Monster Hunters: Ranking 5 More

Savior Slayers

When monsters plague humanity, heroes rise to slay them. We’ve counted down six of the best before, but evil only grows crueler and more cunning. We need a new generation of monster hunters.

So who is up next? Let’s find out.

Honorable Mention: The Power Rangers

Series: Power Rangers
Played By: Austin St. John, Walter Jones, David Yost, Thuy Trang, Amy Jo Johnson, Jason David Frank
Prey: Aliens

Monster hunters are their own archetype, but superheroes often take a stab at the job. You never know when the cape and costume crowd will run across a werewolf or Symbiote and decide that they need to be slain. This team of monster hunters has a kill count that puts all others to shame.

Astronauts unwittingly freed evil empress Rita Repulsa from her prison on the moon. Space wizard Zordon recruited five teenage martial artists to become superheroes called the Power Rangers and fight Rita’s army of monsters.

The Power Rangers settled into a comfortable formula: Rita Repulsa sends down a monster supported by a squad of Putty Patrollers. The Rangers morph and smash their way through the Putties before they’re put on the backfoot by the monster’s gimmick. The Green/White Ranger saves them and destroys the monster, which grows to giant size. They summon the Megazord and destroy it. Same time next week?

Let’s crunch some numbers. There’s an average of 10 Putties in every squad. Figure 2 monsters per episode due to them often being supported by Rita’s generals or another monster. Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers had 145 episodes. That means the Rangers killed 1,740 monsters over three seasons.

The Power Rangers have inspired their own legacy of monster hunters. Each subsequent team confirms around 480 kills, wiping out factions and entire species.

#5 Monster Hunters: The Ghostbusters

Series: Ghostbusters
Played By: Bill Murray, Dan Akroyd, Harold Ramis, Ernie Hudson
Prey: Ghosts

Monsters always seem invincible. If they could be slain, you needed some magic relic or a deity in your corner. But as The Omen and The Exorcist terrified the world with supernatural threats, one comedy asked what ghost or goblin could stand against science wielded by the most fearsome monsters of them all: New Yorkers.

Three quirky scientists named Egon, Venkman, and Stanz discovered that ghosts exist. They built technology to capture them and began making housecalls. The Ghostbusters were lauded by the public, but often criticized for causing collateral damage. There were so many ghosts they had to hire former Marine Winston Zedmore to help keep pace.

The Ghostbusters were often accused of being frauds. It didn’t help that ghosts only appeared in large numbers during major crises, leaving them high and dry much of the time. Despite that, the Ghostbusters saved the world from magical threats like Gozer the Gozerian, Vigo the Carpathian, and the Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man. 

The Ghostbusters have plenty of weapons to bust ghosts. Each one wears a Proton Pack, unlicensed nuclear accelerators that lasso the undead and wrangles them into Ghost Traps. They’ve also used weirder tools, up to and including the Statue of Liberty.

#4 Monster Hunters: Ash Williams

Series: Evil Dead
Played By: Bruce Campbell
Prey: Deadites

There are two breeds of monster hunters out there. The first have been training their whole lives to fight, savoring the blood of fallen foes and learning to kill while everyone else was learning fractions. The second are the screw-ups who survive danger through sheer stubborn desperation. That’s this monster hunter in a nutshell.

Ashley Williams was your standard nice guy dweeb on vacation with his friends. They listened to a tape recorder they found. The recording was an incantation from the Necronomicon ex Mortis, accidentally awakening zombie Deadites. Ash was the only survivor, forced to kill his friends turned into demonic zombies as he fought the horde.

Heroism suited Ash, even though he hated it. He was sent to medieval times and saved King Arthur from a Deadite horde. He returned to the modern day and later became a reluctant mentor to monster hunters. Ash has killed Freddy Kruger, Jason Vorhees, and the Marvel Zombies. He’s also teamed up with heroes like Cassie Hack, Xena, Barack Obama, and a superpowered version of KISS.

Ash’s arsenal began with a shotgun and luck. His hand was possessed, leading him to cut it off and replace it with a chainsaw. Ash drives an Oldsmobile that he’s tricked out with weapons and is smart enough to build explosives.

#3 Erica Slaughter

Series: Something is Killing the Children
Played By: N/A
Prey: Monsters

It’s important to get the right hunter for the right monster. You call in an exorcist for a demon and a Van Helsing for vampires. But when something is killing the children, you need a Slaughter.

Erica was 12 years old when a monster killed her best friend and parents. She nearly killed it with a butcher knife before being rescued by the Order of Saint George. Erica was brought to The House of Slaughter and trained as one of their agents, a hunter who kills monsters that feed on children and are invisible to adults.

The hunter lifestyle wore on Erica Slaughter. She was constantly on the move, walking over mountains of dead kids to kill monsters. Erica hated The Order for prioritizing secrecy and results over keeping innocents safe. She quit to hunt alone after they tried to kill civilian witnesses to a monster attack.

Erica wears a black mask, signifying her position as a generalist hunter in the Order’s hierarchy. She has a tiny dragon gold stake implanted in her head, enabling her to see monsters despite being an adult. She hunts with a pair of machetes. Erica’s most dangerous tool is her childhood stuffed octopus, Octo. It contains the monster who killed her family. She uses Octo as a totem to divine advice from her monster, but it is treacherous and does its best to undermine her.

Erica Slaughter is the only monster hunter on our list who hasn’t made it to a screen, but that will change soon. Netflix is adapting Something is Killing The Children. Production is slow, but the comic’s writer James Tynion IV recently confirmed that it is moving forward.

#2 Monster Hunters: Jill Valentine

Series: Resident Evil
Played By: Cathrine Disher, Nicole Tompkins, Hannah John-Kamen, Atsuko Yuya
Prey: Bio-Organic Weapons (B.O.W.s)

Video game heroes fight hundreds of monsters, and the most vile of them are found in Survival Horror games. Grotesque beasts, genetically engineered monsters, and few weapons to use against them. Only the best hunters can survive, including this nearly superhuman cop.

Jill Valentine was a member of S.T.A.R.S., Raccoon City’s elite police unit. They were ordered to investigate brutal killings in a forest. S.T.A.R.S. was trapped in a mansion full of zombies and Bio-Organic Weapons (B.O.W.s). Jill fought her way through the mansion, solving dozens of complex puzzles and killing dozens of monsters before freeing the surviving members. 

The story was buried to protect the outbreak’s instigator, the Umbrella Corporation. Jill Valentine investigated on her own until the zombies spread to Raccoon City. Jill was hunted by a nigh-unkillable B.O.W. called Nemesis and fought it several times, finally killing it and escaping minutes before Raccoon City was nuked to stop the plague.

Jill dedicated her life to destroying B.O.W.s that Umbrella had created and joined a government organization called the BSAA. She was captured during a mission and mind-controlled into serving Umbrella’s leader, Albert Wesker. Two BSAA agents freed Jill, who immediately returned with a rocket launcher used to kill Wesker.

Jill uses a customized handgun, but often commandeers stronger weapons while on missions. Shotguns, revolvers, submachine guns, grenade launchers, or anything that she can get her hands on. Jill’s also borderline superhuman, shrugging off major injuries and viral infections and continuing to fight. She also killed Nemesis by firing an experimental railgun as long as she is tall three times. It cracked the ground under her, but Jill seemed unaffected by the recoil.

#1 Harry Dresden

Series: The Dresden Files
Played By: Paul Blackthorne
Prey: Dark Wizards, Denarians, Outsiders

Finding a monster hunter is hard. Who knows how many people will die before you find one? But if you need the next best monster hunter, you just need one grimoire. He’s in the Yellow Pages under “Wizard.”

Harry Blackstone Copperfield Dresden was raised by a dark wizard after his father died. He killed his guardian and was placed under watch by the White Council for breaking the First Law of Magic. Dresden grew up and became a private eye specializing in magical cases in modern Chicago.

Dresden’s cases led to an escalation in power and threat. Dark wizards gave way to a vampire war, an order of fallen angels trying to corrupt him, and nightmarish Outsiders declaring him their greatest threat. Dresden solved every case and defeated almost every monster that came his way, including the Last Titan, Ethinu.

Dresden is one of the strongest living wizards. He channels his magic through a staff, blasting rod, and his mother’s silver pentacle. He also uses guns and a glove that stores kinetic energy. Dresden got a major power boost by becoming the Winter Knight of the Fairy Courts. His greatest strength is creativity and willingness to break the Laws of Magic, such as sidestepping the ban on necromancy by raising a zombie T-Rex.

What Monster Hunters would you call to save you? Is there one better than these? Tell us in the comments.

Image: Sienna Guillory and Sophie Vavasseur in Resident Evil: Apocalypse. © 2004 Screen Gems Inc. All Rights Reserved.

Jared Bounacos

Jared Bounacos has written for Movie Rewind since 2016.