In space, no one can hear you scream. But if you’re ever sitting in your living room watching one of the following sci-fi horror movies, your neighbours might hear you cry out in terror if you’re startled by the alien creatures that pop up on your screen.
Do you agree with our picks? Or have we failed to include a horror movie that you think deserves a mention? Let us know in the comments below.
Invasion Of The Body Snatchers (1978)
Are any of your friends and neighbours behaving strangely? Have you noticed something slightly ‘off’ about them? That’s the situation for the protagonists of this chilling horror movie who are caught in the middle of an extraterrestrial invasion when alien plant spores fall down from space and produce duplicates of the population.
This remake of a 1956 classic is absolutely terrifying, not least because we can never be sure who is (and who isn’t) a pod person! Nancy (Veronica Cartwright) is faced with this dilemma at the end of the movie. Just when she thinks she has been reunited with fellow survivor Matthew (Donald Sutherland), he points his finger at the her and emits an inhuman howl. Unbeknownst to the startled Nancy, he too has been turned into an emotionless carbon copy by these sinister alien invaders!
The Faculty (1998)
Some teachers are warm and inspirational. Others are mean and cruel. And some of them are just plain weird! If you can relate to the latter and ever suspected your teachers weren’t of this planet, The Faculty will definitely resonate with you.
This entertaining movie is set in a high school and it tells the story of a group of students who have more to worry about than SAT tests and detention when they make the frightening discovery that their teachers have become infected by alien parasites! A battle for survival begins as the young cast, which includes Elijah Wood, Josh Hartnett, and Jordana Brewster, try to make it to the end of term alive.
The Thing (1982)
John Carpenter’s movie is a classic and is arguably scarier than the 1951 film of the same name which, like this one, is based on the 1938 novella “Who Goes There?” by John W. Campbell.
The movie is centred around a group of researchers in Antarctica who encounter a parasitic life form that attaches itself to living things. This leads to quite the dilemma for the team as they never know who or what has been taken over by this shape-shifting alien.
Rob Bottin’s practical effects, which bring to life a head with spider legs as well as other grotesque terrors, haven’t aged one bit so this is still as gruesome and as terrifying as it was at the time of its original release.
The Mist (2007)
Based on the Stephen King novella of the same name, The Mist tells the story of a group of people who are trapped inside a supermarket by giant, otherworldly creatures that are lurking in the thick mist outside.
Those who do leave the relatively safe confines of the store are swiftly torn limb from limb by the invading monsters, but despite this, one man decides to make a run for it with his son and three other shoppers.
Things don’t end well for them but it’s not the aliens who wipe them out – it’s the father, who shoots them all dead, including his own son, when he thinks they have no chance of survival. A rescue team arrives shortly after, leading to a traumatic gut-punch ending that is guaranteed to break your heart.
A Quiet Place (2018)
In this bleak dystopian movie set in the near future, our world has been taken over by alien beings known as Death Angels, which are hypersensitive to sound. This means the characters in this post-apocalyptic tale have to move around in complete silence in order to avoid and survive the invading threat.
The fact that silence is used in place of background music to keep the tension levels high is just one of the reasons why this unnerving horror gem is smarter and eerier than similarly-themed movies. It contains some great jump-scare moments and one particularly suspenseful scene when Emily Blunt’s pregnant mom character has to give birth without making a sound.
Life (2017)
The chances of anything coming from Mars were a million to one, they said! Who said? We have no idea but this line from Jeff Wayne’s musical version of HG Wells’ War Of The Worlds is one that will resonate with you if you choose to watch this nail-biting horror flick that features a world-threatening alien that originates from the Red Planet.
The movie follows a team of scientists on the International Space Station who discover life on Mars exists. They foolishly decide to study the tiny life form that they found on the planet but when it quickly starts to evolve, all hell breaks loose for the unlucky crew! Rebecca Ferguson, Jake Gyllenhaal, and Ryan Reynolds are part of the cast but don’t expect them all to survive to the very end of this entertaining, albeit unoriginal tale of outer space terror.
Village Of The Damned (1960)
Based on the British science fiction novel The Midwich Cuckoos by John Wyndham, this one falls into the ‘creepy kids’ category of horror movies. The blonde-haired children at the centre of this chilling terror tale have high IQs and psychic powers as a result of the alien creatures that impregnated their mothers. Needless to say, getting these emotionless little terrors to bed on time is no easy task for their panicked parents!
A remake followed in 1995 but despite having John Carpenter as director, it wasn’t as scary as this black-and-white classic that features some of the scariest-looking kids ever seen on screen.
The Day Of The Triffids (1963)
Here’s another classic sci-fi horror based on a novel by John Wyndham and it’s one that is guaranteed to chill you to the bone, especially if you’re a plant lover who loves nothing more than an afternoon cultivating the flowers growing in your garden.
In Wyndham’s novel, the Triffids are experimental plants with a carnivorous appetite that have the ability to move around and attack people. In the film, they are aliens whose spores arrived in an earlier meteor shower that caused 99% of the population to go blind. Regardless of the change, the movie still centres on monstrous man-eating plants that seek to take control of our planet.
Species (1995)
The next time you’re enjoying a night out on the town, be wary of any beautiful woman who starts coming on to you. Sure, you might meet the woman of your dreams, be that for a future relationship or a night of wild passion, but then again, that beauty who lures you in with her good looks and smile could be an alien humanoid looking to find a suitable male human to impregnate her!
That’s the premise of Ronald Donaldson’s movie which isn’t quite as sleazy or as silly as its concept sounds. This will never be regarded as one of the greatest movies in the alien horror genre but it has garnered a cult following since its release, not least because of Natasha Henstridge’s performance as the killer alien seductress who hunts down men for the purposes of reproducing and repopulating our planet with her alien kind.
Alien (1979)
The crew of the spaceship Nostromo, including series mainstay warrant officer Ripley (Sigourney Weaver), pick up an unwelcome stowaway after investigating an unknown transmission from a distant moon. You will already know what happens next!
Ridley Scott’s movie is a bonafide classic, dripping with tension in nearly every scene as the unlucky crew are picked off one by one by the alien creature that bursts out of the chest of one unlucky character. Much imitated but never bettered, Alien has lost none of its power and still has the ability to make audiences jump from their seats over 40 years after it originally scared moviegoers in cinemas.
So, there we have it, our pick for the 10 best horror movies about aliens. Do you agree with our picks? Or have we missed any movies that you think deserve a mention? Let us know in the comments below.