From Space to Suburbia: The Diverse Settings of 90s Sci-Fi Horror Films

Everybody remembers Independence Day, The Matrix, Bram Stoker’s Dracula, Sleepy Hollow, The Blair Witch Project, Tremors, and probably even Robot Jox. Some of them are straightforward sci-fi, others are outright horrors. But can you remember the truly mixed-genre sci-fi horror movies from the 1990s? There are plenty of them, with diverse settings from space and suburbia to open ocean and sprawling cities, and catchy premises to boot. From Space to Suburbia, the 1990s bustled with memorable sci-fi horror films that easily made their way into the pages of history.

Event Horizon (1997)

Let’s start with “Event Horizon,” certainly a memorable one set in outer space, or more precisely spaceships. Released in 1997, the film is an outright sci-fi chiller. It comes sprinkled with plenty of elements taken straight from the original Alien (1979), where an entire crew of a spaceship finds themselves terrorized by an extraterrestrial entity. Event Horizon has a lot of B-movie trappings in it, and yet the critics initially failed to discover anything particularly praiseworthy about the film at the time of the release. But then again, critics could be wrong, as they often are. Upon re-evaluation in the modern era, Event Horizon has finally climbed out from the depth of obscurity to the celebrated pedestal of sci-fi horror classic.

Dead Space (1991)

Before we say anything more about Dead Space, keep in mind that a lot of sci-fi horror movies from the 1990s are basically crappy remakes of Alien, and this one is no exception. In fact, if you’re familiar with Forbidden World – another forgotten Alien rip-off, but added with a little too much eroticism – you need no more explaining. Dead Space is best described as a remake of Forgotten World, featuring a monster that terrorizes the entire crew of a spacecraft. The relatively fresh-faced Bryan Cranston plays the role of a scientist alongside Marc Singer, who portrays the main protagonist. It’s pretty much utter trash, but worth watching if the only thing you want to see is Cranston in his pre-stardom days.

Phantoms (1998)

Coming down from space to a peaceful small town of Snowfield in Colorado, we have Phantoms. Also, this is a true sci-fi horror based on a screenplay by Dean Koontz, adapted from his own novel of the same name. While it’s not a remake of any other film, you can safely say that Phantoms looks like a variation of John Carpenter’s The Thing. You have a strange entity – but not exactly extraterrestrial, so it’s refreshing in that regard – with the ability to absorb and kill any life form that comes into contact with it. In short, a typical sci-fi horror. Here’s the thing about Phantoms: it has Dean Koontz as the screenplay writer and is sprinkled with stars like Ben Affleck, Liev Schreiber, and Rose McGowan, but you still have to treat it strictly as a B-movie to actually enjoy it.

The Relic (1997)

Leaving a small town behind and heading out to the populous Chicago, you get The Relic. It does seem like we’re going back to the old-school sci-fi horror with a murderous villain depicted as a cannibal beast. And like many other movies from the 1990s, The Relic is unapologetically a B-movie about a monster that wreaks havoc in a big city. Not much is memorable from the film, but it certainly has an exciting convention of horror, sci-fi and disaster genres mixed into one busy flick. With all its gore and special effects, The Relic makes for a good 110-minute fun.

Deep Rising (1998)

Nothing screams sci-fi horror louder than getting trapped on an abandoned ship in the middle of nowhere with a monster lurking around. Since we’re on the high seas this time, the only worthy monster is a giant, sharp-toothed, squid type-of-abomination. CGI is pretty bad, but you’ve definitely seen much worse. Sci-fi is also thin, and all of them are pure hokum, but everything is trashily entertaining.

The Arrival (1996)

There’s a little of everything in The Arrival. You have a strange-looking patch of meadow in the middle of frozen land in the Arctic, a state-of-the-art laboratory, an underground alien base, and a Mexican town, to name a few. Yes, there’s an alien species involved here, but the focus is on the paranoia conspiracy thriller part. It also covers a wide range of topics, from advanced technology, terraforming, as well as climate change. While the visual effects are dated, they do work well in most scenes, mostly thanks to outstanding acting performances and excellent pacing.

We think sci-fi horror movies from the 1990s reflected the decade pretty accurately. It was a time when modern technology underwent pretty massive changes. Cartoonish video games on SNES were outdone by the relatively more realistic-looking options on Dreamcast, mobile phone grew smaller, and the World Wide Web opened to the public. CGI also became a staple in the film industry, prompting filmmakers to experiment with their imaginations and give their best attempts at visualizing the space, monsters, and aliens.

Do you think comedy elements work well inside the sci-fi horror genre? Can you name some family-friendly body horror movies? We’d love to hear from you.

Other Things You Might Want to Know

Some of Bryan Cranston’s latest film credits:

Film	Year	Role	Note
The One and Only Ivan	2020	Mack
Sell/Buy/Date	2022	Himself	Documentary
Jerry & Marge Go Large	2022	Jerry Selbee
Asteroid City	2023	The Host
Argylle	2024	Ritter
Kung Fu Panda 4		Li	Voice role
Moscow Mule		Himself	Short film
Everything’s Going to Be Great	TBA	TBA	Post-production
The Phoenician Scheme	TBA	TBA	Post-production

Is “The Matrix” a sci-fi horror?

Believe it or not, this question gets thrown around the Internet like nobody’s business. Taken at face value, The Matrix is almost the definitive work of the cyberpunk subgenre. It has a lot of sci-fi involved, but you’d still see it as a zero-filler killer action film. Despite the lack of conventional horror elements, however, The Matrix actually has one of the most horrifying portrayals of the future of humanity, which somehow qualifies it as a sci-fi horror, too.