Science fiction and horror are two genres that naturally work well together. Separately, they each explore the capability of humanity, for good and bad, and often are best used to deliver social commentary in the times they’re made. Horror triggers the fight or flight nature in an audience, while science fiction tends to provoke their curiosity.
It’s no surprise that when both horror and science fiction are perfectly balanced, they create timeless stories that are revisited and celebrated for decades afterward. With that in mind, we’ll take a look at ten movies that have the perfect balance between science fiction and horror. These are movies that have launched franchises, anointed directors as legends, and entertained each generation that discovers them for the first time. They remain triumphs of both genres, even if some are decidedly superior to others.
‘Pitch Black’ (2000)
In Pitch Black, a transport ship crash-lands on a remote planet, leaving few survivors and no way to leave without extensive repairs on the vessel. Problems escalate when the planet enters a rare solar eclipse, allowing the light-sensitive creatures who live under the surface a chance to emerge and hunt for food. The survivors’ only hope is Riddick (Vin Diesel), a dangerous criminal whose ability to see in the dark could be the deciding factor in whether they live or die.
Diesel will always be most closely associated with theFast and the Furious franchise, but it was Pitch Black that helped establish him as a leading man. The special effects may not be as convincing 25 years later, but the story remains strong and accessible due to the nuanced character work. Few characters in Pitch Black have a clear-cut moral framework that defines them as a hero or a villain, and rather, it’s their actions in a life-or-death moment that reveal their true nature, allowing even a hardened killer like Riddick to be a hero.
‘Cube’ (1997)
Cube follows a group of people as they find themselves inside a mysterious enclosed structure, which they know nothing about. Each room has entrances to similar cubed rooms, but as the group quickly learns, deadly traps await them if they pick their next move incorrectly. As the group becomes increasingly stressed and panicked, their hostility could be just as dangerous as their next selected room.
The beauty in how Cube blends sci-fi with horror is in the ambiguous nature that each is approached. We don’t know why this futuristic structure was created, or its purpose, but like the scared people trapped in it, we’re forced to operate on limited information. There’s no sense of time or what the world is like outside these walls, only deepening psychological horror with each new room in a journey that appears hopeless.
‘The Blob’ (1988)
A 1950s horror movie receives a gory upgrade in the 1988 remake of The Blob. A crashed meteorite announces the arrival of a pink slime that grows larger after each organic creature it consumes. Driven by a ravenous appetite, the blob destroys everything in a nearby town, eating the residents at an increasingly faster rate, with only a few teens brave and smart enough to determine a weak spot in the monster.
The Blob took a B-movie sci-fi premise and added violent, sometimes disturbing imagery to make a silly idea unimaginably scary. Out of the many horror remakes that dropped in theaters during the ’80s and ’90s, The Blob improved upon the source material. In this version, we see how painful death is when making contact with the blob, so each brush with death for our heroes becomes a white-knuckle experience.
‘The Host’ (2006)
Waste disposal and pollution manifest in the form of a vicious monster in The Host. The citizens of Seoul, South Korea, have their world turned upside down when a monster emerges from the river to carve a path of destruction through the city. Amidst the chaos and fear, a local merchant named Park (Song Kang-ho) bravely pursues the monster to rescue his abducted daughter from the creature’s nest.
The Host is more than an entertaining creature feature; it’sa thought-provoking monster moviewith a focus on environmental responsibility and government manipulation of information to create misleading propaganda. Science fiction and horror are genres that are at their best when exploring social fears of the time, and director Bong Joon Ho combines both to give the viewer more to consider after the scares are over. The Host is thrilling, heartbreaking, and a modern parable that should be watched by all.
‘A Quiet Place’ (2018)
A family relies on one another and a little luck to avoid aliens who operate by sound in A Quiet Place. John Krasinski and Emily Blunt star as Lee and Evelyn Abbott, a married couple who take great precautions in protecting their children after an alien invasion. While still grappling with the guilt of a fatal misstep, the two prepare the best they can to make a pregnant Evelyn’s impending labor as silent as possible.
A Quiet Place gives audiences an intimate perspective of an alien invasion story, focusing on the family instead of destroyed landmarks. By having the story focus on a family instead of a random group of survivors, the survival of each character is vitally important, and the tension is kept high starting with the first scene. The unique aliens and the specific approach to avoiding them have become popular with audiences, branching out into a successful A Quiet Place franchise with more sequels to come.
‘Invasion of the Body Snatchers’ (1978)
Invasion of the Body Snatchers details the last days of humanity when a calculated alien invasion replaces humans with copies of their former selves. The late Donald Sutherland stars as Matthew Bennell, a health inspector who quickly shifts from skeptic to believer when he sees the changes happen around him. Along with the help of a few remaining humans, Matthew tries to foil the aliens’ plot, but the growing number of pod people could mean Earth is already lost.
There have been many versions of the story told in Invasion of the Body Snatchers, but the 1978 film best taps into the primal horror of the invasion. The film distills the essence of claustrophobia in wide open spaces, closing the walls in on the last remaining humans without ever limiting their physical movement. Invasion of the Body Snatchers is eerie, timeless, and features one of the most memorable horror endings of all time, making it an all-time classic.
‘The Fly’ (1986)
In The Fly, Seth Brundle (Jeff Goldblum) is on the verge of creating a revolutionary technology that can transport matter from one pod to another. In a reckless move, Seth uses himself as a test subject, inadvertently mixing his DNA with a fly that was in the chamber with him. As Seth’s body begins to change into that of an unrecognizable monster, he loses his brilliance and succumbs to basic instincts that prioritize survival over previous human connections.
The 1986 The Fly is an example of why and how a movie should be remade. Director David Cronenberg takes the source material and updates it with modern technology in both the story and practical effects on screen, giving the audience a gruesome step-by-step journey into the deconstruction of a human. Seth’s transformation into a creature is horrifying and deeply tragic, combining the dark side of science fiction with the horror of impending death.
‘Event Horizon’ (1997)
A spaceship designed to speed up scientific breakthroughs becomes a tomb of evil in Event Horizon. When a first-of-its-kind spaceship, the Event Horizon, suddenly reappears almost a decade after its mysterious disappearance, a crew, along with Dr. William Weir, the designer of the ship, embarks to investigate. However, when they discover everyone on the ship brutally murdered, all signs point to the rescue crew falling to the same fate.
Event Horizon combines sci-fi and scares to effectively make a haunted house movie set on a spaceship, using horror tropes in a location moviegoers aren’t accustomed to seeing them in. The dread is palpable from the moment the crew walks onto the abandoned ship, and that sense of unease continues throughout the runtime. Even though Event Horizon wasn’t well-received upon release, the film continues to build a following that appreciates the genre mashup.
‘The Thing’ (1982)
John Carpenter’s The Thing is the perfect fusion of science fiction and horror that remains a high point for both genres. A group of researchers in a remote Antarctic research station has their peaceful existence shattered by the arrival of a dangerous, shape-shifting monster. The men on the base have no time to study the attacking alien, and even though they’re all trained scientists, the crew are helpless to ward off a threat that could pass as any of them.
No other film comes close to The Thing in terms of using sci-fi-inspired visuals to create cinematic nightmare fuel. The nihilistic tone that the movie was once criticized for is now one of its clearest distinguishing features, establishing a bleak atmosphere that grows as more men die. The Thing was a flop upon release, nearly ending Carpenter’s career, but the film has gone on to be viewed as an influential, misunderstood masterpiece.
‘Alien’ (1979)
In Alien, a commercial spaceship returning to Earth is rerouted to answer a distress signal. Their pit stop proves to be a disaster when the crew’s assistance leads to an alien killing machine running loose in their ship. With nowhere to run, the doomed crew members are hunted one by one, each falling victim to the terrifying monster lurking in the shadows.
Alien uses science fiction for the source of its horror, introducing an unknown alien entity stalking its prey in the claustrophobic setting of a spaceship. These are heightened circumstances that are unfamiliar to anyone who hasn’t been to space, which is presumably most people, but Alien resonates with moviegoers in large part due to the cast. The people on screen aren’t futuristic geniuses or a militarized crew, but rather blue-collar workers in a bad situation, and their reaction to the slithering black monster is shared by everyone watching.
