12 Scariest Sci-Fi Movies Of All Time
9. THX 1138
Didn’t see that one coming, did you?
Yes, it’s the first of a handful of dystopian nightmares in this list, with this low budget effort coming from a pre-Star Wars George Lucas—though this chilling vision of the future owes as much to the hazy nostalgia of American Graffiti as it does to that later, more famous space opera.
Which is to say nothing—this insanely dark sci-fi is nothing like either of the earlier flicks, just so we’re clear.
Following a protagonist who is essentially reduced to a personality and freedom-free automaton by his limited existence (no sex and mandated emotion-control pills) in a Kafka-esque (there’s a word terrifying sci-fi loves) near future totalitarian society, this cynical seventies effort imagines a world wherein liberties and individual expression alike are stripped away by an all-powerful government apparatus. It’s a chilling, prophetic vision which is all too familiar for anyone worried by the overreach of state surveillance and the media’s cosy relationship with political power.