[Editorial] Top 21 Sci-Fi Horror Films of All Time

So many different types of horror movies can fall under the heading of sci-fi. Whether they are set in space, or a slight exaggeration of science that already exists, perhaps the reason sci-fi horror is extra creepy is that it easily feels like it could be a future we’re hurtling towards.

While the majority of this list could have just been entries from the Alien (1979) and Predator (1987) series (and their crossover efforts), instead, I’ve waded through the world of horror to pick out 21 of my favourite sci-fi horror movies.

21 - Annihilation (2018)

When the “Shimmer” pops up near a lighthouse in America, the government facility Area X starts sending expeditions into the area to try and figure out what’s going on. After a number of failed missions, a woman named Lena heads into the area as part of the next group to try and figure out what happened to her husband. 

Life inside the Shimmer is beautiful to look at but unexplainable, with flowers moulded into the shape of people and a strange bear-like creature that ends up roaring with the voice of an expedition member it kills. I definitely don’t understand everything about the Shimmer, but Alex Garand makes you want to learn as much as possible about this strange new world.

20 - Creature From the Black Lagoon (1954)

While exploring the Amazon, a team of geology experts discover a large fossilised hand and decide to send a larger expedition to the area in order to discover the creature’s origins. While there they find the Creature lurking in the Black Lagoon. And although he takes a shine to Kay, he murders many of the male members of the expedition he comes across. 

The Creature’s design is one of the most beautiful in any horror movie, and the shot of the Creature swimming underneath Kay as she unknowingly swims mere feet above him is utter perfection. 

19 - Cube (1997)

Cube is the original escape room horror, as five people with seemingly no connection wake up trapped in cube-shaped cells, many of which are booby-trapped. As the individuals find each other they make their way between the cubes trying to team up and discover where they are trapped and who has trapped them there.

None of the characters are particularly likeable in Cube, and the ending is pretty bleak, but if you enjoy elaborate traps or seeing people getting chopped into bits, this film is definitely a fun watch.

18 - Jason X (2001)

When there’s nowhere else for a slasher franchise to go, it might as well head into space (and the future for that matter) and try to give us something a bit different. Jason X sees Jason frozen for 455 years, only to wake up on a spaceship with a group of research students. 

After seemingly being destroyed after an intense battle, Jason is brought back to life by the ship’s nanites and turned into an unstoppable cyborg. And with a new look, and a lot more chrome than he had before, Jason continues with his massacre.

17 - Starship Troopers (1997)

In a future where humans have expanded their empire beyond Earth, they quickly encounter the super-hostile race of aliens called Bugs. When Johnny Rico and his friends chose to join the military in order to secure a better future, they quickly find themselves face-to-face with these Bugs on a regular basis. 

Starship Troopers is gory, hilarious, and doesn’t take itself too seriously, which is the perfect combo for this campy space tale. 

16 - Mimic (1997)

Guillermo del Toro films are typically terrifying and beautiful, and 1997’s Mimic is no different. After cockroaches are found to be spreading a deadly disease, Peter Mann and Susan Tyler work together to breed a hybrid creature which will help wipe the roaches out. And while it appears to work, the insects soon mutate into something much bigger and deadlier. 

The creature design in Mimic is wonderful and who doesn’t love a horror movie set in the subway?

15 - Tremors (1990)

In the small town of Perfection, something is going on under the ground. Residents are turning up dead, and local handymen, Val and Earl, soon figure out that large snakelike creatures are burrowing under the sand and killing anything they come into contact with.

With the creatures attracted to the smallest sound, and realising there is no escape, the remaining townsfolk figure out they need to fight the creatures head-on in order to survive. 

14 - Event Horizon (1997)

If I’ve learnt one thing about space movies, it’s that you should probably avoid the ships from previous missions who have gone off the radar or have been out of radio contact for some time. But sadly for the crew aboard the Lewis and Clark, they are dispatched to check out the distress signal that’s beaming across space from the Event Horizon. 

Things quickly go wrong once the rescue crew are aboard the Event Horizon, with a lot of Latin, horrible hallucinations, and missing eyeballs. Overall, Event Horizon is one big beautiful nightmare.

13 - Predator (1987)

Perhaps one of the most quotable sci-fi horror movies of all time, Predator showed that the villain can be terrifying even when they spend most of the movie being invisible. The Predator is a ruthless alien killer, who likes to hunt men for sport. In the jungle, Dutch and his team find themselves fighting the unseen enemy. 

Even with years of military experience, Dutch’s team are quickly picked off one by one by the Predator, until it’s only Dutch and the creature left to face off against one another.

12 - Doom (2005)

After something goes wrong on a research facility on Mars, a team of Marines are sent to try and destroy the threat, and soon find out that they are out-matched on pretty much every level.

I’ve heard a lot of nasty things said about Doom over the years, but I am here to tell you that I adore this movie. There are terrifying creatures, a first-person shooter sequence, and The Rock slowly turning into a horrible bad guy - what more could you ask for?

11 - 10 Cloverfield Lane (2016)

Set in the wake of an apparent alien invasion, Michelle wakes up in an underground bunker. The owner of the bunker, Howard, claims to have saved Michelle from certain death, but the longer she spends with Howard, the less sure of the truth Michelle is. 

Along with her fellow resident, Emmett, Michelle decides to hatch an escape plan, because whether there are really aliens outside or not, it seems like staying inside with Howard is the far more dangerous option. 

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10 - The Blob (1988)

I watched about half of The Blob when I was a kid and it terrified me so much that it took me about twenty years to go back and finish it. After a meteorite crashes near California, a pink slimy blob breaks free and starts devouring anyone it comes into contact with. 

There are a whole host of excellent death scenes and amazing practical effects in this movie, which is what makes it so scary. The phone box scene, the sink scene, the hospital scene - they’re all 100% amazing! 

9 - The Mist (2007)

Fog already has terrifying horror movie connotations, but in Stephen King’s The Mist, the town of Bridgton, Maine is overrun by a bunch of creatures from another world hiding in the thick mist that covers the town. With many of the townspeople trapped inside the local supermarket, they must find a way to keep the monsters out and survive until help arrives. 

As well as an array of nightmare-inducing creatures, including some acid web-slinging spiders that are plain terrifying, The Mist shows that sometimes the people around you are the worst monsters of all.

8 - The Invisible Man (2020)

The opening of The Invisible Man sees Cecilia fleeing for her life from her abusive ex, hoping to finally escape him and start a new life on her own. However, Adrian has a lot of money and a lot of scientific knowledge, meaning he has the ability to make himself an invisibility suit so he can follow Cecilia at every opportunity. 

If you like tense horror, this one is definitely for you, as both Cecilia and the audience fear Adrian may be lurking around every corner. 

7 - Re-Animator (1985)

In the list of possible horror roommates you could move in with, Herbert West is potentially one of the worst you could pick. Herbert is obsessed with perfecting his reanimator serum, and will pretty much throw anything else in his life aside to ensure his scientific research can continue.

Poor Dan gets stuck in the middle of it all, first losing his pet cat, and then his relationship with his girlfriend, Megan. Re-Animator mixes black humour with some lovely practical effects, alongside Jeffrey Combs’ spectacular deadpan delivery.

6 - Alien (1979)

If you want to talk about examples of amazing slow-burn horror movies, then Alien needs to be at the top of the list. What seems like a simple mission to investigate a distress call soon turns horrifying when Kane returns with an alien creature attached to his face. 

Soon the creature dislodges itself, and the crew think everything is looking up until Kane’s chest is burst open by an alien. With the alien loose on the ship, the crew try their best to battle it and survive the encounter. 

5 - Night of the Creeps (1986)

It’s not just humans that can conduct experiments that go horribly wrong. Aliens are more than capable, as Night of the Creeps and its mind-controlling slugs proves. After being locked in a cryogenics lab since it crash-landed on Earth in 1959, the slugs are finally freed in 1986 and make short work of the local college campus. 

Best friends Chris and J.C. find themselves right in the middle of things, and along with Tom Atkins’ Detective Ray Cameron, they try their best to defeat the alien foe and save the town!

4 - The Thing (1982)

John Carpenter’s body horror classic, The Thing, is one of the most amazing examples of practical effects being as shocking and gruesome today as they were when the movie was first released. The story of an American research team stuck in Antarctica as an alien being invades the bodies of the team is claustrophobic terror at its finest.

Every single time the alien reveals itself and tears someone else’s body to shreds it’s not hard to see why this is still one of the best body horror movies of all time. 

3 - The Fly (1986)

The Fly may almost be at the limit of gore I can handle, but the practical effects and the body horror are so beautifully done, that it’s hard to look away. Seth Brundle is a scientist working on a teleportation device when he accidentally fuses his own body with a house fly.

While he appears fine at first, Seth soon starts to physically transform into a fly, with bits of his body falling off as he becomes more insect than human. As well as being a gory delight, The Fly also deals with the human element very well as Seth and his girlfriend, Ronnie, try to handle his transformation.

2 - Aliens (1986)

Who would have thought they could have made an alien movie better than Alien, but James Cameron managed it by leaning more into the fast-paced action of Colonial Marines and even more aliens! 

Ripley gets more of a chance to shine in this movie, and her relationship with Newt gives the film an emotional core. Plus the epic finale with the Alien Queen is one of the best final showdowns ever.

1 - The Faculty (1996)

Alien movies are often set in space or see the world collapsing under the weight of an alien invasion. The Faculty focuses on a local high school and follows a group of students that are pulled together in the chaos as they try to save their town.

Due to the fact the aliens take over their hosts, it’s hard for the teenagers to get anyone to believe them that something is wrong. I adore everything about this movie. The opening is incredibly creepy, The Offspring blasting on the soundtrack is amazing, and the band of teenagers that are thrown together in this horrible situation are each iconic in their own way.

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