Why Science Fiction Has Influenced Horror Movies

Why Science Fiction Has Influenced Horror Movies

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Science fiction has had a profoundly important influence on horror movies, but what has caused the two genres to mix so well over time?

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Why Science Fiction Has Influenced Horror Movies

Throughout the long history of cinema, horror movies have morphed and changed shape, constantly evolving and reacting to social pressures. It’s natural, then, that sci-fi horror movies, both often exploring the heights and depths of humanity, have adapted themes and ideas from each other in order to diversify and enrich their stories and messages. The two genres have had a profound influence on one another, sharing common ground through their journeys into the unknown and their emphases on social commentary. This is part of why sci-fi horror movies are so popular with audiences.

Sci-fi horror had existed in literature for at least a decade before the advent of film, with Edgar Allen Poe and Mary Shelley exploring the existential concept of reanimating the dead in the early nineteenth century. In cinema, the crossover genre is almost as old as movies themselves. Years before Universal popularized Frankenstein’s monster and Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, the two icons were the stars of their own pre-war silent films that introduced the insanity of mad scientists. The cosmic horror of H.P. Lovecraft emerged as little-known pulp magazine material in the 1920s and 1930s, but the author’s strange fiction would re-emerge as one of sci-fi horror’s biggest influences decades later.

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The nuclear panic and space travel speculation of the 1950s brought mutated monsters and aliens to the silver screen as audiences worried about the limits of scientific inquiry and the dangers of atomic research. Ridley Scott’s Alien added an additional layer of Lovecraftian dread and a haunted house aesthetic to extraterrestrial terror when it was released in 1979, establishing the groundwork for modern sci-fi horror by hiding its murderous abomination in figurative and literal shadows. As the years went by, sci-fi horror movies continued responding to technological advancements and socio-political change as a dark reflection of human development.

How Science Fiction Has Profoundly Influenced Horror

If science fiction writers can speculate about the achievements of the human race and the wonders of the universe, then they can also explore the chaos and destruction that mankind has wrought as well as the dangers that lay waiting beyond the edges of the known galaxy. Sci-fi horror engages with these anxieties, drawing fear from the unstoppable hubris of human nature in the quest for higher innovation and knowledge. Taking a cue from Lovecraft, the genre also ruminates about the unknown and usually displays horrifying results about what would happen if humans discovered the incomprehensible.

Sci-fi horror films often explore the dark side of science, as opposed to the bright-eyed optimism found in earlier works of science fiction. However, the most effectively compelling aspect of this type of cinema is the embrace of the social commentary that is a staple of sci-fi. The political messages that form the intoxicating concoction of the two genres have become so influential that sci-fi has borrowed just as heavily from horror as horror has from sci-fi. Films like The Terminator, Blade Runner, and Robocop may not be classified as outright horror, but fear and anxiety fuel their bleak, dystopian visions of the future.

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Whereas science fiction is mainly cerebral, horror evokes an emotional gut reaction out of its audience. However, these two opposing forces are what make the crossover so unique, for the genre posits that humans will go mad trying to grasp an existential threat. An undefinable mutating lifeform provokes paranoia in The Thing due to the inability to understand the true face of the terror. The tragic protagonist of The Fly succumbs to his scientific ambition and corporeal decomposition. Recently, Alex Garland’s cautionary tale Ex Machina presents the nightmarish result of unrestrained tech innovators, while the same director’s film Annihilation focuses on Lovecraftian cosmic dread. Sci-fi horror movies are here to stay, constantly twisting their tendrils into new themes like an eldritch beast.

Link Source : https://screenrant.com/science-fiction-influence-horror-movies-explained/

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