Best Scary Movies About Nature Gone Wild

Even the most ardent nature lover knows the dangers posed by the great outdoors. Snakes, bears, and other beasties can do irreparable damage to any careless visitor who wanders into their domain. It’s no wonder that horror storytellers have so often gone outside to find monsters for their tales, even if they have to imagine worms, slugs, and other harmless creatures getting rabid after scientific experimentation. Here are the best scary movies about nature to spook anyone back inside.

1. Jaws (1975)

Most observers point to Jaws as the first proper blockbuster, the film that made Steven Spielberg into a household name and also made viewers terrified to go into the water. Jaws had a troubled production and the mechanical shark broke down often. But Spielberg used that limitation to make the movie all the scarier, with the help of legendary composer John Williams. The idea of the shark was enough to terrify generations of moviegoers.

2. The Birds (1963)

How great was Alfred Hitchcock? He made a flock of birds into something terrifying. The idea of killer birds might work in the Daphne du Maurier story on which the film is based, but only a master can visualize the threat. Of course, The Birds works less because of the animal effects and the gory imagery, but because of the story that Hitchcock tells and a remarkable lead performance by Tippi Hedren.

3. The Ruins (2008)

A quartet of American teens at the center of The Ruins get terrorized not by an animal, but by living vines that cover a Mayan temple. Based on the novel by Scott Smith, who also wrote the screenplay, The Ruins plays on mid-2000s fears about Americans abroad by giving viewers a monster without even a face or emotions. Director Carter Smith forgoes the suggestion of violence in the original novel and chooses instead upsetting images of the plants infecting the main vacationers right up until the movie’s surprising final shot.

4. Arachnophobia (1990)

Rational or not, many people fear spiders, even the relatively harmless arachnids that most people encounter. But director Frank Marshall and screenwriters Don Jakoby and Wesley Strick ratchet up the tension by introducing mutant hybrid spiders, the offspring of a prehistoric species from Venezuela. Intense as that sounds, Marshall cuts the tension with a likable lead in Jeff Daniels as a small-town doctor and John Goodman as a swaggering exterminator. Equal parts scary and funny, Arachnophobia will drive viewers to look under their toilet seats for any eight-legged attackers.

5. Mimic (1997)

Mexican director Guillermo Del Toro has brought to life some of the most memorable movie monsters, such as the Pale Man from Pan’s Labyrinth and the kaiju in Pacific Rim. In his first English-language movie, Mimic, Del Toro focused on a more terrestrial creature… sort of. Based on the short story by Donald A. Wollheim and from a screenplay that Del Toro wrote with Matthew Robbins, Mimic sics a “Judas breed” of cockroach hybrids on research scientists, a mixture of roach, praying mantis, and termite. The resulting creepy-crawlies may not be the most romantic of Del Toro’s creatures, and one of the best scary movies about nature.

6. Piranha (1978)

As with Mimic, the flesh-eating fish of Piranha aren’t run-of-the-mill piranha but a genetically engineered variety, designed to be a weapon of the U.S. military. That nasty premise comes from the mind of John Sayles, the writer of many genre pictures with political ambitions. However, director Joe Dante never lets the movie get too serious. The future director of mad-cap classics such as Gremlins and The ‘Burbs plays up the Looney Tunes quality of Sayles’s killer fish story, making Piranha Stephen Speilberg’s favorite Jaws-rip-off.

7. Deep Blue Sea (1999)

Speaking of Jaws rip-offs, Deep Blue Sea understands that no one can make a straightforward shark movie to rival the 1975 masterpiece. Instead, Finnish action director Renny Harlin goes for a dumb and fun approach for his movie about sharks engineered with super-brains. The screenplay by Ducan Kennedy, Donna Powers, and Wayne Powers won’t blow the minds of any viewer, but it does make for a good time, thanks to a likable cast that includes Thomas Jane, Samuel L. Jackson, and a delightful LL Cool J.

8. Cujo (1983)

Stephen King made his name by finding the horrifying in the familiar. With his 1981 novel Cujo, he applied that talent to man’s best friend, transforming a lovable Saint Bernard into a killer. The adapted screenplay by Don Carlos Dunaway and Lauren Currier maintains both the beast and the beating heart of King’s book, focusing not just on the rabid dog but also on the difficulties of the story’s central family. Director Lewis Teague gives his cast plenty of room to stretch their dramatic muscles, especially Dee Wallace as a beleaguered mom, making audiences see the characters as more than just potential dog food. Forever seared into the zeitgeist, it’s one of the best scary movies about nature.

9. Crawl (2019)

A leader of the New French Extreme movement, director Alexandre Aja seems a strange choice to make a character-driven creature feature like Crawl. However, Aja pays equal attention to both the character beats in the script by Michael Rasmussen and Shawn Rasmussen and the grisly attacks by alligators let loose during a Florida. The film rests upon the relationship between a down-on-his-luck father (Barry Pepper) and his athlete daughter (Kaya Scodelario). Thanks to this deft filmmaking, Crawl rivals Cujo and Jaws for its deft mix of character development and animal attacks.

10. The Nest (1988)

Writer Robert King has gone on to co-create some of the most popular television shows of the past 20 years, including The Good Fight and Evil. But he got his start adapting the schlocky horror novel The Nest by Eli Cantor, the story of an extreme cockroach infestation. Director Terence H. Winkless leans into the creep factor for The Nest, giving the movie numerous insert shots of teaming piles of roaches and even building to a grotesque human/roach hybrid. No one would call The Nest the best scary movie about nature on this list, but it may take the title for the ickiest nature attacks movie.

11. Anaconda (1997)

Anaconda felt like a throwback when it hit screens in 1997, a Hollywood creature feature made possible by the success of Jurassic Park a few years earlier. To be sure, the unconvincing CG-snake of Anaconda falls far short of the still-impressive dinos of Spielberg’s film, but director Luis Llosa doesn’t let that discourage him. Instead, he puts together an entertaining flick about a giant, man-eating snake. Even better, Llosa gets an all-star cast to work with, reducing Jennifer Lopez, Owen Wilson, and John Voight to charismatic fish food.

12. Bug (1975)

Jaws deserves credit for popularizing the nature attacks genre of horror film, but Frankenstein inspired storytellers just as much. Take Bug, the Jeannot Szwarc-directed picture about killer insects. The Thomas Page novel The Hephaestus Plague on which the movie is based doesn’t just settle for prehistoric fire-creating cockroaches unleashed on the planet after a catastrophic earthquake. Rather, it also has a mad scientist who engineers the ancient beasties, making them into giant, fire-creating cockroaches that can also fly. It’s no wonder that famed schlock-meister William Castle took an interest in the novel and co-wrote the screenplay to make Bug.

13. Alligator (1980)

After writing Piranha, John Sayles returned to the water for a reptilian killer in Alligator. Joined by Cujo director Lewis Teague, Sayles crafts a movie as ridiculous as it is mean-spirited. Alligator stars Robert Forester as a detective investigating the source of body parts found in Chicago sewers, which lead him to a gator grown to massive size after being flushed down the toilet as a baby. Teague and Sayles may have wanted the movie to disturb viewers, but the goofy concept just makes Alligator a fun and funny watch.

14. Grizzly (1976)

Writers Harvey Flaxman and David Sheldon had a perfect for Grizzly: Jaws with a bear instead of a shark. Soon, they had prolific horror filmmaker William Girdler on to direct and the picture went into production, with B-movie staple Christopher George in the lead. Despite that cheap and quick approach, Gridler and Co. put together an entertaining flick about a bear rampaging across a National Park, threatening to scare off campers. It may not be original, but Grizzly is a lot of fun.

15. Razorback (1984)

Unlike the lovable warthogs in movies such as The Lion King, the wild boar is a dangerous creature, as shown in the Australian horror movie Razorback. Set in the Outback, Razorback deals with a series of attacks by a massive boar who kills anyone unlucky enough to cross its path. Screenwriter Everett De Roche adapts the novel by Peter Brennan, but the real secret to Razorback’s success is the direction by steady genre hand Russell Mulcahy. Mulcahy uses the tall grass of the Outback to great effect, squeezing horror out of the mere suggestion of the titular animal.

16. The Swarm (1978)

Producer and director Irwin Allen spent most of the 1970s making big-budget, star-studded disaster pictures such as The Poseidon Adventure and The Towering Inferno. In 1978, Allen attempted a different type of disaster with The Swarm, about an invasion of killer bees. Allen stuck to his usual formula, complete with a cast of movie stars such as Michael Caine, Henry Fonda, and Fred MacMurray. Audiences at the time rejected the film, but modern viewers will find it much more entertaining than most of Allen’s better-known flicks, especially his next movie, Beyond the Poseidon Adventure.

17. Food of the Gods (1976)

Whatever its grandiloquent title may suggest, Food of the Gods concerns rats. Giant, mutated rats who get worshiped as gods, but rats nonetheless. The title can be traced to the 1904 H.G. Wells novel The Food of the Gods and How It Came to Earth, but writer and director Bert I. Gordon only borrowed the broad outlines of the classic writer’s ideas. Instead, Gordon opts for a trashy but fun story whose ambitions get undercut by lackluster effects.

18. Monkey Shines (1988)

Monkey Shines follows a helper monkey given to Allen (Jason Beghe), a promising athlete made quadriplegic after a car accident. As Allen and his monkey bond, the chimp manifests his owner’s anger, becoming an instrument of murder. That might sound like an outrageous plot, but author Michael Stewart focused more on psychological exploration than scares in his 1983 novel. However, veteran director George R. Romero knew the concept could not be taken seriously and adapted the book as a straightforward horror flick, making something entertaining if unambitious.

19. Lake Placid (1999)

Lake Placid came as a passion project for writer David E. Kelly, who made his name by creating the legal comedy Ally McBeal. Instead of continuing in the world of funny lawyers, Kelly came up with a creature feature about a giant alligator, starring Bill Pullman, Oliver Platt, and Bridget Fonda. Joined by veteran TV director Steve Miner, Kelley intended to make a funny, scary flick. But his loose approach to the plot raised too many unanswered questions, which too often distracted from the core fun of a killer alligator flick.

20. Sssssss (1973)

Given how many people fear snakes, one would expect copperheads and rattlers to slither across movie screens more often. However, Sssssss shows the limitations of the genre, maybe proving why snakes can’t be movie monsters. Rather than just tell a story about killer snakes, writers Hal Dresner and Daniel C. Striepeke, who worked on classics such as Cool Hand Luke and Planet of the Apes, came up with a story about a mad scientist (Strother Martin) giving himself reptile skin to protect from snake bites. The scientist mutates into a king cobra, a visual that falls far short of something like The Fly but entertains in its own inexplicable way.

21. Slugs (1988)

While some people may find slugs icky, few people fear the slow-moving, slime-trailing creatures. But that didn’t stop British author Shaun Hutson from making them the threat in his novel Slugs, which caught the attention of Spanish director Juan Piquer Simón. A master of bad genre flicks, Simón visualized the titular mollusks as sharp-toothed beasties who can reduce a person to a pile of bones in mere seconds. Both silly and sickening, Slugs will forever change the way moviegoers look at the usually harmless creatures.

22. Day of the Animals (1977)

Why have only one type of killer animal when a movie could have them all? Director William Girdler took that approach in Day of the Animals, his precursor to Grizzly. More of an issues movie than that later (and better) film, Day of the Animals suggests that ozone deterioration drives wildlife mad, turning all animals into beasts that want revenge on the human race. Girdler crafts some pretty shocking sequences and stars Christopher George, Lynda Day George, and Leslie Neilsen (still a few years from reinventing himself as a comedy icon in Airplane!) do their best to keep things believable.

23. Squirm (1976)

Before Slugs, Squirm tried to imagine slimy worms as dangerous predators. Writer and director Jeff Lieberman doesn’t come up with much of a plot for his story, which involves a New York City boy (Don Scardino) who comes to visit his girlfriend (Patricia Pearcy) in Georgia when an electrical storm turns worms into carnivores. Whatever the movie lacks in plot, it makes up for with shocking imagery, including one of worms pouring from a shower spigot and another of the creatures dangling from a victim’s face.

24. Man’s Best Friend (1993)

Like Jaws, Cujo so perfected the scary dog genre that few other moviemakers dared to try it. In fact, when Child’s Play co-writer John Lafia made Man’s Best Friend, he made his killer canine the product of genetic engineering, mixing science gone wrong tropes into the plot. As a result, Man’s Best Friend feels less about a beloved pet turned evil and more about a woman (Ally Sheedy) who wants to see the best in her animal companion, even when human interference has made that impossible.

25. Prophecy (1979)

Anyone looking at the poster for Prophecy would probably expect an alien invasion movie or something with a spiritual component, given its haunting name and bizarre central image. But writer David Seltzer has a more mundane and chilling prophecy in mind for his film, one involving industrial waste turning an average bear into an unstoppable killing machine. Sadly, the big concepts never translate into a satisfying film, as Prophecy too often becomes preachy when it should be exciting, despite the involvement of director John Frankenheimer.