Five Landmark Sci-Fi Horror Movies
Alien, Frankenstein & Night Of The Living Dead Among Cream Of Sci-Fi Horror Crop
We sure love to be scared. Naturally, we love watching scary movies. If you’re not a movie fan, though I’d wager that would be pretty unlikely since you’re reading my article, then you probably love riding rampaging roller coasters, bungee jumping, teasing cranky pitbulls or eating a big, greasy meal before that all important job interview.
Humans really can’t help ourselves when it comes to our fears, can we? We have a devilish devotion to being bone chilling, even unreasonably scared. It’s not only fun, but it’s genetically written deep within our DNA - the fight or flight response spares no one. Filmmakers know this well and they know what scares the crap out of us.
Feeling scared feels like a narcotic rush, and that euphoric release is not only thrilling, it can even be psychologically healthy. You view a fright flick, you conquer your fears by living through it, and a new more hopeful day dawns. Soiled undies can always be properly laundered.
We also love to speculate on the vast unknown, what our future may bring to this odd mostly hairless primate species. Star Trek and Star Wars keep us fascinated and wondering. Hence, another genre proves its popularity decade after decade - sci-fi. These loves, urges and biological directives are satisfied simultaneously with the science fiction horror film. There are plenty to choose from as Hollywood has cranked them out since its inception.
Scores of wonderful sci-fi horror movies can be watched. More than a few are influential, but some are not only popular, they qualify as landmarks with real cultural impact on both audiences, movie makers and philosophers. Here are five of the most effective and influential sci-fi horror films.
Frankenstein (1931)
It’s alive! Alive!
Not only is he alive, but he’s been alive and well, then dying and then living it up again for over 90 years now. He’s Frankenstein, or Frankenstein’s Monster, actually Frankenstein’s Creature, most accurately. Really, does anyone like to be called a monster?
Boris Karloff became Frankenstein. There’s really no other way to characterize such an incredible transformation. Make-up FX certainly helped, as did lighting and cinematography, however, Karloff’s performance remains truly mind blowing. It’s at once frightening, sympathetic and even funny. The scene with the blind man - parodied to excellence by Mel Brooks in Young Frankenstein - has real poignant moments of real humor.
In the end, all these current, trendy zombies movies and TV shows owe a death vanquished bow to this haunting film. Many critics and fans alike consider the sequel, The Bride Of Frankenstein, as good or even slightly superior. My advice: Watch em both back to back one night and experience one of the most creepy, though moving tales of sci-fi horror mankind has ever conceived. Thank you, Mary Shelley!
The Fly (1958)
Help me! Help me!
If you saw the end, he definitely gets help - but that’s all I’ll say. It’s an old flick, but some of you may never have seen this sci-fi horror classic. This skin crawling gem has so many things to recommend viewing, but above all else, it also challenges us with a fascinating science fiction equation. What risk could happen if we achieved instantaneous teleportation - transporting things, even people, across distances - by dematerializing, then rematerializing them in another location?
Sound familiar? Indeed. Scotty, beam me up.
Star Trek fans are well versed in the benefits and drawbacks of the transporter. Here, there’s really only a downside. When David Hedison’s experiments with teleportation mix a fly into his genetic structure, it’s all depressingly downhill from there.
The end is unforgettable on every level and will probably - like the squeamish Dr. Leonard McCoy - turn most of us off to using a teleportation device if/when it materializes. Still, the notion of disappearing, then reappearing blocks or many miles away, is something which while still a fantastical dream, beckons us as the only way to get around in the future.
Night Of The Living Dead (1968)
They're coming to get you Barbara. Look, here comes one of them now!
The frightening fact is they came to get all of us and now the living dead are stinking it up everywhere and anywhere. Director George Romero and writer John Russo crafted a movie to keep on scaring us and serves as the zombie granddaddy of our modern craze with the walking dead.
Folks who are not into zombie fiction wonder; why obsess over shambling, rotting corpses eager to cannibalize us? Down deep in our collective psyche, it’s no doubt concerned with both our fear and fascination with death. We die. Everything alive eventually dies. What if our bodies reanimated to threaten the living? Like vampires, it’s about something which will not stay dead. While vampires are a far more dynamic and fun fictitious beastie, zombies are definitely great sci-fi horror fodder and will probably always remain so.
What distinguishes Romero’s NOTLD from classic, voodoo based zombie movies is a sci-fi angle. A venus probe crash lands back to Earth, and the resulting radiation it emits reanimates the recently deceased. Why it makes them hunger for raw human flesh is anyone’s grisly guess, but the power of Romero’s dead head romp gave us Dawn Of The Dead and Day Of The Dead - as well as the countless imitators we’re still contending with today.
Alien (1979)
In space no one can hear you scream.
And yet we screamed - over and over, again and again. Sigourney Weaver plays Ripley, the courageous alien fighter who protects her spaceship, the Nostromo, a commercial towing vehicle travelling in deep space. After exploring a mysterious planet and bringing back a craftily hidden stowaway, acid spitting hell breaks loose and the hair-raising horror ramps up.
Director Ridley Scott crafted an adrenaline pounding science fiction haunted house tale which still bears cinematic fruit. Although both Scott and Weaver must be enormously credited with the success of Alien, H.R. Giger, the artist and creature designer deserves enormous accolades as well. There are many movies with aliens as the bad guy, both before and after Alien, however, none resonate as powerfully to both scare and fascinate audiences worldwide. Giger’s creature both repels us to flee and compels us to want to see more. It’s part insectoid, part humanoid, and wholly flesh crawling frightening.
We may one day meet real aliens from other planets. There’s a little voice inside us whispering; What if they are savage, predatory invaders? Moreover, a few scientists, including the brilliant Stephen Hawking, have theorized that it’s more than likely aliens will be conquerors intent on invading. When that dark day arrives, let’s sincerely hope Ripley is handy to help us out.
Scanners (1981)
“We're gonna do this the scanner way. I'm gonna suck your brain dry! Everything you are is gonna become me. You're gonna be with me Cameron, no matter what. After all, brothers should be close, don't you think?”
Psychic phenomenon fascinates us despite having no definitive, conclusive scientific support. Tantalizing reports from certain clinical studies confirming possible examples of psychic proof have been documented. So, while we’re still waiting for the textbook evidence, this David Cronenberg chiller will keep us sweating it out in contemplative speculation.
Actor Michael Ironside plays a super psychic, psycho warrior - one who can disable computer systems and also kill with his thoughts. The scanner attack scenes - in all their gruesome glory - still shock today, not only for their literal depiction in the film, but for the sci-fi notion of one human being having the awesome capability to cook another’s brain into volcanic eruption. Too much chaotic mental energy bottled up inside one person? Like Professor X in Marvel Comics, these psychics do more than merely tell your fortune, they can erase your future with a mere highly directed thought.