10 Sci-Fi Movies Ruined By Terrible Twists

This one stings a little, since 2017’s Life is actually a little underrated as an effective slice of sci-fi horror, and after a decade-long deluge of self-serious space dramas (looking at you, Gravity/ Interstellar/ Ad Astra), it’s nice to see a couple of grunts run from a slippery space monster in their midst. Maybe Prometheus should have just cut back on the mythology, but Life was a breath of fresh air and benefitted from an all-star cast who left viewers truly uncertain as to who might make it out alive and who was destined to become food for Franklin.

For the most part the flick is an effective bit of cat-and-mouse, with some higher wattage stars biting the bullet early on and surprisingly well-drawn characters for what is effectively an Alien knock-off. However, like Ex Machina before it, the film insists on taking the most downbeat path back to earth possible (literally), and its believability suffers severely as a result.

It’s one thing for poor Rebecca Ferguson to be sent spiralling into space when she bounces off a bit of debris from the demolished space station, but it’s truly stretching credulity to see that poor Jake Gyllenhall has been unable to wrestle the controls from murderous alien blob Franklin, and so—the alien has flown back to earth?

Alternatively, the pod found its own way back to earth whilst Gyllenhall was actively piloting it in the opposite direction, despite one minor knock throwing Ferguson’s into deep space?