Last week in our How To Start Getting Into Horror series, I recommended diving into the world of B-horror as a way to show that our genre can be over-the-top, hilarious, and outrageous. In a nutshell, I felt that they can be a great deal of entirely unrealistic fun while still providing some scares, which is what we’re after.
So, in my mind the next step forward is to get into the sci-fi/horror arena. It’s still, in a way, unrealistic but it can absolutely be scary. So let’s look at a few titles that fit into this theme that would be great for beginners.
To introduce someone into this genre, I recommend starting with films such as Cube and Resident Evil before diving into heavier, stronger films like The Thing, Alien, or The Fly.
With the former, you’ve got a visually fascinating film that provides some serious gore but in minimal doses. It relies far more upon the characters and their reaction to the environment than it does on what the environment does to them. It’s also a film that spurs discussion, making the viewer wonder, “What is the cube? Why are they there? What happens next?” It’s the same type of questioning that can be applied to The Thing.
Meanwhile, the latter is a blockbuster-esque film that maintains the fun of B-horror while introducing something we haven’t really tackled fully yet: zombies. Since zombies are a huge part of the horror genre, this is a great way to show that such films can be fun and exciting while also featuring kickass protagonists. If your non-horror pal is a fan of Alice, just imagine how they’ll react to Ripley!
The main thing to get across with showing someone sci-fi/horror is to stress that it’s essentially a different reality. A fantasy, if you will. At the end of the day, these things aren’t actually happening, so there’s no need to worry.
