Science fiction and horror are often treated like separate genres, but plenty of classic films prove they work together quite well. These are the horror stories where deadly robots, aliens, and other horrific man-made creations take the place normally reserved for ghosts and ghouls. These horror stories look to the future, but see new, unrealized dangers, often on a global scale, that may one day await humanity.
Often, experiments either go wrong or scientific study is conducted at a gruesome expense. Sometimes, traditional monsters exist, but their existence comes from a perversion of science instead of the supernatural. Zombies, for example, could be the result of serums, chemicals, and cybernetics. Some split the difference. Ghosts can exist, but they are possessing machinery. In stories with science-fiction trappings, however, the real horror isn't necessarily monsters, but often human hubris.
10 A Cure For Wellness (2017)
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A Cure For Wellness is a horror film influenced by the 1924 Thomas Mann novel The Magic Mountain. Lockhart, a young executive, is tasked with fetching CEO Roland Pembroke from a wellness center in the Swiss Alps. Things already seem suspicious when staff refuse to let Lockhart even speak with the CEO. When he tries to leave, however, he gets caught in an accident and finds himself back in the spa wearing a cast.
A story claims the center was built on top of an old castle, where a baron took to dark rituals in his quest to obtain a pure-blood heir, going so far as to sacrifice the local peasants. Lockhart soon learns that such experiments aren't only in the past, with the staff generating life-unnatural extending techniques, filtered through human bodies. Soon it comes to light that the macabre baron himself is still around, too.
9 Invasion Of The Body Snatchers (1956)
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Invasion of the Body Snatchers is a 1956 black-and-white film using a film noir-influenced style, based on the novel, The Body Snatchers. A man kept in custody in a Los Angeles hospital recounts the story through flashbacks. The town of Santa Mira is filled with people who claim their loved ones have been replaced with imposters. Physician Miles Bennell attributes this to a mass delusion.
Soon, however, Bennell realizes they are right: people are being replaced by alien duplicates grown from pods. Fighting them off won't be easy, as any ally Bennell makes can be replaced without him realizing. As the story comes closer to its conclusion, Bennell just might be able to convince authorities what's really going on. Despite this, the world might not be able to fight off the pod people. By the end, even the audience might not be safe.
8 Cube (1997)
Cube is a 1997 film known for its surreal, cube-shaped settings. Five people, each with a different skill, find themselves in such a room, having no memory of how they ended up there. There are other rooms, but entering them can lead to instant death, from acid to being sliced into cubes.
While trying to uncover their situation and the purpose of the rooms, the characters soon learn they are not alone. However, this person, Kazan, might be the clue to coming up with an escape plan. In fact, the true danger of the story might already be within the group.
7 The Cabin in the Woods (2011)
The Cabin in the Woods is a 2011 film that offers a more comedic take on the science-fiction horror genre. The plot starts with five friends going to a remote cabin for a brief vacation. However, the cabin is being controlled by engineers in a hidden laboratory, forcing the characters to act out a typical horror movie.
This goes so far as to mentally manipulate the characters into acting more like typical horror movie victims: the fool, the scholar, the athlete, and the first and final girls. None but the final girl has a chance of survival, and even that isn't assured. However, the engineers aren't really the ones in control. The dark ritual taking place is one of many, performed to appease beings known as the Ancient Ones, to protect humanity.
6 The Fly (1958)
The Fly is a 1958 film based on a short story of the same name. A scientist, André Delambre, is found dead in Montreal and his wife confesses to the crime, but keeps her motive a secret. Eventually, the story is shared in a flashback: André was working on developing a matter transporter device. One day, after building a device large enough to accommodate humans, he becomes reclusive, hiding his head and hand under cloth and refusing to use verbal communication. It comes to light that a fly was in the device when André tried it out. Not only has he been transformed into a human-insect hybrid, fly instincts are slowly taking over his mind. The only possible hope is to find the fly to reverse the process.
The Fly is particularly famous for a scene towards the end. Hélène is exonerated when a fly with a human head, the fly from the accident having undergone its own horrifying transformation, is found. The poor insect hybrid is found trapped in a web, screaming for help, right as the spider is about to feast upon it.
5 Re-Animator (1985)
Re-Animator is a 1985 horror comedy film loosely based on H. P. Lovecraft's Herbert West–Reanimator. Medical student Dan Cain rents a room to Herbert West, who claims to have found a way to revive dead tissue, going so far as to bring a cat back to life. When attempts to share these findings with the university only get Cain and West thrown out, the two sneak in to revive a corpse to prove themselves. Unfortunately, the dead body becomes a zombie-like being and kills a staff member, who is similarly revived as one of the undead.
As more and more lives are taken and reanimated, it turns out that the zombies aren't too helpless. One develops the power to control other corpses. By the end, when the rules of life and death get muddled, even the heroes will learn that death from these zombies isn't the worst fate that's in store for them.
4 The Thing (1982)
The Thing is a film adaptation of John W. Campbell's Who Goes There?, set around an Antarctic research camp in 1982. 12 men at the American camp learn that a neighboring Norwegian base has been destroyed and filled with corpses. After coming across an extraterrestrial spacecraft, the Americans soon learn that a deadly alien is on the loose.
A computer simulation reveals that the alien can shape-shift and absorb its victims. This means that the alien, known as the Thing, can be one of the people on base incognito. The paranoia that soon grows within the men might be just as dangerous as the Thing.
3 Godzilla (1954)
Godzilla is not only one of the most well-known kaiju, or "giant monster," films, but is often considered one of the first. A mysterious light destroys a fishing boat. Soon, other similar vessels suffer similar fates, inspiring reporters to investigate the story. A village elder fears that Godzilla, the island god, is behind it all.
Soon, villagers catch sight of a giant dinosaur-like being, believed to be 50 feet tall, threatening homes and lives. The monster, who would soon become known as Godzilla, survived H-bomb testing and wants revenge on humanity. A sacrifice may be needed to vanquish the monster and end the destruction, but, as the end draws near, it is feared another monster could soon rise.
2 Frankenstein (1931)
Frankenstein is a 1931 film based on Mary Shelley's classic 1818 novel, though taking much influence from stage versions. Notably, Shelley's book is considered one of the first science-fiction novels, as well as one of the first science-fiction horror stories. Henry Frankenstein, with the help of his assistant Fritz, has become obsessed with a single desire: to create life.
To do so, they will collect parts from human corpses and reanimate them through electricity. The creature born from Frankenstein's experiments seems initially acts like an innocent child. However, the Monster will soon prove dangerous once it escapes. Soon, the townsfolk will be spurred to take up their torches and pitchforks to hunt the monster, led by Frankenstein himself.
1 Alien (1979)
Alien is a 1979 film set in the year 2122. Aboard the spaceship USCSS Nostromo, the crew receives a distress call from a mysterious moon. While there, one crew member gets attacked by an alien being, attaching itself to the victim's face and trapping them in a coma. An alien emerges from the crew member's chest and matures into a threatening monster, a xenomorph, aboard the ship. Its goal is to take down the remaining crew members one by one.
To make matters worse, the Company, the owners of the Nostromo, wants the alien, has implanted a robotic mole to carry out its orders, and has deemed the crew members expendable. In the end, a sole survivor may have to face off against the dangerous xenomorph.
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