Count Orlok is based upon Bram Stoker’s Count Dracula. He first appeared in Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau’s “Nosferatu” which was released in 1922. Murnau couldn‘t get the legal rights to use Bram Stoker‘s version of the story so he had to change the names of the characters and storyline somewhat to avoid copyright infringement. Nevertheless, he produced one freaky and scary monster! It works really well in black and white, seeing Orlok appear slowly out of the darkness is scary! Take a look at the video....

Stay Puft is a mascot for the fictional Stay Puft Marshmallow Company, and the chosen “destructor” at the end of the first Ghostbusters movie after Ray Stantz had him “pop in there” (referring to his head). Stay Puft is unusual for a monster as his appearance at first glance is somewhat friendly and likeable. This is a somewhat deceptive disguise as his real agenda is not in humanities favour. His destruction at the end of the movie causes a flood of liquid marshmallow to flood the streets of Manhattan, including drenching Walter Peck, who Peter Venkman had referred to as “dickless” earlier on.

Godzilla is one of my personal favourite movie monsters ever. He has appeared on numerous occasions from the period 1954 to 2004, but i’m going to ignore the 1998 “re-make” as that was total crap! Godzilla has had a lot of fights over the years, most notably against King Kong, Mothra, and King Ghidorah. I kind of feel like the recent Cloverfield production is basically a modern day Godzilla movie, just without the credit given!

Norman Bates is another iconic monster from cinema history, and a deeply disturbed individual, whose upbringing severely effected his state of mind when older. The shower scene in the Psycho movie which he stars in is arguably one of the most famous scenes ever, as well as including one of the most recognisable pieces of music too. We all know the story so I don't think I need to go over it :-)

In 1953, “The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms” hit cinemas nationwide in the United States. The storyline is based around the nuclear testing that was going on at the time, and after a nuclear detonation in the Artic Circle code named “Operation Experiment” (very original) the beast, which is known as a Rhedosaurus, unfreezes after 100 million years of hibernation and begins to make its destructive journey down the North American Atlantic seaboard.

Mr Kong is one of the most iconic monsters in movie history, and has appeared in numerous forms and mediums over the years, with his first being in the groundbreaking 1933 movie release, where he climbs the Empire State Building at the end before his death. If you take a look at the video below it is pretty impressive considering it was made over 75 years ago!

Jaws is getting a little bit dated now, and there has always been a lot of criticism about how realistic the shark looked, but still it is an awesome monster. The original movie was by far the best though, the later “Jaws 3-D” and “Jaws: The Revenge” started to get tiresome, and without the help of Steven Speilberg or Peter Benchley it surely wasn’t going to be anything special. I think one of the most iconic things about this monster is the terrifying music that went with him before a brutal attack!

Although the monster out of the Cloverfield movie had no official name as such, Clover was the name assigned to it during production. This was definitely a movie that had to be seen at the cinema for the full affect, the atmosphere that went with it was amazing. I liked the whole approach to the way it was shot in the first person my an amateur. Great movie, great monster. This is what the Godzilla movie back in 1998 should have been like!

In real life, velociraptors were around the size of a modern day chicken when they were flourishing 71 - 75 million years ago during the cretaceous period. The actual dinosaur that is claimed to be a velociraptor in the Jurassic Park franchise was actually based on a species called the Deinoynchyus. Never-the-less, Universal’s “interpretation” of this dinosaur was pretty awesome, the 1993 debut was the first time dinosaurs were represented in a truly terrifying manner.

John Kramer, AKA The Jigsaw Killer, invokes truly horrific situations and challenges to his victims. This is not a case of the usual mindless brutal murderers or acts of vengeance or jealousy, this is a man on a mission to make his victims look at the world through new eyes. John Kramer’s victims normally wake up in a challenge which they have to complete successfully in order to survive. They are given a roughly 30 second clip by Kramer himself on the reasons why they are there and how to complete the task set for them.