stuff in it. Book Dreyfuss character, an adulterer -with the Chief’s wife! – is eaten by the shark, because it’s not just a maneater, it’s God’s judgment against sinners. Or something. [Similar to Coppola (and I think Robert Towne, uncredited) taking all the stupid parts out of The Godfather (and oh lord there were plenty) to leave only Puzo’s comparatively vaguely-defined “family” storyline.]
It’s basically a perfect film.
It’s a goddamn travesty there’s no mention of SLUGS.They have teeth! TEETH!
I think The Meg deserves a mention. It’s cheesy as hell, but in a ‘I need a snack, a beverage, and to relax for the evening’ kind of way. The jump scares are well done, and the little girl in the movie is precious.
All I can remember about Cujo is that the kid was so annoying I was rooting for the dog.
Sure, they’re semi-fictional sci-fi versions of an extinct beast.But this list is useless as it does not feature Jurassic Park.
#15 – Alexandre Aja also did “Crawl,” which was about a woman and her father trapped in a crawlspace with alligators. During a hurricane.
Genuinely one of the most fun movies I’ve ever seen in a theater!
Good list – but where is Frogs, from 1972? Man oh man – a silly-ish eco-horror thing with Sam Elliott as a nature photographer (I think) and Ray Milland as the evil head of a rich family living in a mansion somewhere in the south (Louisiana maybe but it’s been a long time since I’ve seen it).Basically, nature, pretty much ALL of nature, gets mad at this family. Not just the titular frogs – it’s snakes, lizards, leeches – everything you don’t want pissed off at you. There is, as far as I recall, no explanation for the animals’ crafty doings. Lizards push toxic bottles of pesticide from their greenhouse shelves, killing someone inside (for all I know the lizards also locked the door). Tarantulas push masses of Spanish moss onto a person and… that somehow kills the person. There are some typical gator and snake attacks. Through it all, shots of frogs, just watching, and, as the MAD magazine parody pointed out, being ominous (they don’t hurt anyone – they’re frogs!).And… now I have to find some way to watch it again. Wish me luck…[Update – found it on Youtube. And wouldn’t you know it, it’s an American International picture!]
“this is a rare 3D movie that’s actually worthy of an extra D”
No. It wasn’t even shot in 3D ffs.
Great choices on this list, though I’m curious about the lack of Jurassic Park? I guess we’re just doing kind of real-ish, currently in existence beasts?Anyway, The Grey completely fucked me up. It was absolutely not what I expected (I expected Liam Neeson barehand-brawling wolves). But it was more of a psychological horror than I expected, and it stayed with me for days.The Birds…well that documentary just told me what I’d already known about birds for years.
What, no love for “Prophecy” with its mutated-by-chemical-pollution bear???
It stars Robert Foxworth, Talia Shire, AND was directed by John Frankenheimer!
Sure, it’s a piece of crap, but it’s still better than “Snakes on a Plane!”
Prophecy is amazing.
I officially need to see Arachnophobia for the first time since middle school. Also, if I may say, J Lo in 1997. Sheesh.
The Reef is and underrated shark attack movie that could be on this list. Takes a little bit to get going but once everyone is in the water it’s IMO the most terrifying, tension inducing shark movie out there. The director filmed real great whites and used clever matte and in-camera techniques to include the actors in the shots. I watched it again pretty recently and it’s shocking how convincing the sequences are. It’s an exceedingly simple premise, four people stuck out in the open ocean are accosted by a great white shark, but it makes the simplicity work for it by keeping everything pretty real and minimalistic, particularly in driving home how utterly helpless a human being is in that situation. One of the most tension inducing devices the movie uses is a simple scuba mask. The characters only have one between them, but it gives them, and the viewer, the only visual access to under the water and it’s used to great effect. A character will be looking around into endless depths in all directions, not seeing anything for minutes, then the (real) great white materializes out of the blue haze, obviously stalking them, and there’s not a damn thing they can do about it. Apparently there was some backlash to the movie because it’s clearly based on the (utterly harrowing) account of Ray Boundy when his shrimp boat capsized in 1983 and he and his two shipmates were attacked by a relentless tiger shark over the course of 36 hours, that ended up killing his shipmates. The movie changes up the characters, circumstances and the type of shark, but there’s a sequence that is directly lifted from the real life account, down to the words that Boundy reported one of the victims said.
Ice Cube said in an interview that he did Anaconda because he got to kill the snake. I love love that after he embeds the axe head into its head, and it slips back into the water dead, Cube says: “Bitch.”Chef’s kiss. Perfect.
ROAR (1981) – The Most Dangerous Movie Ever Made!Actually a movie about a Man v Beast movie, but was even one member (much less 70) of the cast/crew mauled by an actual wild animal on those other poser movies? I think not.Melanie Griffith gets part of her scalp ripped off by a lion in ROAR.
the mutated cat from UninvitedBurning Bright was surprisingly goodOrca isn’t terribleKiller Crocodile and it’s sequel are dumb funBlack Water might be the best crocodile movie though
Glad the two correct answers are on this list:
A) Arachnophobia: because it’s not impossible. What is it: horse fucks donkey and creates mule, right? It’s not biologically impossible that two spiders can’t mate and make the ultimate poisonous spider either!
B) The Grey. Easily the most depressing movie I’ve ever seen. Even more than Requiem for a Dream. After the last scene, I was so depressed I literally could not move for hours.
When I was a kid my family went to see Willow in the theater, and having a fear of dogs, the monster-wolf-things in the early scenes of that movie freaked me out so bad I had to leave the theater and hang out in the lobby for a while. Unfortunately there was a poster for Monkey Shines up in the lobby, and that damned grinning monkey scared me even worse than the wolf-things in Willow, so I went back into the theater (where I thoroughly enjoyed the rest of Willow). (Speaking of things scaring me worse than dogs, despite dogs being the thing I’m actually afraid of, nothing scared me worse as a kid than picking up the novel Cujo and reading the scene where the little boy is in bed and the monster in his closet is telling him “I’m going to eat you, and then you’ll be inside me”. That fucking scene haunted my nightmares for a DECADE, and I hadn’t even read any of the parts with the actual dog in them!)