This month at Nightmare on Film Street we’re putting the cosmos under a microscope. We’re headed straight into the black hole of Hollywood where horror lurks in the cold dark recesses of outer space. We’re gearing up for the fight of our lives against monsters more powerful than anything we’ve ever know, leaving the one place we all call home, in search of answers in the great unknown. This March, we set controls for the far reaches of outer space where No One Can Hear You Scream.
Horror and Science Fiction have been best buds for a long while, and it’s a friendship that has stood the test of time. They were kicking it back in the day when movies were still called books- back before we ever sent up a dog up into space just to bark at it. Horror and Sci-Fi were waiting for us on the moon, chilling on mars to high five our first rover, and sharing a laugh at the look on our faces when we first heard a black hole say Sup? But these besties from beyond are bad influences on each other, and if you get the two of them in a room you better watch out. Science has helped deepen our understanding of the universe but even now, after several lifetimes pondering the stars, there remains one undeniable truth: Space is scary. Really, really scary.
Join us this month at Nightmare n Film Street as we brave our way into the inhospitable vistas of outer space. We’ll be discussing the science of space, why it’s actually scarier than any horror movie you’ve ever seen, and whether or not it’s scientifically possible to travel at the speed of light until you’ve reached Hell’s front doorstep, like the unfortunate souls of Event Horizon (1997). We’ll be revisiting some of your childhood favorites, like Disney’s The Black Hole (1979), as well as those out-of-this-world guilty pleasure picks (Looking at you Leprechaun 4: In Space and Jason X).
But it’s not all fun and games here this month. In a few short weeks, we’re all going to packing ourselves into movie theatres to watch Emliy Blunt and her family survive in the wake of an alien invasion in A Quiet Place Part II. And if we don’t want that same dark fate to become our own, we need to start preparing for the inevitable right now. Let’s face it, for decades we’ve been badmouthing aliens on movie screens the world over. Sure, Arrival, Close Encounters of The Third Kind, and The Day The Earth Stood Still are great examples of our capacity for peace…but if any of those aliens get their scally claws on a copy of Starship Troopers or Plan 9 From Outer Space we’re done for!
What are your favorite space-bound horror movies? If you had the opportunity to put one horror movie in a rocket for an alien race to enjoy, which movie would you send? What do you keep in your alien invasion preparation kit? Let us know on Twitter in the Nightmare on Film Street Subreddit, and on Facebook in the Horror Movie Fiend Club. Let’s talk about space, baby!
