10 Cult Sci-Fi Alternatives To Star Wars: The Force Awakens You Must Watch

By Ian Watson /

10. Without Warning (1980)

Starring two future Oscar winners, shot by the cinematographer of Back To The Future and Jurassic Park and prefiguring Predator to the extent that it casts the same actor, Kevin Peter Hall, as its extra-terrestrial antagonist, Without Warning is some kind of B-grade classic. Hall plays a polystyrene-headed alien whose arsenal includes Frisbee missiles that attach themselves leech-like to their prey, and Jack Palance is the old kook who warns a group of kids against going into the woods after dark, but before you can say €œDisposable Teens€, they€™re being picked off one by one. They also encounter a character named Fred €˜Sarge€™ Dobbs (Martin Landau), who addresses everyone as €œSoldier€ in between enough bug-eyed ranting to convince us he left the army on a Section Eight. €œAliens ain€™t human, you know,€ he rants while waving a gun around. Then he takes off after the creature, and you can guess the rest.