10 Movies That Perfectly Blend Horror & Sci-Fi

Danny Boyle may be better known for his tense, character-based dramas (Slumdog Millionaire, 127 Hours), but that doesn’t mean he can’t pull a fully-fledged genre flick out the bag when the occasion calls for it. And while his science-based zombie horror 28 Days Later tends to get the lion’s share of plaudits and audience attention, we turn instead to one of the more unsung films in his filmography: Sunshine.

Penned by Alex Garland (28 Days, Dredd, Civil War), the film is set in our solar system in the near future, and follows a team of scientist astronauts (led by Cillian Murphy’s Robert Capa) aboard the Icarus II, whose mission it is to reignite our dying sun using a stellar bomb. Along the way they discover a distress signal from their ship’s predecessor, Icarus I, but when they investigate, they discover disaster: a charred crew, an undelivered payload, and a crazed zealot of a captain (Mark Strong’s Pinbacker) intent on doing whatever he can to prevent humanity contravening “god’s will” by surviving.

Leaning closer to the science fiction end of the sci-fi/horror spectrum, Sunshine roots itself in convincing depictions of space, a conceivable mission and real-world characters. This is compounded and offset by its horrific villain, whose appearance (thanks to unfiltered sun exposure) is part Freddy Krueger and part cenobite, and whose intentions are religious, extremist and irrationally human. As a result, the film feels equally uncanny and real, interweaving its genres to generate an astounding conclusion.