The celluloid safari: Why B-movies still can’t get enough of deadly creatures

Killer fish, killer bees, killer ants, killer bears, killer dogs, killer lions, killer elephants, killer birds, killer snakes, killer rats, killer pigs, killer whales, killer octopuses and killer sharks… look over genre filmmaking during the past 50 years and you’ll find humans dying at the paws, claws, talons, teeth, hooves, horns and stingers of all sorts of animals, insects and fish, both very big and very small. Steven Spielberg’s biographer Jospeh McBride writes of “the plethora of cheesy Jaws sequels and rip-offs that followed in its wake, such as Orca, Grizzly, Alligator, Day of the Animals, Eaten Alive, Tentacles, Great White, The Jaws of Death, Jaws of Satan and Piranha”. open image in gallery ‘Prey’ was described on its release as ‘Jaws meets Paws’ You expect grizzly bears, alligators or great white sharks to eat humans but in many other “natural” horror films, the antagonists are creatures either too small or too timid to be considered remotely threatening in normal circumstances. Bees were the villains in 1978 horror movie The Swarm but, as the film’s star Michael Caine later wrote, the film didn’t give the “thrill-hungry public” the expected “buzz”. In many of the “natural” horror films, the filmmakers’ interest in which particular animals are terrorising the humans is non-existent.