Movies
Ring in the New Year with 10 Futuristic Horror Films
The beginning of a new decade is always a great time for reflection – both on what’s come before and where we’re headed. Cinematically, countless writers and directors have given us their visions of the future, both near and far – some dystopian and rugged, others shiny and overflowing with astonishing new technologies. We’ve learned from past experience not to take their ideas all that seriously (weren’t we supposed to have flying cars by now?), but it’s a lot of fun to entertain the notion of a future world bearing little resemblance to our own. In the horror genre, this future world is almost uniformly presented as a dark, hostile place, filled with malevolent organisms that would sooner rip your head off than engage in a “meaningful dialogue”. To celebrate these films, and to mark the new decade, I’ve listed ten of the best. Let’s just hope our real-world destiny is a lot more hospitable.
10 Best Futuristic Horror Films
Future Year: Unspecified
This little-seen sci-fi horror from Mario Bava is rather hokey in spots, but it’s got loads of atmosphere and merits a definite watch. The story concerns a crew of astronauts stranded on a strange, mist-shrouded planet after crash-landing there. What they encounter is a race of disembodied aliens who possess and reanimate the dead in order to stalk and kill the living. Frankly, the film has nothing to do with vampires and is more akin to fare like Invasion of the Body Snatchers and The Thing. That being said, it’s a lot of fun and showcases the celebrated director’s ability to create an evocative mood with a miniscule budget (the film was reportedly shot for about $100K). It’s a B-movie all the way (complete with awkward dubbed dialogue), but better than most.
Future Year: 2047
Ok, let’s just tell it like it is: for all its cool visuals and inspired set design, Paul W.S. Anderson’s Event Horizon is kind of a cheese-fest. In the hands of a more subtle director, the truly scary premise (space ship goes to Hell and back, literally) could have made for a genuinely disturbing and provocative film; what Anderson gives us is loads of gore and cheap shocks. Nevertheless, sometimes gore and cheap shocks are just what horror audiences are in the mood for, and on that front Event Horizon delivers. The way the film unfolds is nothing short of preposterous, but that’s part of its charm – Anderson is nothing if not a blunt-force director, with little time for mere suggestion; the images we get here are straight out of an exploitative B-horror picture. God bless it for that, and for a few moments of inspired absurdity (most of them courtesy of our beloved Sam Neill).
Future Year: 2078
Based on a short story by Philip K. Dick, Screamers was a flop upon its release but has since gone on to become a minor cult classic. In the early going it comes across as a futuristic Tremors, but it ends up evolving into something quite a bit more ambitious than that. The story involves a “race” of artificially intelligent beings that are essentially miniature killing machines that burrow under the sand, slicing and dicing any humans unlucky enough to cross their path. The ever-reliable Peter Weller stars as the commander of an Alliance military base set on an arid planet called Sirius 6B. The Alliance was responsible for developing the machines to ward off attackers, but now they’ve begun to mutate into other forms and turn against their creators. There’s nothing all that mind-blowing here; just a nifty little entertainment with some inspired special effects, a game cast and a neat premise.
Future Year: Thousands of years in the future
The sequel to 1985 cult anime classic Vampire Hunter D (based on the novels by Hideyuki Kikuchi) improves in every way upon the original. Better animation, more identifiable characters, a greater sense of scope. In some ways it’s less a sequel than a re-imagining of the first movie, only with greater layers of character complexity and a more fully-immersive visual landscape. It’s also a bold imagining of a far, far, far-future world that blends elements of horror, sci-fi, American westerns, and folk mythology. “D”, the eponymous vampire hunter, is hired to rescue a young girl from the clutches of a vampire intent on making her his bride. Only problem is, the girl’s father has also hired a team of tough-talking bounty hunters to complete the job, so “D” must get to her before they do if he’s to reap the rewards. The film is beautifully rendered in the best anime tradition, with compelling action sequences and a human heart at its core.
Future Year: 2179
Alien 3 is the least effective of the iconic series; which is to say, it’s still pretty damn good. Stories of the troubled production are now legendary, with Fincher alleging constant interference by the studio during filming and even walking out during the editing process. It’s easy to see why – the studio-butchered theatrical cut is confusing, does next to nothing to delineate any of the prisoners before they’re slaughtered, and overall comes off as a deeply flawed (albeit visually stunning) creation. Which is why I’m going to suggest now that instead of watching the theatrical version, you should check out the “Assembly Cut” (released as part of the Alien Quadrilogy box set), which is as close to Fincher’s vision of the film as we’re ever likely to get. While still far from perfect, this edition of the movie is much, much better, fleshing out the characters and establishing a more coherent chain of events and motivations. It’s just as dark (if not darker) than the theatrical version, but with the benefit of the added scenes all that gloomy atmosphere actually serves to underscore the film’s thematic aspirations.
Future Year: 2154 or later
Sometimes I just don’t get the critics. This nifty sci-fi horror (sort of the The Descent in space, but way more ambitious than that sounds) was almost universally panned on its release as a junky Alien clone. Which is absurd, given that Pandorum shares very little in common with that film other than the fact that it takes place on a claustrophobic spaceship. If this movie would have come out 20 or 30 years ago, it would have been applauded as a superbly directed, well-acted study in isolation and paranoia. I’m not saying there are no derivative elements; of course there are. But for god’s sake, this is loads better (and smarter) than 90% of the sci-fi product Hollywood routinely churns out. I can only hope audiences will discover this film on DVD – it deserves way more attention than it got.
Future Year: 2379 (roughly)
Gripe if you must, but I consider Alien: Resurrection a sadly underrated sequel that boasts some intensely stimulating visuals crafted by City of Lost Children director Jean-Pierre Jeunet. I’ll admit that I found the justification for Ripley’s return to be almost laughable in its absurdity, but Jeunet directs the whole thing with such ingenuity and conviction it ends up making a strange sort of sense. And really, what would an Alien movie be without our beloved Sigourney? Many saw this entry as the death of the franchise; I viewed it as a bold new beginning, in a series that should be applauded for its willingness to take risks. Enough with this Predator crossover nonsense – bring on Alien 5!
Future Year: 26th Century
Pitch Black comes off rather ordinary in the early scenes, as a spacecraft bearing a few dozen civilian passengers crash-lands on a desert-like planet and strands them in the midst of some particularly nasty winged beasties. However, it evolves into something truly special in the later going. That’s because unlike most sci-fi directors, David Twohy (who also wrote the film) doesn’t lose sight of his human characters along the way. The arcs of the two leads (played deftly by Vin Diesel and Radha Mitchell, both excellent and underrated actors) are genuinely compelling, with an unexpected pathos emerging over the course of their chaotic fight for survival. Working with a limited (for the genre) budget, Twohy nevertheless crafted a great-looking film as well, utilizing blue and red camera filters to give the alien planet a disorienting beauty. The CGI is a little underwhelming at times, but no matter; these creatures only come out at night.
Future Year: 2122
If not for its first sequel, Alien most definitely would have been number one on this list. This is the standard-bearer, the movie that spawned a new era in sci-fi horror (not to mention a raft of inferior copycats). The film is famous for its (still cringe-worthy) chest-bursting scene, but that’s merely the centerpiece of a movie so perfectly calibrated that it holds up just as well today as it did over 30 years (!) ago. Scott’s direction rightly gets the majority of the praise, but one of the main reasons for the movie’s timeless appeal is the design of the creature by surrealist Swiss artist H.R. Giger. The phallic, terrifying, strangely alluring Alien ranks alongside vampires, werewolves and mummies as one of film-doms most enduring movie monsters.
Future Year: 2179
The first film is an artful, claustrophobic nightmare whose main strength is its slowly-enveloping sense of dread and heart-catching suspense. Aliens is a different beast altogether, a balls-to-the-wall action movie with loads of firepower and Sigourney Weaver (who was nominated for a freaking Oscar for this movie, lest we forget) in full warrior mode. At the end of the day, it’s tough to distinguish which is the better film, since they’re both such excellent and visionary works utilizing very different approaches. I give the edge to Cameron’s sequel, if only for its endless re-watch-ability factor and the fact that it so effortlessly melds the foreboding atmosphere of the first movie with the breathless pyrotechnics of a full-throttle action film. It also has that bad-ass Alien Queen, one of the most magnificent creations in sci-fi history. With Aliens Cameron not only made the rare sequel that lives up to the original (and then some), he created one of the greatest films ever made in three different genres (action, horror, and sci-fi). No small feat.
Editorials
‘Malevolence’: The Overlooked Mid-2000s Love Letter to John Carpenter’s ‘Halloween’
Written and Directed by Stevan Mena on a budget of around $200,000, Malevolence was only released in ten theaters after it was purchased by Anchor Bay and released direct-to-DVD like so many other indie horrors. This one has many of the same pratfalls as its bargain bin brethren, which have probably helped to keep it hidden all these years. But it also has some unforgettable moments that will make horror fans (especially fans of the original Halloween) smile and point at the TV like Leonardo DiCaprio in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.
Malevolence is the story of a silent and masked killer told through the lens of a group of bank robbers hiding out after a score. The bank robbery is only experienced audibly from the outside of the bank, but whether the film has the budgetary means to handle this portion well or not, the idea of mixing a bank robbery tale into a masked slasher movie is a strong one.
Of course, the bank robbery goes wrong and the crew is split up. Once the table is fully set, we have three bank robbers, an innocent mom and her young daughter as hostages, and a masked man lurking in the shadows who looks like a mix between baghead Jason from Friday the 13th Part 2 and the killer from The Town That Dreaded Sundown. Let the slashing begin.
Many films have tried to recreate the aesthetic notes of John Carpenter’s 1978 classic Halloween, and at its best Malevolence is the equivalent of a shockingly good cover song.
Though the acting and script are at times lacking, the direction, score, and cinematography come together for little moments of old-school slasher goodness that will send tingles up your spine. It’s no Halloween, to be clear, but it does Halloween reasonably proud. The nighttime shots come lit with the same blue lighting and the musical notes of the score pop off at such specific moments, fans might find themselves laughing out loud at the absurdity of how hard the homages hit. When the killer jumps into frame, accompanied by the aforementioned musical notes, he does so sharply and with the same slow intensity as Michael Myers. Other films in the subgenre (and even a few in the Halloween franchise) will tell you this isn’t an easy thing to duplicate.
The production and costume designs of Malevolence hint at love letters to other classic horror films as well. The country location not only provides for an opening Halloween IV fans will appreciate but the abandoned meat plant and the furnishings inside make for some great callbacks to 1974’s The Texas Chain Saw Massacre. All of this is buoyed and accentuated by cinematography that you rarely see in today’s low-budget films. The film is shot on 35mm film by A&E documentary filmmaker Tsuyoshi Kimono, who gives Malevolence an old-school, grainy, 1970s aesthetic that feels completely natural and not like a cheap gimmick.
Malevolence is a movie that no doubt has some glaring imperfections but it is also a movie that is peppered with moments of potential. There’s a reason they made a follow-up prequel titled Malevolence 2: Bereavement years later (and another after that) that starred both Michael Biehn and Alexandra Daddario! That film tells the origin story of our baghead, Martin Bristol. Something the first film touches on a little bit, at least enough to give you the gist of what happened here. Long story short, a six-year-old boy was kidnapped by a serial killer and for years forced to watch him hunt, torture, and kill his victims. Which brings me to another fascinating aspect of Malevolence. The ending. SPOILER WARNING.
After the mother and child are saved from the killer, our slasher is gone, his bloody mask left on the floor. The camera pans around different areas of the town, showing all the places he may be lurking. If you’re down with the fact that it’s pretty obvious this is all an intentional love letter and not a bad rip-off, it’s pretty fun. Where Malevolence makes its own mark is in the true crime moments to follow. Law enforcement officers pull up to the plant and uncover a multitude of horrors. They find the notebooks of the original killer, which explain that he kidnapped the boy, taught him how to hunt, and was now being hunted by him. This also happened to be his final entry. We discover a hauntingly long line of bodies covered in white sheets: the bodies of the many missing persons the town had for years been searching for. And there are a whole lot of them. This moment really adds a cool layer of serial killer creepiness to the film.
Ultimately, Malevolence is a low-budget movie with some obvious deficiencies on full display. Enough of them that I can imagine many viewers giving up on the film before they get to what makes it so special, which probably explains how it has gone so far under the radar all these years. But the film is a wonderful ode to slashers that have come before it and still finds a way to bring an originality of its own by tying a bank robbery story into a slasher affair. Give Malevolence a chance the next time you’re in the mood for a nice little old school slasher movie.
Malevolence is now streaming on Tubi and Peacock.
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