Monsters A-Z

26 Monsters in 25 Minutes

Akhlut

Origin: Inuit

Babadook

Origin: Modern

A Bad Book

Chimera

Origin: Greece

Goaty MacSnaketail

Djinn

Origin: Arabian

Open sesame!

Ents

Origin: JRR Tolkien

Fenrir

Origin: Norse

Son of Loki

Grendel

Origin: Anglo Saxon

"Destroyer and devourer of our human kind"

Huli Jing

Origin: Chinese

Familiar Spirit

Iele

Origin: Romanian

The Jabberwock

Origin: Lewis Carroll

Kelpie

Origin: Scotland

Amphibious murder horse

Leviathan

Origin: Jewish

Mothman

Origin: West Virgina, USA

Moth Person / Omen

Nocnitsa

Origin: Slavic

Succubus

Ogre

Origin: Widespread

Phoenix

Origin: Ancient Greek

Quetzalcoatl

Origin: Aztec

Roc

Origin: Middle Eastern

Sphinx

Origin: Persian, Egyptian and Greek

Tribbles

Origin: Star Trek

Unicorn

Origin: Widespread

Vampires

Origin: Widespread

Image Source

Vampires appear in most cultures, under various names. They feed on the life essence of living people, and are said to infect those that they bite.
The concept of the sophisticated vampire was popularised in the 19th century by books like Bram Stoker's "Dracula" and John Polidori's "The Vampyre".
This modern vampire has interesting political connotations - the rich, powerful Count parasitising the masses for his own benefit can be interpreted as a statement about the aristocracy at that time.

Wendigo

Origin: Algonquian

Xenomorph

Origin: Alien

In space, no one can hear you scream

Yeti

Origin: Himalayas

Snow cones?

Zombie

Origin: Haitian

Image Source: The Walking Dead

In Haitian folklore - animated corpse raised by magical means. Often, but not necessarily connected to voodoo.
Zombie ideas are common throughout historic fiction - from Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, to HP Lovecraft's "Herbert West – Reanimator". Whilst not explicitly zombies, they follow the tropes - uncontrollable, mostly mute, primitive and extremely violent.
First appeared in film as early as the 1930s, but were defined as we know them by George Romero's "Night of the Living Dead", which linked them to consumerism.
Have evolved from slow moving to fast moving, and in some content they are protagonists (Warm Blood, iZombie etc).