It takes more than a brooding and blunt tagline to make a menacing movie monster – ask the master of body horror David Cronenberg, who delivered the scares promised by that unforgettable phrase (actually coined by producer Mel Brooks) with his intensely gooey study of spiced human/fly metamorphic consequences in his brilliant The Fly remake. It was a world away from the tediously bad B-movie fly head and claw terror tactics of the original.

But what of the creature creations which failed to hit the mark? Those unashamedly bad rubber suits that ruled the fore in the 50s, those ridiculous unscary and unreliable mechanical monsters that kept breaking down in the 70s and the even less tangible CGI cartoon creations that have been unleashed in recent times.

Let us present to you seven of the worst and least scariest cinematic creations (additional wetter suggestions are, as always, most welcome)…

7 - King Kong (1976)

Not Peter Jackson’s nostalgia-infused remake, but the decidedly dodgy 70s disaster, with Jessica Lange screeching the immortal line “Get your hands off me, you goddamn chauvinist pig ape!” Keeping Kong off-screen for over an hour is simply not good enough!

As far as we are concerned, he should never have made an appearance, cause when he does arrive he’s a bloody abomination.

And to add insult to injury, the man in the hairy suit is acclaimed make-up maestro Rick Baker (later to do an arguably better Oscar-nominated job on Tim Burton’s Planet of the Apes remake). The Japanese robotics originally intended for Kong can be glanced in a ‘blink or your miss it’ shot later on – failing that go on the ace Universal Studios tour of King Kong in Los Angles and see sadly what could have been the king of movie monsters.

6 – Jaws (1975)

We know this is one of the most truly terrifying films of all time, but lets admit it without the dun dun dun dun brilliance of John Williams‘ ground breaking and spine-chilling score old rubber Jaws would have been completely lost at sea.

Though we admit its presence scared the living shit out of us as a little nipper, its a little on the rubbery side now.

5 – Attack of the Crab Monsters (1957)

“From the depths of the sea… a tidal wave of terror!” Corny Roger Corman releases ludicrous, brain-eating crabs that resemble paper mache turds with claws.

Nothing scary about that… but then again.

4 – Godzilla (1998)

The king of catastrophe, Roland Emmerich, should have listened to Jamiroquai’s hit song and gone deeper underground with this completely intangible CGI threat.

When he is unleashed to the audience, he appears to more closely resemble a gargantuan computer-generated shit than an actual threat to mankind.

3 – Attack of the Killer Tomatoes (1978)

Believe it or not George Clooney cut his teeth on one of the sequels to this barmy series.

The bouncing ball vegetable (sorry they’re fruit, aren’t they) cretins are about as threatening as a school dinner and should have been squashed to ketchup upon conception.

2 - Creature from the Black Lagoon (1954)

This original 50s monster terror is a cherished gem in the movie canon, but nothing disguises the fact that the man in the rubber suit routine has dated the terror tactics somewhat.

1 – The Thing From Another World (1951)

A claustrophobic masterpiece, Howard Hawks’ original 50s The Thing wisely keeps its creature in the dark for the majority of the running time, building up the tension and suspense nicely.

Then he is revealed and unleashed to wreck terror in an isolated arctic laboratory, and the towering cauliflower-head looks more like a fanatical overgrown child who’s lost his toys than the bloodthirsty alien organism he’s hyped up to be.

At least John Carpenter was at hand to innovatively revive the interchangeable threat for the entire duration of his spooky metamorphic 80s rehash.

[story by Oliver Pfeiffer]