If the buzz around the upcoming horror movie Amityville in Space indicates anything, it’s that horror fans have an insatiable curiosity when it comes to catapulting horror franchises or icons into space. Or maybe it’s that the final frontier opens up the limitless potential for the horror to get weird. Either way, this week’s streaming picks salute the cosmos, with five outer space horror movies that bring the horror and quirky eccentricities in equal measure.
These space-set movies run from sci-fi westerns to found footage nightmares to genre-defying existential dilemmas. As always, here’s where to watch them all this week…
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Prospect – Hulu
Less outright horror and more western sci-fi thriller, Prospect offers fantastic world-building. Moreover, it demonstrates you don’t need a massive budget to deliver great sci-fi experience, favoring character work over special effects-driven spectacle. The plot sees a teen girl and her father arrive on a remote alien moon on a job contract to harvest rare gems. Between rival prospectors, the moon’s ruthless inhabitants, her father’s greed, and the atmosphere’s poisonous spores, survival becomes a daunting concept for the teen. Prospect stars Pedro Pascal, Yellowjacket’s Sophie Thatcher, and Jay Duplass.
High Life – Hoopla, Kanopy, Showtime
The first English-language feature by Claire Denis (Trouble Every Day) also happens to be a genre-bender. Told in a nonlinear format, High Life follows a group of death row criminals given a second chance at life by working on a mission to extract energy from a black hole. The deep-space isolation and the psychological turmoil it brings are enough for anyone to process. The criminals are then subjected to experimentation by the doctor, who’s fixated on creating a baby through artificial insemination. Yes, it’s as disturbing as it sounds, and that doesn’t even begin to cover how weird it gets. A headier sci-fi horror film that eschews convention or any easy answers, this is for the more avant-garde cinephiles.
Europa Report – Kanopy, Prime Video, Roku
A found footage film that recounts the fictional tale of a space crew’s mission to Jupiter’s fourth-largest moon. Simplistic and measured in pacing, Europa Report favors claustrophobic tension. It’s minimalism at its best, with a bleak narrative befitting of deep space horror stories where everything can and does go wrong. Think The Blair Witch Project meets The Abyss; it’s a more meditative approach through found footage. For those looking for something wholly unique and underseen, this one delivers.
Planet of the Vampires – EPIX, Paramount+
Two interplanetary ships are on an expedition exploring the furthest recesses of space when they pick up a distress beacon from a nearby planet. The crew of one vessel becomes possessed upon entering the planet’s atmosphere, rendering them homicidal as they turn on each other. The survivors learn that they’re far from the first species to set foot on the planet and succumb to its mysterious force. If this plot sounds familiar in any way, that might be because Planet of the Vampires actually played a significant influence on space horror classic Alien. Italian maestro Mario Bava directs the film with his usual vivid, lush aesthetic.
Event Horizon – HBO Max
The definitive haunted house in space horror movie. Set near Neptune in 2047, the ill-fated crew of the Lewis and Clark spaceship is sent to answer a distress call from the Event Horizon after it’d been missing for seven years. They soon discover that the ship went to hell and back, literally, and it’s gained sentience. Laurence Fishburne leads as Captain Miller, but Sam Neill steals the film as the Event Horizon’s designer-turned-evil villain. Where we’re going, we won’t need eyes to see.
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