The Best Animal Movies (2020): Movie Monsters

By Steve Hutchison

Steve Hutchison reviews 60 of his favorite animal movies. Each article includes a synopsis, a review, and a rating. The movies are ranked. How many have you seen?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Steve Hutchison
• Release date: Feb 15, 2023
• ISBN: 9781778870811

Steve Hutchison

Artist, developer and entrepreneur in film, video games and communications Steve Hutchison co-founded Shade.ca Art and Code in 1999, then Terror.ca and its French equivalent Terreur.ca in 2000. With his background as an artist and integrator, Steve worked on such games as Capcom's Street Fighter, PopCap's Bejeweled, Tetris, Bandai/Namco's Pac-Man and Mattel's Skip-Bo & Phase 10 as a localization manager, 2-D artist and usability expert. Having acquired skills in gamification, he invented a unique horror movie review system that is filterable, searchable and sortable by moods, genres, subgenres and antagonists. Horror movie fans love it, and so do horror authors and filmmakers, as it is a great source of inspiration. In March 2013, Steve launched Tales of Terror, with the same goals in mind but with a much finer technology and a complex engine, something that wasn’t possible initially. He has since published countless horror-themed books.

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Tales of Terror’s

Movie Monsters 2020

The Best Animal Movies

INTRODUCTION

Steve Hutchison reviews 60 of his favorite animal movies. Each article includes a synopsis, a review, and a rating. The movies are ranked. How many have you seen?

#1

Pet Sematary

1989

A family moves into a town house located near a cemetery rumored to bring back the buried to life.

8/8

Pet Sematary is a sad and terrifying family story that excels at exploiting one of the deepest and most visceral fears humans have: losing someone they love. We learn about the cursed grounds that bring the dead to life through dialogue and flashbacks during deep discussions between neighbors. The casting is ideal for a sinister supernatural thriller of this intensity.

It feels like a TV movie, but the budget is significant. You get advanced prosthetics and the photography is peculiar. In this Stephen King adaptation, it isn’t the house that is haunted but a vaguely defined area whose reach goes far beyond the cemetery gates. The place is surreal and is the villain. It is as eerie as the score: a recurring sonata sang by a children’s choir.

While most horror movies make contortions in order to stand out and be called memorable, Pet Sematary gives us a simple plot that we can all relate to. It reminds us of familiar events, patterns and struggles of family life, love and friendship, and amplifies common situations of sadness with a strong supernatural element; setting the tone for some of the creepiest scenes in horror movie history!

#2

Jaws

1975

A police chief, a scientist and a fisherman set out to stop a great white shark.

8/8

Like fishing, Jaws takes time, patience, and may or may not be rewarding when all is said and done. In the hands of Steven Spielberg, though, this movie promises to mark a generation of movie-goers. One of the lead is a loud-mouthed shark specialist; another one a sheriff who inspires confidence while taking danger seriously. The third boat occupant; squeamish, upholds the horror layer.

For a summer blockbuster about a killer shark, Jaws is especially shy on animatronics. The effects are ahead of their time and truly terrifying but are used very sparingly. The movie is shot in deep water and gets around enormous challenges imposed by an unusual script. Legends say the props didn’t take water so well. As a result, we end up with a heavy drama and very little shark mayhem...

The actors give an honest, authentic and subtle performance. Spielberg takes a genre considered learning ground for filmmakers and raised the bar so high that he had to resort to dialogue to craft tension when he met a technical wall. There is a shark, but he won’t show up until we’re fully involved in the characters. With its immersing scenery and intrigue, Jaws takes fear back to its origins.

#3

Jurassic Park

1993

The owners of a theme park hosting cloned dinosaurs lose control of their security system.

8/8

Terminator 2 set the bar so high in terms of 3D and compositing effects that nothing comparable came out until Spielberg’s next blockbuster: Jurassic Park. Like Jaws, it’s a lively and watered down horror movie that focuses much more on its ensemble cast then the antagonists; in this case angry and hungry Dinosaurs. Jurassic Park is suitable for most age groups and means to entertain any audience.

It’s a nearly perfect movie that is only flawed because it is experimental and ground-breaking. It features effects previously unattempted and destined to age well. The dinos aren’t abundantly shown and barely lit in order to scare. The violence is limited but present.