Horror vs. Sci-fi: Genre and the Nature of Disbelief

In my opinion, Sci-fi/Horror is one of the greatest genre hybrids of all time. It reaches all the way back to Mary Shelley writing about Frankenstein's Monster, which was a defining work in both genres. They fit together so well in part because they inspire questions about the consequences we face as individual people, as a society, as creatures on a planet that may or may not be alone in time or space. They both deal in the unknown, or unexplained, but often in different ways. For example, science fiction looks into the vastness of space and sees possibility, advanced technology, the enlightenment of discovery and the awesome potential of meeting new intelligent life. Horror wants to show you why you should be very, very afraid of those things.

But that's a shallow reading of the potential of each genre. The truth is, they can reach and be so much more. They are not mutually exclusive, and sometimes they can even swap M.O.'s and really blow your mind. 

Merging science fiction and horror has resulted in some amazing films. The adaptations of FRANKENSTEIN should be mentioned, but two of the best and most successful examples are ALIEN and ALIENS. Other films worth mentioning include THE THING, SCANNERS, and VIDEODROME. Even the 1953 version of WAR OF THE WORLDS is considered to be a hybrid of the two genres. 

Thinking about this has made me wonder, though: Even if the two genres fit together well, do we experience them differently? Do I approach them differently? Do I expect more from science fiction than I do of horror?

And I'll tell you what made me even entertain the idea that there might be a difference: EVENT HORIZON.

Dark Matters: Twisted But True

I've been feeling pretty sympatico with Sisyphus lately. If you don't remember your Greek myths, King Sisyphus was super clever, but murderous and conceited. He believed he was more clever than Zeus himself, going so far as to betray one of Zeus' secrets to another god. He kept evading punishment by the gods, which led to him being cursed to roll a huge boulder up a hill, only to see it roll back down the other side and have to repeat the process forever.

It's felt like a metaphor for my life in general, but also for my Netflix queue. It's a never-ending parade of movies, TV shows and documentaries that I don't seem to make any real progress on. 

Over the weekend I finally got to a show called "Dark Matters," something I added while browsing without knowing much about it. According to the summary: "Dark Matters tells dramatized stories of science on the dark and ragged edge of human understanding, where experiments can be ethically controversial and the results can be mind-blowing." It's hosted by John Noble from FRINGE, an on-the-nose choice if I ever saw one.