neil gaiman made a list of the best monsters for entertainment weekly - here. sadly, i was not familiar with a lot of them.

so i made my own. which is not nearly as interesting as gaiman’s. but here it is (with the help of my brother).

1. tremors worms. these scared the crap out of me as a kid. i was scared to walk too loudly because i thought they might come up out of the ground and eat me. now, they are not as scary.
2. sack faces. from The Strangers. my friends and i refer to these guys so often that they have developed the nickname sack faces. they’re scary because they could be real.
3. The Wheelers from Return to Oz - my brother reminded me that i was very scared of these as a kid and these still hold up as super scary even if you watch it today
4. The Gentlemen from Buffy the Vampire Slayer in the episode Hush. nuff said.
5. that girl in the well from The Ring (the Japanese verion i think is scarier than the American one)
6. the running zombies from 28 Days Later and 28 Weeks later and generally things that run at you
7. Bloody Mary - where you look in the mirror and say “Bloody Mary” three times. i never did it because i was too scared.
8. Jack Nicholson as the Joker in Batman - i used to imagine as a kid that he would release that gas and i would end up with a scary smile plastered to my face
9. Freddy Krueger - i always found him far more scary than Jason because he can get in your head - this is limited to, however, Nightmare on Elm Street one through four
10. The Nothing from the Neverending Story - in fact, i still think this is real.