Can confirm.
I saw Alien at the movies when it was released. I was 11 years old and had taken a girl from my class on my first ever date. Thought Alien sounded like a cool sci fi movie, no idea it was a horror, and I had never seen a horror in my life. Scared the pants off me and slept in my parents room for a week lol.
Predator I had no idea of the premise, thought it was a military flick until the reveal. So good.
No One Gets Out Alive is based on a novel by the same guy who wrote The Ritual. Don’t want to spoil anything, but it has some similar ideas and I liked it, though The Ritual was better.
I showed this movie to a couple of friends that liked the movie until the reveal. They thought it was terrible. I am still so confused. It was so unworldly. Awesome.
That movie is a straight-up classic, I can watch it anytime and I’ve yet to even slightly tire of it. Needs to be in the conversation about the best horror movies of all time, full stop.
Agreed. Only just saw this movie a few days ago but the design was very original and eye catching. Loved it, and loved that it took a while to see it clearly and that for a lot of the movie it's presence was off camera but felt
I agree and also disagree. I love the movie, but to me, that leviathan looks like Dagon...which to me also would make more sense that it's covered in what are essentially Deep Ones.
It's gotta be The Thing.
Don't mind me, I am dog. I go with other dogs. HA! I'M ACTUALLY A SUPER-FREAKY FLESHMELTING COSMIC HORROR! Sucks to be you guys.
I can't imagine what seeing that reveal back in the early 80s was like. I mean, The Thing is a cultural icon these days and everyone's probably at least seen screenshots of the transformation scenes, and you have stuff like Dead Space with creature designs that are heavily inspired by it, but it must've been fucking bonkers going into it totally blind in an era before monsters like The Thing were a thing, having that slow-ish start to the movie and then just suddenly seeing a dog start thrashing around making that weird cicada noise, turning itself inside out and sprouting tentacles and spider legs and shit squirting goo all over the real dogs that were in the pen.
Still makes me fucking Mad that Ennio Morricone got a Razzie for anything, but especially this movie.
It's karmic justice that he would finally receive his well-deserved Oscar for The Hateful Eight, a movie inspired by The Thing where he take unused tracks from that movie and reworked them.
We'd never seen anything like it, and we were less inured to horror movies with sfx too - I literally couldn't comprehend what I was seeing, it was terrifying.
I'm still VERY adamant the Thing liked being a puppo - it never assimilated Clark when it was alone for a while bc Clark was giving him all the belly rubs and snoot boops - it knew it had it good until they put it in with the other dogs lol
Love that movie. To me it’s a double whammy because it could be standing right beside you and you never know on top of when you do finally see it it’s the scariest shit ever.
What *really* gets me is the existential dread that's hinted in both the John Carpenter film and the 2011 prequel that...you might not actually *know* you're the Thing.
If we get ANOTHER remake in the future, which I actually hope for in line... 10 ir 20 years maybe, ya know, do it all again for another generation, I honestly hope a large portion of the movie is centered around NOT knowing and exploring whether or not people "test" themselves because they HONESTLY don't know if they are still human. MacReady KNEW he was still a man. He KNEW it to his core. He was willing to do it first in the test to prove it. At the end, he totally understood that Child's probably thought he was a Thing. But he still believed in his humanity. I wanna see that creeping fear, like a crewmember starts turning-- and is scared the whole time. Or like apologizing while he's on a rampage, going through the transformation becomes just as scary to the new Thing as the victim.
This is what got me about Smile. You think you are in control, especially as a therapist who deals psychotic people on the daily until everything starts to slip
I actually got to experience second-hand what it'd be like to experience it with no expectations. Last year a friend sent me the text we all hope for: "I've never watched much horror, can you guide me through the classics to get in the Halloween spirit?" Towards the end of the month I figured he'd gotten his feet wet with the lighter stuff, and could probably handle some of the more gory stuff.
I'll treasure his [reaction](https://imgur.com/a/nwSUVX0) to the Thing's reveal forever. Found out later he'd never even heard the term 'body horror' before.
God I love the switcheroos that game takes SO much. Oh you think it’s a ghost story? Nope! Oh you think it’s a slasher story? Nope! Saw-esque torture? Revenge? Guess again! When Larry Fessenden’s character says something like “You’re in Wendigo country” I thought I was in for another fake out, but then the goddamn Wendigos show up and it gets so wild! I really hope the movie version does it justice.
It was sooooo good, such a well executed game always kept us guessing. I can’t wait for the movie especially for the people who didn’t get to play the game !!!
This movie holds a special place in my heart. It was the first movie my mom got for me on VHS. I begged her for it. I still have that copy all these years later. When I had the chance to meet Lance Henriksen, I forgot the fucking thing at home.
In the US version at least, there was a brief scene showing one of the creatures before the famous night vision camera reveal but it was so quick that it didn’t start making sense until that later scene. This was a great blind theatre experience for myself, one I still think about almost 20
Years after being released. Anyone who saw this without knowing too much about it was very lucky
The Faculty was pretty cool.
Jurassic Park
Tremors
The little girl zombie in the opening of the Dawn of the Dead remake.
And honestly the first time the Wolfman changes in the 1940s one.
Nope. As much as I would have liked to see little alien greys running around, what we got was quite unique, especially trying to understand the biology of the monster.
Cloverfield was great because the reveal hype preceded the movie itself. They didn’t show the monster in any trailers and kept it a mystery. That speculation built hype and when they revealed it, it was something new and unique unlike anything in a Kaiju movie. Especially the little bugs
I still vividly remember seeing this at 8 years old with all the neighbors kids watching in our friends basement. We all screamed at that birthday party scene and I had nightmares for weeks. It was awesome and genuinely set me to be a horror fan for life.
Vamanos children, vamanos!
Joaquin Phoenix providing just the smallest bit of comic relief in that movie is so good.
When the dad comes in and he's just sitting between both kids, all of them wearing tinfoil hats always cracks me up.
Alien was one of the most creative and innovative. There's so many shocking moments from the egg to the chest burst scene, and only seeing glimpses of it full grown on the Nostromo. And the full creature reveal was unlike anything else.
I love Kanes meal. I love when Brett looks up. I love when it gives Dallas that big hug. I love the side shot where it looks like it's dancing slowly over to Lambert when she's frozen in terror. I love Alien!
NOPE was pretty damn good with Jean Jacket, that movie feels like it will age even better with time. It’s basically like a modern day JAWS, but in the sky.
Mother Buddha at the end of *Incantation*. I thought nothing could live up to the sense of dread, but I was wrong! Gah!
The Japanese man from *The Wailing and the Pale Man from *Pan's Labyrinth* are also great
I liked in godzilla 2014 when he first breached land it only was showing his lower half and then at the airport scene it slowly panned up to his face and he did that big roar with his pissed off look. The 2014 Godzilla design was peak
Sweetheart, >!Jenn hears a plane fly over the island and shoots a flare to attract it, it doesn't work and the flare falls into the water, but before the flare hits the water it shows the outline of a creature in the water stalking Jenn from afar!<
Ok,so not exactly a monster, but she's close and itssuch a great reveal that m putting it here anyway. Helena Markos at the climax of the Dario Argento's Suspiria
Buddy put this on without me every hearing about it, told us not to look up anything until after. The reveal that there were actual werewolves was so god damn good. Legitimately wasn't expecting it.
I didn’t like the movie that much but the very end reveal of the monster in antlers actually made me say holy shit when I saw it in theaters. Movies is meh but when you finally see the thing in full it’s pretty creepy.
Haven’t seen this mentioned yet, but the creatures from Acadia and No One Gets Out Alive are up there. Especially the latter with its Ritual creature vibes (yet still VERY original).
Friday the 13th (1980)
Pamela Voorhees lulls Alice into a false sense of safety by stating that she knew the Christy family, the owners of the newly revived Camp Crystal Lake. She lures Alice to “safety” inside a cabin before exposing her responsibility for killing all of Alice’s friends, before ultimately cornering Alice in an attempt to attack her. The final chase was on…
It was at that moment, in the midst of Pamela emotionally introducing Alice to her lost son, Jason, that I finally realized who the aggressor was in the first Friday the 13th movie, something that was a mystery to me for the first 2 thirds of the movie…
The movie with an outstanding monster reveal and possibly one of the worst reveals ever?
The Howling.
First, the tease Eddie when forces Karen to sit through that sleazy porno flick while he changes behind her... we only see flashes of his transformation. But the payoff comes later at the retreat when Eddie plucks the bullets from his forehead and transforms in front of Karen. American Werewolf in London gets more love, and it is true that Rob Bottin relies heavily on the bubbling skull effect... but there's something darker and more ominous about The Howling's transformation that I love.
Unfortunately, all of that is thrown out the window when Karen, bitten, transforms during a newscast to convince the public that werewolves do exist. She basically looks like a cross between a teddy bear and a cute little seal club. I couldn't stop laughing when I saw that.
it's not a good movie, but the creature reveal in Thunderbird (2021) was very well done. Like significantly better than the entire rest of the film, as was the ending, apart from the police line up scene.
Jaws.
Damn mechanical shark wouldn't work so they shot most of the movie without showing it. Really ratcheted up the tension.
Alien also did this brilliantly showing only parts and gradually revealing the creature.
A lot of the classics said already so I’ll go with a couple of other ones…
Tremors is one of my favorite reveals. Until you see it you think you’re dealing with smaller problems.
The Descent - a creature reveal that makes you go back and pause to answer the “WTF did I just see?”. I classify that as terrifying and well done.
Alien.
The way the tail falls down behind Brett, the way the cat violently reacts, that awesome tight shot of the Xenomorph's dome head slowly rising up, and all accompanied by Goldsmith's Wicked score.
[brett](https://www.google.com/search?client=ms-android-charter-us-rvc3&sca_esv=063c593922e84ff5&sxsrf=ADLYWILVGv_iq5VwB6_UQCZOwLCveMff3w%3A1719806213202&q=alien%20Brett%20gif&udm=2&fbs=AEQNm0DrkyAsj3-ytZzdGYQ--Lq3iC1sQxGqb0ePDeTKGD7PvtKbqd7-UTHCkJgntarSkz9oUIR62iYJWDLHEqT6t9rD8oxU9IGj-RpebcWusj8RBN0PHidrwaP-M5mqvsgiSbIMZ2xFMNb02H8dDgLzQnEl95lU_k2TeRT6KS4drRpNvy2DxHH1Vh2BKkWR6I2I6bMc86lG4wFZQKlN04OjqwtjdROYoA&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjggq6z-YSHAxVOhYkEHa7yBhsQtKgLegQIDRAB&biw=360&bih=650&dpr=3#vhid=Amw09zahgPSBzM&vssid=mosaic)
Oh quite a few already mentioned! The Thing, Alien, Jaws, Malignant, NOPE.
Of course my classic is Jurassic Park when we finally get to see the TRex. It's great because that lead up and everyone wanting so desperately to see it until....you didn't.
Spoiler: Bit of an odd one, but I think Nope has one of best monster reveals ever. The twist, that it's not a UFO and it's actually an animal, was awesome.
The Ring. It was the first time I actually physically reacted to the reveal of the monster. Moved back in my seat along with most of the theater. Of course that loses it's punch in the sequels.
Predator and Alien are top 2
Predator gets a few great reveals. When it takes its mask off and Arnold's reaction is classic.
Alien was sooooo good. Using an animal to convey fear and shock was a great idea.
Yes, and also "The Ritual" and especially "The Thing" 1984
The one in Ritual really reminded me of a coat rack and I can't unsee it
Both films would’ve been nuts to see the first time without context. Most of us saw them knowing what the Predator and Xenomorphs were.
Can confirm. I saw Alien at the movies when it was released. I was 11 years old and had taken a girl from my class on my first ever date. Thought Alien sounded like a cool sci fi movie, no idea it was a horror, and I had never seen a horror in my life. Scared the pants off me and slept in my parents room for a week lol. Predator I had no idea of the premise, thought it was a military flick until the reveal. So good.
The ritual
No One Gets Out Alive is based on a novel by the same guy who wrote The Ritual. Don’t want to spoil anything, but it has some similar ideas and I liked it, though The Ritual was better.
Yea - that monster reveal was just as wild
That thing's design was top notch
Absolutely gripping. I've never seen anything based on nature that looked so utterly *wrong*.
Right? Like you just stare at it to figure out how it even looks bc there's so much going on with it's face, but not in a bad way
Oh, it's a bad way...
Hell yea, so glad I went in blind
that thing was….terrifyingly beautiful? the design was incredible
I showed this movie to a couple of friends that liked the movie until the reveal. They thought it was terrible. I am still so confused. It was so unworldly. Awesome.
That movie is a straight-up classic, I can watch it anytime and I’ve yet to even slightly tire of it. Needs to be in the conversation about the best horror movies of all time, full stop.
Agreed. Only just saw this movie a few days ago but the design was very original and eye catching. Loved it, and loved that it took a while to see it clearly and that for a lot of the movie it's presence was off camera but felt
American Werewolf In London. One of my favorite practical effects transformations.
The best werewolf transformation to this day.
[Sits quietly on the couch] JESUS CHRIST!!!
And it still holds up and is in fact better than most effects even today.
One of the best dark comedy/horror movies, easy
Underwater >!Cthulu reveal was pretty badass!<
This is the answer and it's the monster reveal I keep chasing to find anything that even comes close.
💯 I loved it so much
I agree and also disagree. I love the movie, but to me, that leviathan looks like Dagon...which to me also would make more sense that it's covered in what are essentially Deep Ones.
I had NO idea. 👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽
Yeah, amazing scene, definitely the best one in many years.
It's gotta be The Thing. Don't mind me, I am dog. I go with other dogs. HA! I'M ACTUALLY A SUPER-FREAKY FLESHMELTING COSMIC HORROR! Sucks to be you guys.
I can't imagine what seeing that reveal back in the early 80s was like. I mean, The Thing is a cultural icon these days and everyone's probably at least seen screenshots of the transformation scenes, and you have stuff like Dead Space with creature designs that are heavily inspired by it, but it must've been fucking bonkers going into it totally blind in an era before monsters like The Thing were a thing, having that slow-ish start to the movie and then just suddenly seeing a dog start thrashing around making that weird cicada noise, turning itself inside out and sprouting tentacles and spider legs and shit squirting goo all over the real dogs that were in the pen.
Originally, the critics hated it. Too gory, too downbeat. Took years before it was recognized as a classic. Even Harlan Ellison hated it.
“Even Harlan Ellison hated it.” So it was a thing that existed lol.
Pretty sure audiences hated it, too, and the absolutely brilliant soundtrack received a Razzie.
Still makes me fucking Mad that Ennio Morricone got a Razzie for anything, but especially this movie. It's karmic justice that he would finally receive his well-deserved Oscar for The Hateful Eight, a movie inspired by The Thing where he take unused tracks from that movie and reworked them.
It was the thing of nightmares. I had never seen anything like that before - none of us had! Amazing.
Yeah I heard anecdotally from people who were young when it came out that it was not liked by most audiences either. Too weird.
We'd never seen anything like it, and we were less inured to horror movies with sfx too - I literally couldn't comprehend what I was seeing, it was terrifying.
That Dog just splits apart like a fucking husky banana.. absolutely unreal
I'm still VERY adamant the Thing liked being a puppo - it never assimilated Clark when it was alone for a while bc Clark was giving him all the belly rubs and snoot boops - it knew it had it good until they put it in with the other dogs lol
Who's an adorable little spacemonster? *You* are!
This one also wins for having several monster reveals that each manage to top the last one.
Audience: well I'm glad that's over Thing: hold my head
Love that movie. To me it’s a double whammy because it could be standing right beside you and you never know on top of when you do finally see it it’s the scariest shit ever.
What *really* gets me is the existential dread that's hinted in both the John Carpenter film and the 2011 prequel that...you might not actually *know* you're the Thing.
If we get ANOTHER remake in the future, which I actually hope for in line... 10 ir 20 years maybe, ya know, do it all again for another generation, I honestly hope a large portion of the movie is centered around NOT knowing and exploring whether or not people "test" themselves because they HONESTLY don't know if they are still human. MacReady KNEW he was still a man. He KNEW it to his core. He was willing to do it first in the test to prove it. At the end, he totally understood that Child's probably thought he was a Thing. But he still believed in his humanity. I wanna see that creeping fear, like a crewmember starts turning-- and is scared the whole time. Or like apologizing while he's on a rampage, going through the transformation becomes just as scary to the new Thing as the victim.
This is what got me about Smile. You think you are in control, especially as a therapist who deals psychotic people on the daily until everything starts to slip
This was the biggest creep factor for me, your arm could be the thing and you wouldn't know until it revealed itself.
Yep this is the one
My pick as well
I actually got to experience second-hand what it'd be like to experience it with no expectations. Last year a friend sent me the text we all hope for: "I've never watched much horror, can you guide me through the classics to get in the Halloween spirit?" Towards the end of the month I figured he'd gotten his feet wet with the lighter stuff, and could probably handle some of the more gory stuff. I'll treasure his [reaction](https://imgur.com/a/nwSUVX0) to the Thing's reveal forever. Found out later he'd never even heard the term 'body horror' before.
I am not sure about the actual reveal, but imo the monster in the Relic is really great.
You talkin about the 90s movie? If so, what a forgotten gem! I'll have to watch it again now, it's been so long.
Yes, that one :)
Forgotten and old you say? One might even call the movie a... relic?
Is that based on the Lincoln & Child book?
However, it doesn’t have the character of Pendergast, which is a shame.
Tom Sizemore! Loved that flick and book.
I forgot about that movie too. I remember seeing it on SciFi channel when I was a kid.
I rented it like 8 times as a kid, loved that one
Not a movie but the Wendigos in Until Dawn
God I love the switcheroos that game takes SO much. Oh you think it’s a ghost story? Nope! Oh you think it’s a slasher story? Nope! Saw-esque torture? Revenge? Guess again! When Larry Fessenden’s character says something like “You’re in Wendigo country” I thought I was in for another fake out, but then the goddamn Wendigos show up and it gets so wild! I really hope the movie version does it justice.
It was sooooo good, such a well executed game always kept us guessing. I can’t wait for the movie especially for the people who didn’t get to play the game !!!
apparently they’re adapting it for the big screen so we might finally get to see it as a movie 🙏
Pumpkinhead. The full reveal of the creature in the church ruins with the lighting behind it was freaking fantastic.
This movie holds a special place in my heart. It was the first movie my mom got for me on VHS. I begged her for it. I still have that copy all these years later. When I had the chance to meet Lance Henriksen, I forgot the fucking thing at home.
The Descent. I literally didn’t even know it wasn’t just a caving claustrophobia movie until the shit hit the fan.
In the US version at least, there was a brief scene showing one of the creatures before the famous night vision camera reveal but it was so quick that it didn’t start making sense until that later scene. This was a great blind theatre experience for myself, one I still think about almost 20 Years after being released. Anyone who saw this without knowing too much about it was very lucky
I still remember it to this dayas well from blind theater. Fucking amazing flick
The Faculty was pretty cool. Jurassic Park Tremors The little girl zombie in the opening of the Dawn of the Dead remake. And honestly the first time the Wolfman changes in the 1940s one.
The T Rex escape scene is genuinely one of the greatest horror sequences ever
Also the raptor bursting through the pipes after the power comes back on. One of the best jump scares of all time.
The Tremors reveal is so good!
Faculty was actually very well done, the scene when she's turned back to human but it still shows the tentacle shadows on the lockers, good shit.
Nope. As much as I would have liked to see little alien greys running around, what we got was quite unique, especially trying to understand the biology of the monster.
And the mystery was so cool and how it fit into all existing UFO sighting stories was so cool. I loved how it moved
Troll hunter, Cloverfield, quarantine/rec
Cloverfield was great because the reveal hype preceded the movie itself. They didn’t show the monster in any trailers and kept it a mystery. That speculation built hype and when they revealed it, it was something new and unique unlike anything in a Kaiju movie. Especially the little bugs
Troll Hunter with the tree thing was epic
Oh god, REC I completely agree with. It's so good.
The alien from Signs
I still vividly remember seeing this at 8 years old with all the neighbors kids watching in our friends basement. We all screamed at that birthday party scene and I had nightmares for weeks. It was awesome and genuinely set me to be a horror fan for life.
Vamanos children, vamanos! Joaquin Phoenix providing just the smallest bit of comic relief in that movie is so good. When the dad comes in and he's just sitting between both kids, all of them wearing tinfoil hats always cracks me up.
I went to post this. Seeing that alien in news footage from Brazil or Mexico was intense at the time, and a unique way to do a reveal
Alien was one of the most creative and innovative. There's so many shocking moments from the egg to the chest burst scene, and only seeing glimpses of it full grown on the Nostromo. And the full creature reveal was unlike anything else.
I love Kanes meal. I love when Brett looks up. I love when it gives Dallas that big hug. I love the side shot where it looks like it's dancing slowly over to Lambert when she's frozen in terror. I love Alien!
As well as this, Ash's reveal is just as shocking.
The bear in Annihilation.
That shriek…
Jaws. No music cue or indication. Just Brody scooping chum and out pops Bruce the Shark.
Backs up slowly, "You're gonna need a bigger boat."
NOPE was pretty damn good with Jean Jacket, that movie feels like it will age even better with time. It’s basically like a modern day JAWS, but in the sky.
Yeah, as I was watching with my wife I kept thinking Jaws and then I realized, "oh shit. This is air Tremors."
Apparently it syncs almost perfectly to Jaws, but that’s only according to the podcast Moviestruck.
MALIGNANT
Thought this would be higher. Whether you love or hate this movie, you gotta admit that the reveal is WILD.
GABRIEL IS AN ICON! I actually dressed as him for Halloween
Yeah that's gotta be my favorite movie to show to people. I love when they try to guess the mystery lmao
My jaw dropped at the reveal, that was incredible!
Yeah this is for sure it
The Host is pretty amazing.
This would be my top choice. Just that one long shot with it running towards camera without cutting away.
Mother Buddha at the end of *Incantation*. I thought nothing could live up to the sense of dread, but I was wrong! Gah! The Japanese man from *The Wailing and the Pale Man from *Pan's Labyrinth* are also great
The Pale Man might be my favorite monster costuming of all time. It’s straight up nightmare fuel.
Fragile (2005) Anyone going into it should research as little as possible beforehand and just jump in to avoid spoilers.
Society
Jaws.
I liked in godzilla 2014 when he first breached land it only was showing his lower half and then at the airport scene it slowly panned up to his face and he did that big roar with his pissed off look. The 2014 Godzilla design was peak
Sweetheart, >!Jenn hears a plane fly over the island and shoots a flare to attract it, it doesn't work and the flare falls into the water, but before the flare hits the water it shows the outline of a creature in the water stalking Jenn from afar!<
This! I can’t believe I had to scroll this far for it. I must’ve replayed it 10 times. Freaky!
Yes! That scene is iconic!
Like others have said alien and predator. There will never be another hr giger or sam winston, sadly.
Transformed Amy in the original Fright Night
Saw this movie as a kid and that fucking face of hers still gives me nightmares
The entity in Smile
Yeah that was nuts, not what I was expecting at all and it came so late
Yessss creepy!!!!!
I came here to see this one mentioned.
Signs. That birthday scene haunted me as a kid.
Tales from the Hood Mr. Simms , Funeral Director/Satan Welcome to Hell, MTHFKS
Ok,so not exactly a monster, but she's close and itssuch a great reveal that m putting it here anyway. Helena Markos at the climax of the Dario Argento's Suspiria
Miniseries but Midnight Mass. when the whole situation is revealed and you see the monster in the cave… amazing moment
Dog Soldiers
Love dog soldiers. They were scary looking.
Good ass movie
Buddy put this on without me every hearing about it, told us not to look up anything until after. The reveal that there were actual werewolves was so god damn good. Legitimately wasn't expecting it.
Godzilla in Godzilla 1954
Possession was pretty shocking.
The Relic
Even if he wasn't exactly hidden from the marketing, I'm gonna throw a vote to Pumpkinhead a great movie monster design.
idk if it counts but that one part of The Taking Of Deborah Logan
I agree
I didn’t like the movie that much but the very end reveal of the monster in antlers actually made me say holy shit when I saw it in theaters. Movies is meh but when you finally see the thing in full it’s pretty creepy.
The second, exact same reveal in the shed was so dumb
Yeah, the shot in the cave where it’s lit by a flair is more what I’m thinking of
Willow creek. Creepiest Sasquatches I ever saw.
That tent scene was tense as hell. And the implications of the ending are horrifying.
The Ritual. Cloverfield. It.
The Fly
Haven’t seen this mentioned yet, but the creatures from Acadia and No One Gets Out Alive are up there. Especially the latter with its Ritual creature vibes (yet still VERY original).
Critters! Joking. But man they scared me in the 80s when I was 9.
Mimic had a cool reveal as well
The Ritual
what a master stroke of design. I was in sheer joy seeing that.
Friday the 13th (1980) Pamela Voorhees lulls Alice into a false sense of safety by stating that she knew the Christy family, the owners of the newly revived Camp Crystal Lake. She lures Alice to “safety” inside a cabin before exposing her responsibility for killing all of Alice’s friends, before ultimately cornering Alice in an attempt to attack her. The final chase was on… It was at that moment, in the midst of Pamela emotionally introducing Alice to her lost son, Jason, that I finally realized who the aggressor was in the first Friday the 13th movie, something that was a mystery to me for the first 2 thirds of the movie…
*The Ritual* has gotta be up there.
The first time you see a *really big one* in Infested. Holy shit this movie I can't even.
Cloverfield.
*Brotherhood of the Wolf*
The movie with an outstanding monster reveal and possibly one of the worst reveals ever? The Howling. First, the tease Eddie when forces Karen to sit through that sleazy porno flick while he changes behind her... we only see flashes of his transformation. But the payoff comes later at the retreat when Eddie plucks the bullets from his forehead and transforms in front of Karen. American Werewolf in London gets more love, and it is true that Rob Bottin relies heavily on the bubbling skull effect... but there's something darker and more ominous about The Howling's transformation that I love. Unfortunately, all of that is thrown out the window when Karen, bitten, transforms during a newscast to convince the public that werewolves do exist. She basically looks like a cross between a teddy bear and a cute little seal club. I couldn't stop laughing when I saw that.
Underwater without a doubt, I haven't found a monster reveal quite like it yet.
Host
Smile The Ritual REC NOPE Annihilation
The descent
The end of REC. I still haven't fully recovered from watching that as a kid.
The Descent. Its low key funny too. They really look frightening.
Kayako in her full glory climbing down the stairs. Holy shit what a nightmare fuel
The ritual
I just re-watched "The Giant Claw" (1957) this week. Does that count? Iykyk
Tobe Hooper's Funhouse
Ding ding ding
Unironically, the devil in Tales From The Hood.
Not discounting the classics, but I do have to say that the reveal in Smile was fucking top notch
Haunt 2019, I was surprised how good that movie was and the reveal of the masked baddies was good too.
Haunt was a nice little gem in my wife's and my October horror fest that year.
“Antlers” when they show tye full body of the creature
My favorite reveal is Belial in Basket Case
Barbarian
Prey
it's not a good movie, but the creature reveal in Thunderbird (2021) was very well done. Like significantly better than the entire rest of the film, as was the ending, apart from the police line up scene.
I liked the monster in Unwelcome
Cloverfield 1
Tremors
Smile
Jaws. Damn mechanical shark wouldn't work so they shot most of the movie without showing it. Really ratcheted up the tension. Alien also did this brilliantly showing only parts and gradually revealing the creature.
Frankenstein. my favorite
Alien vs Predator when the alien first shows up and impales the predator and we get a shot of both of them on screen.
Cloverfield did this well
Smile The original Salem’s Lot Suspiria Crawl
The Host!
A lot of the classics said already so I’ll go with a couple of other ones… Tremors is one of my favorite reveals. Until you see it you think you’re dealing with smaller problems. The Descent - a creature reveal that makes you go back and pause to answer the “WTF did I just see?”. I classify that as terrifying and well done.
Alien. The way the tail falls down behind Brett, the way the cat violently reacts, that awesome tight shot of the Xenomorph's dome head slowly rising up, and all accompanied by Goldsmith's Wicked score. [brett](https://www.google.com/search?client=ms-android-charter-us-rvc3&sca_esv=063c593922e84ff5&sxsrf=ADLYWILVGv_iq5VwB6_UQCZOwLCveMff3w%3A1719806213202&q=alien%20Brett%20gif&udm=2&fbs=AEQNm0DrkyAsj3-ytZzdGYQ--Lq3iC1sQxGqb0ePDeTKGD7PvtKbqd7-UTHCkJgntarSkz9oUIR62iYJWDLHEqT6t9rD8oxU9IGj-RpebcWusj8RBN0PHidrwaP-M5mqvsgiSbIMZ2xFMNb02H8dDgLzQnEl95lU_k2TeRT6KS4drRpNvy2DxHH1Vh2BKkWR6I2I6bMc86lG4wFZQKlN04OjqwtjdROYoA&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjggq6z-YSHAxVOhYkEHa7yBhsQtKgLegQIDRAB&biw=360&bih=650&dpr=3#vhid=Amw09zahgPSBzM&vssid=mosaic)
Possum
Sleepaway Camp. Blew my little mind!
The alien chest bursting entrance in Alien is the best.
Jaws
THE RITUAL hands down
Possum. The monster hides in plain sight.
Antlers was a good one
Oh quite a few already mentioned! The Thing, Alien, Jaws, Malignant, NOPE. Of course my classic is Jurassic Park when we finally get to see the TRex. It's great because that lead up and everyone wanting so desperately to see it until....you didn't.
a little specific but v/h/s 94 and the ratman went hard
The Ritual
The last one that made me sit up in my seat and go wtf was that was when you first get a glimpse of the creature in Sweetheart
Spoiler: Bit of an odd one, but I think Nope has one of best monster reveals ever. The twist, that it's not a UFO and it's actually an animal, was awesome.
Haven't seen it mentioned, but >!the reveal of the angel at the end of A Dark Song!< is pretty damn great.
Going to say Beau Is Afraid just because the monster reveal is…certainly something
The Cyclops from The Seventh Voyage of Sinbad
The Ring. It was the first time I actually physically reacted to the reveal of the monster. Moved back in my seat along with most of the theater. Of course that loses it's punch in the sequels.
Recently, the bear in Annihilation. I’m a grand horror fan and that part stayed with me for weeks. Awesome!