It seems that in the medium of film, animals really do not like us. In reality most animals like us or tolerate us at best. But in the movies they really have a grudge against us. Any part of the animal kingdom can become a killer. The more famous ones you may be aware of are birds (The Birds), pigs (Razorback), spiders (Arachnophobia), sharks (Jaws, Shark Attack 3) and dogs (Cujo). But there is a whole heap of animals out there waiting to kill us.

So for your own personal safety, here is a list of some of the ones you may not have heard about.

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If you are unsure what a Lepus is (and I was when I first read this) it may help to know that the book this film is based on is called The Year of the Angry Rabbit.

Now we have briefly seen killer rabbits (well, rabbit) before in the great Monty Python and the Holy Grail, but you have never seen killer rabbits like this before. Like the old fifties B-Movies (but made in 1972), these rabbits are just household bunnies put in miniature models were they just kind of sit there, wiggling their noses. The best bit are the close ups of the actors in bunny suits. It reeks of ineptitude, but is actually pretty darn funny with the film reeking of cheesiness.

It has to be seen to be believed, and did I mention it stars ‘Scream Queen’ Janet Leigh and Bones himself, DeForest Kelley?

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This is a film made by Roger Corman’s company Concorde in 1988. Now back in the day before he started to help make shoddy yet funny CGI shark flicks, he produced and directed a lot of gory, shocking and just plain out there movies. This is not one of his most shocking films, but it does has some truly great pieces of prosthetics and special effects that are just creepy. The basic plot involves an evil corporation making bugs that are immune to repellents and also masters of disguise. They can change into what they have eaten which as you can expect, gives us some great horror moments like roach cat and roach filled humans. We also have some great scenes of roaches squirming out of house orifices in their hundreds. Remember that scene in Creep Show when they all spewed out of that guys head? Imagine them popping out of sinks and doorways in much the same fashion and you get the general idea of how creepy this is. The end with the mutant queen made up of lots of different dead people is fantastic and slimy as heck. One of those movies that you need a shower after, but can’t because you think a roach may pop out after you!

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Killer genetically modified sheep. That should be enough to make you run to your local DVD outlet and buy this sucker (or get it online if you feel a bit tired). Not only do you get a lab sheep which infects the other local sheep, you have a guy turn into a sheep human hybrid and a disturbing love scene between man and sheep. We get some great scenes with sheep munching on people like Romero’s finest, but it is the close ups of the deranged sheep which will make you howl with laughter. That’s what is so great here; killer sheep are stupid, so why not make it a comedy? This is exactly what the film makers do. When you have an ending that involves a giant human sheep monster being chased about by a sheep dog, then having the mutant sheep blown up by their own flatulence, you know it is taking the mick [Ed. Note: British slang?] and loving every second of it.

It is a New Zealand movie, and like similar films that came before (like Bad Taste), it really shares that gross out humor.

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Eco-horror involving a rich family who have messed up the environment, so the environment decides to fight back. The change here is that the filmmakers have crafted quite a nice little suspense story, much like The Birds builds up in tension. Small things start happening first (like the lack of other animals aside from the ones in the forest, and the increase of frogs near the house), which builds up into an explosion of animal mayhem. Explosion may be over doing it a bit. We do get a boat load of frogs breaking into a house though, scaring a guy so much he has a heart attack! Then they happily jump about on his corpse. The film makers knew here that frogs are not really that scary, so they are helped out by some other wildlife, like a snapping turtle, alligator and snake to name a few.

Sure it is incredibly poor in some scenes and the fact that no matter how menacingly they croak frogs are really not that scary. But it has a charm that is all its own and I love the fact that to get revenge the animals really mess with this families mind, before doing them in one by one. Though most people hated it when it was released I always found it had a certain charm. Different, weird but defiantly entertaining and quite suspenseful in some scenes.

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Killer worms created by Rick Baker, the man who made the effects for An American Werewolf in London, this has must watch all over it. Some of the adverts for this were incredible, and mainly focused on the scenes where people are swallowed whole by masses of worms and have them popping out of their faces (there was a great VHS cover that had worms coming out a shower, while a bloodied woman looks on in disgust!). The reason for the worms going mental is a downed power line that falls on the ground and juices up the suckers. Plot is not really a strong suit of this film. But it doesn’t have to be when these suckers burrow into your skin and pop out your face (which happens a few times).

There are some incredibly awfull moments where the worms actually yell when they are electrocuted (no wonder they are so miffed in this flick), a worm that somehow gets into a chocolate drink (hey, if they can scream maybe they can down a drink) and the confrontation when loads of them looking a lot like spaghetti, flob towards the town. Now this movie is a cheesy hit no doubt, but I have no idea if that’s what they were intending when they released it! This is not the only killer worm movie either. The Worm Eaters came a year later and involves people eating worms (for real) and then turning into weird worm people creatures (not real). This however is a laugh right.

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As you will have seen by now, a lot of these killer animal movies tend to be on the cheesy side (it is tricky to make certain animals scary). With Slugs they did not even try to make a good movie. Awful acting, terrible plot and some really bad looking slugs all come together to form a masterpiece of tripe. This is a film that will have you howling with laughter. It is based on a gore fest book by Shaun Hutson and as far as I can see it follows the pattern of the book, but fills it with such annoying characters you are glad to see them get eaten up. This film does not hold back on the red stuff and has two great scenes involving a guy bleeding from all over after eating a slug in a salad (never go to that restaurant!) and a randy couple getting eaten when the floor of their bedroom is covered in slugs. It is blooming funny to watch a woman roll around in a carpet of slimy blackness, that is until the slugs bite her eye out. A craptastic movie with its funniest scene involving a slug that opens its mouth to try to take a chunk out of someone!

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Now there are lots of killer snakes out in movie land already (Snakes on a Plane probably the most famous of the bunch), but what they were lacking is mutated snakes that when they bite you, they turn your arm into a snake and fill your belly with mini-snakes.

Don’t worry film goers, as this film covers all that for you. The acting is not bad, considering the lead actor has to act as if he has a living snake on his hand. The special effects are pretty cool too. There are however loads and loads of snakes, so if this kind of thing freaks you out it might be best to sit this one out!

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George Kennedy playing an evil badass and fighting a killer cat will have already perked up some people’s interest. But killer cats are not new; in fact there are loads of them knocking about. This cat is genetically modified (those scientists really need to stop messing about with genes if this is what happens) so that it actually has a monster living inside of it.

This monster when hungry pops out the cat’s mouth and goes mental, killing anyone nearby. Now when I say kill, this involves said victim holding onto the cat and squeezing it to their neck so the blood squibs can go off. Ultra low budget movie but incredible to watch (reminds me of the killer demon dog from Demons 2).

A must see for fans of trash cinema.

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Killer rats are also a staple of this sub genre of movie, but the difference here is it is just one rat. This is a very well put together suspense movie about one guy alone in his house, and a massive rat he can hear in the floor boards that he is convinced is trying to get him. Peter Weller (of Robocop fame) is the chap in question and right from the start, we are given a great build up of how big rats can get and how freaky they are.

There are a lot of shots of rat’s teeth in this movie, as well as it scurrying about under the floor boards. Now we are never really sure if the rat is after Bart Hughes (Weller) or not and that’s what I love about this movie. The rat is a proper pain in the backside but it seems that maybe Bart has built all this up in his head. This comes to a shocking conclusion when Bart gets into some combat gear and trashes his entire house in a mission to kill this rat he believes is after him.

It is a superbly put together movie and is a must see just for the early work of Weller is nothing else.

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