Natural horror is a subgenre of horror films that features natural forces, [1] typically in the form of animals or plants, that pose a threat to human characters.
Though killer animals in film have existed since the release of The Lost World in 1925, [2] two of the first motion pictures to garner mainstream success with a "nature run amok" premise were The Birds , directed by Alfred Hitchcock and released in 1963; and Jaws , directed by Steven Spielberg and released in 1975. Following Jaws, numerous horror films of a similar narrative were produced, including Grizzly (1976), Piranha (1978), and Alligator (1980). [3]
See also the section on insects.
Crocodiles or true crocodiles are large, semiaquatic reptiles that live throughout the tropics in Africa, Asia, the Americas and Australia. The term “crocodile” is sometimes used more loosely to include all extant members of the order Crocodilia, which includes the alligators and caimans, the gharial and false gharial as well as other, extinct, taxa.
Jaws is a 1975 American thriller film directed by Steven Spielberg, based on the 1974 novel by Peter Benchley. It stars Roy Scheider as police chief Martin Brody, who, with the help of a marine biologist and a professional shark hunter, hunts a man-eating great white shark that attacks beachgoers at a summer resort town. Murray Hamilton plays the mayor, and Lorraine Gary portrays Brody's wife. The screenplay is credited to Benchley, who wrote the first drafts, and actor-writer Carl Gottlieb, who rewrote the script during principal photography.
Alligator is a 1980 American independent horror film directed by Lewis Teague and written by John Sayles. It stars Robert Forster, Robin Riker and Michael V. Gazzo. It also includes an appearance by actress Sue Lyon in her last screen role. Set in Chicago, the film follows a police officer and a reptile expert who track an enormous, ravenous man-eating alligator flushed down the toilet years earlier, that is attacking residents after escaping from the city's sewers.
A piscivore is a carnivorous animal that primarily eats fish. The name piscivore is derived from Latin piscis 'fish' and vorō 'to devour'. Piscivore is equivalent to the Greek-derived word ichthyophage, both of which mean "fish eater". Fish were the diet of early tetrapod evolution ; insectivory came next; then in time, the more terrestrially adapted reptiles and synapsids evolved herbivory.
Katrina Bowden is an American actress. She is best known for her roles as Cerie on the NBC sitcom 30 Rock (2006–2013) and as Flo Fulton on the CBS daytime soap opera The Bold and the Beautiful (2019–2021). She has also appeared in the films Tucker & Dale vs. Evil, Sex Drive, Piranha 3DD, American Reunion, and Scary Movie 5.
A man-eating animal or man-eater is an individual animal or being that preys on humans as a pattern of hunting behavior. This does not include the scavenging of corpses, a single attack born of opportunity or desperate hunger, or the incidental eating of a human that the animal has killed in self-defense. However, all three cases may habituate an animal to eating human flesh or to attacking humans, and may foster the development of man-eating behavior.
Shark Jaws is a single-player arcade video game by Atari, Inc. under the name of Horror Games, originally released in 1975. An unlicensed tie-in to the movie Jaws, and believed to be the first commercially released movie tie-in, it was created to be a game about sharks eating people. Atari head Nolan Bushnell originally tried to license the Jaws name, but was unable to secure a license from Universal Pictures. Deciding to go ahead with the game anyway, it was retitled Shark JAWS, with the word Shark in tiny print and JAWS in large all caps print to create greater prominence. Bushnell created a second hidden subsidiary corporation, Horror Games—the previous being Kee Games—to help isolate Atari from a possible lawsuit. According to Bushnell, the game was successful enough to sell approximately two thousand units.
Jaws is an American media franchise series that started with the 1975 film of the same name that expanded into three sequels, a theme park ride, and other tie-in merchandise, based on a 1974 novel Jaws. The main subject of the saga is a great white shark and its attacks on people in specific areas of the United States and The Bahamas. The Brody family is featured in all of the films as the primary antithesis to the shark. The 1975 film was based on the novel written by Peter Benchley, which itself was inspired by the Jersey Shore shark attacks of 1916. Benchley adapted his novel, along with help from Carl Gottlieb and Howard Sackler, into the film, which was directed by Steven Spielberg. Although Gottlieb went on to pen two of the three sequels, neither Benchley nor Spielberg returned to the film series in any capacity.
I Was Prey also known as Human Prey is a 2009 single-season series that aired on Animal Planet. The series features episodes where human beings end up as easy prey for animals, carnivorous or herbivorous.
Nightwing is a 1979 American horror film directed by the Canadian filmmaker Arthur Hiller. The screenplay was written by Martin Cruz Smith, Steve Shagan and Bud Shrake, based on the 1977 novel of the same title by Smith. The movie's tagline is "Day belongs to man, but night is theirs!" It was one of many imitators of the 1975 film Jaws. Such movies about animals gone wild were popular in the late 1970s and early 1980s. These included Grizzly (1976), Orca (1977), Tentacles (1977), The Pack (1977), Piranha (1978), Alligator (1980) and Great White (1980).
Deadly... is a strand of British wildlife documentary programming aimed principally at children and young people, which is broadcast on CBBC on BBC One and Two and on the CBBC Channel. It is presented by Steve Backshall, with Naomi Wilkinson as co-host on Live 'n Deadly, and Barney Harwood as co-host on Natural Born Hunters. The strand began with a single series called Deadly 60, and has subsequently expanded into a number of spin-offs, re-edits and follow-up versions.
Lake Placid vs. Anaconda is a 2015 American comedy horror television film directed by A.B. Stone, written by Berkeley Anderson and starring Corin Nemec, Yancy Butler and Robert Englund. The film premiered on April 25, 2015, on Syfy. It is a crossover between the Anaconda film series and Lake Placid film series, and the fifth installment in both their respective series.
Lake Placid is a series of American natural horror comedy films created by David E. Kelley. Produced and distributed by Sony Pictures Home Entertainment, the series began with Lake Placid (1999) directed by Steve Miner, and was followed by five television sequels, Lake Placid 2 (2007) by David Flores, Lake Placid 3 (2010) by Griff Furst, Lake Placid: The Final Chapter (2012) by Don Michael Paul, Lake Placid vs. Anaconda (2015) by A.B. Stone, being a crossover with the Anaconda series, and Lake Placid: Legacy (2018) by Darrell Roodt. Each installment revolves around the presence of giant, 30-foot-long man-eating crocodiles in the fictional location of Black Lake, Maine, and the efforts of various groups to capture or destroy the creatures. All of the films reference members of the fictitious Bickerman family.
Crawl is a 2019 American natural horror film directed by Alexandre Aja, written by brothers Michael and Shawn Rasmussen, and produced by Sam Raimi. It stars Kaya Scodelario and Barry Pepper as a daughter and father who, along with their dog, find themselves trapped in the crawl space of their home and preyed upon by alligators during a Category 5 hurricane in Florida.
Sharksploitation is a subgenre of exploitation film that involves sharks or shark attacks. The genre emerged in the wake of the 1975 film Jaws and its sequels, but fell in popularity soon after. The 1999 film Deep Blue Sea brought it back to public prominence. Other examples of sharksploitation films include Mega Shark Versus Giant Octopus (2009), Dinoshark, Sharktopus, Snow Shark (2012), Ghost Shark (2013), Avalanche Sharks (2014), and the Sharknado film series (2013–2018).