It’s Monday. Because sometimes nothing lifts your spirits quite like a good creature design or a monster on a rampage, this week’s streaming picks are dedicated to the creature feature.
Whether hailing from space, the darkest depths of the sea, or beyond, these five horror movies bring the monster mayhem we all love so much.
As usual, here’s where you can stream them this week…
For more Stay Home, Watch Horror picks, click here.
The Deadly Spawn – Shudder
The plot follows an alien that takes refuge in the basement of a suburb after crash landing via meteor, devouring anyone it meets and spawning at a rapid pace. It’s up to a handful of teens and a monster-obsessed boy to stop it. This labor of love and strife defies its meager budget to deliver one of the 80s’ most surprising, gory creature features. Come for the ravenous alien and get charmed by the practical effects and stellar use of miniatures.
Waxwork – Plex, Roku, Tubi, Vudu
Waxwork plays like an anthology in that the core group of characters falls victim to various wax exhibits in the mysterious wax museum owned by the ominous David Lincoln (David Warner). Stepping foot into exhibits means stepping into an alternate reality full of danger and mortal peril. It’s all a ruse for Lincoln to capture their souls to bring about the world’s end. One by one, the group of friends encounter different scenarios with various monsters and often die in gruesome, violent ways. It’s the ultimate monster movie mashup.
The Relic – HBO Max
This big budget action-horror movie sees an enormous chimeric monster prowl a Chicago museum. The opening shows how the monster, the mythical Kothoga from the Amazon, wound up there. It’s up to a homicide detective and an anthropologist to stop it before the body count grows even higher. Peter Hyams directs this adaptation of Douglas Preston’s novel with spectacle, much shrouded in darkness. But the creature design, when seen, is fantastic, and The Relic brings the fun all around.
Splinter – HBO Max, Tubi
In this fun creature feature, a road trip gets stalled out by the unexpected. A young couple sets off for a romantic camping getaway but gets car-jacked by an escaped convict and his girlfriend. Then they get a flat tire that prompts them to seek help from a nearby gas station. Something is gravely wrong there, and the foursome must team up against a bizarre parasite infecting everything. A parasite that spreads and turns its hosts into deadly beings. Brutal, suspenseful, and with a highly cool creature concept, Splinter deserved a sequel.
Leviathan – Pluto TV, Roku, Tubi
Deep-sea miners stumble upon a Soviet shipwreck, and the cargo they bring back to base unleashes a genetic mutation that threatens to destroy them all. With a hurricane battering the surface, these blue-collar workers are entirely trapped and abandoned by the corporation that employs them. It’s an Alien film set underwater, but oh, so much fun. Leviathan stars Peter Weller, Amanda Pays, Richard Crenna, Daniel Stern, Ernie Hudson, Meg Foster, and Hector Elizondo. Above all, the film offers fantastic creature design and gnarly body horror.
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