10 Movies That Perfectly Blend Horror & Sci-Fi

Following a string of mediocre sequels and misguided prequels, it seemed for a long time that the Alien franchise would never again find the footing it enjoyed in the 1980s, and then came Romulus.

Fede Alvarez's standalone slice of the Alien universe hit screens last year and managed to deliver deep nostalgia and a retro vibe without feeling overly derivative. Set between everyone’s two favourite Alien flicks - the 1979 original and Aliens (1986) - Romulus places a small team of orphaned colonists aboard the ruined Weyland-Yutani station Renaissance, in the hopes of finding the cryostasis equipment they need to jet off to an idyllic planet on the other side of space. Needless to say, once the team are aboard the ship's Romulus module, they come face-to-face with a few uninvited guests of the scaly, slimy, acid-spitty variety.

As every devotee knows, the series has never had an issue marrying sci-fi and horror - and was really the first to do it on such a scale. Using that template, the film keeps tensions high, balancing exterior threats (space, oxygen, deadly planetary rings) with visceral interior horrors, including not just armies of face-huggers and xenomorphs, but a ghoulish new human–xenomorph hybrid, birthed straight from one of the young human crew. Technology has rarely looked so grim as in Alvarez's hands, and the film has everything, from evil androids to brutal space-scapes, and even a few delightfully sickening additions to the xeno lore.