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I love Alien, but I don't like horror: The thin line between scifi and horror
by Jen Davies, nerd
Feb 11, 2026
If you asked me, do I like horror? I would tell you that I absolutely do NOT. That said, some of my favourite science fiction films and ALL of my favourite Table Top Role Playing Games (TTRPGs) are often categorized as horror. So let me explain to you why I see properties like Alien (the things that are canon*) and also the modernized work of HP Lovecraft (which reduce the painful racism in the original work) as really excellent science fiction rather than as horror.
To begin, let's look at a definition of science fiction. My own internalized version without reference to any other source is: a work of fiction based in a futuristic/alternate and consistent "universe" that leverages real scientific (hard scifi) or pseudo-scientific (science fantasy) explanations for elements of the story that help to create the tension/conflict. If we think about the Alien or Lovecraftian (eg, Cthulu) universes that way... yes, they're science fiction.
They also happen to be scary, and I opened by saying that I don't like horror. It isn't that I don't want to be scared by the media I consume, although I don't seek it out on purpose. But where there's a narrative relevance to being frightened by something, then I don't mind it. For example I think the movie A History of Violence is one of the best movies I've ever seen. It doesn't make my top movies lists because it's so hard to watch, and I will probably never see it again - it's frightening. Same with the older film Das Boot (The Submarine) or the newer film Gravity - they scared the heck out of me because of the idea of dying in a submarine or in space (crushed by water pressure, freezing or boiling in space, or suffocating due to lack of air), but they're incredible films and I'm glad I saw them.
What I don't like about media that tends to be classified as horror is the gratuitous violence. I don't mind violence in a film, when there's a reason for it. Films that are violent for the sake of violence don't make any sense to me. Real life is full of plenty of violence, we don't need to add extra!
Let's come back to the purpose of violence in a piece of media. Another thing that science fiction does well, which I have yet to see the horror genre do with consistency (though I admit I'm on the "outside" as I haven't done a deep dive), is to tell stories that ask hard questions about important human issues like the nature of things like good and evil (for average people rather than those possessed by the supernatural), and general existential questions about what it means to be human in the first place. I don't think violence is ever a requirement to tell that story, but I don't mind if it's used for a reason. As an example, I'll go to Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope, and remind everying that Han shot first! (That's the scene in the bar in Mos Eisley, where Han Solo murders Greedo before Greedo can murder him. It strange that George Lucas edited that scene to make Han less of a scoundrel.) It's important to the story to establish that he is a scoundrel, so the character arc he goes on over the original three movies makes sense - he becomes a good man by the end, he didn't start that way. And on the human nature question, Han Solo takes us on a redemption journey in order to let us ask and answer the questions: Can people change? Yes. What leads people to change? Lots of things including purpose and relationships (friendship and love).
One of my best friends loves horror, especially the serieses of horror like Scream, Friday the 13th, and so on. He has tried to share his joy with me, and I just can't when the only purpose for the violence is to leave us guessing at which character is going to live (because of course someone has to tell the tale). One night he asked if he could show me Get Out, which was actually a film I had been meaning to watch because I had loved Jordan Peele's scifi and horror 'bits' on Key and Peele, and I had heard Get Out was a spectacular movie. And it was - but at the end, I laughed because I didn't think it was a horror movie! None of the violence was unncessary to the story, each incident had a purpose that moved the plot along, and some of the violence was even highly symbolic in a social science sense (the kind of humour that Key and Peele often leveraged in their show). We were forced to ask uncomfortable questions. It was scifi!
There you have it, the thin line between scifi and horror. Maybe it's my age (mid-40s) but I find I don't have any interest in media that doesn't ask hard questions anymore. I used to love action movies, and I still have a soft spot for the ironic The Expendables movies which poke fun at the action genre while also being stereotypical and thoroughly enjoyable action movies. But I just can't muster up the interest anymore. I crave content that challenges my brain, and I find scifi does that better than anything, even when it has moments that make me jump!
*Disney has someone whose job it is to determine what is canon and what is not. Roughly speaking the movies (NOT Predator), the TTRPGs, and some video games (especially Alien: Isolation, which I have loved watching my spouse play) are canon.
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