A new killer animal horror movie hit theaters in 2026 called Primate. The horror film is a throwback to the heyday of animals-gone-bad movies, where creatures kill as many people as possible before they’re finally taken down. Primate features a chimpanzee named Ben who contracts rabies and attacks his human family.
While Primate earned strong reviews before its release, plenty of movies released over the last few decades follow the same basic plot. These involve people believing they’re safe around animals in nature or even in the city, only to find they’ve become food for savage beasts.
Anaconda(1997)
In 2025, a new version of Anaconda was released, but this movie was a genuine comedy with Jack Black and Paul Rudd in the lead roles. However, if someone wants something more inclined toward horror and less toward laughs, the original Anaconda from 1997 fits that description.
The movie has an all-star cast, including Jennifer Lopez, Ice Cube, Owen Wilson, Jon Voight, and Eric Stoltz, as the humans who become the target of a monstrous anaconda. One thing people need to understand, though, is that this snake is in no way realistic, and the movie is a guilty pleasure at best.
However, for people who want to see a giant snake eating people and wreaking havoc, and don’t mind laughing a little at the ridiculousness of the situation, Anaconda delivers in spades. There is a reason it has become a cult classic.
Brotherhood Of The Wolf (2001)
Brotherhood Of The Wolf is a little more of a prestige option when it comes to animal attack movies. This is a French horror film from 2001 directed by Christophe Gans, who later went on to helm the Silent Hill video game adaptation. It was this film that convinced studios he could pull off the visuals in that release.
Brotherhood Of The Wolf follows the Chevalier de Fronsac and Mani of the Iroquois tribe as they investigate the slaughter of hundreds of people by an unknown creature. The film is loosely based on real-life events in the 18th century and the legend of the beast of Gévaudan.
While much of the film’s success came thanks to the fight scenes, with Mark Dacascos delivering incredible choreography as Mani, the film is, at heart, a killer animal movie, as it was about a lion brought to France from Africa as a cub and trained to become a killing machine.
47 Meters Down (2017)
47 Meters Down is one of several killer shark movies, but this one stands out thanks to its killer plot twist at the end with the survivors. The film follows sisters Kate (Claire Holt) and Lisa (Mandy Moore) as they go on vacation in Mexico and take a diving cage to go shark watching.
However, while in the cage, the two find themselves surrounded by great white sharks. Their cage breaks loose and sinks to the ocean floor, 47 meters below the surface, taking them out of communication range. However, when the rescue team is killed by sharks, Lisa and Kate have to figure out a way to survive as their air runs out.
As mentioned, this film has a shocking twist ending that reconceptualizes everything viewers saw, and it is worth a rewatch to see how this story came together. 47 Meters Down remains one of the most innovative killer shark movies in recent years.
The Grey (2012)
Liam Neeson stars in The Grey, directed by Joe Carnahan. This isn’t straight horror, but it is a killer animal movie in the form of a survival thriller. Neeson stars as John Ottway, a sharpshooter at an Alaskan oil facility who protects the workers there from grey wolf attacks.
In The Grey, he is on a flight to Anchorage when the plane crashes, and the survivors find themselves alone in the woods, with the grey wolves as a constant threat. They are lucky to have John with them, as he has experience with the wolves. However, it isn’t enough. The weather conditions and relentless wolves never let up.
The Grey received great reviews when released, both for the intense action with the grey wolf attacks and the sense of isolation and fear. If anything, this is a killer animal movie where humans go to the animals’ homes and have to deal with the consequences of their intrusion.
The Meg (2018)
While 47 Meters Down has a wild twist, it is mainly a solid shark attack movie for people in the vein of the original Jaws. That said, if someone wants a killer animal movie concerning sharks and has no problem going way over the top, The Meg is the perfect option, with the shark a giant prehistoric megalodon.
The Meg is a lot of fun, with Jason Statham as a deep-sea diver who goes down to save a sub that slipped below a previously undetectable layer of the ocean. However, when he brings the crew back out, the megalodon follows, and he has to work with his ragtag team to stop it before it attacks a populated beach.
There is also a sequel that adds in some more prehistoric creatures, but the first Meg movie is a fantastic creature feature. Similar releases include Deep Blue Sea, which is about genetically enhanced sharks, and Cocaine Bear, which is about exactly what the title suggests.
Lake Placid (1999)
Lake Placid is similar to The Meg in that it is not meant to be taken seriously at all, but it has a little more in common with Anaconda, with a lot better effects. The movie features a giant crocodile terrorizing a lake in Maine, and a group of police and scientists set out to capture or kill the giant killer animal.
The cast was great, with Bill Pullman as the wildlife officer and Bridget Fonda as a paleontologist who wants to capture the crocodile and not kill it. However, the standouts are Oliver Platt, a mythology professor and crocodile enthusiast, and Betty White, a local woman who is actually responsible for raising the crocodiles.
Betty White stole every scene she was in as the foul-mouthed local woman who has been feeding full-sized cows to the crocodiles after one of them ate her husband. She is a big reason this film received negative reviews, but ended up as a cult classic and the start of its own franchise.
The Birds (1963)
The Birds has some of the most unlikely killer animals in movies. However, thanks to Alfred Hitchcock’s direction and his mastery of suspense, he was able to deliver a frightening film that made people believe a horde of birds could slaughter a town full of people if coordinated enough.
While nowhere near as iconic as Hitchcock’s other horror release, Psycho, The Birds remains a classic from a master filmmaker and deserves to live on as one of the best in the genre. With a cast that included Rod Taylor, Jessica Tandy, and Tippi Hedren, the film had a lot going for it, including the impressive bird attacks.
The Birds ended up nominated for Best Visual Effects, while Tippi Hedren won a Golden Globe for her performance. The film was added to the National Film Registry by the Library of Congress in 2016.
Jurassic Park (1993)
While it is often hard to think about dinosaurs as animals, that is exactly what they are. They are just as much an animal as a crocodile, megalodon, or giant snake, and the best dinosaur movie of all time is the Steven Spielberg release, Jurassic Park, in 1993. This is the movie that helped CGI animation break out.
What works so well is that it has more CGI than anything in that era, but it still looks better and more realistic than most films that came after it, including other films in the Jurassic Park series. This is also a spectacular killer animal movie because its underlying message is not to mess with science.
Someone decided to play God and bring dinosaurs back from extinction, and this was never a good idea. The movie also showed that there are peaceful dinosaurs among the killers, but when someone decides to play God, people are going to die.
Cujo (1983)
The one movie from the past that most lines up with Primate in its plot is the Stephen King adaptation, Cujo. Both films have a beloved pet and “family member” who goes rabid when they contract rabies. While Primate has a chimpanzee, which is not meant to be domesticated, Cujo has a beloved dog in the role.
Cujo is small and personal, with a woman named Donna (Dee Wallace) going to get her car fixed, only to find herself trapped and alone at the service station with her son, Tad. Soon, the once kind St. Bernard named Cujo attacks, and the woman has to hide in her car as the temperatures rise, hoping someone will come to save her.
The book had one of Stephen King’s most devastating endings, but the adaptation had a more optimistic ending, with the protagonists devastated but still alive at the end.
Jaws (1975)
The most famous killer animal movie of all time is still Jaws, the film that created the summer blockbuster genre. The Steven Spielberg release focuses on a vacation beach town that is suddenly under attack from a giant killer shark, although the mayor refuses to call off the festivities to protect the vacationers.
There is a lot to love about Jaws, but the best part involves the trio of men sent out in a small boat to kill the shark before it takes any more lives. Roy Scheider, Richard Dreyfuss, and Robert Shaw are brilliant as the mismatched shark hunters, and it is their journey to find and stop the shark that carries the story.