The have debuted some awesome new monsters. Whether they're from a film or a TV series, these creatures have scared the living crap out of us. We in the audience know these monsters are fake, the products of good CGI, make-up, prosthetics, and other practical effects.

And yet, these creatures make us gasp and jump in our seats. They send shivers down our spines and haunt us in the real world, making us look over our shoulders and keep our lights on at night.

Here are the most terrifying horror monsters of the 2020s that prowl our nightmares beyond the screen.

is an Icelandic folk horror film, an international production that was never released theatrically in the US. It's also one of the stranger entries on our list. In Lamb, two farmers are shocked when one of their lambs gives birth to a human-sheep hybrid with the body of a human child and the head of a lamb. She's even capable of speech.

Toward the end of the film, we meet the lamb's biological father: a monstrous ram-man hybrid with a man's body and a ram's head. This beast is capable of using a shotgun, which it uses to kill one of the characters before taking back his daughter and fleeing into the wilderness. This monster has no name, no definitive origin. He simply emerges from the wilderness, wreaks havoc, and then vanishes without a word. But boy, does his monstrous appearance leave an impression.

Set in a nightmarish town that imprisons anyone who enters, follows the town's unwilling residents as they search for escape -- and try to survive nocturnal creatures in the surrounding forest. This sci-fi horror series has received critical acclaim for its story and performances. And also for its monsters. They were once humans who sacrificed their children to achieve immortality. Now known as the Creatures, they've been transformed into humanoid monsters who emerge at night to hunt the townspeople.

The Creatures don't appear to be vampires. They don't feed on their victims, resorting instead to torture and murder. Their human forms appear ghostly and pale. But upon attack, the Creatures shed this disguise to reveal their true grotesque form: deformed bodies with razor-sharp claws and teeth.

is a Netflix horror miniseries. Here, a mysterious priest arrives in a devout, impoverished island community and reveals the presence of an Angel. Or so, he believes. The Angel seems more like a blood-sucking, ghoulish vampire who feasts on the townsfolk. Is it really an angel? The creature calmly walks down the aisle of a church, wearing religious robes, and is able to control its bloodlust in front of the congregation.

Maybe it really is a twisted interpretation of an angel, or maybe it's a vampire toying with the humans. Midnight Mass keeps the Angel's origins ambiguous, leaving it up to the viewer to determine its true nature.

is the third film directed by Jordan Peele. This movie has a little bit of everything: sci-fi, comedy, Western, and, of course, horror. It follows a pair of horse-wrangling siblings, who are tormented by an unidentified flying object. This saucer-shaped entity isn't an alien spacecraft; it actually is the monster.

Nicknamed "Jean Jacket" by the main characters, this creature soars through the sky and devours anything below it. It's unclear whether this monster is a lone being or a part of an entire species, though it is believed to be an extra-terrestrial. Jean Jacket is a fresh spin on the sci-fi and horror genres, giving us a different alien than anything we've seen before.

​​​​​​​ is a little horror gem that was released in 2022. It follows two strangers who accidentally double-book a vacation rental home, only to find a dark secret lurking in the depths of the house. That dark secret turns out to be The Mother (Matthew Patrick Davis).

The Mother isn't technically a monster. She's a deformed human who's the product of decades of incest and rape. But her deranged and murderous personality, as well as her grotesque and unsettling appearance, make her one of the most frightening entities on our list.

is one of the newest movie franchises on our list. Although M3GAN 2.0 veers more into sci-fi and action, the original 2022 film, M3GAN, is a straight-up horror movie. It centers on an artificially intelligent doll who becomes sentient and grows violent toward anyone who comes between her and her human companion. It's the classic horror story of a porcelain doll that's come to life -- only now, that porcelain doll is powered by AI.

Don't let this movie's campiness fool you. M3GAN's creepy appearance is enough to send a chill down your spine. Her face is expressionless and eerily devoid of humanity, even though she moves like a little human. And like all living dolls in the horror genre, she's murderous. Sure, M3GAN is a robot, but that doesn't mean she isn't a monster. A third film is reportedly in production.

is HBO's critically-acclaimed adaptation of the best-selling video game of the same name. It follows survivors in a post-apocalyptic America, where a fungal pandemic has transformed humans into zombie-like creatures.

All the zombies in this show are frightening, but the scariest of them all are the bloaters. Arguably the most dangerous stage of infection, bloaters are tall, bloated zombies covered in fungal growth that serve as armored plates. Bloaters are remarkably strong and physically imposing, capable of ripping humans apart with their brute strength. One look at this fungus-covered giant is enough to gross you out. The second a bloater enters the scene, you know there's a good chance that someone's about to get ripped apart.

Set during the 1980s, follows the residents of Hawkins, Indiana -- primarily a group of geeky kids, led by a girl with telekinetic powers -- as their suburban town is attacked by a hostile, alternate dimension known as the Upside Down. Stranger Things is packed with alluring monsters, but none are more terrifying than Vecna. Although Stranger Things premiered in 2016, Vecna didn't make his grand entrance until 2022's season 4.

Named after the Dungeons & Dragons character of the same name, Vecna is the ruler of the Upside Down. He started out as a powerful human with telekinetic and telepathic abilities, but his time in the Upside Down has warped his physical appearance into a monstrous form. He almost resembles a skeleton with rotten flesh and muscle. Vecna is without mercy or remorse. He uses his telepathic and telekinetic abilities to distort and crush his enemies' bodies before killing them. Vecna will reappear in the highly anticipated final season of Stranger Things, which is set to release in November 2025.

There have been two films in the series so far. The original 2022 movie and its 2024 sequel, Smile 2, follow characters who, after witnessing bizarre and gruesome suicides, are tortured by haunting visions and strangers with eerie, nonsensical smiles. Smile is the best new horror franchise of the 2020s -- and it also introduces arguably the best new horror monster of the decade. This monster has no name. It's known only as the Smile Entity or Smile Demon. At first, we're led to believe that the Entity is an oversized, grinning woman. But then the movie hands us a reveal that makes our jaws drop to the floor. Literally.

The Demon sheds its human skin to reveal its true form: an enormous, skinless, bloody entity with multiple grinning jaws. It's one of the most frightening and unique monster designs in recent memory. The Demon also has no defined origin. We don't know where it comes from, what it actually is, or what it wants, which only makes the Entity that much more terrifying. But the scariest thing of all -- there seems to be no way of stopping or surviving this demonic being. Unless the forthcoming sequel, Smile 3, changes that.