Across her diverse filmography, Blake Lively has hung toughagainst the menaces of gun-toting criminals (The Town,Hick,Savages), mean richteens (Gossip Girl), aging (The Age of Adaline), moving away from your friends (theSisterhood of the Traveling Pantsfilms), and being in Green Lantern (Green Lantern). Yet her latest project the waterysurvival flick The Shallows will pit the actress against her deadliest foe yet. After a surfing incident strands the starlet on a solitary outcropping of rock, a hungry shark encircles her as the tide rises. Teen soapopera alumna vs. the oceans most lethal predator the eternal battle continues to rage.
But while the shark remains cinemas most iconic natural killer, the rest of the wild and woolly animal kingdom has enjoyed their respective moments in the bloodstained spotlight. And as in nature, the animal kingdom follows an immutable pecking order in the cinema. Weve laid out a highly scientific taxonomy of murderous animals, from frog to fowl.
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Bears
Spotted in: The Revenant, The Edge, Grizzly
Most gruesome attack: A defensive mama Grizzly mauls trapper Hugh Glass (Leonardo DiCaprio) to within an inch of his life inThe Revenant and while rumors of ursine rape turned out to be greatly exaggerated, director Alejando Gonzalez Iarritu holds nothing back in the total brutalization of his movies fur-trapper hero. Then just when Glass and the audience think the entire ordeal has finally ended, the bear clomps back for seconds and tears his back muscles to ribbons. (To think, there wasnt even a pic-a-nic basket involved.)
Danger Factor: Because Movie Law dictates that all chase scenes set in forests must include at least one character tripping over a tree root, the odds do not look good for anyone going hand-to-paw against natures war tank.
Overall rating: 6
Sharks
Spotted in:The Shallows, Open Water, Jaws,the five dozenripoffs that mimickedJaws formula
Most gruesome attack:Jawsis to animal-attack cinema what Stairway to Heaven is to rock & roll, and the scene that finally reveals the chomping, animatronic head of the villainous fish is its celestial guitar solo. The buggy pneumatic shark robbed the production of time and money with its malfunctions (some crew members jokingly referred to the shoot asFlaws), but the total absence of life in the propseyes actually works in the blockbusters favor. Its devoid of all feeling a literal machine with an unthinking brain set permanently to EAT.
Danger Factor: As amply shown inFinding Nemo, once a shark gets even the slightest whiff of Type O in the water, they become a jonesing addict. Their bloodlust has made them avatars of death in the semiotic dictionary of cinema, whether as the lackeys of Bond villains or debris spewed from a Z-grade tornado. It doesnt matter that America sees a grand total of one shark-related fatality every two years. Ever since Steven Spielberg invented the modern blockbuster, weve been afraidto go back in the water.
Overall rating: 9
Snakes
Spotted in:Anaconda, Snakes on a Plane, Raiders of the Lost Ark, Slither
Most gruesome attack:Its not particularly graphic, but no serpent scene is as memorable as Raiders of the Lost Arks run-in. Whyd it have to be snakes, he asks? Well, because pop culture has always cast these slithering reptiles as untrustworthy, malicious types, starting with the slippery trickster that conned Eve into throwing awayher perfect setup back in Eden.Indiana Jonesworked withbig, immediate iconography, and no critter sends viewers back to their childhood like a tightly-coiled snake.
Danger Factor: Herpetologists have driven themselves to the brink of insanity withtheir endless refrainthat #NotAllSnakes are venomous, but the movies have no use for the garden-variety garden snakes. The unpredictability in their erratic slither and creepy lithe bodies was enough todrive Sam Jackson to the end of his rope during a red-eye.
Overall rating: 8
Spiders
Spotted in:Eight-Legged Freaks, Kingdom of the Spiders, Tarantula,Arachnophobia
Most gruesome attack: Lucio Fulcis cult horror masterworkThe Beyondthrew a heaping helping of arachnids into its gore-buffet during one scene that joins a librarian just before he topples off a ladder and passes out on the floor. Naturally, a plague of tarantulas materialize in the room and slowly eat the fleshfrom the poor guys bones, with Day-Glo corn syrup spurting by the bucket. Its not about the blood, though its the discomfiting sensation of many tiny legs crawling on your bare arm that stays with you.
Danger Factor: This ones tricky: some spider-movies accept the tiny monsters as they are; others consider superpowered behemoth spiders to pose a greater threat. Regular spiders rank as a five, lethalen masse but individually nothing a rolled-up copy ofRolling Stonecant handle. Megaspiders would be a seven, however, capable of doing plenty of harm but lacking the usual creepy-crawly stealth.
Overall Rating: 6
Bugs
Spotted in:The Swarm, Them!, The Fly
Most gruesome attack:The scene most accurately capturing the extreme displeasure ofinfestation would have to be the infamous Creepshow segement Theyre Creeping Up on You, in which E.G. Marshalls pest-phobic citydweller must confront a horde of roaches in his luxury apartment. In the end, the little bastards overwhelm him, giving him a fatal heart attack. The sequence then ends with we cant even write it. Lets just say he makes a great host.
Danger Factor: Creature features send in the bugs by the swarmload, positingthe inescapability of a furious flying cloud as a self-evident terror. But a well-placed bite from a single agent can be just as chilling for its nonchalance, so pick your poison.
Overall Rating: 5
Cats
Spotted in:Pet Sematary, Roar, Life of Pi
Most gruesome attack:The cult itemRoarcontains somany astonishing instances of bona fide feline violence that choosing any one over the other would be a disservice. In 1981, spouses Tippi Hedren and Noel Marshall packed up the rest of the family (including daughter Melanie Griffith) to shoot a family-friendly flick about the importance of wildlife conservation, using their lives on a lion preservation as a basis for the story. Over the 11-year production process, a lion nearly scalped Hedren, another gave Griffith 50 stitches to the face, and Marshall took so many wounds that he eventually developed gangrene.Over 70 members of the cast and crew sustained injuries from their feline costars, most of which remain in the unbelievable final cut. That this film exists at all qualifies as a minor miracle.
Danger Factor: Congratulations, Disney, your cutesy pro-lion propaganda worked. Even when movies frame apex predators as the primary antagonist of a story, the hero canalways access a tender humanity deep inside by tenderly placing a hand on a panthers giant face or making meaningful eye contact with a grunting tiger. Theres a lot of bluster in their roars, but these big cats end up as softies (so long as humans are writing the script see above).
Overall Rating: 4
Frogs
Spotted in:Frogs, Croaked, Magnolia, Hell Comes to Frogtown
Most gruesome attack: Afteramphibious abominationsofHell Comes to Frogtown capture arebel band of human survivors, this campy dystopias water-dwelling freaks shock Rowdy Roddy Pipers genitals using an electrified codpiece attached to him earlier in the film. (Dont worry about it.) The scenes hard to watch, but only partially out of secondhand twinges of pain. Mostly, its just embarrassment on the behalf of everyone tied up in the best worst apocalyptic-frog-sex-comedy ever made.
Danger Factor: Sure, frogs are dangerous when unnatural forces mutate them into mammoth sizes, but what isnt? A giant freakish Corgi could probably destroy Tokyo; it doesnt make it a ferocious hunter. The canon of frog-based horror never caught on in the mainstream for good reason, which is that these creatures tend to live mellow, unobtrusive lives. Even the poisonous frogs arent particularly aggressive, passively hopping around until someone dumb enough to eat them wanders along. Come back, Kermit, all is forgiven.
Overall Rating: 1
Gators/Crocodiles
Spotted in:Alligator, Lake Placid, Eaten Alive
Most gruesome attack:Like theJawsof croc-schlockwith a welcome dash of knowing comedy,Lake Placidpitted the denizensof sleepy Black Lake, Maine against a pair of gigantic crocodiles. The most ambitious attempt to lure the behemoths out inflates fishing to comically oversized proportions, using a copter to dangle a cow above the lake like bait. This doesnt go so hot for the crafty humans, as the croc snaps its jaws onto the cow and then proceeds to drag the copter down into the lake with it. Hooking a catch is easy, but reeling it in can be perilous work.
Danger Factor: The classic gator attack a quick, unanticipated lunge from the water at some poor creature slurping at the shoreline amounts to natures equivalent of a jump scare, and once those teeth have clamped onto a victim, the games over. Gators and croc habitats are specific enough that projects set in the American south, parts of the Amazon, the Nile and central Africa, or India use them as set-dressing. Underutilized, sure, but still capable of tearing an unlucky redneck clean in half.
Overall Rating: 8
Birds
Spotted in:The Birds, Birdemic, The Vulture
Most gruesome attack: Hitchcock could make anything at all into a totem of fear, from glasses of milk to shower drains.The Birds, certainly the high-water mark of avian horror, rendered the winged assassins like a force of nature bringing death from the sky, as omnipresent as air pollution. The onslaught of pecking that closes out the film ranks among the masters finest sequences, as birds programmed to search and destroy divebombthrough Tippi Hedrens puny insulation and stream into her house with the force of a flood. Theyre flying and theyre everywhere.
Danger Factor: Even though birds look gawky and harmless up close, a sharp beak nipping at exposed skin while whipping around a helpless victim can do serious damage. Its important to note, however, that whether a bird is evil or friendly depends almost entirely upon its breed. Theres a weirdly arbitrary but well-founded precedent for this, characterizing vultures, crows, and most hawks as killers (the whole birds of prey rep may have something to do with it), and doves, owls, and pigeons as harmless, if not pure of heart.
Overall Rating: 6
Dogs
Spotted in:White God,Cujo, D is for Dogfight
Most gruesome attack:No dog has a higher kill count than Stephen Kings canine hellionCujo. A bite from a rabid bat drives the Trenton clans darling St. Bernard insane with insatiable rage, and the most chilling sequence looses him on the town sheriff, called to put the bad dog down. Theres a terrible grace in the single movement with which Cujo leaps at him, takes the lawman off his feet, and immediately goes to work on the mans viscera. Director Lewis Teague shoots the scene with immodest close-ups that linger on the flying guts, but the viewers focus remains on the real star, that bloodthirsty hound.
Danger Factor: Mans best friend can also be his worst enemy, but characters can dispatch dogs without too much hassle. No animal has been as thoroughly anthropomorphized as the cherished pooch, and so many films reflect audiences gut rejection of violence towards them. This makes the small but hardy contingent of dog-terror doubly affecting, adding a layer of sullied sentimental attachment to the present dangers of a Rottweiler pounce.
Overall Rating: 5