Is Horror Sci-Fi?
Exploring the similarities between the genre's...
I love a good sci-fi movie. But my one true love is horror. I saw Scream for the first time when I was 10 and became obsessed with horror ever since.
Clearly not sci-fi. It’s a guy (well usually several guys) in a mask. What’s sci fi about that?
But then we look at other horror movies, and what is the line between sci fi and horror. Or can they be one and the same.
Aliens
Aliens are clearly sci-fi, and not all aliens are scary. Some are lovable like E.T., funny like Alf, and murderous like Mars Attacks
Andrew and I have had many arguments over the years about whether Alien is sci-fi or horror. I believe it’s horror first and foremost and sci-fi secondary, while he feels it’s the opposite. But who’s right? Sure it’s in space, on a spaceship, with synthetics and other sci-fi elements. But what is the one scene you think of when you think Alien. It has to be the chest burster bursting out of John Hurt’s chest. Ridley Scott did not tell the cast what was going to happen in that scene and what was their real reaction? Genuine horror.
“It” is one of Stephen Kings most beloved and scary novels. Pennywise is the embodiment of one’s deepest fears (similar to a boggart from Harry Potter). What can be more horror than your literal worst fears brought to life. How can that be sci-fi?
If you’ve never read the book or watched any of the TV shows or movies, Pennywise the Clown is actually an alien that crash landed on earth before humans even existed. (There’s also a giant cosmic turtle but let’s not get into that.)
So while “It” is solidly horror, there are many elements of sci-fi mixed in.
Paranormal Entities
What is the difference between paranormal and sci fi? What exactly is paranormal? There’s no real explanation as to the how and why of paranormal. While there’s no definitive proof of them existing, there is still many that believe they are real. Are there really that much difference between ghosts and aliens?
The Conjuring franchise may be one of the more famous modern paranormal horror movies, thanks to the fact that the main characters, Ed and Lorraine Warren, are based on real life paranormal investigators. The movies are based on cases they investigated, most famously Annabelle and the Amityville house (only mentioned in the franchise, but has a franchise of its own long before the conjuring universe).
The conjuring spawned several sequels and multiple spin offs of their own, each dealing with their own paranormal legends, my personal favorite scariest moments being the hide and clap scene in the first film and the crooked man in the second.
While the Warrens are widely known to be frauds, the real Annabelle is still kept behind warded glass, and I wouldn’t want to be in a room with her, and not just because it’s a Raggedy Ann doll.
Long before the Conjuring films we had the Exorcist. A young girl possessed by the demon Pazuzu and the priests trying to save her soul, the Exorcist is famous for people passing out in the aisles of the theaters. It was truly groundbreaking for horror films and was even nominated for 10 Oscars (and won 2), a feat that is still hard to achieve for horror films today.
What is truly terrifying about the Exorcist is what happened behind the scenes. Fires, injuries and even unusual deaths happened in real life, making people believe the movie was cursed.
Paranormal doesn’t have to be scary. We have movies like Ghostbusters, Ghost, or Beetlejuice that could be considered sci-fi, but once again, paranormal horror, to me, is the standout and could land itself in the sci-fi section.
Slashers
While Scream to this day is still just a guy in a mask, its predecessors who started the genre evolved to something more.
Probably the most famous example of this would be Jason from the Friday the 13th movies.
If you’ve never the seen the movies, you might be surprised to find out that Jason isn’t even the bad guy in the first film. It is actually his mother, who is on a revenge rampage for her dead son. He isn’t even seen in the film until the very end, and that turns out to just be a dream.
Jason becomes the killer in the second film, and as the series progresses it becomes… let’s just say weird.
Yes, Jason comes back time and time again. He is resurrected multiple times, goes to Hell, and my two favorites, goes into a dream fighting Freddy (another slasher icon who could also be in the paranormal section) and goes to space.
Are these good movies? Absolutely not. Do I absolutely love them BECAUSE they are awful. Absolutely. What is better than somebody dying from liquid nitrogen from a serial killer that has been cryogenically frozen for hundreds of years. Jason X might be one of, if not the most sci-fi slasher movie ever.
What other horror subgenres do you think could be sci-fi?
Let me know in the comments your favorites and if you want to see more horror sci-fi…
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Cosmic horror is the one that blurs the line hardest for me, Lovecraft’s whole engine runs on real physics and deep time, vast indifferent universes, other dimensions, entities that are terrifying precisely because they’re plausible rather than supernatural.
I loved this article and need to see a few of those movies I haven’t seen. Aliens is definitely at the top and Final Destination series. I gotta see crooked man. The photo alone is freaky.