Top 7 Most Influential Movie Monsters
Okay, so this is a pretty different list from what I usually post, but I really enjoy monster movies at the moment, so I thought I'd write this. Without your classic movie monsters, you wouldn't have some of the genres finest nowadays. No Cloverfield, no Gwoemul from The Host, you probably would even be missing Jurassic Park. Therefore, I will be writing my opinion's top most influential movie monsters.

7) The Blob (1958)
The effects are hugely dated and the acting is at times abysmal, but The Blob is still tense, eerie and really was one of the first movies to combine the potential terrors from outer space with the normal ideas and themes of horror. The Blob crashes to Earth in a meteorite, and slowly begins to consume humans, growing rapidly as it does so. Although it's obscure, the unstoppable goo made a huge impact at the time and added many plot points other sci-fi horror movies, like paranoia, indestructibility and the uncertainty of if the creature is really beaten. A hugely popular and critically acclaimed movie that was heavily influenced by The Blob was Alien. Watch them side-by side, you'll see what I mean.

6) Them! (1954)
A spectacle in special effects and excellent set pieces, Them! is hugely different from most other monster movies from it's time, as it avoids the campy tone and goes for full-on, powerful tension. In the movie, nuclear bombs in New Mexico causes ants to grow to huge sizes, making them a huge threat to society. The idea of nuclear bombing mutating creatures may not be from this movie entirely, but the original concept was the first and this movie caused the genre itself to be created.

5)Night of the living dead(1968)
Terrifying, horrific, gory, satirical and the very first zombie movie, George Romero's classic was such an enormous hitter it created the zombie genre, yet still remains it's best entry. In this movie the dead come back to life with a hunger for the living. Even though zombies are classed as an unintelligent concept, this movie had a huge number of themes going for it, such  as sexism, racism and social satire and doesn't even utilize colour. The monsters themselves aren't horrifically deformed animals, or aliens from outer-space, they're us, simply us. That alone makes them one of the best movie monsters to ever hit the screen.

4) Halloween (1978)
It may not be the first slasher film, and it's in no way a phenomenally well-made film, but face it Michael Myers is terrifying. Before we had Michael Myers, we had Norman Bates, Leather face and Peeping Tom, but Halloween was the first true slasher film in that it had an unstoppable villain wearing an uber-creepy mask, blonde girls getting slaughtered, the final girl who wins in the end, and a super tense theme. John Carpenter's Halloween may not be a proper movie monster, but Michael is one super scary monster.

3)The Wolf Man (1941)
Like vampires, werewolves are a pretty overused movie monster, but that doesn't stop the really good ones being any less awesome. One of the best and the first is The Wolf Man. He's a movie monster who really doesn't want to be an evil killer, and it was just  a case of horrendously bad luck that made him one. That plot device in monster movies is used far more than it is appropriated to, but this is one of it's greatest uses. This stands out from the other universal classics for being genuinely scary, not campy and really, really influential. An American Werewolf In London may be a minor masterpiece, but The Wolf Man is a major one.

2)Nosferatu (1922)
It not only inspired every vampire movie, but it also inspired every horror movie. It's dark, it's iconic, it's hugely awesome and it doesn't even use sound, let alone colour. Nosferatu was a rip-off of the Dracula novel and it involved a nasty lawsuit, but Nosferatu had become so huge it couldn't be forgotten.

1)King Kong (1933)
Expecting Godzilla, right? Even though Godzilla is a hugely important and excellent blockbuster, it was made to ride on the success of King Kong, sad though it is. King Kong is the story of a giant gorilla taken to New York as the eighth wonder of the world and is tortured by the paparazzi when it gets there. King Kong has brilliant special effects and is nearly impossible to not know of. In their own way, King Kong inspired every monster on this list (par Nosferatu) and remains an absolute pinnacle in film making.