Top 10 Scariest Giant Movie Bugs

Script written by Thomas O'Connor

Top 10 Giant Bugs In Movies That Will Make Your Skin Crawl

There aren’t enough cans of Raid in the whole world for this... Welcome to WatchMojo, and today we’ll be counting down our picks for the top ten giant bugs in movies that will make your skin crawl.

For this list, we’ll be looking at the creepiest, crawliest, heebie-jeebies-inducing-est giant bugs to ever grace the silver screen, meaning that cute and cuddly bugs like the helpful ant from “Honey, I Shrunk the Kids” need not apply. Entomophobes, meaning “people afraid of insects”, consider yourselves warned.

#10: Shelob

“The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King” (2003)

Of all the unpleasant things lurking in the desolate region or Mordor, few put us on edge like the giant spider Shelob. In addition to being exceptionally large and intelligent, this eight-legged terror is also believed to have been born during the First Age, making her one of the oldest living creatures in Middle-Earth. Translation? She’s got experience. Her fearsome nature is put to good use when Gollum attempts to use her as a kind of Hobbit disposal system, luring an unknowing Sam and Frodo into her lair after resolving to kill them. A rather inefficient way to bump off a couple of adventuring Hobbits, but to Gollum’s credit... it almost worked.

#9: Giant Spiders

“The Mist” (2007)

What’s worse than a giant spider? How about… several giant spiders that you can’t see clearly, because your sleepy Maine town has become enveloped in a thick supernatural mist filled with all manner of mysterious and deadly creatures. Such is the predicament that befalls the cast of this film based on a novella by master of horror Stephen King. A band of survivors manage to hole up in a local grocery store, but when a group strikes out for a nearby pharmacy, they find themselves overtaken by giant, ravenous arachnids. Yeesh, remember when the scariest thing in Maine was Pennywise the Clown? Oh wait, he was a giant spider too….

#8: Giant Tarantula

“Tarantula” (1955)

As evidenced by this 1955 film, even back in the ‘50s, giant spiders were on the top of everyone’s “no thank you” list. In it, a tarantula is subjected to government experiments and proceeds to grow to massive size - much to understandable horror of everyone involved. When the spider begins terrorizing a local town, the military struggles to bring it down. They even try and sick Clint Eastwood on it, but to no avail. No really, that’s a young Clint Eastwood as a jet fighter pilot. Given that this was produced in the pre-CGI days of cinema, a real spider was used on a miniature set. The end result? One disconcertingly-realistic giant spider.

#7: The Judas Breed

“Mimic” (1997)

You think you’d notice giant, killer cockroaches just walking around the streets of a major city, but the creatures from this early work from Guillermo del Toro would prove you wrong. After a horrible plague leaves thousands of children dead, a special breed of cockroach is employed to eliminate the source of the sickness: the city’s existing roach population. But the bugs come back, now grown to giant size and with the ability to mimic human appearance, at least at a glance. Just think, that creepy guy standing at the bus stop across the street could be a giant killer roach! You’re welcome!

#6: Giant Bugs

“King Kong” (2005)

Talk about out of the frying pan and into the fire. After narrowly escaping Kong, the heroes of Peter Jackson’s 2005 remake find themselves in a deep cavern containing enough killer overgrown insects to give even the most hardened adventurer nightmares for the rest of their life. The sequence is inspired by a much-discussed but never recovered similar scene from the original film, which was allegedly cut for being too much of a deviation from the core narrative. This legendary sequence was later referenced yet again when the heroes of “Kong: Skull Island” get ambushed by a giant spider with legs that blend in with the nearby bamboo shoots.

#5: The Acromantula Colony

“Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets” (2002)

Students at Hogwart’s School of Witchcraft and Wizardry have enough to worry about. With trolls, Death Eaters and Dark Lords making regular appearances, do they really need giant spiders as well? These fearsome critters inhabit the nearby Forbidden Forest, the offspring of a pet Acromantula kept by Hagrid. So hey thanks, Hagrid. Real good job, there. Acromantulas are highly intelligent and even capable of human speech, but don’t try to reason with them, as their taste for human flesh keep them from being very good conversationalists. In addition to putting the “forbidden” in “Forbidden Forest”, the Acromantulas near Hogwarts were also used as weapons by Voldemort during his final attack against the school.

#4: Giant Spiders

“Eight-Legged Freaks” (2002)

After a toxic waste spill causes various spiders to grow to massive proportions, the residents of Prosperity, Arizona must take matters into their own hands. What makes these giant spiders scarier than most is the sheer variety of spiders on display, each one with their own bag of tricks - tricks where the punchline involves your internal organs getting dissolved into a tasty drink. Orb-weaving Spiders, Trapdoor Spiders, Spitting Spiders, Jumping Spiders… wait, why are they called Jumping Spiders? You know what, we’ll let you figure it out for yourself. Keep an eye out while watching, as there’s even an early appearance by a future Black Widow, Scarlett Johannson.

#3: Arachnids

“Starship Troopers” (1997)

Most insects, giant or otherwise, are content with the normal buggy business: you know, eating and making more bugs.Unfortunately these alien insects are a more ambitious breed, who want to wipe out all of humanity. These nasty creatures have all kinds of tools at their disposal to help them, including a specialized sub-species capable of firing bursts of destructive plasma, as well as highly intelligent Brain Bugs that can coordinate attacks and plan ahead. Individually, most Arachnids aren’t especially hard to deal with if you have some heavy ordinance on hand, but in large enough groups... your best bet is to run for the hills.

#2: Brundlefly

“The Fly” (1986)

Bugs are scary enough as it is, but when the bug in question is you as your body slowly metamorphoses into a giant, hideous, slimy insect, things reach a whole new level of unsettling. This is what scientist Seth Brundle learned when an accident involving his experimental teleportation machines caused him to genetically merge with a fly, resulting in a slow and very, very icky transformation into a fly/human hybrid. Oh sure, it’s fun at first, you can walk on walls and win at arm wrestling, but once your body starts literally falling apart, the party is officially over and it’s time to break out the shotguns.



Before we unveil our top picks, check out these insectoid honorable mentions:



Giant Mantis

“The Deadly Mantis” (1957)



Giant Mosquitos

“Mosquito” (1995)



It’s True Form

“It” (1990)







Giant Prehistoric Scorpions

“The Black Scorpion” (1957)





Room-Sized Tarantula

“Enemy” (2013)

#1: Giant Ants

“Them!” (1954)

The original giant insects, these colossal ants overran a small New Mexico town, and later Los Angeles, after being mutated by nearby atomic testing. These badboys are the OG cinematic insectoid menace, and kicked off a craze of giant bug movies and atomic-age horrors that took the silver screen by storm. From their creepily hairy bodies to their distinctive high-pitched chirping, the ravenous ants have become iconic of 1950s sci-fi, and homages have cropped up in videogames, tv shows, and naturally, other movies. There may have been movies featuring giant insects of a larger sort, but when it comes to cinema history, they’re as big as it gets.