Editorials
The Top 20 Horror Science-Fiction Films of All Time!
What happens when you combine horror and science-fiction–those two vaunted pillars of genre entertainment? You wind up with some of the most fascinating, challenging, and downright kick-ass pieces of cinematic gold ever created. The key to great horror/sci-fi is maintaining that balance between the horrific and the…well, science-fictiony elements, and we think that the 20 flicks included in this list represent the very best examples of just that. We hope you enjoy, and let’s keep the rowdiness to a minimum–people are trying to sleep around here!
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Although bashed by some, we find this gory space epic to be an excellent modern-day haunted house story. Combining hard sci-fi and intense horror, it’s an underrated thrill ride in the tradition of Alien. Directed, oddly enough, by the man who would later take a massive squat on that franchise with 2004’s Alien vs. Predator.
With an impressive A-list cast and a Giger-designed monster, this one tells the tale of a sensual killing machine created by splicing human and alien DNA. Natasha Henstridge plays the unforgettable Sil, an alien life form that must mate and kill. Thankfully, in that order.
“Rowdy” Roddy Piper kicks ass, chews bubblegum, and engages in the longest, most pointless, and most awesome brawl in movie history. All in the name of driving an insidious alien menace from our fair planet. Thank you, Hot Rod!
Fifteen years before he became a respected auteur with his acclaimed LOTR trilogy, Peter Jackson gave us this inspired, madcap, horror sci-fi comedy about a race of hideous aliens intent on turning humans into fast food.
A strange spaceship crash-lands near a mine, and while most of the foolish cast takes it for nothing but a meteor, people start disappearing mysteriously. One of the earliest examples of the alien invasion film, thanks mainly to the rise of Cold War paranoia.
Perhaps the definitive McCarthy-era Red Scare inspired alien invasion flick, with Martians literally taking over the minds of Earthlings, with only one young boy knowing the horrible truth. Watch out for the very unusual climax as the army faces off with the invaders in classic fashion.
A space mission to Halley’s Comet (remember when that was a really big deal?), inadvertently brings back some pesky interstellar vampires that convert the majority of London into the walking dead. Bloody hell!
A gelatinous mass engineered by the good ol’ U.S. government (as opposed to the space invader of the nearly-as-good 1958 original) wreaks holy havoc in a small town, eating away at everything in its path. Kind of like Kirstie Alley on a commercial set.
Jack Griffin unlocks the key to invisibility. Unfortunately, it also transforms him into a raving, homicidal lunatic. Claude Rains is unforgettable as the titular Universal baddie. One of the classic “scientist tampers with nature and pays the price” stories, based on the seminal H.G. Wells novel.
The 1950s was rife with cautionary tales of giant irradiated fauna, but none packed as much of a terrifying punch as this one. Massive mutated ants run roughshod over New Mexico in this classic, filled with genuine dread and fine performances from the likes of the late Richard Whitmore.
This Robert Louis Stephenson literary favorite has been retold so many times, we tend to forget it is in fact a seminal work of both horror and early science fiction. And of all the versions, nothing tops Fredric March’s Oscar-winning turn as the scientist who tampers unwisely with the dark side of the human psyche, 75 years before Dr. Bruce Banner.
David Cronenberg was simply a master of combining horror and sci-fi, and did so brilliantly in this film about powerful psychics and the forces out to stop them. Plus, it has the most famous exploding head scene in the history of cinema, so what more do you really need?
Speaking of Cronenberg, this bizarre mix of sci-fi and surreal was way ahead of its time, exploring how the media can literally warp and control the minds of its viewers. The imagery is strange and disturbing in the extreme, even for Cronenberg. Unless you enjoy seeing men sprouting vagina dentata out of their mid-sections.
If the thought of Godzilla conjures up “Save the Earth”, little boys in short shorts and guys doing wrestling moves in rubber suits, then you need to see the original Japanese Godzilla flick. A powerful and extremely well-made film, it makes a strong case against the dangers of nuclear weapons, and gives us a city-destroying monster that is a far cry from the goofy character he later became.
This adaptation of Paddy Chayefsky’s novel casts a young William Hurt as a scientist who conducts hallucinatory experiments on himself that eventually cause him to genetically regress. Sounds kind of like college.
If someone uses the words invasion, body and snatch all in the same sentence, we normally don’t instantly assume OOH! HORROR SCI-FI… But you can’t always judge based on first impressions. Creeping us out with alien invaders that don’t want us to take them to our leader, but rather to make our bodies host to them, this classic is one that mustn’t be missed.
There’s absolutely nothing more terrifying than a half-fly half-Russian Jew with a staccato delivery that Shatner WISHES he could pull off. Well, maybe there is, but the Fly would still be pretty damn close. We also get Jeff Goldblum’s greatest performance this side of Jurassic Park, and a reason to actually appreciate Geena Davis. It takes a real woman to birth a worm.
In many ways, Mary Shelley’s 19th century novel was the very first science fiction novel, so it’s only fitting that the classic Universal adaptation, though vastly different, would be one of the finest sci-fi horror flicks ever made. In fact, the movie stresses the science-fictional elements ever more than the original book.
Once again, if someone asks if we want to see “the Thing”, sci-fi doesn’t immediately spring to mind. This shape-shifting alien is a far cry from the Wonder Twins. And who could forget the infamous blood screening scene? Gives a whole new meaning to the phrase “you might want to get yourself tested”!
And finally, the number-one horror/sci-fi film of all time…
In space, no one can hear you scream. But that doesn’t stop the crew of the Nostromo from doing quite a bit of it in this, the mother of all horror sci-fi flicks. Following in the wake of the fairy tale Star Wars, Ridley Scott’s masterpiece took space drama deeper into the realm of the macabre than it had ever before ventured. It’s a perfect blend of both genres, and the H.R. Giger-designed creature remains the stuff of otherwordly nightmares.
For more news and opinions on the world of horror, including an exclusive review of the new Mischa Barton thriller Homecoming, a remembrance of David Carradine, and the Top 10 Horror TV Series of All Time, check out Brian’s daily blog, The Vault of Horror, at thevaultofhorror.net.
And for a unique look at the feminine side of fear, including an impassioned plea against the Scream remake, and the ultimate A-Z of horror movie actresses, check out The Vault’s sister blog, Day of the Woman, at dayofwoman.blogspot.com.
Due to a complex series of anthropological mishaps, the Wayans Brothers are a huge deal in Brazil. Around these parts, White Chicks is considered a national treasure by a lot of people, so it stands to reason that Brazilian audiences would continue to accompany the Wayans’ comedic output long after North America had stopped taking them seriously as comedic titans.
This is the only reason why I originally watched Michael Tiddes and Marlon Wayans’ 2013 horror spoof A Haunted House – appropriately known as “Paranormal Inactivity” in South America – despite having abandoned this kind of movie shortly after the excellent Scary Movie 3. However, to my complete and utter amazement, I found myself mostly enjoying this unhinged parody of Found Footage films almost as much as the iconic spoofs that spear-headed the genre during the 2000s. And with Paramount having recently announced a reboot of the Scary Movie franchise, I think this is the perfect time to revisit the divisive humor of A Haunted House and maybe figure out why this kind of film hasn’t been popular in a long time.
Before we had memes and internet personalities to make fun of movie tropes for free on the internet, parody movies had been entertaining audiences with meta-humor since the very dawn of cinema. And since the genre attracted large audiences without the need for a serious budget, it made sense for studios to encourage parodies of their own productions – which is precisely what happened with Miramax when they commissioned a parody of the Scream franchise, the original Scary Movie.
The unprecedented success of the spoof (especially overseas) led to a series of sequels, spin-offs and rip-offs that came along throughout the 2000s. While some of these were still quite funny (I have a soft spot for 2008’s Superhero Movie), they ended up flooding the market much like the Guitar Hero games that plagued video game stores during that same timeframe.
You could really confuse someone by editing this scene into Paranormal Activity.
Of course, that didn’t stop Tiddes and Marlon Wayans from wanting to make another spoof meant to lampoon a sub-genre that had been mostly overlooked by the Scary Movie series – namely the second wave of Found Footage films inspired by Paranormal Activity. Wayans actually had an easier time than usual funding the picture due to the project’s Found Footage presentation, with the format allowing for a lower budget without compromising box office appeal.
In the finished film, we’re presented with supposedly real footage recovered from the home of Malcom Johnson (Wayans). The recordings themselves depict a series of unexplainable events that begin to plague his home when Kisha Davis (Essence Atkins) decides to move in, with the couple slowly realizing that the difficulties of a shared life are no match for demonic shenanigans.
In practice, this means that viewers are subjected to a series of familiar scares subverted by wacky hijinks, with the flick featuring everything from a humorous recreation of the iconic fan-camera from Paranormal Activity 3 to bizarre dance numbers replacing Katy’s late-night trances from Oren Peli’s original movie.
Your enjoyment of these antics will obviously depend on how accepting you are of Wayans’ patented brand of crass comedy. From advanced potty humor to some exaggerated racial commentary – including a clever moment where Malcom actually attempts to move out of the titular haunted house because he’s not white enough to deal with the haunting – it’s not all that surprising that the flick wound up with a 10% rating on Rotten Tomatoes despite making a killing at the box office.
However, while this isn’t my preferred kind of humor, I think the inherent limitations of Found Footage ended up curtailing the usual excesses present in this kind of parody, with the filmmakers being forced to focus on character-based comedy and a smaller scale story. This is why I mostly appreciate the love-hate rapport between Kisha and Malcom even if it wouldn’t translate to a healthy relationship in real life.
Of course, the jokes themselves can also be pretty entertaining on their own, with cartoony gags like the ghost getting high with the protagonists (complete with smoke-filled invisible lungs) and a series of silly The Exorcist homages towards the end of the movie. The major issue here is that these legitimately funny and genre-specific jokes are often accompanied by repetitive attempts at low-brow humor that you could find in any other cheap comedy.
Not a good idea.
Not only are some of these painfully drawn out “jokes” incredibly unfunny, but they can also be remarkably offensive in some cases. There are some pretty insensitive allusions to sexual assault here, as well as a collection of secondary characters defined by negative racial stereotypes (even though I chuckled heartily when the Latina maid was revealed to have been faking her poor English the entire time).
Cinephiles often claim that increasingly sloppy writing led to audiences giving up on spoof movies, but the fact is that many of the more beloved examples of the genre contain some of the same issues as later films like A Haunted House – it’s just that we as an audience have (mostly) grown up and are now demanding more from our comedy. However, this isn’t the case everywhere, as – much like the Elves from Lord of the Rings – spoof movies never really died, they simply diminished.
A Haunted House made so much money that they immediately started working on a second one that released the following year (to even worse reviews), and the same team would later collaborate once again on yet another spoof, 50 Shades of Black. This kind of film clearly still exists and still makes a lot of money (especially here in Brazil), they just don’t have the same cultural impact that they used to in a pre-social-media-humor world.
At the end of the day, A Haunted House is no comedic masterpiece, failing to live up to the laugh-out-loud thrills of films like Scary Movie 3, but it’s also not the trainwreck that most critics made it out to be back in 2013. Comedy is extremely subjective, and while the raunchy humor behind this flick definitely isn’t for everyone, I still think that this satirical romp is mostly harmless fun that might entertain Found Footage fans that don’t take themselves too seriously.
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