If you ever wanted to see Alien on the big screen – again, or even for the first time – you may be out of luck. As we learned a few days ago, Disney has put almost all of 20th Century Fox’s films into their so-called vault.
Disney is notoriously stingy about which films (if any) they let out for revival screenings. If it’s not an official, wide release re-release of a classic film, they rarely (if ever) let theaters rent out prints of their films for one-off revival showings.
That’s bad enough for fans of Disney films, but for horror lovers it could be a real kick in the pants. Never mind how rare it is to see Disney horror films like The Watcher in the Woods or Something Wicked This Way Comes in a theater, but now that Disney owns the vast 20th Century Fox catalogue – complete with a wide array of popular horror films, many of which were screened in revival theaters regularly – it seems that it may be rare, or even impossible, to see certain classic films in a theatrical environment ever again.
Disney does seem to be making one exception, for The Rocky Horror Picture Show, probably because fans would riot if the midnight movie staple – which has been screening every weekend for decades in some areas – were suddenly removed from rotation. (Whether the studio will be as reasonable about screening the underrated sequel Shock Treatment is, apparently, unknown.)
There may be exceptions made for certain Fox horror films in the future, at galas or film festivals, but for now it looks like our chances to see the following 20th Century Fox horror movies on the big screen are extremely low. We’re sorry if you missed your chance to see them at earlier opportunities, and we encourage you to go to any screenings that may pop up in the future.
It’s possible that Disney will one day relent, but for now these are just a few of the Fox horror classics that Disney doesn’t want you to see in a theater.
Alien
The whole Alien franchise was distributed by 20th Century Fox, and revival screenings of the first two films in particular were relatively common. Alien, Aliens, Alien 3, Alien: Resurrection, Prometheus and Alien: Covenant are apparently locked away.
Predator
Alien’s arch-nemesis is also out of theaters. Predator had four solo films as well as the two films in which the murderous aliens waged war on each other, all of which are apparently out of rotation.
The Fly
David Cronenberg’s iconic and tragic remake doesn’t seem likely to spew acidic goop on big screen audiences anymore, nor will the classic original films or the somewhat underappreciated sequel starring Eric Stoltz.
The Omen
“It’s all for you, Damien!” but only if you want to watch it on home video. It’s going to be hard to watch The Omen or its multitudinous sequels in a theater from now on.
The Innocents
The hypnotically photographed and perpetually celebrated ghost story probably won’t have an opportunity to freak out classic movie lovers in a theatrical setting for a very long time, now that Disney’s got it.
Phantom of the Paradise
Brian De Palma’s cult classic horror musical could still pack a theater, but only if it’s allowed to be screened theatrically of course.
The Day the Earth Stood Still
Arguably more of a sci-fi film than a horror movie, but in the 1950s there was a lot of overlap between the genres, as American filmmakers turned to the horrors of nuclear annihilation to play on their audiences’ anxieties. In any case, Robert Wise’s classic still deserves to be screened theatrically to achieve the full effect of its doomsday warnings.
Young Frankenstein
Mel Brooks’s spot-on parody of classic Universal Monster movies is as funny today as it was when it came out, especially when viewed with a raucous crowd. Not that watching the film that way will be easy from now on…
Jennifer’s Body
It took some time but Karyn Kusama’s initially misunderstood, but brilliant feminist monster film has finally earned its classic status. It recently screened at a festival but it seems unlikely that it’ll be playing any traditional midnight shows in the future.
There’s more of course. Fox also owned or had a stake in popular horror and horror-adjacent movies like Oculus, Terror Train, 28 Weeks Later, The Legend of Hell House and Edward Scissorhands. Even then of course there are films which weren’t necessarily “popular” but which were building a midnight movie audience, like M. Night Shyamalan’s entertainingly odd The Happening.
Assuming Disney doesn’t reverse course or at least make more exceptions, which 20th Century Fox horror movie will YOU miss the most in theaters, or most regret never getting to see on the big screen…?
