15 Hidden Movie Monsters And What They REALLY Look Like

There's something about the unknown that makes it that much more eerie, with only subtle hints given as to what monstrous reality lurks at the edges of the screen. Search long enough and you can find the true forms of the monsters beneath all their secretive flourishes, with everything from Lovecraftian lore to holiday horrors hiding behind the cinema curtains. Not knowing might have seemed like the scariest tactic a film can employ, but that is easy to say when you haven't seen what's really hiding underneath. Sometimes ignorance really is bliss, folks, because I'm Gareth, this is WhatCulture, and here are Hidden Monsters and What They Really Look Like. Arachne Lobster, The Mist Full of creepy crawlies and transdimensional space beings, there's all sorts dwelling in the mist that we never really get a good look at. Half the magic of having a world covered in a thick layer of cloudy white comes from not really knowing what's in it, and director Frank Darabont plays into that admirably with creations like the tentacle from Plant X and the Behemoth. But it's the Arachne Lobster that stands out as truly unknowable. Appearing only in silhouette to slice Ollie in half, we never get a good look at what's behind the pincers. Stephen King's sauce novella gives a better indication in the following passage, though. It appeared to be red, the angry colour of a cooked lobster. It had claws. I caught a nightmare glimpse of huge, black, lusterless eyes, the size of giant handfuls of sea grapes. And then the thing lurched back into the mist with what remained of Ollie Weeks in its grip. A long, multi-segmented scorpion's body dragged harshly on the paving. Even better is the concept art, where you can really get a feel for this thing's deadly set of weapons. Mostly a mouth full of hellish teeth that you'd have never guessed were there from the screened clips alone. Just look at those things! The Djinn, The Witcher Now technically, The Witcher unabashedly shows the Djinn in its entirety in the clip it appears in during the TV show's run. With the Netflix series following the titular witcher Geralt of Rivia, a mutated man that hunts monsters, we encounter a handful of the beasts that he's tasked with taking down, and a few that he bumps into on his perilous adventures too. One such creature is the Djinn, a magical entity that grants three wishes and takes loosely the form of swirling smoke, able to be bottled and imprisoned if captured correctly. But what does a Djinn really look like? Well, I'm glad you asked. If we look to the Islamic mythology that brings them to life, they can be perceived as formless humanoid fire. They're spiritual beings, neither inherently good or bad, and often associated with demons. Of course, one of the most popular realisations of them comes in Aladdin's genie, but in real world lore they can take the form of animals, and are commonly associated with serpents. Black dogs also crop up often too. They can anthropomorphise into human-like creatures, but retain animal features too, making them malleable spirits that you'd soon spot should they be mixed up in human society. There's realisations of the strange, inhuman form of Djinns in B-movies from Clash of the Titans to Netflix originals. And whilst the witcher's form is a different, secretive one, it's not necessarily wrong, it's just a different interpretation of the mythological beings. Dianoga, Star Wars A New Hope Now, the Dianoga definitely does feel like a bit of a strange one to include here, since we do actually see the creature in Star Wars A New Hope. But for those unaware, this that we see is just the tip of a far more perilous beast lurking under the surface. The Dianoga of A New Hope is a carnivorous, tentacled, sentient cephalopod, looking for a snack on Luke Skywalker. But it's more than just a single eyestalk, folks. Revealed after the movie came out to be a female Dianoga named Omi. How lovely. She's actually 10 metres long, with a whole load of tentacles writhing away under the trash compactor's surface, joined to one giant, gaping maw lined with toothy spines. Lovely. She also had purple, chameleon-like skin that adapts to her surroundings. And that is useful. A full picture and breakdown of Dianogas was revealed in The Wildlife of Star Wars, a field guide, with the species appearing continually amongst the canon in imagery and communications alike. Omi is the equivalent of a giant space squid, basically, and much more than what one pokey eyestalk suggests when we're first shown her in the movies. Thunderbird Lost Tapes Lost Tapes was a little cult TV series that delved into the dark world of cryptozoology. And what is cryptozoology, you ask? Why, it's a pseudoscience that looks at creatures from mythology and folklore, and argues their existence based on anecdotal evidence. So now you know. Creatures like the Loch Ness Monster and Bigfoot are some of the most famous examples, with no local legend too strange to be snapped up by the mockumentary series and turned into schlocky entertainment. Creating fictional accounts of such monsters was Lost Tapes' speciality, with only a few never making a full appearance on screen in some horrifying, nightmare-inducing manner. The Thunderbird was one of the rare creatures to not get a physical feature, instead depicted as scooping up a young boy for a meal over a phone call with chilling noises alone. The reality is that Lost Tapes doesn't need to show the Thunderbird on screen. From the reports of the creature and Native American legend, we know it's a massive bird with a wingspan over 100 feet that flaps so powerfully it's rumoured to create thunder. Or at the very least, thunderous wind. Thunder just sounds better though. Most commonly described to look like a pterosaur, but more feathered, its bald head and massive size appears prehistoric. It's enough to make anyone reconsider heading into the woods anytime soon at the very least. There go my weekend plans. So obviously this list is talking about monsters that you don't really see, but you know what, I'm curious. I want to know right now in the comments section below what is the scariest monster that you have seen. The Thing Now I know what you're thinking. The Thing from The Thing is hardly a hidden movie monster, is it? As we see it amalgamate people to its little alien heart's content as it rattles through an Antarctic research base, turning humans and dogs alike into fine fleshy pulp. But have you ever stopped to think about what it really started off as? Well you have now. Yes, we witness its grotesque warping of everything around it, but The Thing never shows us where it started off. The monster we see is simply a warped disguise at best, really. The Thing itself is actually based on a science fiction novella titled Who Goes There, and our good friend and author John W. Campbell Jr. is not as shrewd with his secrets as the film adaptations have been. In fact, here we get a pretty clear description of what the monster is outside of its adaptive abilities. Or at least what it was before humans found it. The broken half of the bronze ice axe was still buried in the queer skull. Three mad, hate-filled eyes blazed up with a living fire, bright as fresh spilled blood, from a face ringed with writhing, loathsome nest of worms, blue mobile worms that crawled where hair should grow. Now this idea was actually taken for the 2011 movie, and implemented in deleted scenes that implied The Thing had assimilated an alien life form to fly its ship to our planet. Many, many, many, many episodes of Buffy the Vampire Slayer live permanently in the collective memory of its fans. But there is only one that can elicit such a hushed silence upon the very mention of its title. That is, the body. Yep, see? Far from the high-kicking, ponytailed action that the show was known for, the episode simply revolves around the discovery of Buffy's mother dead in her home. No dramatic murder, no heroic send-off, simply a woman found on her own couch. It's a TV moment that's still talked about today. However, unable to deal with the grief and the senseless feeling of loss, Dawn goes against the wishes of her sister and casts a spell to bring her back from the dead. From there we see a pair of legs, they stagger back to the Summers family home, a silhouette passes by the window, and the doorknob slowly begins to turn. The refusal to show us Joyce reanimated still fills viewers with this sickening dread though. A woman whose normality and strength had been the steady rock the show had built its supernatural elements around, now herself transformed into something. It was not knowing precisely what she had become which terrified fans. It was a question that, either mercifully or tragically depending on your viewpoint, looked like it would never be answered, as Dawn comes to her senses and breaks the spell before we get a look at her. However, the heartbreaking truth of the matter is that, we can assume that Joyce too would have been absolutely fine. Ah, that door would have opened and standing behind it would have been the mother we all knew and loved. I'm just a little soily, that's all. Blair Witch, The Blair Witch Project And now for something a little bit different, because why not? Instead of an outright look at what this monster really is, this is an entry that rules out what she isn't, since the confused mythology of the films and wider lore has given quite the false impression of who the Blair Witch appears as. Never physically cropping up in the original movie, the later 2016 sequel decides to upend the unspoken rule of invisibility and deliver a monstrous look at what the witch could be. A stretched out, pale, impossibly tall creature, more akin to films like Wreck and The Grudge than a true witch. Or at least that's what audiences initially thought. It turns out that writer Simon Barrett wanted his iteration of the witch to utilise her victims' bodies to terrify those that came into her woods. With the long-limbed monster a direct play on Ellie Kedwood's body, but not necessarily indicting her as the witch. Barrett believes that the witch came before Kedwood, stating the mythology predating her was a part of his construction in the film. The Blair Witch uses her victims as puppets then, and there's been no true form actually revealed in any of the movies, and likely none ever to be discovered thanks to this devious ability. Who she is and what she is will forever remain a mystery then. Spooky stuff. We really never did get to see the Reavers of Firefly in their full form whilst the series aired. Stifled at 14 episodes and never to be seen again on the small screen, the crew of the Serenity were Joss Whedon's baby lost to the evils of Fox, like so many pure things in this world. Reavers in the truncated Firefly TV series were a presence felt far more than they were seen. We get to witness their ships and one victim turn insane after being captured by the space cannibals in the third episode, but seeing these terrifying monsters up close does not happen until the movie fans demanded when the show got axed. Zoe's line is the closest we really get, and even that was too close for comfort. If they take the ship, they'll rape us to death, eat our flesh and sew our skins into their clothing. Serenity does not hold back on its depiction of them then, crafting a story with the Reavers at the centre, and pitting River Tam against a horde that she carves through with animalistic ease. Covered in blood with sharpened teeth jutting out, and hulking powerful frames to tear their prey apart with, it is no wonder that these creatures were bloody kept in the dark. Mothman, the Mothman prophecies. A mythological creature that has been adopted into urban legend, the Mothman got his own movie made in 2002 that explored his prophetic appearances across West Virginia back in the 60s. Appearing physically only in scrawled drawings and describing himself when asked what he looks like, as it depends on who's looking, there's plenty of mystery surrounding the winged menace of Point Pleasant without much to actually witness. But the legend had to be born from somewhere, right? The quote-unquote true accounts of the Mothman all agree that he's a giant man with wings and glowing red eyes, described to the local paper as being about six or seven feet tall, having a wingspan of ten feet, and red eyes about two inches in diameter and six inches apart. Very specific. It's also widely agreed that he's averse to light, wanting to get away from headlights and other sources as much as he seems to want to bother strangers on winding roads at night. Whilst he doesn't have a definitive form, there's definitely enough to go on to get an idea for what this secret movie monster really goes around looking like. And he does in fact have his own statue to honour this legendary status too, replete with half man, half moth features of course. How majestic. Midnight Entity Doctor Who Doctor Who is full of mysterious interdimensional creatures and aliens beyond most people's wildest imagination. And when it veers into full monster territory, it really knows how to hammer the scares home. In episodes like The Empty Child and with creations like The Silence and The Ood, Doctor Who really does shine. But it's Midnight that has haunted fans' dreams long after watching. The entity of the episode is never named, never known, and has not since been revealed. It takes over a passenger named Skye and makes her repeat anything she hears, before slowly talking at the same time and then eventually stealing the doctor's voice and using it to convince the others that he's possessed and must be killed. It is simple psychological horror done at its finest. But that still doesn't tell us what we're dealing with. Truthfully, we have no confirmed knowledge of what it looks like. But a popular fan theory is that the Midnight Entity is actually a TARDIS. That's right, just like the police box that Who is famous for. Except this entity would be one that has had its outer casing destroyed by the radiation of Planet Midnight and was attacking the doctor in an attempt to get someone capable of piloting it away from the surface of the planet it was stuck on. Now, of course, TARDISes are able to change their appearance at will, but their default state is actually a simple silver cylinder. So just imagine an oversized deodorant pulling the strings next time you're feeling a bit unnerved by midnight. Ah, that's better. Cosmic Creatures Bird Box Netflix's Bird Box tells the story of Mallory, a pregnant woman caught up in an apocalyptic event caused by hidden cosmic creatures, as she tries to survive violence and suicidal tendencies taking over anyone that accidentally peeps at the mysterious monster's true form. Of course, we never know what that is, knowing only that they appear as the individual's own worst fear and can be glimpsed in various Lovecraftian shapes drawn by an illustrative madman. But as you already know from the title of this list, that wasn't always what we were gonna get, folks. Director Suzanne Beer was pushed by a producer to film a scene that gave the creatures a tangible look, resulting in Sandra Bullock filming against a green man with a horrific baby face, which was revealed in its full glory in an Instagram post by the SFX artist. The idea was for Mallory's personal brand of scares to originate from her pregnancy, but the snake baby made Bullock laugh far more than it made her fear for her life. Taking the L, the producers let up and allowed Beer to craft her film, with its mysterious entities remaining a secret. Still, knowing what's actually haunting the characters on screen is a bit of a boner killer for the scares, to be honest, despite how well made it is. Extraterrestrials American Horror Story Appearing throughout season two of American Horror Story, the Extraterrestrials aren't given a name during their tenure as television antagonists. Now, to be fair, it's not even certain that they are antagonists. Instead, they're seeded as a quote-unquote metaphor for God, and used to enact mysterious happenings, as a subplot that we never really get a grip on the full extent of. Strange motives aside, however, these alien beings are experimental scientists that love taking babies out of people and sticking them back in, amongst a whole host of other unknowably weird pastimes that freak the inhabitants of Briarcliff Asylum out. They have to look at least a bit weird to match up with this otherworldly horror then, which we see in part with their distinctly genitalia-like faces. Whether that slit on their face is a mouth or a nose, we do not know. Nor do we want to, really. The rest of the alien form is left in the shadows though, with only silhouettes and light play revealing small parts of the whole. Until artist Gerard S. Marantz revealed the concept for the creatures on his blog, at least. The actual image of what these monstrous interplanetary fellows look like is far scarier than simple slots and tentacles, folks. With four arms and a body looking like it was crafted from pulled chewing gum. No wonder everyone was so on edge around these oddballs. You ain't unseeing them. Santa Claus, Rare Exports, A Christmas Tale Whilst Rare Exports might claim to feature good ol' Saint Nick as its central MacGuffin, that Santa Claus is not the jolly holidaymaker we're familiar with, people. Despite being the motivating force for the Sub-Zero Company to start up their dig in Lapland, Santa Claus is not seen throughout the movie. Instead relegated to a block of ice, with only his horns peeping out when we finally get a sight of him. Of course, this is actually Jolapukki, the original pagan figure taken and moulded into the legend of Santa Claus as we know him today, and known as the Yule Goat in Finland. So with all this in mind, and with his penchant for whipping and placement of naughty children in cauldrons that is discussed in the movie, our Rare Exports Santa bears many similarities to classic Krampus. If that's the case, it's a good job we don't have to look at his evil presence in the movie, lest he strike fear in the hearts of kids and adults like myself the world over. Krampus is most often said to have cloven hooves, large curving horns, fangs and a rolling tongue, as well as a hairy body. He carries chains or a whip to dish out punishment to naughty children, and carries them off to hell when he's not stuck in a giant ice cube. Basically he's a big ol' nasty goat with a Christmas coat on. Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons, often just known as Captain Scarlet in later years, was that puppet helm TV show your dad loves that came after Thunderbirds, using supermarionation to depict the big bad captain and his pals as they defend against Martian warfare. The titular Mysterons are the inhabitants of Mars, threatening to get their revenge for human attacks on their home planet, appearing throughout the series as a disembodied voice and occasionally an ominous light. Their true form was decided to be kept a secret, for reasons unknown. Perhaps they were better utilised as an invisible threat, perhaps there wasn't budget for big bad aliens from light years away, or perhaps they were just too damn terrifying to ever let audiences cast their eyes upon them, for fear of never being the same again. Or perhaps they were giant crystalline sugar cubes that bounced around like the testicle aliens from Futurama. Wait what? The Mysterons appeared in their full physical glory in a comic strip in the 60s, adapted from the television series into dodecahedrons of doom. Appearing as nothing more than sentient dice in the comic, it suddenly makes a whole lot of sense why we never saw them on TV. Mysterons, keep your mysteries. The Long-Clawed Alien The X-Files The X-Files, despite ostensibly being a show about aliens, very rarely actually featured any, y'know, aliens. Across its 218 episode long run, the Monster of the Week trope saw us tangling with boogeymen, poltergeists, were-thingies, reverse vampires, and all manner of beasties that go bump in both the night and overcast Washington afternoons. The overarching narrative about the apparently trivial alien conquest of Earth, though, was reserved for special occasions. In fact, even when we did get a visit from the show's little green men, or in this case, little grey men, we weren't exactly afraid of taking the spotlight, if anything, ruining the mystery that normally accompanies visitors from other worlds. But making even rarer appearances still were the colonists' ancillary guises slash cocoon forms. The Long-Clawed Alien Featuring prominently in only a solitary episode, The Beginning, which was the premiere of Season 6 and immediately followed the first movie, one of the creatures is barely visible as it hides out in a nuclear power plant, killing an employee named Homer, just for good boy-poppin' easter egg measure. We get a solitary silhouette, as seen here, and a few glimpses of its claws, but production shots from the movie reveal the beast in all of its grisly extraterrestrial horror. Piercing black eyes, thick reptilian skin, and a permanent facial expression of I'd like to see your space manager. That is some creepy stuff right there.