Top Tier Animal Horror Movies
by Encyclopedia_of_Horror | created - 26 Jun 2021 | updated - 25 Nov 2021 | PublicThe best of the best genre movies about animals. All rated 8+ by Eric Myford, author of The Encyclopedia of Horror & Suspense Movies book series.
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1. Black Sheep (2006)
Not Rated | 87 min | Comedy, Horror, Sci-Fi
An experiment in genetic engineering turns harmless sheep into bloodthirsty killers that terrorize a sprawling New Zealand farm.
Director: Jonathan King | Stars: Oliver Driver, Nathan Meister, Tammy Davis, Matthew Chamberlain
Votes: 42,102 | Gross: $0.08M
2. The Birds (1963)
PG-13 | 119 min | Drama, Horror, Mystery
A wealthy San Francisco socialite pursues a potential boyfriend to a small Northern California town that slowly takes a turn for the bizarre when birds of all kinds suddenly begin to attack people.
Director: Alfred Hitchcock | Stars: Rod Taylor, Tippi Hedren, Jessica Tandy, Suzanne Pleshette
Votes: 204,549 | Gross: $11.40M
3. Jaws (1975)
PG | 124 min | Adventure, Mystery, Thriller
When a killer shark unleashes chaos on a beach community off Cape Cod, it's up to a local sheriff, a marine biologist, and an old seafarer to hunt the beast down.
Director: Steven Spielberg | Stars: Roy Scheider, Robert Shaw, Richard Dreyfuss, Lorraine Gary
Votes: 659,592 | Gross: $260.00M
4. Wilderness (I) (2006)
R | 93 min | Action, Horror
Juvenile delinquents are sent to a small British island after a fellow prisoner's death, where they have to fight for survival.
Director: M.J. Bassett | Stars: Sean Pertwee, Alex Reid, Toby Kebbell, Stephen Wight
Votes: 10,344
5. Cujo (1983)
R | 93 min | Horror, Thriller
Cujo, a friendly St. Bernard, contracts rabies and conducts a reign of terror on a small American town.
Director: Lewis Teague | Stars: Dee Wallace, Daniel Hugh Kelly, Danny Pintauro, Christopher Stone
Votes: 50,992 | Gross: $21.20M
6. Rogue (2007)
R | 99 min | Action, Drama, Horror
An American journalist on assignment in the Australian outback encounters a man-eating crocodile while trapped on a rapidly flooding mud island.
Director: Greg McLean | Stars: Michael Vartan, Radha Mitchell, Sam Worthington, Caroline Brazier
Votes: 33,424 | Gross: $0.01M
7. Creepshow (1982)
R | 120 min | Comedy, Fantasy, Horror
"Creepshow" is a 1982 movie that tells five grisly tales from a children's comic book: a murdered father rising from his grave, a bizarre meteor, a vengeful husband, a mysterious crate's occupant, and a plague of cockroaches.
Director: George A. Romero | Stars: Hal Holbrook, Leslie Nielsen, Adrienne Barbeau, E.G. Marshall
Votes: 53,252 | Gross: $21.03M
8. Alligator (1980)
R | 91 min | Horror, Sci-Fi, Thriller
A pet baby alligator is flushed down a toilet and survives in the city sewers. Twelve years later, it grows to an enormous size thanks to a diet of discarded laboratory dogs injected with growth hormones. Now, humans have entered the menu.
Director: Lewis Teague | Stars: Robert Forster, Robin Riker, Michael V. Gazzo, Dean Jagger
Votes: 15,873
9. Jurassic Park (1993)
PG-13 | 127 min | Action, Adventure, Sci-Fi
A pragmatic paleontologist touring an almost complete theme park on an island in Central America is tasked with protecting a couple of kids after a power failure causes the park's cloned dinosaurs to run loose.
Director: Steven Spielberg | Stars: Sam Neill, Laura Dern, Jeff Goldblum, Richard Attenborough
Votes: 1,067,354 | Gross: $402.45M
10. Burning Bright (2010)
PG-13 | 89 min | Drama, Horror, Thriller
A thriller centered on a young woman and her autistic little brother who are trapped in a house with a ravenous tiger during a hurricane.
Director: Carlos Brooks | Stars: Briana Evigan, Charlie Tahan, Garret Dillahunt, Meat Loaf
Votes: 7,971
11. Them! (1954)
Not Rated | 94 min | Horror, Sci-Fi
The earliest atomic tests in New Mexico cause common ants to mutate into giant man-eating monsters that threaten civilization.
Director: Gordon Douglas | Stars: James Whitmore, Edmund Gwenn, Joan Weldon, James Arness
Votes: 24,194
12. Infestation (2009)
R | 91 min | Action, Adventure, Comedy
A slacker awakes to find himself weak and wrapped in a webbing; after realizing that the world has been taken over by giant alien insects, he wakes a ragtag group of strangers and together they fight for survival.
Director: Kyle Rankin | Stars: Christopher Rodriguez Marquette, Brooke Nevin, Kinsey Packard, E. Quincy Sloan
Votes: 9,710
13. The Reef (2010)
R | 94 min | Adventure, Horror, Thriller
A great white shark hunts the crew of a capsized sailboat along the Great Barrier Reef.
Director: Andrew Traucki | Stars: Damian Walshe-Howling, Gyton Grantley, Adrienne Pickering, Zoe Naylor
Votes: 20,938
14. Piranha (1978)
R | 94 min | Comedy, Horror, Sci-Fi
When flesh-eating piranhas are accidentally released into a summer resort's rivers, the guests become their next meal.
Director: Joe Dante | Stars: Bradford Dillman, Heather Menzies-Urich, Kevin McCarthy, Keenan Wynn
Votes: 24,717 | Gross: $6.00M
15. Big Ass Spider! (2013)
PG-13 | 80 min | Action, Adventure, Comedy
A giant alien spider escapes from a military lab and rampages the city of Los Angeles. When a massive military strike fails, it is up to a team of scientists and one clever exterminator to kill the creature before the city is destroyed.
Director: Mike Mendez | Stars: Greg Grunberg, Lin Shaye, Ruben Pla, Alexis Kendra
Votes: 7,740
16. The Grey (2011)
R | 117 min | Action, Adventure, Drama
After their plane crashes in Alaska, six oil workers are led by a skilled huntsman to survival, but a pack of merciless wolves haunts their every step.
Director: Joe Carnahan | Stars: Liam Neeson, Dermot Mulroney, Frank Grillo, Dallas Roberts
Votes: 263,376 | Gross: $51.58M
17. Baxter (1989)
R | 82 min | Comedy, Drama, Horror
A white bull terrier named Baxter is given to an elderly woman by her daughter. As time passes, the dog develops aggressive and murderous behavior in order to be adopted by another family.
Director: Jérôme Boivin | Stars: Lise Delamare, Jean Mercure, Jacques Spiesser, Catherine Ferran
Votes: 2,745
18. Tarantula (1955)
Approved | 80 min | Horror, Sci-Fi
A spider escapes from an isolated Arizona desert laboratory experimenting in gigantism and grows to tremendous size as it wreaks havoc on the local inhabitants.
Director: Jack Arnold | Stars: John Agar, Mara Corday, Leo G. Carroll, Nestor Paiva
Votes: 10,778 | Gross: $1.10M
19. The Cat (2011)
Not Rated | 106 min | Drama, Horror, Mystery
A young woman is murdered on an elevator and the only witness is her cat Bidan. Her friend So-yeon brings the cat home and wild and disturbing things begin to happen.
Director: Seung-wook Byeon | Stars: Park Min-Young, Kim Dong-wook, Ye-ron Kim, Kim Min-jae
Votes: 1,556
20. Phase IV (1974)
PG | 84 min | Horror, Sci-Fi, Thriller
Suddenly, desert ants form a group intelligence and wage war on the humans. It's up to a couple of scientists and a girl to stop them
Director: Saul Bass | Stars: Nigel Davenport, Michael Murphy, Lynne Frederick, Alan Gifford
Votes: 9,575
21. Cyclone (1978)
PG-13 | 100 min | Action, Adventure, Drama
After a surprise cyclone hits the area, tourists become stranded on a boat in the sea, and they have to do anything in order to survive. To make matters even worse, they're joined by the survivors of a plane crash and a sinking boat.
Director: René Cardona Jr. | Stars: Arthur Kennedy, Carroll Baker, Lionel Stander, Andrés García
Votes: 850
22. The Kiss (1988)
R | 101 min | Drama, Fantasy, Horror
After the death of her mother, a teenage girl is faced with bizarre supernatural occurrences when her mother's estranged sister arrives and begins to infiltrate her and her father's lives.
Director: Pen Densham | Stars: Joanna Pacula, Meredith Salenger, Mimi Kuzyk, Nicholas Kilbertus
Votes: 1,918 | Gross: $1.87M
23. A Cold Night's Death (1973 TV Movie)
74 min | Horror, Mystery, Sci-Fi
Two scientists suspect that there is someone other than their research primates inhabiting their polar station.
Director: Jerrold Freedman | Stars: Robert Culp, Eli Wallach, Michael C. Gwynne, Vic Perrin
Votes: 1,080
24. The Incredible Shrinking Man (1957)
Approved | 81 min | Horror, Sci-Fi
After Scott Carey begins to shrink because of exposure to a combination of radiation and insecticide, medical science is powerless to help him.
Director: Jack Arnold | Stars: Grant Williams, Randy Stuart, April Kent, Paul Langton
Votes: 19,971
25. The Pack (1977)
PG | 99 min | Adventure, Horror, Thriller
The residents of vacation spot Seal Island find themselves terrorized by a pack of dogs -- the remnants of discarded pets by visiting vacationers.
Director: Robert Clouse | Stars: Joe Don Baker, Hope Alexander-Willis, Richard B. Shull, R.G. Armstrong
Votes: 1,276
26. White Dog (1982)
PG | 90 min | Drama, Horror
A trainer attempts to retrain a vicious dog that's been raised to attack black people.
Director: Samuel Fuller | Stars: Kristy McNichol, Christa Lang, Vernon Weddle, Jameson Parker
Votes: 10,797
27. Trilogy of Terror II (1996 TV Movie)
R | 90 min | Horror, Thriller
Three horror stories, including a woman's fate when she and her lover attempt to rob her husband's grave, a woman who brings her son back from the dead and a Zuni fetish doll who comes to life again and goes on another murderous rampage.
Director: Dan Curtis | Stars: Lysette Anthony, Geraint Wyn Davies, Matt Clark, Geoffrey Lewis
Votes: 1,803
28. The Piper (2015)
PG-13 | 119 min | Horror, Mystery, Thriller
Shortly after the Korean war, a father and a son are wandering through the country and make a stop in a remote village, where strange and dangerous happenings occur.
Director: Kwang-tae Kim | Stars: Ryu Seung-ryong, Lee Sung-min, Chun Woo-hee, Lee Joon
Votes: 1,912
29. Seven Deaths in the Cat's Eyes (1973)
Not Rated | 95 min | Horror, Mystery, Thriller
In a small Scottish village, horribly murdered bodies keep turning up. Suspicion falls upon the residents of a nearby castle that is haunted by a curse involving a killer cat.
Director: Antonio Margheriti | Stars: Jane Birkin, Hiram Keller, Françoise Christophe, Venantino Venantini
Votes: 1,628
30. White God (2014)
R | 121 min | Adventure, Drama, Thriller
Thirteen-year-old Lili fights to protect her dog Hagen. She is devastated when her father eventually sets Hagen free on the streets. Still innocently believing love can conquer any difficulty, Lili sets out to find her dog and save him.
Director: Kornél Mundruczó | Stars: Zsófia Psotta, Sándor Zsótér, Lili Horvát, Szabolcs Thuróczy
Votes: 17,076 | Gross: $0.28M
31. Werewolf (2018)
88 min | Drama, Horror, War
Children liberated from a Nazi concentration camp have to overcome hunger, thirst and vicious dogs in an abandoned mansion surrounded by the forest.
Director: Adrian Panek | Stars: Kamil Polnisiak, Nicolas Przygoda, Sonia Mietielica, Danuta Stenka
Votes: 1,624
32. The Cat with Hands (2001)
16+ | 4 min | Animation, Short, Fantasy
The dark, surreal story of a cat who wants to be human.
Director: Robert Morgan | Stars: Livy Armstrong, Daniel Hogwood-Kane, Victoria Hayes
Votes: 2,038
33. The Shadow of the Cat (1961)
Approved | 79 min | Horror, Mystery, Thriller
A house cat sees her mistress murdered by two servants under orders from her husband , and becomes ferociously bent on revenge.
Director: John Gilling | Stars: André Morell, Barbara Shelley, William Lucas, Freda Jackson
Votes: 1,567
34. Worm (IV) (2013)
Not Rated | 93 min | Horror, Romance, Sci-Fi
In a time where recreational parasites induce your wildest fantasies, one luckless loser struggles to keep the life of his 'dreams' from squirming away.
Director: Doug Mallette | Stars: John Ferguson, Shane O'Brien, Jes Mercer, Scott Ferguson
Votes: 125
35. Black Zoo (1963)
Not Rated | 88 min | Drama, Horror
The owner of a small zoo uses the animals to kill his enemies.
Director: Robert Gordon | Stars: Michael Gough, Jeanne Cooper, Rod Lauren, Virginia Grey
Votes: 273
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