7 Great Space Horror Movies That Are Not ‘Alien’

Don’t get me wrong, I love Alien and Aliens but this is a list of under-rated highly entertaining horror movies that take place in space, or outer space adjacent.  Just for fun, I’m going to describe them from memory, include the cast lists, and provide links so you can watch them online. 

Let’s start with EVENT HORIZON.

An experimental spacecraft that can bend space-time cuts a portal to Hell on its first mission, and some time later a distress beacon is emitted because the ship needs fresh souls. So, Captain Laurence Fishburne answers the call, all hell breaks loose, and the rescue crew is in desperate need of rescue.

They fight the demonic disturbances and send out their own distress beacon as they attempt to destroy the evil aboard the condemned vessel.  This movie is unique and was released way ahead of its time.  Demonic possessions in space on a spaceship was a pretty fresh concept.  

The movie is by Paul W.S. Anderson who also brought us horror, science fiction, and fantasy titles such as Soldier, Mortal Kombat, Resident Evil, and Pandorum.

Laurence Fishburne as Captain Miller, Commanding Officer of the Lewis and Clark

 Sam Neill as Dr. William 'Billy' Weir, designer of the Event Horizon

Kathleen Quinlan as Peters, Medical Technician of the Lewis and Clark

Joely Richardson as Lieutenant Starck, Communications and Executive Officer of the Lewis and Clark

Richard T. Jones as Cooper, Rescue Technician of the Lewis and Clark

Jack Noseworthy as Ensign Justin, Chief Engineer of the Lewis and Clark

Jason Isaacs as D.J., Medical Doctor of the Lewis and Clark

Sean Pertwee as Smith 'Smitty', Pilot of the Lewis and Clark

Peter Marinker as Captain John Kilpack, Commanding Officer of the Event Horizon

Holley Chant as Claire Weir, Dr. Weir's wife

Barclay Wright as Denny Peters, son of Technician Peters

Noah Huntley as Edmund Corrick, Miller's former shipmate from the Goliath

Robert Jezek as Rescue Technician, rescues the survivors of the Lewis and Clark

Speaking of PANDORUM…

A space officer aboard a colony ship wakes on the wrong shift rotation because something has gone very wrong on a 100 year journey to colonize the stars.  Bower wakes up with a condition called ‘Pandorum’ like a space-freak-out-overload and discovers the ship has been damaged, thrown off course, lost…

Colonists have come out of hyper-sleep and evolved for hundreds of years during the chaos into savage cannibals.  They feed off the officers who rotate being awake and asleep.

Bower finds other survivors and tries to piece together what happened to the ship and where they are exactly without getting eaten.

Bower is played by Ben Foster in one of his best roles.  He was joined by Dennis Quaid as another commander woken from slumber into a rampaging nightmare, but something is clearly wrong with him.

Dennis Quaid as Lieutenant Payton

Ben Foster as Corporal Bower

Cam Gigandet as Younger Corporal Gallo

Antje Traue as Nadia

Cung Le as Manh

Eddie Rouse as Leland

André Hennicke as Hunter Leader

Norman Reedus as Shepard

Wotan Wilke Möhring as Young Bower's Father

Niels-Bruno Schmidt as Insane Officer Eden

LIFE 

A bromance in a space lab between Jake Gyllenhaal and Ryan Reynolds is cut short because an alien life-form comes between them in LIFE.  This movie is a little like that movie Gravity if they threw in a face-eating monster.  Awe, I guess this one is kinda like Alien.

Jake Gyllenhaal as Dr. David Jordan, USA, ISS medical officer.

Rebecca Ferguson as Dr. Miranda North, UK, CDC quarantine officer.

Ryan Reynolds as Rory Adams, USA, ISS engineer.

Hiroyuki Sanada as Sho Murakami, Japan, ISS systems engineer.

Ariyon Bakare as Dr. Hugh Derry, UK, ISS exobiologist.

Olga Dihovichnaya as Ekaterina Golovkina, Russia, ISS Mission Commander.

PITCH BLACK

Some transport ship crash lands on a planet that has a 24 hour cycle of constant eclipses that plunges it into darkness.  The crew and passengers must fight off creatures that dwell in the darkness.  For some reason, this ship is also transporting a prisoner, who can see in the dark.

The prisoner is Riddick, Vin Diesel in one of his better and most consistent roles; he is supposed to be one of the Galaxy’s Most Wanted in this one, but he tries to help the survivors, sort of.

Radha Mitchell as Carolyn Fry the pilot

Cole Hauser as William J. Johns, bounty hunter

Vin Diesel as Richard B. Riddick, a War criminal, the bounty.

Keith David as Abu 'Imam' al-Walid. A space preacher who was travelling.

Lewis Fitz-Gerald as Paris P. Ogilvie. An intergalactic arts dealer

Claudia Black as Sharon 'Shazza' Montgomery. A pilgrim

Rhiana Griffith as Jack. A young girl who was travelling on a distant planet for unknown reasons, and she was posing as a boy named Jack to avoid any suspicion.

John Moore as John 'Zeke' Ezekiel. Another pilgrim

Simon Burke as Greg Owens, co-pilot. Les Chantery as Suleiman

Sam Sari as Hassan

Firass Dirani as Ali

Ric Anderson as Total Stranger

Vic Wilson as Captain Tom Mitchell

Angela Moore as Dead Crew Member

JASON X

The F.B.I. nabs Jason, freezes him, some ass hole students in the future wake him up, he gets a cybernetic upgrade, and fights an android as he hunts down the ass holes that woke him up.  Jason goes to space.  Naturally.

If you think about this one too much, you will not be able to enjoy it.

Kane Hodder as Jason Voorhees / Uber Jason

Lexa Doig as Rowan LaFontaine

Lisa Ryder as Kay-Em 14

Chuck Campbell as Tsunaron

Melyssa Ade as Janessa

Peter Mensah as Sergeant Brodski

Melody Johnson as Kinsa

Derwin Jordan as Waylander

Jonathan Potts as Professor Brandon Lowe

Phillip Williams as Crutch

Dov Tiefenbach as Azrael

Kristi Angus as Adrienne Thomas

Dylan Bierk as Briggs

Amanda Brugel as Geko

Yani Gellman as Stoney

Todd Farmer as Dallas

David Cronenberg as Dr. Wimmer

Robert A. Silverman as Dieter Perez

Marcus Parilo as Sgt. Marcus

Boyd Banks as Fat Lou

SUNSHINE

We lost the sun, we wanted to reignite it, and so we sent a ship.  The ship failed.  Its crew was killed? Not clear.  Another ship goes up to complete the job, but they divert course when they detect the original ship sent.  They investigate.  Someone sabotages their mission and tries to kill them as well.  “Captain America” dives into a nitrogen pool to reset the 2nd ship and give it a chance to carry out its suicide mission to explode the sun’s core and jumpstart the star to save us all back on Earth.

Cillian Murphy as Robert Capa, the physicist 

Chris Evans as James Mace, the engineer, “Captain America.”

Rose Byrne as Cassie, the space vessel's pilot. 

Michelle Yeoh as Corazon, the biologist who takes care of the ship's "oxygen garden".

Cliff Curtis as Searle, the ship's doctor and psychological officer. 

Troy Garity as Harvey, the communications officer and second-in-command. 

Hiroyuki Sanada as Kaneda, the ship's captain. 

Benedict Wong as Trey, the navigator. 

Mark Strong as Pinbacker, if I tell you he is it will give away a twist.

Paloma Baeza as Capa's sister.

GALAXY OF TERROR

Neurotic astronauts face a giant worm and other monsters on a distant planet. An alien creature sexually assaults one of them; it is cinema infamy.  This movie also features Robert Englund and Sid Haig.

AN HONORABLE MENTION? SCREAMERS

Screamers or “Autonomous Mobile Swords” are essentially drones that have gone rogue, desire human destruction, and evolved beyond our control to stop them as they wreak havoc.

It's a B movie military sci-fi adventure but it has a stellar performance by Peter Weller as Commander Joseph A. Hendricksson.

Let’s review. Space demons. Space worms.  Murderous mutiny.  Explosions.  Screams in the void, etc. Enjoy.