10 Best Sci-Fi Horror Films To Watch Halloween 2020

In a technologically advanced future, technophobe Grey Trace (Logan Marshall-Green) is attacked by a group of muggers, killing his wife and rendering him paralyzed. Tech billionaire Eron Keen (Harrison Gilbertson) offers to fit Grey with an AI chip that will restore his movement on the condition that he never discloses the existence of this chip to anybody. Enraged, devastated and now able to walk again, Grey makes it his mission to hunt down and kill the people responsible for his misfortune.

After a while, the AI chip, named "STEM", begins to talk to Grey and assists him with his case by helping him find clues that he wouldn't be able to on his own, as well as temporarily taking over his body whenever he needs to fight off anyone who gets in his way. It's only when Grey grants the chip more and more control that the horrifying reality of a society so dependant on technology becomes clear.

Leigh Whannell is no stranger to the horror genre, having cut his teeth writing the first three Saw films, as well as directing Insidious: Chapter 3 (2015). His knowledge of the genre is on full display here, as Upgrade is a perfectly crafted film, as the horror comes not only from the overall premise and the setting of a disturbingly automated society, but from the near constant paranoia that the main character feels, as well as the graphic deaths that occur all throughout.

Whannell's heavily stylised method of directing that would become more apparent in The Invisible Man (2020) makes this film an interesting watch on a visual level, and ensures that no newcomers will be bored watching the highly inventive Upgrade.