The marketing behind The Northman director Robert Eggers’ Nosferatu has made it clear that the inhuman visage of its central monster won’t be revealed until audiences arrive in theaters on Christmas Day. That’s all the more intriguing considering that descriptors like “erotic” and “sexualized” have been attached to Bill Skarsgård’s performance as Count Orlok, both in critical first reactions and from the cast.
Skarsgård even teased his character in an earlier chat with Esquire, saying: “He’s gross. But it is very sexualized. It’s playing with a sexual fetish about the power of the monster and what that appeal has to you. Hopefully you’ll get a little bit attracted by it and disgusted by your attraction at the same time.”
Of course, cinema’s history is filled with sexualized vampires that inspire lust, using it themselves to prey upon their victims. It’s an entirely different story when the vampire in question leans into the monstrous and eschews more conventional human qualities.
While it remains to be seen just how erotic Skarsgård’s Count Orlok will be and how many horny fans his depiction will create, Nosferatu is hardly the first movie monster that understands how pain and pleasure can overlap in seductive ways.
In anticipation of Count Orlok’s unmasking in theaters this December, we’re looking back at some of the most strangely alluring horror movie monsters that blur the lines between fear and lust. There’s just one rule: no vampires. They’d dominate this list.
Creature from the Black Lagoon
Dracula may be the reigning king of seductive horror movie monsters, with no shortage of sexualized iterations that embrace the vampire’s romantic side. But Dracula isn’t the only classic movie monster with romantic designs. The strange, inhuman Creature from the Black Lagoon, lean and muscular, makes for one of the more swoon-worthy movie monsters thanks largely to his instant obsession with Kay (Julia Adams) from the moment she swims into his world. While his attraction went unrequited, Guillermo del Toro gave this monstrous Romeo another shot at desire and love with The Shape of Water.
The Mummy
Much like the utterly romantic line, “I have crossed oceans of time to find you,” uttered in Bram Stoker’s Dracula, Stephen Sommers’ action-adventure Mummy films featured a villainous antagonist motivated by love. For Imhotep (Arnold Vosloo), that means destroying everything in his path in his bid to regain his former power and resurrect his former flame. It’s a dark romance made all the more sympathetic by his lover’s penchant for betrayal, so much so that being dead for centuries hasn’t hurt Imhotep’s swagger. This is one cinematic monster uninterested in hiding behind layers of linen.
The Curse of the Werewolf
The uncontrollable, primal nature of werewolves makes them primed to appear on this list. From the lust-baiting werewolves in Trick ‘r Treat to the heartbreak in The Wolf Man or An American Werewolves in London, lycanthropy makes for one of the more amorous monster afflictions in horror. Leave it to Hammer Films and a brawny Oliver Reed, in his first starring role, to really tap into the werewolf’s most ravishing side.
The Lure
The Creature from the Black Lagoon isn’t the only amphibious movie monster attracted to humans; carnivorous mermaid sisters Golden and Silver explore their carnal side on land when they’re adopted into a cabaret band. Agnieszka Smoczynska’s stunning musical gives an ’80s Polish cabaret makeover to Hans Christian Andersen’s gory fairy tale vision of The Little Mermaid. It’s a coming-of-age story told from the perspective of inhuman creatures eagerly exploring what it means to be human while giving into their baser instincts, including devouring flesh in more ways than one.
Cat People
In director Paul Schrader’s very loose remake of the Val Lewton classic, sexual repression becomes much more explicit. It follows Irena (Nastassja Kinski), who has arrived in New Orleans to reconnect with her brother Paul (Malcolm McDowell) after years of separation in the foster system. Paul reveals that the siblings come from a line of cat people, doomed to transform into beasts if they dare give in to their sexual desires. Irena doesn’t believe him until she finds herself falling for a zookeeper. It results in a monstrous sexual awakening.
Return of the Living Dead 3
There’s typically nothing appealing about slow decomposing flesh, yet this sequel’s Julie (Melinda Clarke) serves up the hottest zombie to ever grace the silver screen. It’s not just Clarke’s ferocious performance that ensures Julie’s space on this list, though it’s largely responsible. It’s in the way that Julie intentionally swaps out pain for pleasure, mutilating herself and others to stave off her mounting need to feed on human flesh. That this stunning zombie is embroiled in a doomed romance only further bridges the gap between horror and lust.
Splice
Genetic engineers Clive and Elsa attempt to play god in Vincenzo Natali’s transgressive sci-fi horror film, splicing animal and human DNA together to create Dren. Splice explores various meaty topics surrounding the ethics and science behind Dren’s creation, including her murky relationship with her makers. As the hybrid experiment evolves far faster and further than Clive and Elsa could anticipate, sexual curiosity sends this creature feature careening toward an exceptionally disturbing climax rife with sex and violence. All in the name of science.
Species
Scientists create a human/alien hybrid from the instructions and DNA sent from a space transmission, unwittingly unleashing a seductive inhuman with one instinctual goal: procreation. It’s a premise that provides fertile ground, pun intended, for horniness as Sil (Natasha Henstridge) escapes her facility in search of a mate. Henstridge’s performance, combined with H. R. Giger’s sensual, otherworldly creature design, ensured a movie monster irrevocably intertwined with tantalizing temptation.
Hellraiser
One of the more obvious examples of movie monsters that know how to wield pain and pleasure like a scalpel, the Cenobites left an indelible mark on horror despite such a fleeting on-screen appearance in the original 1987 film. Their ordered elegance and strict code are almost disarming, almost, though certainly beguiling. That the Hell Priest, Pinhead, and the Cenobites also act as the arbiters of forbidden knowledge only furthers their allure; nothing is more attractive than what you’re not allowed to have, after all.
Candyman
“Be my victim.” A line that’s strangely alluring, seductive, and more than a little threatening. A Bloody Mary-like boogeyman summoned by mirror winds up one of the most romantic due to a career-defining performance from the late Tony Todd as the eponymous Candyman. The chemistry between Candyman and Helen (Virginia Madsen) is electric; there is a razor-thin line between love and hate, life and death in this scenario. It’s bewitching.
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