Editorials
Horror Movie Franchises That SHOULD Go to Space!
I’ll admit it. I’m not proud of it, but I like it when horror sequels go outer space.
I know it’s usually silly. It’s almost always a major break with the rest of the franchise, unless the monsters were from outer space to begin with. (It’s not like anybody complained about Critters doing a sequel in space – that’s where those creatures were from!) And yet, at some point it’s okay to acknowledge that some of our favorite horror franchises are, at least occasionally, extremely absurd.
Leprechaun goes to space? We already accepted a damn leprechaun, so go nuts. Jason goes to space? By the tenth film in the Friday the 13th franchise he’d become an unstoppable zombie juggernaut who fought psychics teenagers and swapped bodies. Plausibility waved “bye-bye” to a lot of our horror franchises a long time ago.
If you’re willing to accept the ridiculousness of a horror movie – not everyone is, but just in case you are – it’s okay to enjoy it when your favorite horror movie villains go to outer space to ply their scary wares. And there are quite a few more horror movie franchises that have never been to space but would be fun as hell if they did.
Here’s what I got. Did I miss anything?
Amityville
The original film was based on a “true” story, and so was the first sequel/prequel, but after that this franchise went nuts. Evil lamps, time travel, you name it. So while it might not be very frightening to set an Amityville sequel in space, I think all bets are officially off.
How does it work? As we learned in the Amityville sequels, it’s not just the house that’s haunted, it’s the objects within it. And they’re still haunted even if they’re removed from the property.
So it’s really very simple: it’s the future, mankind has been gradually leaving the planet for other, more inhabitable worlds, and someone brings with along some antiques and artifacts. One of those antiques happens to be from the Amityville house, and it brings the haunting into the spaceship which – for months or even years – is going to be the home of dozens of families.
In other words, it’s a haunted house in space. If nothing else it answers the time-honored question about all haunted house stories: why don’t they leave? Well, this time it’s the only place in space you can go is into a deadly vacuum, that’s why!
Child’s Play
The killer doll Chucky has gone to military school, he’s gone to Hollywood, and he’s gone to a mental institution. But he’s never been to space!
This idea may seem like a reversal for the Child’s Play franchise. The series went from being a little cheesy but still horrifying for two or three films, only to veer hardcore into splatstick comedy with Bride of Chucky and Seed of Chucky. The last two movies in the official franchise, Curse of Chucky and Cult of Chucky, got more serious in tone, with cliffhangers that are leading in directions which – probably – won’t take killer doll into space.
But imagine, if you will, that Bride of Chucky director Ronny Yu returned to this series, ready to take it to the stars. Chucky’s a doll, right? It’s not like he’s going to die of old age. And in the distant future he’ll still be around, wreaking havoc and steadily upgrading himself into more sophisticated animatronics. Chucky in Space might play a lot like Star Wars if one of the droids was a homicidal maniac, and if that doesn’t sound fun to you, then we are very different people.
Evil Dead
Did you ever see the original, pessimistic ending of Army of Darkness? Ash had gone back in time to fight the Deadites with King Arthur, only to go too far back into the future and emerge into a desolate wasteland. The only way out now is up, so in Evil Dead in Space Ash finds himself a spaceship – with an interface so simple even a 20th century S-Mart clerk could figure out – and off he goes, into the wild doomed yonder.
Unbeknownst to Ash he’s got Deadite stowaways on board, and so begins a film that revisits the sanity-testing isolation of the first half of Evil Dead 2, with Ash trapped in space with nothing but demons to keep him company. They try to drive him insane, they take over vital parts of the ship, they even try to pull him into a black hole… and if you thought the giant monster from the end of the second Evil Dead was big, wait until you see what the Deadites call forth from the Lovecraftian nether regions of a black hole!
Paranormal Activity
The found footage genre isn’t dead, it’s just sleeping, waiting for Paranormal Activity in Space! Don’t forget, the demons in this blockbuster franchise are tied to people, not their houses, so if those people go to outer space – in a sparsely populated space station, for example, filled with security cameras – the demons would go with them.
It’s a big switch from the ultra-realism that used to define the Paranormal Activity series, but it’s not such a big switch when you remember that the last two installments had supernatural super soldiers, time travel and 3D ghost cameras. The franchise went into ridiculous and gimmicky territory a while ago. Let’s just take it one million steps further, into space!
And again, space is vast and empty. It’s enough to make anybody feel trapped and alone. It sure would be creepy to find out that the crew of a space station went missing, and to review the security footage to find out what happened to them…
The Purge
For one night a year all crime in America is legal. But does that law still apply… in space?
There are two ways The Purge in Space could work. First, a grounded version (well, I say “grounded”). We have space stations right now, floating in orbit, and if an American astronaut decided to celebrate their favorite holiday in zero gravity one would have to wonder if international law would be on their side, and whether it’s only fair if the other astronauts would get to fight back… or kill at their own leisure.
But also, if the corrupt government from the Purge movies doesn’t get overthrown, it only stands to reason that an annual tradition would persist like Christmas, Halloween and all our other economy-driving holidays. Imagine a future where one species – ours – has free reign to commit any crime they want on any planet they want. How would other intelligent species respond to humanity? Would they run, would they hide, would they fight back, or would they adopt our barbaric ways and start acting on their ugliest impulses too?
Imagine, if you will, a deadly mob slaughtering each other in a wretched hive of scum and villainy like Mos Eisley space port. Now, instead of imagining… let’s make it!
It’s been 75 years since The Thing From Another World first warned us to “watch the skies”, and filmgoers have done just that by showing up to multiple instances of extraterrestrial contact on the big screen. This makes sense, as a recent CBS news poll estimated that 63% of Americans believe in intelligent life on other planets, and the ongoing disclosure movement aims to raise that number with each passing day.
With Steven Spielberg’s Disclosure Day leaving many genre fans hungry for more alien footage (preferably of the spooky variety), today I’d like to share a list recommending six underrated alien invasion thrillers for your viewing pleasure. After all, regardless of whether or not you believe that we’re alone in the universe, it can be fun to dream about the worst-case scenario if our cosmic neighbors ever decide to visit.
For the purposes of this list, we’ll be focusing on lesser-known invasion stories rather than the popular extraterrestrials of franchises like Alien and Close Encounters of the Third (or even Fourth) Kind. That being said, don’t forget to comment below with your own alien favorites if you think we missed a particularly thrilling movie.
While it won’t be featured in this article, I’d highly recommend checking out Dean Alioto’s UFO Abduction/The McPherson Tape if you’re up for some ufology-inspired found footage thrills.
With that out of the way, onto the list!
6. The Arrival (1996)
Not to be confused with Denis Villeneuve’s Academy Award-winning Amy Adams vehicle about learning to communicate peacefully with extraterrestrial life, David Twohy’s The Arrival is a much more straightforward (but no less entertaining) genre romp where Charlie Sheen faces a global conspiracy involving hostile alien invaders.
It’s not exactly up there with Close Encounters or even Independence Day, but Twohy’s conspiratorial thriller plays out like an exceptionally fun episode of The X-Files that I’d recommend to sci-fi/horror fans who don’t mind a little bit of wonky CGI and 90s excess alongside their alien thrills.
5. Extraterrestrial (2014)
The Vicious Brothers made a name for themselves with the success of 2011’s Grave Encounters, but that was far from the Canadian duo’s only collaboration. And while it’s not exactly a fan favorite, I always point out 2014’s Extraterrestrial as one of their most underrated projects simply because I agree with the filmmakers’ opinion that there aren’t enough ‘cool alien abduction movies’ out there.
Admittedly, the majority of the picture functions like a run-of-the-mill creature feature with paper-thin characters and familiar horror tropes, but I’d argue that the cosmically-terrifying final act elevates the experience to new and memorable heights. The movie also boasts great performances by both Michael Ironside and Emily Perkins – a combination that more than makes up for the occasionally janky CGI.
4. Alien Raiders (2008)
Director Ben Rock has gone on record lamenting how his John-Carpenter-inspired creature feature was forcefully renamed from Supermarket to the painfully obvious Alien Raiders (a change which likely resulted in many potential viewers skipping out on the experience), but the new title doesn’t change the fact that this single-location thriller is something of a hidden gem.
Taking place entirely within a supermarket, Alien Raiders tells the story of an ensemble of customers and employees who are taken hostage by a group of armed men looking for something far more dangerous than an easy payout. I won’t get into details in order to avoid spoiling the experience, but I’d highly recommend this criminally underseen flick to fans of John Carpenter and the Resident Evil games.
3. Phoenix Forgotten (2017)
You’d think that a Ridley-Scott-produced retelling of one of the most infamous real-life UFO sightings of all time would have a bigger following, but I rarely see Justin Barber’s Found Footage period piece brought up during discussions about extraterrestrial-focused horror movies.
This is a huge shame, as Phoenix Forgotten is just as spooky as it is convincing, with this well-researched dive into the Phoenix Lights incident benefiting from surprisingly believable special effects as well as an appropriately horrific finale.
2. Communion (1989)
I wouldn’t blame you for disregarding Whitley Strieber’s controversial book about his alleged close encounter as sensationalist slop, but I’d argue that Phillipe Mora’s 1989 adaptation of these events is much better than the source material. After all, the movie works as a standalone piece of speculative fiction while also benefiting from an incredible performance by the one and only Christopher Walken!
Mora’s take on Communion may not be particularly scary, but the film is still an unforgettable character study regardless of whether or not the abduction really happened. Not only that, but the flick also paved the way for plenty of future sci-fi stories where the extraterrestrial invaders aren’t as evil as they initially appear.
1. Altered (2006)
Originally envisioned as a Sam Raimi-style horror-comedy titled Probed, Eduardo Sánchez (of The Blair Witch Project fame) eventually realized that it would be much more interesting to turn the film into a serious exploration of the emotional aftermath of a traumatic abduction incident.
That’s how we got Altered, a clever inversion of the standard abduction narrative that follows a group of troubled friends as they capture and experiment on an alien in order to enact revenge for their own abduction years prior.
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