Gallery: The Astro-Horror! The Astro-Horror! Apollo 18 and Its Cinematic Kin
01apollo-18-2
Sci-fi schlocker Apollo 18 touches down Friday, transforming a real-life canceled Apollo mission into a terrorized tale of lunar parasites. Can it possibly match the classics of the astro-horror genre — which we've just now named, unless you did first — in which astronauts and other spacefaring geeks go boldly where no one has gone before, only to end up mostly dead before the credits roll? The concept of spacemen facing the great unknown is certainly ripe for horrific exploitation, due to the risks involved in extraterrestrial exploration, said former NASA astronaut [Story Musgrave](http://www.jsc.nasa.gov/Bios/htmlbios/musgrave.html) in an e-mail to Wired.com. "Whether malfunction, or human error, every astronaut understands that the chances of something going wrong are high, and this increases the chances that the astronaut will not return," he said. We would call astro-horror a subset [sci-fi horror proper](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Science_fiction_horror_films), which has much wider parameters. Cycle through our list of astro-horror standouts (and perhaps a couple of cheats) and let us know your favorites in the comments section below. __Above:__ Apollo 18 --------- Directed by Gonzalo Lopez-Gallego, this astro-horror noob is set in the '70s and employs fake found footage to add historical integrity to the clever premise that the [canceled Apollo 18 mission](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cancelled_Apollo_missions) actually happened. That is, until NASA was forced to suppress its findings (and future missions) after the discovery of moon-based monstrosities. Thanks to a paucity of pre-release screenings and strict review embargoes, [Apollo 18](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_18_%28film%29)'s biggest existential threat might be the [excellent They Might Be Giants album](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_18_%28album%29) of the same name, which could prove to have a greater legacy. With luck, it might not burn up on re-entry.
02event-horizon
Event Horizon ------------- The best film from sci-fi and gamer franchise geek [Paul W.S. Anderson](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_W._S._Anderson) (Resident Evil, Alien vs. Predator), this bipolar freakout oscillates between meditative astrophysical exploration and pants-wetting existential horror. And that's the lightweight version. Anderson's now-lost original cut of [Event Horizon](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Event_Horizon_%28film%29), about a crew of astronauts aboard a rescue vessel dispatched to the red dwarf [Proxima Centauri](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proxima_Centuri) to investigate a lost starship, was way heavier on the gore. Like some other films on this list, Event Horizon was a critical and commercial bust. But since its 1997 debut, it has found newer, more receptive fans, partially thanks to a steady stream of underwhelming sci-fi films.
03the-quatermass-xperiment
The Quatermass Xperiment ------------------------ The oldest of our astro-horror picks, this 1955 cult classic kick-started [Hammer Film Productions](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hammer_Film_Productions)' two-decade run of shock-cinema infamy. While it takes place on Earth, its chief protagonist is an astronaut returned from space only to find that he's really just a meat sack hosting an alien organism whose spores can destroy humankind. We can let that cheat slide, given that [The Quatermass Xperiment](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Quatermass_Xperiment)'s influence is massive. It was a commercial and critical success that spawned a film franchise, and its science wiz [Professor Bernard Quatermass](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernard_Quatermass) is widely recognized as British television's first hero, taking up Sherlock Holmes' literary torch and passing it to the future's [Doctor Who](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doctor_Who). The film heavily influenced director John Carpenter, as well as horror novelist Stephen King, and even today its newsreel realism is an obvious predecessor of Apollo 18's found-footage narrative. If you're looking for an astro-horror mythology to geek on for the next several years, look no further.
04starship-troopers
Starship Troopers ----------------- Military sci-fi's only worthy entry in the astro-horror hall of fame, director [Paul Verhoeven](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Verhoeven)'s acidic 1997 satire of the martial mindset, and its resultant body counts, is a brilliant collision of teen soap, sexual politicking and unrepentant gore. [Starship Troopers](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starship_Troopers_%28film%29) smashes a roll call of archetypes — photogenic automatons (Caspar Van Dien, Denise Richards), barking soldiers (Michael Ironside, Clancy Brown) and geek fascists (Neil Patrick Harris) — and plops them all on the distant planet Klendathu to war against conscienceless arachnid killers led by a queen with a *vagina dentata*. The movie's senseless violence and propaganda intermissions, inspired no doubt by Verhoeven's terrorized childhood at the hands of Nazis, proved polarizing. But when it comes to sci-fi cinema, polarization is always preferable to apathy, and Starship Troopers has since proved an eerily prescient precursor to our own rampant reality-television militarism. For these reasons, it's an astro-horror perennial.
05reluctant-astronaut-1967
The Reluctant Astronaut ----------------------- What would a culture-vulture list be without a wild card? Ours is The Reluctant Astronaut, a 1967 astro-goof featuring human cartoon [Don Knotts](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don_Knotts), whose bug-eyed freakouts were very capable of injecting an uncomfortable horror into the fragile minds of impressionable children growing up in the '60s and '70s. Because of that versatility, Knotts appeared in a bunch of creepers masquerading as family-friendly comedies, such as [The Ghost and Mr. Chicken](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ghost_and_Mr._Chicken) and The Private Eyes. Throw any of those films together with any of the astro-horror electives on this list, and you'll have one hell of a weird night. [The Reluctant Astronaut](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Reluctant_Astronaut), co-starring Leslie Nielsen (Forbidden Planet) alongside Knotts' amateur astronaut suffering from extreme acrophobia, also came with unfortunate real-time astro-horror associations: It was filmed at the Kennedy Space Center shortly after the [Apollo 1 fire](http://stag-komodo.wired.com/thisdayintech/2011/01/0127apollo-1-fire-kills-3-astronauts/) killed three astronauts, an uncomfortable temporal proximity noted by both Knotts and Universal Pictures, which was worried about releasing the film after the tragedy.
06lifeforce-2
Lifeforce --------- Big, stupid movies are back in vogue these days, which bodes well for the legacy of director [Tobe Hooper](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tobe_Hooper)'s 1985 stinker [Lifeforce](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lifeforce_%28film%29), an astro-horror guilty pleasure fleshed out with nude space vampires, nonsense plot and a roll call of talents that should have made a much better movie. You'd think screenwriter [Dan O'Bannon](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dan_O%27Bannon) — who wrote Alien and wrote and even starred as Sergeant Pinback in John Carpenter's existential indie sci-fi classic [Dark Star](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_Star_(film)) — could have helped Hooper, director of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Poltergeist, make a better film. Especially because the helmer had [John Dykstra](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Dykstra)'s special effects and Captain Jean-Luc Picard himself (Patrick Stewart, who kisses a man on the mouth) on the roster. But you'd be wrong. That said, as time passes, Lifeforce is proving to be one of those '80s astro-horror castoffs that's capable of scratching weird itches. Especially when those itches can be scratched by hot frontal nudity and quotable absurdity. You've been warned.
Photo Credit: Alex Bailey07sunshine
Sunshine -------- Director [Danny Boyle](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Danny_Boyle) has done well enough when it comes to horror. His 2002 riveter [28 Days Later](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/28_Days_Later) galvanized sci-fi horror's zombie wing, and he confidently entered the realm of astro-horror with 2007's [Sunshine](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunshine_%282007_film%29), about a fracturing crew on a quixotic mission to reignite our dying sun with a megabomb. Much of Boyle's film is spent scrutinizing the psychology of its astronauts, as well as the sheer existential power of the Milky Way's life-giving, and life-taking, star. Horror and violence inevitably arrive once the demented captain Pinbacker, named in honor of Sergeant Pinback from John Carpenter's brilliant 1974 sci-fi film [Dark Star](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_Star_%28film%29), throws Sunshine's equilibrium into disarray. Sunshine, which earned a stamp of approval from science adviser and particle physicist [Bryan Cox](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brian_Cox_%28physicist%29) (Wonders of the Universe), rewards repeated viewings.
08the-thing-2
The Thing --------- Based on 1951 midnight-movie classic [The Thing From Another World](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Thing_from_Another_World), legendary director [John Carpenter](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Carpenter)'s brilliant 1982 upgrade might feel like another cheat to some of you, although it is one of his best films ever. After all, it's not about astronauts, and it and takes place on Earth. But you try holing up in Antarctica with a bunch of scientists and tell us it doesn't feel like another planet just asking for astro-horror gore. That's what Carpenter delivers with glee after his go-to actor Kurt Russell (Escape From New York) repeatedly tries to fight off a ravenous biomass escaped from an ice-buried UFO. Thanks to the saccharine optimism of Steven Spielberg's E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial, released the same year, [The Thing](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Thing_%281982_film%29) joined Ridley Scott's Blade Runner, released the same day, as a box-office bomb bound for cult-film glory. Carpenter's 1982 upgrade lands its own prequel when director Matthijs van Heijningen Jr.'s monstrous [The Thing](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Thing_%282011_film%29) arrives Oct. 14 this year.
092001-a-space-odyssey
2001: A Space Odyssey --------------------- Stanley Kubrick and Arthur C. Clarke's [2001: A Space Odyssey](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2001:_A_Space_Odyssey_%28film%29), probably the finest sci-fi film ever made, covered mind-wiping speculative territory. But the film's most harrowing moments came once its morally muddled supercomputer [Hal 9000](http://stag-komodo.wired.com/underwire/2009/01/top-10-evil-com) got lost in logic loops and set about exterminating the ship's crew. __Ex-Astronaut Story Musgrave on *2001*__ "*2001: A Space Odyssey* is my favorite science-fiction film because it is more archetypal than most others. I like how it began with the story of evolution and how it was that we came from a primitive existence, to traveling in space." For that reason alone, 2001 is an astro-horror lock. But the film has other horrors to recount. The hopeful year mentioned in its title has come and gone, and humankind hasn't been able to mount a post-1970s mission to the moon, much less Jupiter. Worse, the film's revolutionary aspiration, revolving around overachieving primates and star children in tune with the universe, has been replaced by 21st-century presidential candidates who consider evolution a comedic concept, and planetary convulsions divine retribution for lifestyle politics. [My God, it's full of](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oALxLNOhI6I)... intellectual corpses.
10alien-1979
Alien ----- Bow down, cosmonauts, because you are in the presence of the godfather of astro-horror, as well as the overall sci-fi horror genre. But you knew that already, didn't you? After ripping brains with its dizzying mash of sheer fear, visceral body horror, socioeconomic satire and [H.R. Giger](http://stag-komodo.wired.com/underwire/2010/02/hr-gigers-cyborg-horror-merges-sex-tech-legend/)'s franchise-making exterminator of blue-collar space truckers just trying to do their jobs, [Alien](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alien_(film)) hit the sci-fi reset button so hard in 1979 that it has yet to be bested by any space-based experiment. Director [Ridley Scott](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ridley_Scott), who arguably hasn't made as good a film since 1982's [Blade Runner](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blade_Runner), is predictably hitting it again in 2012: His upcoming [Prometheus](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prometheus_%28film%29) was originally designed as an Alien prequel. Talk about going back to the gravity well.
